CHAPTER SIX

I

CLARE and Cecil departed the next morning in their car for Munster, and Pagan and Baron moved down to Colmar. They made a tour of inspection of the ancient town, called for their suitcases, which had been forwarded from Strasbourg, dined to music at the open restaurant in the Champs-de-Mars, and finished up at the theatre. The next morning, however, when the question of staying longer in Colmar was raised, they both voted against doing so.

“These old towns are delightful for a couple of days,” said Baron, “but we came here to tramp the highways and hedges of the Vosges, and the sooner we get back to them the better, I say.”

“O Baron, you have put into the poetry of words the secret thoughts of my heart,” agreed Pagan. “But where shall we go? That is the question as laddie Hamlet said. High or low?”

“High,” decided Baron.

Pagan lugged a map from his pocket. “Good. Your lightest wish is my command. High it shall be; silent upon a peak in Darien you shall sit.” He studied the map. “We will go right up to the high ridge that forms the backbone of these blithering hills. There is a pass almost due west of us—the Honneck; that’s where we will go.”

“How far? How long?” asked Baron.

“A longish way on foot,” answered Pagan, “but we can train part of the way—the uninteresting bit—as far as Munster; stay there the night and tramp over the ridge to-morrow.”

Baron shot a shrewd look at Pagan. “Why Munster?” he enquired.

“Because, my dear old question mark,” retorted Pagan, “we can’t get to where we want to go without going through it. We can’t tramp the Honneck in one day; therefore we must stop the night somewhere. And so it sticks out a mile that the thing to do is to train to Munster and tramp on to-morrow. You see, it lies bang in the middle of the hills where two valleys meet, and the main road up to the Honneck over the Schlucht Pass goes through it and up the northern valley.”

Baron nodded agreement, but there was a sceptical twinkle in his eye. “All right, Charles. Your logic is almost too good to be true.”

“And I don’t know whether you realize it,” added Pagan. “But the ridge immediately to the north is the one on which Bertha’s pub stands; in fact they must have been the lights of Munster that we saw far below when we climbed out of that window.”

Baron smiled at Pagan’s earnestness. “And at what hour departs the train?” he asked.

“We pack kits and entrain forthwith,” answered Pagan.

As the little train drew clear of the town they had a fine view westwards of the Vosges stretching in a purple barrier from north to south as far as the eye could see. The lower slopes, trenched with green valleys, encroached upon the fertile plain in humped wooded bastions, crowned with the brown crumbling walls of ancient castles; and in the valley mouths lay the old fortified villages, their walls and watch towers and high peaked roofs all golden in the morning sunlight.

Meandering inconsequently, it seemed, through sunny vineyards, the little train rounded the foot of a vine-terraced hill and bumped to rest at a tiny tree-shaded platform. Beyond it the sun-bleached walls and projecting angle towers of a small village nestled at the foot of a wooded slope. Gay wild flowers grew between the stones; moss and lichens patterned the mellow tiles on the peaked roofs of the towers, and a dry moat, carpeted with grass and gay with flower beds, encircled the walls. A shady avenue, crossing the moat by a balustraded causeway, led from the tiny station to the old portcullised gate tower, which was crowned by the inevitable stork’s nest.

“Mon cher, Seigneur,” chanted Pagan in his best French. “Voilà un nid!”

“C’est vrai, mon cher Mécréant,” answered Baron; “mais il n’y a pas des oiseaux.”

But as the engine began to move again and float little balloons of smoke into the clear bright air, the two birds whirred overhead with a slow, strong beating of wings, turned into the wind like homing aeroplanes, and glided down to the nest.

The little train puffed its way laboriously up the valley. The hills closed in upon it and the vine-terraced slopes gave place to thick green woods. The hills grew higher and steeper, and up tributary valleys they caught glimpses of the bold, bare summits of the higher peaks beyond.

They reached Munster a little after midday. It lay in a natural amphitheatre where four valleys met. High wooded hills surrounded it, and behind them towered the bare, grassy ballons. Baron nodded upwards towards the great rampart of hills facing them as they walked slowly up the broad shady boulevard from the station. “There’s our old friend the tree,” he said.

