The good sun warmed their shoulders; they heard nothing, thought of nothing, were lost to the world. They fished.
But suddenly a dull boom, which seemed to come from underground, made the earth tremble. The bombardment had begun again.
Morissot turned his head. Away above the bank he could see on the left the great silhouette of Mont Valérien, showing a white plume in its cap, a puff of smoke just belched forth. Then a second spurt of smoke shot up from the fort’s summit, and some seconds afterwards was heard the roar of the gun.
Then more and more. Every minute the hill breathed out death, sending forth clouds of white smoke, which rose slowly to the calm heaven, and made a crown of cloud.
Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders. “At it again!” he said.
Morissot, who was anxiously watching the bobbing of his float, was seized with the sudden fury of a man of peace against these maniacs battering at each other, and he growled out: “Idiots I call them, killing each other like that!”
“Worse than the beasts!” said Monsieur Sauvage.
And Morissot, busy with a fish, added: “It’ll always be like that, in my opinion, so long as we have governments.”
Monsieur Sauvage cut him short. “The Republic would never have declared war—”
Morissot broke in: “Under a monarchy you get war against your neighbours; under a republic—war amongst yourselves.”
And they began tranquilly discussing and unravelling momentous political problems with the sweet reasonableness of peaceable, ignorant men, who agreed at any rate on one point, that Man would never be free.
And Mont Valérien thundered without ceasing, shattering with its shells the homes of France, pounding out life, crushing human beings, putting an end to many a dream, to many an expected joy, to many a hope of happiness; opening everywhere, too, in the hearts of wives, of girls, of mothers, wounds that would never heal.
“Such is life!” declared Monsieur Sauvage.
“You mean ‘such is death,’ ” said Morissot, and laughed.
They both gave a sudden start; there was surely someone coming up behind them. Turning their eyes they saw, standing close to their very elbows, four men, four big bearded men, dressed in a sort of servant’s livery, with flat caps on their heads, pointing rifles at them.
The rods fell from their hands and floated off downstream.
In a few seconds they were seized, bound, thrown into a boat, and taken over to the island.
Behind the house that they had thought deserted they perceived some twenty German soldiers.
A sort of hairy giant, smoking a great porcelain pipe, and sitting astride of a chair, said in excellent French: “Well, gentlemen, what luck fishing?”
Whereupon a soldier laid at his officer’s feet the net full of fish, which he had carefully brought along.
The Prussian smiled. “I see—not bad. But we’ve other fish to fry. Now listen to me, and keep cool. I regard you two as spies sent to watch me. I take you, and I shoot you. You were pretending to fish, the better to disguise your plans. You’ve fallen into my hands; so much the worse for you. That’s war. But, seeing that you passed through your outposts, you must assuredly have been given the password to get back again. Give it me, and I’ll let you go.”
Livid, side by side, the two friends were silent, but their hands kept jerking with little nervous movements.
The officer continued: “No one will ever know; it will be all right; you can go home quite easy in your minds. If you refuse, it’s death—instant death. Choose.”
They remained motionless, without a word.
The Prussian, calm as ever, stretched out his hands towards the water, and said: “Think! In five minutes you’ll be at the bottom of that river. In five minutes. You’ve got families, I suppose?”
Mont Valérien went on thundering. The two fishermen stood there silent.
The German gave an order in his own language. Then he moved his chair so as not to be too near his prisoners. Twelve men came forward, took their stand twenty paces away, and grounded arms.
The officer said: “I give you one minute; not a second more.”
And, getting up abruptly, he approached the two Frenchmen, took Morissot by the arm, and, drawing him aside, whispered: “Quick, that password. Your friend need never know. It will only look as if I’d relented.” Morissot made no answer.
Then the Prussian took Monsieur Sauvage apart, and asked him the same question.
Monsieur Sauvage did not reply.
Once again they were side by side. The officer gave a word of command. The soldiers raised their rifles.
At that moment Morissot’s glance alighted on the net full of gudgeons lying on the grass a few paces from him. The sunshine was falling on that glittering heap of fishes, still full of life. His spirit sank. In spite of all effort his eyes filled with tears.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Sauvage!” he stammered out.
Monsieur Sauvage answered: “Goodbye, Monsieur Morissot.”
They grasped each other’s hands, shaken from head to foot by a trembling that they could not control.
“Fire!” cried the officer.
Twelve shots rang out as one.
Monsieur Sauvage fell forward like a log. Morissot, the taller, wavered, spun around, and came down across his comrade, his face upturned to the sky; blood spurted from his tunic, torn across the chest.
The German gave another order. His men dispersed. They came back with ropes and stones, which they fastened to the feet of the two dead friends, whom they carried to the river bank. And Mont Valérien never ceased rumbling, crowned now with piled-up clouds of smoke.
Two of the soldiers took Morissot by the head and heels, two others laid hold of Monsieur Sauvage in the same manner. The bodies, swung violently to and fro, were hurled forward, described a curve, then plunged upright into the river, where the stones dragged them down feet first.
The water splashed up, foamed, and rippled, then fell calm again, and tiny waves rolled out towards the banks.
A few bloodstains floated away.
The officer,
