Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (87 page)

Owing to the invasion
they could not cross northern France via Arras, Laon and St. Menehould, but had
to go round by Paris; and even the direct route to the capital was now unsafe,
as the Germans were in Amiens: so that meant an additional detour down the
coast to Abbeville and then by way of Beauvais. At a rough calculation they
reckoned that they had to cover some three hundred miles. That meant there was
no possibility of their reaching G.Q.G. that night; but they hoped to do so in
the early hours of the morning.

For the first forty miles
of the journey, all went well. But then they began to run into columns of
refugees, the awkward, undisciplined straggling of which slowed their pace and
sometimes forced them to halt for several minutes at a time. Abbeville was
choked with the transport of these poor people who, for the past fortnight, had
been forced to flee in ever increasing numbers before the advancing Germans.
Here and there were carriages and primitive, high-wheeled autos; but the bulk
of the jam consisted of farm waggons, traps, handcarts and perambulators, all
piled high with pathetic household goods, and generally topped by mattresses,
on which were perched shrivelled old crones clutching the youngest children of
the families.

It took an hour for the
car to nose its way through the town, and twenty miles beyond it the straggling
bands of refugees began to be interspersed with columns of marching troops. The
men looked dispirited and weary. Their scarlet trousers and long blue coats
were now a mockery under a heavy coating of fine grey dust; and their equipment
was pathetic. Much of their transport consisted of commandeered farm wagons,
the horses that drew them were sorry nags, and quite frequently the dirty,
half-rotten harness was tied together by pieces of string. De Richleau knew
that they must be reserve troops, collected from anywhere and everywhere, which
were being pushed up to join the army that General Maunoury had endeavoured to
assemble round Amiens: but by comparison with the smart turn-out of the reserve
formations he had seen while on his train journey through Germany, they made a
very poor impression.

The car did not get them
to Beauvais until seven o’clock, and from there on to Paris the congestion of
the roads was far worse, so it was after ten when they entered the capital.

Their eight hours of
crawling and constant enforced halts had proved very tiring, so they felt that
they were entitled to a good supper, and directed the car to the Ritz. The
restaurant was crammed with officers and women in evening dress; and although
there was a suggestion of strain in the atmosphere, its occupants did not seem
unduly depressed.

As Sir Pellinore and the
Duke had not eaten since lunching in the destroyer on the way over, they had
hearty appetites, and the good food, washed down with a plentiful supply of
champagne, soon banished their fatigue. When coffee was being served to them a
tall, thin man came up to their table. He was immaculately dressed, had a dark,
pointed beard, wore the rosette of the L
é
gion
d’Honneur in his buttonhole, and was about the same age as Sir Pellinore; who
introduced him as the Marquis de St. Eloi, and asked him to join them in a
brandy.

The Marquis accepted with
a graceful bow, gave the Duke, whom he evidently knew by name, a quick look of
interest, and sat down.

For a few minutes they
talked of the general situation. It showed no improvement. Compi
é
gne, Soissons, Rheims and Ch
â
lons
had fallen; the Germans were now over the Aisne in great strength, and their
flying columns of Uhlans were said to have reached the Marne.

Sir Pellinore glanced
round at the expensively dressed crowd and remarked: “I wonder more people aren’t
quittin’ Paris. They’ll get locked up here if they’re not careful.”

With a shrug of his
elegant shoulders, the Marquis replied: “Many people are: but not the
haute monde.
They are confident that there will
be no siege. Paris will be declared an open city.”

“Are you certain of that?”
asked the Duke quickly.

“Yes. Our War Minister,
M. Messimy, wished to hold it. When the retreat began, he ordered G.Q.G. to
return an army of at least three Corps from the front for the defence of the
capital. General Joffre was very loath to part with any of the formations he
was hoping to employ in a new offensive, so he delegated the task to General
Maunoury, who was forming a new Army in the neighbourhood of Amiens. But
Messimy has since been sacked as a scapegoat for the failure of our offensive
in Lorraine. So Joffre had been freed from that obligation. He wishes both to
keep his forces in the open field and to spare Paris the horror of a
bombardment, so he will let the Germans march through it.”

Sir Pellinore grunted and
the Duke’s mouth suddenly took a hard, angry line; but both forbore to comment.
Ten minutes later, when the Marquis had left them, De Richleau asked:

“Do you think that fellow
really knows Joffre’s intentions?”

“I’ve not a doubt of it,”
Sir Pellinore replied glumly. “He’s a banker, with whom I do quite a bit of
business. Member of the
Comit
é
des Forges
, too. Republic or not, France has
never ceased to be run by the
Cent Families.
That gang have a finger in every pie. France couldn’t carry on for a month
without their millions. He knows what he is talking about all right. Shouldn’t
be surprised if Joffre hasn’t had his orders from them. They won’t want their
houses in the Bois destroyed. They’d rather pay up an indemnity, as they did in
1870; though it will prove a whacking big one this time.”

By half past eleven they
were on their way again. Bar-le-Duc lay a hundred and forty miles due east of
Paris, and they had hoped to get there in the small hours; but it now looked as
if they would be lucky if they reached it before dawn.

