Read Ebook: Two Daring Young Patriots; or Outwitting the Huns by Shervill W P Webb Archibald Illustrator

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Ebook has 1022 lines and 58194 words, and 21 pages

"Can't help it, Dale. But there's one thing you must promise me before I go, and that is, that if I should not come back you will come over and see me. Spend a fortnight at our place at Li?ge in the summer--eh?"

"You're coming back, old man," replied Dale with determination. "But all the same, I will give you the promise if you like. My uncle and aunt--all the relatives I have--would not mind, I know."

"Thanks, old man--you shall have a good time."

Presently Durend left, and in forty-eight hours he was back in his own home in Belgium on the outskirts of Li?ge. Prompt as he had been, he found he was too late, for his father had died at the time he was on the boat on the way to Antwerp.

Though not altogether unexpected, the blow was a severe one to Max Durend. He had been very fond of his father, who had latterly treated him more as a chum than anything else, and had talked much to him of his plans for the time when he could assist him in his business. His mother was, of course, even more upset, and though Max and his sister, a girl of twelve, did their best to comfort her, she was quite prostrated for some days.

It was now more than ever necessary that Max should enter his father's business, and, when old and experienced enough, endeavour to carry it on. From the nature of the business it was evident that this was no light task, and would require a great deal of training and an immense amount of hard work if it were to be done successfully. But the prospect of hard work did not appeal Max, and within a fortnight of his father's death he was busy learning the details of the vast business carried on under his name.

Monsieur Durend had been the proprietor of very large iron and steel foundries and workshops in Li?ge. The business was an immense one, and, beside the manufacture of all kinds of machinery and railway material, worked for its own benefit several coal and iron mines, all of which were in the district or on the outskirts of the town. The business had been a very flourishing one, and had been largely under the personal direction of the proprietor, assisted by his manager, M. Otto Schenk, to whose ability and energy, M. Durend was always ready to acknowledge, it owed much of its success. The latter was now, of course, the mainstay of the business, and it was with every confidence in his ability that Madame Durend appointed him general manager with almost unlimited powers.

M. Schenk was indeed a man to impress people at the outset with a sense of strength and of power to command. He was over six feet in height, broad, but with rather sloping shoulders, and very stoutly built. His head, large itself, almost seemed to merge in a greater neck, and both were held stiffly erect as he glowered at the world through cold and rather protruding eyes, much as a drill-instructor glares at his pupils. He was florid-complexioned, with short, closely-cropped grey hair and a short, stubby, dirty-white moustache. Of his grasp of the affairs of the firm and his business ability generally, people were not so immediately impressed as they were with his power to command, but they invariably learned to appreciate this side of his character in time.

The matter of the direction of the affairs of the firm settled to everyone's satisfaction, the question as to what was to be done with Max came up for discussion.

"I think it will be best, Max, if you go into M. Schenk's office and assist him there," said Madame Durend at last. "You will there pick up the threads of the business, and when you are two or three years older we can consider what we are going to do."

"But, Mother," replied Max, "that was not the way Father learned his business. You have often proudly told me how he used to work as a simple mechanic, going from shop to shop and learning all he could of the practical side of the different processes. How he then bought a small business, extended it and extended it, until it grew to its present size. And the whole secret of his success was that he knew the work so thoroughly from top to bottom that he could depend upon his own knowledge, and needed not to be in the hands of men with more knowledge of detail but vastly less capacity than himself."

"Yes, Max, that is true; but the business is now built up, and is so big that it does not seem necessary for you to go through all that. We have an able manager, and from him you can learn all that you will ever need to know of the work of directing the affairs of the firm."

"I should then never know the work thoroughly. I should always be dependent upon those who had learned the practical side of the work, Mother. Let me spend a year or two in learning it from the bottom. I shall enjoy the work, and shall then feel far more confidence in myself."

Max spoke earnestly, and his mother could see that he was longing to throw himself heart and soul into the work. It was, indeed, the spirit in which he had flung himself into the task of lifting Benson's to the Head of the River over again. Though she had a mother's dislike to the idea of her son's donning blouse and apron and working cheek by jowl with the workmen, she had also a clear perception that it would be a mistake to discourage such energy and thoroughness. She therefore resolved to consult M. Schenk on the morrow, and, if he saw no special objection, to allow Max to have his way.

M. Schenk did see several objections, foremost among which was his view that for the master's son to work like a common workman would tend to lessen the present extremely strict discipline in the workshops. Max, however, scouted such an idea as an unfair reflection on the men, and continued to press his point of view most strenuously. In the end he managed to get his way, and within a week had started work at the firm's smelting furnaces.

