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diff --git a/37294.txt b/37294.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36c8403 --- /dev/null +++ b/37294.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4381 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Red Cross Barge, by Marie Belloc Lowndes + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Red Cross Barge + + +Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes + + + +Release Date: September 2, 2011 [eBook #37294] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED CROSS BARGE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/redcrossbarge00lown + + + + + +THE RED CROSS BARGE + +by + +MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES + +Author of 'The Chink in the Armour,' 'The Lodger,' 'Good Old Anna,' etc. + + + + + + + +London +Smith, Elder & Co. +15 Waterloo Place +1916 + +[All rights reserved] + + + + +THE RED CROSS BARGE + + + + +PART I + + +1 + +The Herr Doktor moved away his chair from the large round table across +half of which, amid the remains of a delicious dessert a large-scale map +of the surrounding French countryside had been spread out. + +On the other half of the table had been pushed a confusion of delicate +white-and-gold coffee-cups and almost empty liqueur-bottles--signs of +the pleasant ending to the best dinner the five young Uhlan officers who +were now gathered together in this French inn-parlour had eaten since +'The Day.' + +Although the setting sun still threw a warm, lambent light on the high +chestnut trees in the paved courtyard outside, the low-walled room was +already beginning to be filled with the pale golden shadows of an August +night. A few moments ago the Herr Commandant had loudly called for a +lamp, and Madame Blanc, owner of the Tournebride, had herself brought it +in. Placed in the centre of the table the lamp illumined the flushed, +merry young faces now bent over the large coloured map. + +Alone the Herr Doktor sat apart from the bright circle of light, and, +although he was himself smoking a pipe, the fumes of the other men's +strong cigars seemed to stifle him. + +Of only medium height, with the thoughtful, serious face which marks the +thinker and worker; clad, too, in the plain, practical 'feld-grau' +uniform of a German Red Cross surgeon, he was quite unlike his temporary +comrades. And there was a further reason for this unlikeness. The Herr +Doktor, Max Keller by name, was from Weimar; the young officers now +round him were Prussians of the Junker class. They were quite civil to +the Herr Doktor--in fact they were too civil--and their high spirits, +their constant, exultant boasts of all they meant to do in Paris--in +Paris where they expected to be within a week, for it was now August 27, +1914--jarred on his tired, sensitive brain. + +Behind his large tortoise-shell spectacles the Herr Doktor's eyes ached +and smarted. He belonged to the generation which had been, even as +children, put into spectacles. His present companions, more fortunate +than he, had been born into the 'nature-eye' cycle of German oculistic +research. Not one of them wore spectacles, and their exemption was one +of the many reasons why he, though only thirty-four years of age, felt +so much older, and so apart from them in every way. + +Alone, of the six men gathered together to-night in that French +inn-parlour, the Herr Doktor knew what war really means, and +something--as yet he did not know much--of what it brings with it. He +had been, if not exactly in, then what he secretly thought far worse, +close to, the battle of Charleroi, and for the ten days which had +followed that battle he had been plunged in all the stern horrors, and +the gaspingly hurried, unceasing work, of an improvised field hospital. + +The fine abounding-with-life young officers, with whom a special +circumstance had thrown him for some days, had so far escaped even a +skirmish with the unfeared enemy; that they loudly lamented the fact, +that they cursed, in all sincerity, the chance which had delayed their +regiment till the first series of victories--Mons, St. Quentin, +Charleroi--which had opened the wide road to Paris, was over, secretly +irritated the Herr Doktor. _He_ knew the limitless extent to which they +were to be envied. And that knowledge made him hopelessly out of touch +with them--out of touch as he could never be with the arrogant +by-his-mother-spoilt lieutenant, his Highness Prince Egon von +Witgenstein, whose arrival in the luxurious motor ambulance now standing +just outside in the courtyard of the Tournebride alone accounted for the +Herr Doktor's presence here. It was true that the boastful, childishly +vain, fretful-tempered Prince Egon also talked unceasingly of the baser +charms of Paris, but he, at any rate, had earned his right to those +same base charms by the three wounds from which he was now slowly +recovering, thanks to the skill and care of the Weimar surgeon. + +Sitting there, apart from the others, puffing steadily, silently, at his +pipe, the Herr Doktor's mind, his dreamy, sensitive, imaginative mind, +retraced all that had happened in the last two hours. + +The taking possession of this charming little town of Valoise-sur-Marne +had been carried through with most agreeable ease. The Mayor had +blustered a bit, and had expressed his determination to write an account +of all that had taken place to his Government. But when he had been +told, in language of careful, cold, calculated brutality, that at the +slightest disturbance or ill-behaviour of his townsmen or townswomen, he +himself would be at once led out and shot, he had come to heel, and +promised to do his best to preserve order. + +There had been, however, a rather painful scene, one which the Herr +Doktor disliked to remember, with the parish priest. The Cure of Valoise +was an old, white-haired man, and at first he had behaved with +considerable dignity--with far more dignity, for instance, than the +excitable Mayor. Also he had expressed himself as quite willing to be +hostage for his flock's good behaviour. + +The scene had occurred when the priest had been ordered off with the +guard to the temporary prison he was to share with the Mayor. With what +had seemed a most uncalled-for agitation, he had pleaded to be allowed +to go and pay a last visit to three dying men. 