Dead or Alive?
“We have the body here,” said Rouletabille.
“And you’re talking!” Serge cried.
Rouletabille put his hand over the Pole’s quivering muzzle.
“I’m not taking as loudly as you, at any rate! Stop howling and despairing…all is not lost, Serge Kaniewsky.”
“How can you say, madman, that all is not lost? If the body isn’t Nicole’s it’s because Nicole in still in their hands…and she’ll have to pay for all of us! But you’ll be the first to pay for her, I swear!”
They fell silent, because of a frightful groan that came from the side. That groan said: “I’ve been forced to travel with my daughter’s corpse! There was a corpse beside me! In the same crate as me! A cadaver separated from me by wooden spars, whose clothing I touched. Come with me to tear the spars away. We’re both cursed because of you, Serge! Tear away the spars! Tear away the spars! Afterwards, we’ll make a new coffin for Nicole…an astonishing coffin, worthy of her, as big as the Titania!”
The unfortunate man was raving, clutching at all the spars and shaking them like a madman, but Serge and Rouletabille soon ripped the pieces of wood away from the crate that had transported the old man—and, indeed, they pulled out a cadaver, which the Pole dragged, howling, into the light of the red lantern.
“It’s the body of Lasker, the warehouse supervisor,” said Rouletabille.
The Pole and Fulbert crouched over the body, like wild beasts sniffing it.
“The other body. We need the other body in order to know. We want the other body!”
“My companion is the only one who can tell you where it is,” said Rouletabille, “and I don’t know where my companion is.”
At that moment, the shadows moved again, as if the darkness were being jostled by the passage of something enormous.
“Is that you, La Candeur?”
“Yes, it’s me. I thought I’d never be able to find you. My crate’s at the far end of the hold.”
“The body! The body!” yapped the two furious voices.
“These Messieurs,” Rouletabille said, “want to know where Nicole’s body is. What have you done with it, La Candeur?”
“I didn’t have time to carry it away, old chap—I left it behind.”
Horrible growls full of menace greeted these words, although Fulbert’s expiring voice still had the strength to say: “My God! We’ll never know!”
“Yes!” said Rouletabille. “We’ll soon know! Take my word for it—believe me!”
“When?”
“Soon?”
“When?”
“Soon. Perhaps in an hour, perhaps right away.”
“Right away!” barked the Pole. “Right away! I can’t wait!”
“Me neither,” moaned the unfortunate Fulbert—and filled the hold with his sobbing.
“Silence!” Rouletabille commanded. “Listen! Didn’t you hear the footsteps? If you continue moaning like that, you’ll bring the entire crew down here—and it’s not the crew that I’m expecting.”
“Who are you expecting?” Fulbert moaned.
“I’m expecting someone who’ll tell us the truth…for it’s still necessary to have hope in the truth. Listen to me again for I haven’t told you everything. Perhaps she’s dead! She is dead! That’s what it’s necessary to say first, and that’s what I’m telling you first…for after all, she might be dead! She is! Tell yourselves that, and curse me! And now, hope for a miracle, because…because I’m waiting for it, that miracle! I thought just now that I heard footsteps. Know that I had an accomplice in Essen...the so-called representative of Turkish interests.”
“Vladimir! Vladimir!” sighed La Candeur. “Where’s Vladimir?”
“It’s him that I’m expecting. He’s booked a passage on the boat—and I saw Vladimir at the Essener-Hoff, at the engagement party. I gave him a mission. Has he accomplished it? Everything depends on that—everything! When I perceived, or when I thought I perceived, at the engagement party, that Nicole wasn’t Nicole…the sharp memory came back to my mind of certain words I’d heard spoken one night. That night, when I was on the roof of the Hans house, in the central research building, I overheard a few words pronounced by the guard who was in charge of guarding Nicole. He was congratulating himself because, in a few days’ time he’d enjoy an appreciable liberty. ‘After Wednesday,’ he said. ‘I was pretty sure that I’d be rid of it all…yes, we all thought here that it was finished…and over there, Princess Botosani said; she’ll be dead tomorrow,’ the guardsman added. Then there was a pause, and the man went on, without hiding his astonishment: ‘And now, she’s much better! It’s incredible how resilient these young women are—not to mention that when they want her to look well, they can feed her an uncommon elixir.’