Thick woods covered the lower slopes of the steep mountain wall that rose close beyond the outskirts of the little town, but the upper flanks were bare and grass-grown, and at one point where a huge grassy shoulder raised itself above the general level of the ridge, the familiar outline of a shell-shivered tree showed black against the sky, no bigger than a ragged match.

Pagan nodded. “True, o King. And that must be Bertha’s Pub, two fingers left at eight o’clock,” he added, indicating a brownish blur a little to the left and below the tree.”

“By jove, yes,” agreed Baron. “So on the whole, Charles, it is just as well that rope didn’t break the other night!”

“If it had, we should have done Father Christmas down one of these chimneys all right,” answered Pagan grimly.

Munster itself seemed strangely new and uninteresting till they recalled that it must have been almost entirely rebuilt, and that where they walked so calmly in the broad light of day by the clean new church, men had passed in terror of their lives, hurrying by the roofless walls only at night when the artillery observers far up there by the ragged tree were blindfolded by the darkness.

Superficially this town of clean new houses, tidy, evenly paved streets and unstained roofs was bright and prosperous; but it seemed characterless and out of place among those historic, soaring hills. It wore a tragic air of bravado, as though in spite of its bold and youthful front it was not unconscious of its past. But to Pagan and Baron, wandering sympathetically in the meaner street, it revealed the scars of that past: an old wall pock-marked fanwise by shell splinters, the blind walls of a gutted roofless house standing in a tangled garden, and some tell-tale humps in the pavé roadway where ancient shell-holes had been filled with bricks.

In the new main streets of the town the shops wore a very different air. Their windows were filled mainly with picture postcards and those numerous useless objects grouped under the general heading of novelties. Some of the locally made knick-knacks, however, were really beautifully carved, and for a few francs one could buy a stork’s nest complete with father, mother and baby stork, a market woman in the wide Alsatian head-dress, or an Alsatian cottage with chimney, nest and storks on top.

Pagan was disappointed not to find Clare in the hotel. He made discreet enquiries, and learned that she had left that morning for Gerardmer, whither her brother had been called on business, but she was expected back within two days.

After dinner that evening he and Baron sauntered down to the little café by the station for coffee. It was a triangular piece of ground fenced off from the road by low wooden palings, and a few tables and chairs were set out under the half-dozen trees which were draped with coloured lights. The patron, a youngish man of military appearance wearing a beret, was an intelligent fellow, and spoke moderately good English, which he had learnt from fellow prisoners of war in a prison camp in Germany. At Pagan’s invitation he joined them in a tall glass of the strong hot coffee.

All three had taken part in the Somme battles of 1916, and for a time the conversation centred around this topic. Then Baron enquired about the political sentiments of Alsace, and received confirmation of his opinion that there was considerable unrest among a minority of the population, who, it appeared, made up by their violence and the extremity of their opinions for their lack of numbers. The patron thought that an open outbreak was possible but unlikely; but were such an outbreak to occur, it might become very serious if not checked immediately, on account of its far-reaching political and international consequences.

Baron then brought up the subject of the haunted battlefield and expounded his theory that secret political meetings would account for the apparitions. But the man shook his head. There was more in it than that he thought. Had they heard what form the apparition took? Baron admitted that their ideas on that point were distinctly hazy.

The man glanced around at his customers at the other tables and drew his chair closer. He lowered his voice. “I will tell you about it,” he said. “Many people have seen this apparition, Messieurs.” He held up his two hands with the fingers outspread. “Five … ten … perhaps a dozen in all. The accounts of it vary widely, as such accounts always do, but there is an agreement, very impressive, on certain points. It walks only by night. It has the body of a man and it walks upright like a human being, but there the resemblance ends. The face … well, the face is not human. Whether beast or devil”—he made an expressive movement with his hands—“opinions differ, but all are agreed that it is not human.”

Pagan glanced at Baron, who, however, avoided his eyes. He took a gulp from his glass. “You really believe in this ghost then?”

The man laughed and waved his open palms before his face. “But, no! I do not believe in ghosts and spirits, I.” And he laughed again.

