The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport - The Lord of Chateau Noir

John Kreen (0:01)

Section 9 of The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport.

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Recording by John Kreen.

Lilburn, Georgia.

The Green Flag and Other Stories of War and Sport by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Lord of Chateau Noir.

It was in the days when the German armies had broken their way across France, and when the shattered forces of the Young Republic had been swept away to the north of the Aisne and to the south of the Loire, three broad streams of armed men had rolled slowly but irresistibly from the Rhine, now meandering to the north, now to the south, dividing, coalescing, but all uniting to form one great lake round Paris.

And from this lake there welled out smaller streams, one to the north, one southward to Orleans, and a third westward to Normandy.

Many a German trooper saw the sea for the first time when he rode his horse girth deep into the waves at Dieppe.

Black and bitter were the thoughts of Frenchmen when they saw this wheel of dishonor slashed across the fair face of their country. They had fought, and they had been over-

That swarming cavalry, those countless footmen, the masterful guns, they had tried and tried to make head against them. In battalions their invaders were not to be beaten, but man to man, or ten to ten, they were their equals. A brave Frenchman might still make a single German rue the day that he had left his own bank of the Rhine. Thus, un-chronicled, amid the battles and the sieges, there broke out another war, a war of individuals, with foul murder upon the one side and brutal reprisal on the other.

Colonel von Grahm, of the 24th Pozen Infantry, had suffered severely during this new development. He commanded in the little Norman town of Les Andalises, and his outposts stretched amid the hamlets and farmhouses of the district round. No French force was within 50 miles of him, and yet, morning after morning, he had to listen to a black report of sentries found dead at their posts, or of foraging parties which had never returned. Then the Colonel would go forth in his wrath, and farm steadings would blaze, and villages tremble. But next morning, there was still that same dismal tale to be told. Do what he might. He could not shake off his invisible enemies. And yet, it should not have been so hard, for from certain signs in common, in the plan and in the deed, it was certain that all these outrages came from a single source.

Colonel Von Grom had tried violence, and he had failed. Gold might be more successful. He published it abroad, over the countryside, that 500 francs would be paid for information. There was no response. Then 800 francs. The peasants were incorruptible.

Then, goaded on by a murdered corporal, he rose to a thousand, and so bought the soul of François Réjean, farm-labourer whose Norman Avarice was a stronger passion than his French hatred.

You say that you know who did these crimes? Asked the Prussian colonel, eyeing with loathing, the blue-bloused, rat-faced creature before him. Yes, colonel. And it was?

Those thousand francs, colonel? Not a sue until your story has been tested. Come, who is it who has murdered my men?

It is Count Eustace of Chateau Noir. You lie, cried the colonel angrily. A gentleman and a nobleman could not have done such crimes. The peasant shrugged his shoulders. It is evident to me that you do not know the Count. It is this way, colonel. What I tell you is the truth, and I am not afraid that you should test it. The Count of Chateau Noir is a hard man. Even at the best time, he was a hard man. But of late, he has been terrible. It was his son's death, you know. His son was under duet, and he was taken, and then in escaping from Germany, he met his death. It was the Count's only child, and indeed, we all think that it has driven him mad. With his peasants, he follows the German armies. I do not know how many he has killed, but it is he who cut the cross upon the foreheads, for it is the badge of his house.

It was true, the murdered sentries had each had a salt-tire cross slashed across their brows, as by a hunting-knife. The Colonel bent his stiff back, and ran his forefinger over the map which lay upon the table.

The Chateau Noir is not more than four leagues, he said.

Three and a kilometer, Colonel. You know the place? I used to work there.