“Now,” Rouletabille went on, “I knew that Princess Botosani was a volunteer nurse at the hospital in the Villa Hoegel, outside the factory, in Essen itself. Thus, they had transported poor Nicole to that hospital, fearing a dire outcome. Had she really come back? That was the whole question. The Boche had to great an interest in substituting a double for the possibility of such an eventuality not to occur to me, especially when I came to be assailed by the sharpest doubts about the true identity of the Nicole I had before me.
“It was then that I went to my accomplice Vladimir, who was in constant communication with Princess Botosani and asked him why the Princess wasn’t at the engagement party. When he told me that the Princess had been invited to the party I breathed more easily, for it surely followed from that information that the Nicole I had before me was the true one. Princess Botosani had looked after her, and would never have been invited to the party, where she would have met Monsieur Fulbert’s daughter, if she hadn’t been the same person she had looked after. The princess would have seen through the deception immediately and would have immediately told her false Pacha, Vladimir, with whom she was known to be intimate. That would let too many people in on the secret, and it would also, however little doubt the guests at the Essener-Hoff might have about Nicole’s identity, be contrary to the desires of the Emperor, who was determined that Monsieur Fulbert’s daughter should be shown off in the flesh and in good health.
“I concluded, therefore, that the invitation to the Princess Botosani was a serious argument in favor of the real identity of the Nicole to whom I had just talked. However, when Vladimir had added that the invitation had been annulled by the necessity imposed upon the Princess of being unable to answer the invitation, all my doubts came back again, more urgent than ever. I was able to believe, or, at any rate, able to dread, that we had all been deceived...and I resolved to act as if we were in a desperate situation.
“It was then that I confided to Vladimir in great secrecy the dilemma in which we were henceforth struggling. He was free! He could act! And I told him what to do. He was to go to the hospital in the Villa Hoegel and personally make sure of what had happened there. It was on a Wednesday that the invalid had been taken to the hospital. She had been cared for by the Princess. Those were precious clues. Vladimir received orders to make contact, at all costs, with the invalid, if she was still in the hospital, and to use any means at his disposal, including Princess Botosani’s automobile and papers, to get the invalid to the Dutch frontier and get her to safety before coming back to the Wesel, where his passage had been booked in advance.
“Messieurs, Vladimir is aboard the Wesel! He’s watching over us and our enterprise, and we might see him appear at any moment! You see that nothing is lost! He’s the one who will enlighten us! So long as he has not spoken, we should not despair!”
At that moment, a new person appeared in the red light of the lantern. He called out in a low voice: “Rouletabille! Rouletabille!”
“Is that you, Vladimir?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Well, did you save the invalid?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve saved her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s safe in Holl
and?”
“Yes.”
“Nicole Fulbert is safe, then!”
“But I don’t know myself. I don’t know whether the invalid is Nicole Fulbert.”
“What are you saying? What are you saying? You’ve seen her.”
“No, I didn’t see her. She didn’t show her face.”
“And you saved her?”
“Yes, I saved, at any rate, the invalid who had been brought to the hospital on the Wednesday and had been care for by Princess Botosani.”
“But after all, she must have told you her name!”
“She told me that her name is Barbara Lixte.”
Chapter XXII
The Last Voyage of the Wesel
The rumor in the depths of the hold, and the rage, the entire hubbub of frantic sentiments that enveloped Rouletabille thwarted him again momentarily—momentarily!
How much longer would he be able to hold back those madmen, whom the prospect of Nicole’s death was rendering increasingly intractable. But he was hanging on so grimly to the words emerging from Vladimir’s mouth that he was no longer paying any heed to all the fury that was seething behind him, and digging its claws into him.