Pagan stirred his glass thoughtfully. “Then you think it is all just nonsense … sottise?”

Again the man shook his head. He glanced round and drew his chair a fraction of an inch closer.

“I, I am from Bordeaux. I tell you, Messieurs, the Vosges are not like the rest of France. Strange rites were performed among these hills in days gone by—and still are, it is said. This country teems with folk lore; every valley has its own. Strange tales of goblins, demons … half-men. Foolish, maybe, but there are so many of these stories and they have persisted so long that … well, where one finds so … so … .”

Pagan nodded. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, eh?” he suggested.

“But you said just now …” began Baron.

Pagan silenced him with a look. “And so you think, M’sieu,” prompted Pagan, “that this … er strange apparition is … is …?”

The patron drained his glass. “What happened to that race of sub-men that inhabited Europe before our ancestors drove them out?” he demanded suddenly.

“Knocked on the head by our amiable ancestor, I suppose,” grinned Baron. And then he added, “Good lord, Charles, he means what-you-may-call-um man—Cro-Magnon, isn’t it!”

“No, they were the coves who did the knocking,” replied Pagan. “It’s Neanderthal man he means.”

The patron nodded his head emphatically. “Yes, yes, Neanderthal. What happened to him?” He went on seriously. “I have studied history, Messieurs. Always the remnants of the early race are driven into the mountains or deserts. Your Britons in Wales, your Picts in Scotland, your Bushmen in Africa. And Neanderthal man also, yes? That is why the folk-lore of wild forests and mountains is always full of demons and half-men. And here in the Vosges, where that folk-lore persists so strongly …” He finished with an expressive gesture of his hands.

“Then you actually think,” said Baron incredulously, “that the … the whatever-it-is up there is … is …?”

“A lone survival of that race, for evidences of which the scientists of all nations are hunting—and it is under their very noses,” answered the man solemnly.

Pagan struck a match and held it to the glowing bowl of his pipe, but he made no comment.

As they sauntered back to the hotel Pagan said, “That’s about the most amazing suggestion I have ever heard. I know that the miracles of Kew are the facts of Khatmandu and I could possibly believe in an ape-man in the dark interior of savage Papua, but in the heart of civilised Europe—in the Vosges … I ask you!”

“Don’t ask me, old Charles,” retorted Baron. “Most amazing rot I should say. But I would rather like to get to the bottom of it anyway.”

Pagan nodded. “So would I.” He walked on for a few steps in silence. “Suppose we put off the Honneck till another day and climb up to Bertha’s pub to-morrow instead,” he suggested presently.

Baron considered a moment and then he yawned. “Yes, suppose we do,” he agreed.

II

In the course of the next morning Pagan discovered that the ancient motor van of a village carrier in a neighbouring valley ran into Munster every morning and returned each evening, crossing the dividing ridge by a col that was little more than a mile from Bertha’s inn; and since, in his opinion, a tramp of a mile along the top of a ridge was infinitely preferable to one of three or four up the steep side of it, he contracted for the carriage that evening of himself and Baron as far as the col.

They retained their rooms at the Munster hotel for the following night and left there their suitcases and Pagan’s pack, taking with them only mackintoshes and one pack containing pyjamas and washing kit. And before setting out, Pagan bought a powerful electric torch and half a kilo of candles. “They will come in handy if we go messing about dug-outs in the dark,” he said as he stuffed them into the pack.

The ancient motor van proved to be an even more ramshackle affair than its unpromising appearance indicated. Broken places in the woodwork had been repaired with rough, unpainted boxwood, fastened with nails and string, and several broken or loose metal parts were held together by lengths of twisted wire. The gears rattled and scraped at every change, and the engine wheezed and knocked in a manner that raised grave doubts of its ability to mount the steep gradients ahead. The brakes doubtless were in the same crazy condition, and Baron regarded with a gloomy apprehensive eye the steep sharp zigzags by which the narrow road mounted the hillside. “If the box of loose scrap metal this optimist calls an engine conks out on one of those hairpin bends, Gawd help us!” he said gloomily.

