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"When I was in the army we heard a lot of this, but all that is of the past thanks to Heaven. There are other crimes in the world just as bad, alas! as that of treachery to one's country." ALTHOUGH Sir Hugh had on frequent occasions been the guest of his son-in-law at the pretty Château de Lérouville, he had never expressed a wish, until the previous evening, to enter the Fortress of Haudiomont.
This pass was, before 1914, one of the four principal gateways into France from Germany. The others are all within a short distance, fifteen kilomètres or so at Commercy, which is an important sous-prefecture, at Apremont, and at Eix. All have ever been strongly guarded, but that at Haudiomont was most impregnable of them all.
Within three kilomètres of the mouth of the pass at Haudiomont, at a short distance from the road and at the edge of a wood, stood the ancient Château de Lérouville, a small picturesque place of the days of Louis XIV., with pretty lawns and old-world gardens a château only in the sense of being a country house and the residence of Paul Le Pontois, once a captain in the French Army, but now retired.
He pictured the pleasant supper party and the surprise that would be expressed at his absence. How amusing! What incongruity! He was under arrest! The car rushed on beneath the precipitous hill crowned by the great fortress of Haudiomont, through the narrow gorge the road to Paris.
Germans take Champneuville Feb. 27, with 5,000 prisoners. Bloody encounters at village of Eix on Woevre plain, Feb. 27. Germans occupy Moranville and Haudiomont, Feb. 27. Champlon and Manheuilles fall Feb. 28; 1,300 French prisoners. Verdun battered and set on fire by 42-centimeter guns. French evacuate Fort Vaux, after heavy bombardment, March 1.
He had seen service in Tonquin, in Algeria, on the French Congo and in the Argonne, and now his old company garrisoned Haudiomont, one of those forts of enormous strength, which commanded the gate of France, and had never been taken by the Crown Prince's army. "No," he was laughing, speaking in good English, "you in England, my dear beaupère, do not yet realise the dangers of the future.
ONE evening, a few days after Sir Hugh had paid another visit to Haudiomont, he was smoking with Paul prior to retiring to bed when the conversation drifted upon money matters some investment he had made in England in his wife's name.
That road, with its long line of poplars, after crossing the ante-war French border, runs straight for twenty kilomètres towards the abrupt range of high hills which form the natural frontier of France, and then, at Haudiomont, enters a narrow pass, over twelve kilomètres long, before it reaches the broad valley of the Meuse.
On his return to the hotel he made many inquiries of monsieur the proprietor concerning the distance to Haudiomont, and learned a good deal about the military works there which was of the greatest interest. The hotel-keeper, a stout Alsatian, was a talkative person, and told Walter nearly all he wished to know. Since leaving Charing Cross five days before he had been ever active.
SIR HUGH ELCOMBE spent a most interesting and instructive day within the Fortress of Haudiomont. He really did not want to go. The visit bored him. The world was at peace, and there was no incentive to espionage as there had been in pre-war days.
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