“Speak, Vladimir, speak! If she didn’t tell you anything, perhaps it’s because she couldn’t tell you anything. We have to assume that, since it was necessary to substitute a healthy Nicole for the ailing Nicole, they were obliged to impose on the ailing Nicole another identity than her real one! Of course! Understand! And hope! Still hope! That other identity must have been imposed upon her on pain of death—and on pain of her father and fiancé being tortured. Always Boche blackmail! On every page, every line of the history of the world! Did you tell her, Vladimir, that you had come on behalf of Rouletabille?”
“I didn’t dare!” Vladimir said. “I wasn’t sure who the person in front of me was. She was so suspicious of me that I had to be suspicious too! She consented to be taken to Holland—that was already a great deal.”
“Nothing is lost! Nothing is lost! But it’s unfortunate that you weren’t able to see her…for, after all, you’d seen the other Nicole at the engagement party, and if the Nicole in the hospital had resembled her, she would surely have been the real Nicole…for they needed a healthy Nicole and they had no reason to invent a sick one.”
“It happened at night, and in the darkness of the ward and the courtyard of the hospital…and I only just had time to put the veiled woman into the Princess’s automobile, and then I jumped into the driving-seat. I drove it myself. All in all, she didn’t want to be seen…I think it was her…but I can’t be sure of it, since I didn’t know her. I can only tell you what she told me, and she told me that her name was Barbara Lixte, the woman captured in Germany and accused of the espionage of the famous Dutch democrat journalist. And that’s why she agreed to flee to Holland with me…but as Barbara Lixte!”
“She did the right thing! She did the right thing! Since you were ready to take her away, at any price, and, even if you were setting a trap for her, she would benefit from that escape if she could…if she could…without, in case of mishap, the Boche being able to reproach her for having revealed her true identity. Nothing is lost! Nothing is lost! Let’s hope! I tell you that we have the duty to hope! Do you hear, you two? Have you finished growling like that? Devouring me like that, with your eyes of fire? When you’d devoured me you wouldn’t be any further forward! Vladimir! Where did you take the woman in Holland? Where is she waiting for us? For she is waiting for us, isn’t she? You told her that she had to wait for us?”
“I only just had time to tell her that and come back. She’s waiting for us at Arnhem, in the United Provinces Hotel. I told her to stay there until tomorrow morning.”
“I tell you that everything is saved!” sighed Rouletabille. “We’ll be in Arnhem before this evening. And there, we’ll find Nicole!”
“If we don’t find her,” said the voice of the Pole, “you’re dead!”
“Understood, understood! But first, my dear Monsieur, let’s calm down and stay alert; and let’s be prudent, circumspect and ready for anything—for the main thing, evidently, is to get to Arnhem.”
At that moment, the muffled and repetitive sound of artillery-fire caused Rouletabille, La Candeur and Vladimir to prick up their ears...and all of a sudden, the Pole’s rage and Fulbert’s despair seemed to be suspended.
“What’s that?” said Rouletabille. “But first of all, why haven’t we got under way? By this time, we ought to be en route.”
“I’ll go and see,” said Vladimir.
The Slav slid between the crates and disappeared.
He was gone for about ten minutes, during which the cannon fire did not stop. Rouletabille had difficulty suppressing his anxiety. The other two said nothing.
Finally, Vladimir reappeared. “It’s quite simple,” he said. “Your escape from the factory has been perceived, and they must suspect that you’re aboard a boat, for the harbor has been closed and all departures suspended.”
“Damn it! We’re trapped again,” groaned La Candeur. “It was all going so well!” La Candeur, who had made the sacrifice of Nicole a long time ago, though that all would be well as soon as they reached neutral territory.
Rouletabille simply said: “We’ll leave all the same, because we have to leave. Are you ready, Vladimir?”
“I’m only ready for lunch at noon, myself,” Vladimir replied.
“A Boche,” the other replied, “is always ready to celebrate, at any time of the day or night—so take advantage of the forced delay in the work imposed by the official ban to get a party going. Get all the food out, and Nelpas Pacha’s hampers of champagne! A Pacha, a friend of Enver the Magnificent, knows how to do things properly.”
