The Frontier

"Nor me either. Weisslicht, the German commissary at Börsweilen, has sworn a mortal hatred against me. We cut each other now when we meet. There's not a doubt but that he is responsible for the calumnies."

"But what proofs do they put forward?"

"Any number … all equally bad… Among others, this: pieces of French gold which are said to have been found on their soldiers. So you see … with the post tumbling down once more, the explanations that are certain to begin all over again, the enquiries that are certain to be opened…"

Philippe went up to him:

"Come, come, I don't suppose it's so serious as all that."

"You think not, my boy? Then you haven't seen the stop-press telegrams in this morning's papers?"

"No," said Philippe and his father. "What's the news?"

"An incident in Asia Minor. A quarrel between the French and German officials. One of the consuls has been killed."

"Oh, oh!" said Morestal. "This time …"

And Jorancé went into details:

"Yes, the position is exceedingly strained. The Morocco question has been opened again. Then there's the espionage business and the story of the French air-men flying over the fortresses in Alsace and dropping tricolour flags in the Strasburg streets… For six months, it has been one long series of complications and shocks. The newspapers are becoming aggressive in their language. Both countries are arming, strengthening their defences. In short, in spite of the good intentions of the two governments, we are at the mercy of an accident. A spark … and the thing's done."

A heavy silence weighed upon the three men. Each of them conjured up the sinister vision according to his own temperament and instincts.

Jorancé repeated:

"A spark … and the thing's done."

"Well, let it be done!" said Morestal, with an angry gesture.

Philippe gave a start:

"What are you saying, father?"

"Well, what! There must be an end to all this."

"But the end need not be in blood."

"Nonsense … nonsense… There are injuries that can only be wiped out in blood. And, when a great country like ours has received a slap in the face like that of 1870, it can wait forty years, fifty years, but a day comes when it returns the slap in the face … and with both hands!"

"And suppose we are beaten?" said Philippe.

"Can't be helped! Honour comes first! Besides, we sha'n't be beaten. Let every man do his duty and we shall see! In 1870, as a prisoner of war, I gave my word not to serve in the French army again. I escaped, I collected the young rapscallions of Saint-Élophe and round about, the old men, the cripples, the women even… We took to the woods. Three rags served as a rallying-signal: a bit of white linen, a strip of red flannel and a piece out of a blue apron … the flag of the band! There it hangs… It shall see the light of day again, if necessary."

Jorancé could not help laughing:

"Do you think that will stop the Prussians?"

"Don't laugh, my friend… You know the view I take of my duty and what I am doing. But it is just as well that Philippe should know, too. Sit down, my boy."

He himself sat down, put aside the pipe which he was smoking and began, with the obvious satisfaction of a man who is at last able to speak of what he has most at heart:

"You know the frontier, Philippe, or rather the German side of the frontier?.. A craggy cliff, a series of peaks and ravines which make this part of the Vosges an insuperable rampart…"

"Yes, absolutely insuperable," said Philippe.

"That's a mistake!" exclaimed Morestal. "A fatal mistake! From the first moment when I began to think of these matters, I believed that a day would come when the enemy would attack that rampart."

"Impossible!"

"That day has come, Philippe. For the last six months, not a week has passed without my meeting some suspicious figure over there or knocking up against men walking about in smocks that were hardly enough to conceal their uniform… It is a constant, progressive underhand work. Everybody is helping in it. The electric factory which the Wildermann firm has run up in that ridiculous fashion on the edge of the precipice is only a make-believe. The road that leads to it is a military road. From the factory to the Col du Diable is less than half a mile. One effort and the frontier's crossed."

"By a company," objected Jorancé.

"Where a company passes, a regiment can pass and a brigade can follow… At Börsweilen, five miles from the Vosges, there are three thousand German soldiers: on a war-footing, mark you. At Gernach, twelve miles further, there are twelve thousand; and four thousand horses; and eight hundred waggons. By the evening of the day on which war is declared, perhaps even earlier, those fifteen thousand men will have crossed the Col du Diable. It's not a surprise which they mean to attempt: that wouldn't be worth their while. It is the absolute crossing of the frontier, the taking possession of our ridges, the occupation of Saint-Élophe. When our troops arrive, it will be too late! They will find Noirmont cut off, Belfort threatened, the south of the Vosges invaded… You can picture the moral effect: we shall be done for! That is what is being prepared in the dark. That is what you have been unable to see, Jorancé, in spite of all your watchfulness … and in spite of my warnings."

"I wrote to the prefect last week."

"You should have written last year! All this time, the other has been coming on, the other has been advancing… He hardly takes the trouble to conceal himself… There … listen to him … listen to him…"

In the far distance, like the sound of an echo, deadened by the mass of trees, a bugle-call had rung out, somewhere, through the air. It was an indistinct call, but Morestal was not mistaken and he hissed:

"Ah, it's he!.. It's he… I know the voice of Germany… I know it when I hear it … the hoarse, the odious voice!.."

Presently, Philippe, who had not taken his eyes off his father, said:

"And then, father?"

"And then, my son, it was in anticipation of that day that I built my house on this hill, that I surrounded my gardens with a wall, that, unknown to anybody, I stocked the out-houses with means of defence: ammunition, bags of sand, gun-powder … that, in short, I prepared for an alarm by setting up this unsuspected little fortress at twenty minutes from the Col du Diable … on the very threshold of the frontier!"

He had planted himself with his face to the east, with his face to the enemy; and, clutching his hips with his clenched hands, in an attitude of defiance, he seemed to be awaiting the inevitable assault.

The special commissary, who still feared that his zeal had been caught napping in this business, growled:

"Your shanty won't hold out for an hour."

"And who tells you," shouted Morestal, "who tells you that that hour is not exactly the one hour which we shall want to gain?.. An hour! You never spoke a truer word: an hour of resistance to the first attack! An hour of delay!.. That's what I wanted, that's what I offer to my country. Let every one be doing as I am, to the best of his power, let every one be haunted to fever-point by the obsession of the personal service which it is his duty to render to the country; and, if war breaks out, you shall see how a great nation can take its revenge!"

"And suppose we are beaten, in spite of all?" Philippe asked again.

"What's that?"

Old Morestal turned to his son as though he had received a blow; and a rush of blood inflamed his features. He looked Philippe in the face:

"What do you say?"

Philippe had an inkling of the conflict that would hurl them one against the other if he dared to state his objections more minutely. And he uttered words at random:

"Of course, the supposition is not one of those which we can entertain… But, all the same … don't you think we ought to face the possibility?.."