'Surely you will accept +my word of honour to return within one hour?' he had exclaimed, and +then, in answer to a natural, if sharply uttered question--'No, I +cannot--I will not--tell you where these dying men are! All I can say is +that they are well within the limits of the town.' To accede to his +request had been, of course, out of the question; and to the Herr +Doktor's surprise, and indeed to his disgust, it was plain that the +German Commandant's refusal to let the old priest have his way had +gratified the Mayor--indeed the only smile any of them had seen on the +French Republican official's face was while this discussion, this +urgent painful discussion, was going on. + +After it was over, the two of them had been marched off to the +Tournebride, where a large windowless fruit and tool house, standing +isolated in the middle of Madame Blanc's kitchen garden, had been +assigned to them as prison. + +Everything else had gone quite smoothly, and both officers and men had +found delightful quarters in the fine old inn which stood at the top of +the hill, taking up all one side of the Grande Place. The Tournebride, +so the Commandant informed the Herr Doktor, had been noted among gay +Parisians, in the days of peace which now seemed so long ago, as a +motoring luncheon and supper resort. Thus the conquerors of Valoise had +found there the best of good wine, good food, and good beds. + + +2 + +At last the Herr Doktor got up from his chair. Unnoticed by the others, +he slipped out into the cooler air outside. The courtyard, shaded by +high horse chestnut trees, was now crowded with good-humoured German +cavalry-men waiting, patiently enough, for the savoury meal which Madame +Blanc and her two anxious-faced young daughters were engaged in +preparing for them. + +As the Herr Doktor walked quickly over to the other side of the +quadrangle, the soldiers respectfully made way for him, and he stood, +for a few moments unnoticed, on the threshold of the big kitchen of the +Tournebride. To eyes already war-worn it was a pleasant sight. + +To and fro in her low, arch-roofed, spacious domain, the landlady came +and went, busily intent on her considerable task of feeding over a +hundred men. There were huge copper cauldrons on the steel top of the +_fourneau_, and Madame Blanc herself constantly stirred and inspected +their contents. But when she became suddenly aware of the German +doctor's presence at the kitchen door, she stayed her labours and came +towards him. + +Silently she waited, a stern look of heavy-hearted endurance on her +face, for him to speak; and at last, in a French which was somewhat +halting, he put the question he had come to ask, and on the answer to +which, as he well knew, depended a good deal of the future comfort of +his illustrious, tiresome patient, Prince Egon von Witgenstein. Was +there a hospital in Valoise? + +'There is no hospital in Valoise.' Madame Blanc's voice was very, very +cold. But after a moment's pause she added: 'The nuns were chased away +four years ago, and the Government have not yet decided what to do with +their convent.' + +As there came a look of disappointment on his mild face she went on, as +if the words were being dragged from her reluctant lips: 'But M. le +Medecin will find a Red Cross barge on the river.' + +Madame Blanc's powerful, swarthy face was set and grim; she did not look +as if she had ever smiled, or if she had, would ever smile again. Yet +the man now standing opposite to her remembered that, when he had first +arrived with his patient, she had shown a certain maternal interest in +the inmate of the Red Cross motor ambulance which now stood in a corner +of her large paved courtyard, also that within a few minutes of the +peaceful assault of her inn she had herself cooked for the wounded +officer a delicate little meal. + +The Herr Doktor smiled conciliatingly, but she gave him no answering +smile. Her heart was still too full of wrath, of surprise, of agonised, +impotent rage, at the happenings of the last two hours. + +A troop of the abhorred, dreaded Uhlans had suddenly appeared, +clattering along the wide Route Nationale which followed the right bank +of the river Marne. Without drawing rein they had ridden up the steep, +central street of Valoise, and then they had turned straight into the +courtyard of the Tournebride. + +Madame Blanc had been amazed at the extent and particularity of the +Prussians' knowledge of the town, and of her inn. Not only had they +greeted her, with a strange mixture of joviality and sternness, by name, +but the golden-haired, pink-cheeked commanding officer had actually +alluded to the _specialite_ of the Tournebride--a certain chicken-liver +omelette which Parisians motored out to enjoy on all fine Sundays from +each May to each October! And then, perhaps because she had tacitly +refused to fall in with his pleasant humour, the young Uhlan officer, +after his first roughly jovial words, had suddenly threatened her with +mysterious and terrible penalties if she disobeyed, in any one +particular, his own and his comrades' confusing orders. + +Yes, they had only