“Understood! All agreed for noon!”
“Let the feast begin. Go find the captain. To table—and quickly!”
“The captain does whatever I want,” said Vladimir. “Nelpas Pacha is rich enough for that. And once the Messieurs have drunk, the rest won’t be far behind. The champagne’s a good vintage, I assure you.”
“Send down the weapons quickly. We have to be masters of the boat in an hour. Offer them all a drink! Stuff them! In half an hour, we’ll serve powder to anyone who hasn’t drunk enough. And in a few hours, Messieurs, we’ll be in Arnhem.”
“Damn it!” La Candeur exclaimed again, in whom hope as reborn. “That’s a last adventure I like—on condition, my dear Vladimir, that when you send down the weapons, you bring me a few bottles of champagne. I’m thirsty!”
“No, Vladimir replied. “It’s better that you don’t drink that champagne!”
You will certainly not have forgotten the dispatch published by all the Allied newspapers, sent from Le Havre on 15 January 1915. It recounted the extraordinary escape of a number of Liégeois, who had taken possession of a boat and had succeeded in fleeing by that means to Holland. Rouletabille related much later that he had been inspired by that dispatch in the plan he had made with Vladimir, and we can do no better than reproduce it here exactly:
Le Havre, 14 January
We were recently informed of an audacious coup by Belgians who, after having got some German mariners drunk, took possession of their boat and set a course for Holland, where they arrived without incident. That feat has just been repeated in extraordinary conditions of audacity. It has permitted three hundred Liégeois,24 among whom were a number of women and children, to leave Liège by night aboard a boat requisitioned by the Germans, the Atlas V, and to reach Holland.
The Atlas V is a tug, a former warship of a certain strength, subsequently bought by a neutral power. It left Liège at about midnight, carried by the strong current of the Meuse, which had been caused to overflow by flooding; in the course of its journey it encountered numerous obstacles: a wooden bridge near Visé, and cables laid across the river, but it overcame them all.
The pilot had armored his cabin with the aid of steel plates taken from the coal-bunker. Thanks to that, he was a
ble to brave numerous rifle-shots fired by German sentries and machine-gun fire. Cannon were even aimed at the vessel, but they could not reach it.
The voyage from Liège to Eisden in Holland was complete in an hour and three-quarters. The passengers were lying at the bottom of the hold. None was hit. We should add that the boat had just been repaired by the Germans at a cost of 3500 francs.
Things happened with similar simplicity aboard the Wesel. In the course of a lunch offered to the ship’s officers, a part of the crew and fifty additional passengers, five demons, armed to the teeth, surged forth while the champagne was flowing freely and had already produced quite unexpected soporific effects on a certain number. The officers were taken prisoner and locked in the hold. The rest offered no resistance. The chief engineers and the mechanics had o obey the orders given to them under threat of death, and the Wesel, emerging from Duisburg, had soon reached Ruhrort, at the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine. It was there that difficulties might have faced the audacious fugitives, until then invincible. Pursued by a tug on the poop-deck of which numerous officers could be distinguished uttering veritable howls of rage, Rouletabille and his companions did not hesitate to open fire with all their weapons. The tug was soon joined by two motor launches.
Fortunately for our friends, an escape as extraordinary as that of a cargo-vessel defying official orders in the heart of Germany, in a region far from the hostilities, had not been anticipated. They found themselves disarmed before such audacity. There were plenty of gunboats along the Ruhr, but none was in a condition to give chase; they had returned there for repairs. The boats that gave chase to the Wesel were unarmed.
Sheltered behind the bulwarks and the sides, Rouletabille, Fulbert and the Pole shot numerous victims, while La Candeur and Vladimir watched over the captive crew and the stokers below decks, revolvers in hand.
North of Ruhrort, the pursuit was abandoned by the Boche, but Rouletabille did not think that it would be for long. The telephone must have done its work. They must have been warned at the frontier—but it was necessary to get through all the same.
Rouletabille at Krupp's Page 17