Part 26

"'Fusille'! Bien! so I am to be shot! and wherefore, Monsieur le Capitaine?"

"Some one has fired upon us," said the officer, "one of your dirty fellows; you must pay for it."

"And the order?" asked the maire sleepily; "you have the Commandant's order?"

"Never mind about the order," said the officer reassuringly, "the order will be forthcoming at eight o'clock. Oh yes, we shall shoot you most authoritatively--never fear."

The officer knew that nothing could be done until eight o'clock, for he dared not wake the Commandant, but he did not see why he should deny himself the pleasure of waking up this pig of a maire to see how he would take it. The maire divined his thoughts, and without a word turned over on his side and pretended to go to sleep again. From under his drooping eyelids he saw the officer gazing at him with a look in which dislike, disappointment, and pleasurable expectation seemed to be struggling for mastery. Then with a click he extinguished his torch and withdrew.

At eight o'clock the maire awoke to learn with mild surprise that he was not to be shot. Beyond that his guard would tell him nothing. It was only afterwards he learnt that one of the drunken revellers had been prowling the streets, and, having given the sentries a bad fright by letting off his rifle at a lamp-post, had expiated his adventure at the hands of a firing party in the cemetery outside the town.

For two days the maire was unmolested. He was allowed to see his adjoint, who came to him with a troubled face.

"The babies are crying for milk," he said, "the troops have taken it all. I begged one of the officers to leave a little for the inhabitants, but he said the men did not like their coffee without plenty of hot milk." The maire reflected for a moment, and then dictated an avis to the inhabitants enjoining upon them to be as sparing in their consumption of milk as possible for the sake of the "meres de famille" and "les petits enfants."

"Tell the commissaire de police to have that posted up immediately," he added. "We can do no more."

"They have taken the bread out of our mouths," resumed the adjoint, "and now they are despoiling us of our goods. They are like a swarm of bailiffs let loose upon our homes. Everywhere they levy a distress upon our chattels. There is an ammunition waggon outside my house; they have put all the furniture of my salon upon it."

"You should make a protest to the Commandant," said the maire, but not very hopefully.

"It is no use," replied the adjoint despondingly. "I have. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said, 'C'est la guerre.' It is always so. They have shot Jules Bonnard."

"Et pourquoi?" asked the maire.

"I know not," said the adjoint. "They found four market-gardeners returning from the fields last night and shot them too--they made them dig their own graves, and tied their hands behind their backs with their own scarves. I protested to a Staff officer; he said it was 'verboten' to dig potatoes. I said they did not know; how could they? He said they ought to know. Then he abused me, and said if I made any more complaints he would shoot me too. They have made the civils dig trenches."

"Ah," said the maire. He knew it was a flagrant violation of the Hague Regulations, but it was not the tithe of mint and cummin of the law that troubled him. It was the reflection that the civil who is forced to dig trenches is already as good as dead. He knows too much.

"And the women," continued the adjoint, in a tone of stupefied horror, "they are crying, many of them, and will not look one in the face. Some of them have black eyes. And the young girls!"

The maire brooded in impotent horror. His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the captain. "The Commandant wishes to see you tout de suite," he exclaimed. "March!" He was conducted by a corporal's guard, preceded by the captain, into the presence of the General, who had taken up his quarters in the principal mansion looking out upon the square. The General was a stout, square-headed man, with grey moustaches and steel-blue eyes, and the maire divined at a glance that here was no swashbuckler, but a man who had himself under control. "I have imposed a fine of 300,000 francs upon your town; you will collect it in twenty-four hours; if it is not forthcoming to the last franc I shall be regretfully compelled to burn this town to the ground."

"And why?" exclaimed the maire, whom nothing could now surprise, though much might perplex.

The General seemed unprepared for the question. He paused for a moment and said, "Some one has been giving information to the enemy." "No!"--he held up his hand, not impolitely but finally, as the maire began to expostulate--"I have spoken."

"But," said the maire desperately, "we shall be ruined. We have not got it. And all our goods have been taken already."

"You have our receipts," said the General. "They are as good as gold. German credit is very high; the Imperial Government has just floated a loan of several milliards. And you have our stamped Quittungen." He became at once voluble and persuasive in his cupidity, and forgot something of his habitual caution. "You surely do not doubt the word of the German Government?" he said. The maire doubted it very much, but he discreetly held his tongue. "And our requisitioning officers have not been niggardly," continued the General; "they have put a substantial price on the goods we have taken." This was true. It had not escaped the maire that the receipt-forms had been lavish.

"I will do my best," said the maire simply.

He was now released from arrest, and he retired to his house to think out the new problem that had presented itself. The threat to burn down the town might or might not be anything but bluff; he himself doubted whether the German Commandant would burn the roofs over his men's heads, as long as the occupation lasted. The military disadvantages were too obvious, though what the enemy might do when they left the town was another matter. They might shoot him, of course; that was more than probable.

But how to find the money was an anxious problem and urgent. The municipal caisse was empty: the managers of the banks had closed their doors and carried their deposits off to Paris before the Germans had entered the town; of the wealthier bourgeoisie some had fled, many were ruined, and the rest were inadequate. The maire pondered long upon these things, leaning back in his chair with knitted brows in that pensive attitude which was characteristic. Suddenly he caught sight of a blue paper with German characters lying upon a walnut table at his elbow. He took it up, scrutinised it, and studied the signature:

Empfangschein. Werth 500 fr. erhalten. Herr Hauptmann von Koepenick.

Then he smiled. He got up, put on his overcoat, took up his hat and cane, and went forth into the drizzling rain.

* * * * *

Two hours later he was at the headquarters of the Staff and asked to see the Commandant. He was shown into his presence without delay. "Well?" said the Commandant. "Monsieur le General, I have collected the fine," said the maire. The General's face relaxed its habitual sternness; he grew at once pleasant and polite. "Good," he said. The maire opened a fat leather wallet and placed upon the table under the General's predatory nose a large pile of blue documents, some (but not all) stamped with the violet stamp of the German A.Q.M.G. "If the hochgeehrter General will count them," said the maire, "he will see they come to 325,000 francs. It is rather more than the fine," he explained, "but I have made allowance for the fact that they are not immediately redeemable. They are mostly stamped, and--they are as good as gold."