“Amen to that,” answered Pagan piously. “But you can’t expect much of a ride for twelve francs, you know.”

“Twelve francs!” echoed Baron. “It’s rank robbery. Damn it, man, you could have bought an ounce of arsenic for five and committed suicide in comfort.”

The seating accommodation was not as comfortable as they could have wished. The interior of the little van was cramped and low, and the floor space was occupied by a miscellaneous collection of packages, parcels and knobbly sacks. It is true that the carrier had arranged a plank across a couple of sacks as a seat, but the swaying of the van caused it to slide off every few minutes, and owing to the lowness of the roof and the violent jolting of the apparently springless body, they had to sit with their shoulders bowed and their necks bent forward in order to avoid bumping their heads. Finally Baron unshipped the plank in disgust and made himself a less uncomfortable seat on the floor among the sacks and packages.

His spirits rose, however, as soon as they were clear of the houses and the long steady climb upwards had begun. Uncomfortable though the floor of the van might be, it was certainly very pleasant to lie there in the cool evening air and watch the mellow sunlight gilding the great wooded mountain-side across the valley; and as the crazy vehicle twisted and turned on its tortuous path upwards his view extended now down the valley between green long-shadowed slopes, and now up the valley towards the great purple ridge behind which the sun was setting. And at the precipitous hairpin bends he caught glimpses of the town below, fast dwindling in size and already shadowed by the approaching dusk.

Pagan steadied himself on one elbow to apply a lighted match to his pipe. “Reminds one … of the old days … of lorry jumping,” he murmured jerkily as he drew at the stem and the flame was sucked down to the bowl in a series of little swoops.

Baron nodded. “Do you remember the old box-body the Machine-Gun people used to take us into Amiens in?” he asked reminiscently.

Pagan pitched the burnt match over the tailboard. “The old bus Sweet Fanny Adams used to drive! Rather!” And he began to croon softly, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile …” Baron joined in. One air led inevitably to another, and encouraged by the carrier in front, they went through their repertoire of old war songs, timing them all to the bumping of the car and the coughing and wheezing of the crazy engine.

The sun had set before they reached the top, and a bank of purple night clouds loomed dark above the ridge westwards when the narrow road finally straightened out and curved gently over the bare crest between two grassy shoulders. The carrier brought his steaming, rattling vehicle to rest. Baron threw out the mackintoshes and pack, and they climbed rather stiffly out.

The silence was almost uncanny when the van had driven off and dropped below the crest. Up there in the translucent twilight there was no sound except the distant tinkle of a cow-bell. The great vault of the sky stretched overhead and swept down, it seemed, almost beneath their feet. Westwards it was opalescent above the wine hued bank of clouds: eastwards the light had faded to a purple haze. Pale stars began to shimmer one by one.

Pagan slung the pack over one shoulder. “There’s a long, long trail a-winding,” he crooned, and they set off through the twilight, up the slippery grassy slope eastwards. There was no path to guide them, but they knew that somewhere ahead lay the depression down which they had tramped that first rainy night to the inn.

A cool breeze fanned their cheeks as they trudged at last over the crest; and although the last rays of colour were fast fading in the western sky behind them, there was light enough to distinguish the stark, bare stumps of the shattered wood on the sickle shaped ridge ahead.

“There’s the old battlefield, anyway,” said Baron. “Bertha’s pub cannot be very far off now.”

“Somewhere half-right, I should think,” murmured Pagan with his eyes on the distant ragged stumps that showed black against the sky. “We shall see it when the next Very light goes up,” he added with a chuckle.

“Shut up, Charles,” growled Baron. “It’s too damned like it at this hour. I swear my ears have begun to stick out in the old way, listening for the scream of a crump!”

“Funny how it all comes back to one!” exclaimed Pagan. “Half-right here, I think.”

The ground sloped suddenly to a shallow, trough-shaped depression through which ran a narrow track that glimmered palely through the dusk. Baron turned down it confidently. “We know where we are now. And there’s the pub,” he added a moment later when the dark outline of a roof took shape against the sky. Five minutes later they were knocking at the door.