This story does not, however, deal with the experiences of Max Durend in learning the various activities of the great manufactory founded by his father. It will, therefore, suffice if we relate one incident that had, in the sequel, an important influence upon his career, an incident, too, that gives an insight into his character and that of the different classes of workmen that would, in the course of time, come under his control.

Max was at the time working at a huge turret lathe in one of the turning-shops. Around him were other workmen similarly engaged. Across the room ran numerous great leather driving-bands, running at high speed and driving the great machines with which the place was filled. Apparently the material of one of the driving-bands was faulty, for it suddenly parted, slipped off the driving-wheels, and became entangled in one of the other bands. As this spun round the loose band caught in the machine close by, wrenched it from its foundation and turned it over on its side, pinning down to the floor the workman attending to it.

The man gave a screech as he was borne down, a screech that was broken off short as the heavy machine fell partly upon his neck and chest, choking him with its fell weight. A straggling cry of alarm was raised by the other workmen who witnessed the tragic occurrence, and many pressed forward to his aid. But the great band which had done the mischief was being carried round and round by the driving-band in which it had become entangled, and was viciously flogging the air and floor all about the stricken man.

Some of the men shouted for the engines to be stopped, others ran for something that could be interposed to take the rain of blows from the flying band. Max, however, saw that something more prompt than this was necessary. From the look on the man's face it was clear that if the pressure on his throat and chest were not immediately relaxed he would be choked to death.

Crawling forward beneath the flogging band, and bowing his head to its pitiless flagellations, Max grasped the overturned machine and strove to lift it off the unfortunate man. The weight was altogether too great for him to lift unaided, but he found he could raise it a fraction of an inch and enable the man to gain a little breath.

Holding it thus, Max grimly stood his ground with his head down, his teeth firmly set, and his back arched against the rhythmic rain of blows from the great band. Soon the clothes were flogged from off his back, and the band touched the bare skin. Almost fainting, he held on, for the eyes of the man below him were staring up at him with a look of dumb and frightened entreaty that roused in him all the strength of mind and fixity of purpose he possessed.

The shouts for the engines to be stopped at last prevailed. The bands revolved more slowly, and then ceased altogether. Many willing hands were laid upon the overturned machine, and it was lifted off the prostrate man just as Max's strength gave out, and he sank limply to the floor in a deep swoon.

Neither Max nor the workman was seriously injured. Both had had a severe shock, and Max, in addition, had wounds that, while not dangerous, were extremely painful. After six weeks at Ostend, however, he was himself again, and ready to continue his work in yet another branch of the firm's activities. This time he was to learn the miner's craft, and to see for himself all that appertained to the trade of hewing out coal and iron from the interior of the earth and lifting it to the surface.

On the evening of his return to Li?ge from Ostend he was sitting in his study alone, reading up the subject that was to be unfolded in actual practice before his gaze on the morrow, when there came a knock at the door.

"Come in," he yelled.

The door opened, and the maid ushered in a middle-aged workman in his Sunday clothes, accompanied by a woman whom Max guessed to be his wife. The man he recognized at once as the workman he had succoured in the accident to the driving-band.

"Monsieur Dubec--he would come in," explained the servant deprecatingly, as she withdrew and closed the door.

The man looked furtively at Max, twisted his cap nervously in his hands, and stood gazing down at the floor in sheepish silence. His wife was less ill at ease, and, after nudging her spouse ineffectually once or twice, blurted out rapidly:

"He has come, Monsieur, to thank you for saving his life, and to tell you that he will work for you and serve you so long as he lives. He is my man, and I say the same, Monsieur, though I do not work in the shops, and cannot help. But if ever ye should want aught done, Monsieur, send for Madame Dubec, and she will serve you with all her heart in any way you wish."

The woman spoke in a trembling voice, and with a deep and earnest sincerity that showed how much she was moved. Her emotion, indeed, communicated itself to Max, and he felt as tongue-tied as the man Dubec himself. It had somehow not occurred to him that he would be thanked, and the whole thing took him by surprise. Still, he had to say something, and he struggled to find something that would put them at their ease.

"I am sure you will, Madame Dubec, and I will remember your offer indeed. But make not too much of what I have done. I was near at hand, and came forward first, but many of your husband's comrades were as ready, though not quite so quick. It was the aid of one comrade given to another, and one day it may be my turn to receive and your husband's to give."

The man shook his head vigorously in dissent, and in so doing seemed to find his tongue.