The coming of night had
not halted the streams of refugees: they were more numerous than they had been
to the north of Paris, and there was much more military transport on the road.
Hour after hour they crawled on, through Coulommiers, S
é
zanne
and F
è
re-Champenoise.
From the latter place the road lay parallel to the advance of the Germans and,
at most, only twenty miles from their cavalry screen. They knew that if an
enemy spearhead had made a thrust in that direction during the day, there was
an unpleasant possibility of their running into a troop of Uhlans; but to have
gone by way of Troyes and Chaumont would have meant another big detour, so, in
view of the urgency of their mission, they had decided to chance getting
through on the shorter route.

The anxiety they felt at
the proximity of the enemy kept them very much on the alert. De Richleau took
over from the driver and they agreed that, at the first sign of trouble, they
would abandon the car and take to the fields. That did not prove necessary, but
when they reached Vitry they were warned by Military Police that German patrols
had been located north of the town. In common prudence they turned down a
by-road leading south. It soon became a winding lane and forked three times in
less than two miles; then they found themselves heading west. Passing troops
were fewer in these by-ways, and none of whom they asked the way had ever
before been in the district; so after several more false casts they were
angrily compelled to admit that they were hopelessly lost.

It was now about
five-thirty, that chill pre-dawn hour when vitality is at its lowest. All three
of them were dog-tired, so they decided to snatch a short sleep in the car and
go on again when full daylight came. At half past seven they roused up, drove
for a few miles through a maze of lanes towards a church steeple, and found the
church to be that of the township of Joinville. From it, Bar-le-Duc lay thirty
miles to the north, so they did not reach their destination till a little
before ten. Then, to their fury, they learned that General Joffre had shifted
his headquarters two days before to St. Dizier.

After breakfast and a
wash at an inn crowded with soldiers, they started for St. Dizier, a town some
twenty miles away, to which they must have passed quite close in the early
hours of the morning. But when they reached it, they were told that General
Joffre had been there only a day and shifted his quarters again the previous
night.

To add to their
frustration, no one could tell them where he had gone; but, rightly assuming
that he was moving backwards in conformity with the enemy advance, they
continued on the road south-eastwards. During the middle of the day and the
early hours of the afternoon, they tried several townships in vain, but at
four-thirty they at last ran him to earth at Bar-sur-Aube.

He had taken over the
Mairie of the little town as another temporary H.Q. and everything was still at
sixes and sevens. It was ludicrously small for a
Grand Quartier G
è
n
è
ral
and its facilities were totally inadequate to the requirements of a
C. in C.
controlling eight Armies. But so,
apparently, was his staff; it consisted of only half a dozen officers, a few
orderlies, the chauffeurs of four large dusty cars and some motor-cycle
dispatch riders.

Sir Pellinore and the
Duke were asked to wait in a wash-room and, after kicking their heels there for
over an hour, were eventually taken to see Joffre’s Director of Operations, a
Colonel de Grandmaison, who occupied a small room in which even a telephone had
not yet been installed.

In execrable French, Sir
Pellinore stated quite unscrupulously that he represented both the Secretary of
State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty. Then, having produced his
diplomatic
laissez-passer,
he
asked bluntly: “
Comment va la bataille?”

“The battle,” said
Colonel de Grandmaison, “develops itself. The Commander-in-Chief has every
confidence.”

“Confidence in what?”
inquired the Baronet, his slightly protuberant blue eyes taking on their
belligerent look.

“In ultimate victory,” came
the bland reply. “The enemy has made a great penetration into France. We learn
that he is now across the Marne in strength at both Epernay and Ch
â
teau
Thierry; but his front is now one vast bulge, and both his flanks are exposed.
In due course we shall close upon him.
Voila!”

“Good!” said Sir Pellinore,
a trifle more cordially. “When?”

The Colonel shrugged.
“Au moment juste!
The moment psychological, for which
our great
C. in C.
has been waiting.”

“I trust that he will not
wait too long,” put in the Duke. “The situation appears to be extremely precarious.
With the Germans across the Marne, you have not much time to waste if you mean
to try to save Paris.”

“It may prove advisable
to declare Paris an open city; but the capital is in no immediate danger of
either attack or investment. For the past twenty-four hours news has been
coming in that von Kluck’s army, contrary to our expectations, is not advancing
on Paris, or to the west of the city. Instead, it has taken a south-easterly
direction. By doing so it has exposed its right flank to General Maunoury,
whose Army is situated just north of Paris.”

“The Devil!” exclaimed De
Richleau. “Can the Germans possibly have made such a blunder! If they have, now
is the time. By attacking their flank, General Maunoury should be able to turn
it and throw the whole of their right wing into confusion. If, at the same
time, you halt your retreat and fling in everything you’ve got here in the
south, there is a real chance of smashing the enemy. And I think it better than
you have had any opportunity to realize.”

The Duke then went on to
describe his activities in Germany and report the ordering by von Moltke of six
Corps to the East Prussian front. For ten minutes he spoke of the original
Schlieffen Plan, pointing out how, instead of strictly adhering to it, von Moltke
had allocated only six-sevenths instead of seven-eighths of the German forces
to the West, and that, owing to over-confidence in victory, the withdrawal of
the six Corps had further reduced the six-sevenths to five-sixths.

Colonel de Grandmaison
listened with intent interest. After congratulating the Duke on his escape and
the news he brought, he said