"Nay, sir, 'tis much more than that. Some there are who would have helped; but the more part of my fellow-workmen would not lift a hand to help another in distress. As ye must have noticed, sir, there are two classes of men in your father's works. There are the Belgians born and bred, who loved your father and hated, and still hate, the tyrant Schenk and the German-speaking workmen who have joined in such numbers of late that we others fear a time will soon come for us to go. The Belgians are good comrades, and would have come to my aid had they the quickness to have known what to do. The others would have seen me die unmoved--I know it."

"But they, too, are Belgians, are they not?"

"Aye, sir, they are Belgians so far as the law can tell; but they speak not our tongue, and are not really of us."

"They are good workmen, and M. Schenk thinks much of them."

"True. But they do not hold with the rest of us, and we do not like them. Nor do we trust them, sir."

The man spoke in an earnest, almost a warning, tone, and Max looked at him in some surprise. It seemed more than the mere jealousy of a Walloon at the presence of so many men, alien in tongue and race, in a business which had once been exclusively their own. Max had himself noticed the two classes of workmen, but had, if he thought about it at all, put it down as inevitable in a town so near the frontiers of three States.

"Well, never mind them, Monsieur Dubec," he replied reassuringly. "They have not been with us long, and it may be they will be better comrades in a few years' time. And now good-bye! Think not too much of your accident, and it will be the better for you and me."

"Good-bye, and may the bon Dieu bless you, sir!" replied both Monsieur and Madame Dubec in a fashion that told Max that he had gained two friends at least, and friends whose staunchness could be depended upon to the utmost.

M. Schenk's view of the whole affair was blunt and to the point. "You are foolish," he said to Max, "to trouble yourself about these workmen. They are cattle, and it is always best to treat them as such. That has always been my way, and it has answered well. Consider them and humour them, and the next minute they want to strike for more. Bah! Keep them in their place; it is best so."

"But," urged Max, quite distressed as he thought of Dubec, and recalled the accents of trembling sincerity of his spouse--"but surely many of them are better led than driven--the best of them, at any rate? I know little of business as yet, but something tells me that it is well for us to get the goodwill of our men."

"It is not worth a straw," replied M. Schenk with conviction. "The goodwill, as you call it, of your managers, and perhaps even of your foremen, is of value, but the goodwill of your men--your rank and file--is of no account. So long as they obey, and obey promptly, you have all that is necessary to carry on even a great undertaking like this successfully."

Max felt uncommonly angry. He had been conscious for some time past that M. Schenk was acting as though he expected to rule the affairs of the firm for all time, and the thought galled him greatly. Was not he, Max, sweating and struggling through every workshop solely in order that he might fit himself to direct affairs? How was it, then, that this man, in his own mind, practically ignored him? Was it because he was so incompetent that the manager thought he never would be fit to take his place? Max certainly felt more angry than he had ever done before, and, unable to trust himself to speak, abruptly left the manager's presence and walked rapidly away.

One good result the conversation had, and that was to redouble Max's ardour to learn, and learn thoroughly, every branch of the work in every part of the vast concern.

The Cataclysm

The second summer since Max Durend had left Hawkesley had come, and for the second time Max invited his friend Dale to come over to Li?ge and spend a few weeks with him. The previous summer they had spent most pleasantly on a walking-tour through the Ardennes, and they were now going to do the same thing along the Middle and Upper Rhine. Max had originally planned a tour in Holland, but M. Schenk recommended the Rhine valley as much more varied and picturesque, and Max had agreed readily enough to follow his recommendation.

Behold them then setting out from Bonn railway station, knapsack on back and walking-stick in hand, full of spirits and go, for a four or five weeks' tramp, first through the Drachenfels and then on through the pretty Rhine-side villages, making a detour here and there to visit the more picturesque and broken country through which the Rhine made its way. They marched light, their only baggage besides their knapsacks being a large Gladstone shared between them. This they did not take with them, but used, merely to replenish their knapsacks occasionally with clean linen, by sending it along a week or so ahead of them to such towns as they expected to visit later on.

Their days were full of happiness, peace, and contentment, and the last days of July, 1914, drew to a close all too rapidly for them. They knew next to nothing of the fearful storm brewing, until Dale happened, towards the end of the second week of their holidays, to take up and glance down the columns of a German newspaper lying on the table of the hotel at which they were about to dine. His knowledge of German was small, but was sufficient to enable him to grasp the purport of the thick headlines with which the journal was plentifully supplied.

"Hullo, Max, look at this," he cried, pointing to the thick type. "German ultimatum to Russia. Immediate demobilization demanded." "That looks serious, eh?"

"Phew! It does," cried Max, taking the paper and rapidly scanning the chief columns. "You may be sure that if Russia is in it France will be too. My hat! what a war it will be!"

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