arrived two hours ago, and yet already Madame Blanc +hated these arrogant Uhlan officers with all the strength of her +powerful, secretive French nature. Quite willingly, had she thought it +would have served the slightest good purpose, would she have put a good +dose of poison in the excellent soup they, in the company of the man now +talking to her, had just eaten. + +She also hated, but in an infinitely lesser degree, their men--those +big, bearded, splendidly equipped soldiers clad in the grey-green cloth +which her strong common sense had at once told her must be so far more +serviceable, because blending with nature's colouring, than the bright +blue and red uniforms of her own countrymen. But for the wounded youth, +who now lay straight and still in the huge grey motor-car, bearing on +its side a painted Red Cross which she could almost touch from where she +stood at her low kitchen door, she felt a thrill of motherly pity and +concern.... + +'A Red Cross barge on the river?' repeated the Herr Doktor doubtfully. + +For a man who had never been in France before, and who had been taught +French by a German who, in his turn, had never been in France save +during the brief, glorious-and-ever-victorious-campaign of 1870, the +Herr Doktor spoke very fair French. But while he spoke, and even more +while he listened to Madame Blanc's quick, short utterances, he blamed +himself severely for having wasted so much time on the English language. +English was now never likely to be of much use to him, save perhaps +during the coming Occupation of London. If only he had spent as much +time and trouble over French as he had done over English, not only +would it have been useful here and now, but it would have been +invaluable a little later on--when he took up his quarters, as he hoped +to do within the next two or three weeks, at the Pasteur Institute in +Paris. + +'Yes,' said Madame Blanc, with a touch of irritation in her even, +vibrating voice, 'as I have just had the honour of explaining to M. le +Medecin, there is a Red Cross barge on our river. Mademoiselle Rouannes +is there all day, from six in the morning till nine o'clock each night.' + +'Is Mademoiselle'--he had not really caught the curious name, 'is +she'--he hesitated for the right phrase--'is she a Sister of +Compassion?' + +'I have just told M. le Medecin that all our good sisters were chased +away by the Government four years ago. Mademoiselle Rouannes is our +doctor's daughter.' + +And then, as the man standing before her uttered a quick guttural +exclamation of relief, she added sharply, 'You cannot see Doctor +Rouannes, for he is very ill--some say he is dying.' As again she saw a +look of disappointment overcast his face, she added--'But his daughter +is a very serious demoiselle. The wounded have every confidence in +Mademoiselle Rouannes.' + +'Thank you, Madame, I will now the barge of the Red Cross go and seek,' +he said, and bowed courteously. + +'It is just at the bottom of the hill, this side of the lock. But wait a +minute--I can show you the exact place from the _abreuvoir_.' + +She stepped across the threshold of her kitchen, and walked, with a good +deal of simple dignity, through the groups of tall soldiers who stood at +ease, contentedly smoking their big pipes under the chestnut-leaves +canopy of her courtyard. They made way for her pleasantly enough--some +even smiled the foolish, fond smile of the big man-child, for she +reminded more than one of these burly giants of his own mother. But +Madame Blanc gave no answering smile, as, gazing straight before her, +she hurried on towards the high gilt gates of her domain--a domain which +till a hundred years ago, and for more than a hundred years before that, +had kennelled royal staghounds, and housed their huntsmen. + +The Herr Doktor stopped for a moment to speak to a non-commissioned +officer, a good fellow who came from his own town of Weimar. 'Keep an +eye on the motor ambulance,' he muttered. 'You might, in fact, go and +ask His Highness if he requires anything further just now. Tell him I +have gone out to look for quiet quarters. It would be impossible to have +the Prince here to-night; the house won't settle down for a long time.' + +The other grinned, broadly. 'These are comfortable, +greatly-to-be-commended quarters, nevertheless, Herr Doktor.' And the +Herr Doktor, nodding, hastened after his guide. + +He followed her through the wrought-iron gilt gates, now wreathed with +white jessamine and orange-coloured trumpet flowers, and so to the great +open space which formed the apex, not only of the hill, but of the +little town, of Valoise-sur-Marne. + +A moment later they stood before the oval _abreuvoir_, a stone-rimmed +pool at which the timid does sometimes came, even now, to quench their +thirst at night. + +For a few moments Madame Blanc gazed dumbly over the dear familiar +scene, and the German surgeon respected her silence. + +Lit by the afterglow of the setting August sun, the little town of +Valoise lay spread before them ... a picturesque, gaily charming cluster +of white, grey, and red roof-trees, full of the peaceful stateliness of +aspect which is a distinguishing mark of so many of the old villages and +towns set amid chestnut groves, and on river banks, within easy reach of +Paris. + +From the days of Henri IV, the Kings of France had possessed a favourite +hunting lodge on the edge of the wooded uplands stretching behind the +town, and though the Pavillon du Roi had been destroyed during the +Revolution, the avenue of high forest trees which had once bounded the +royal demesne still remained, faithful witness to a vanished glory, +while a fragmentary survival of what had been a grandiose and splendid +whole remained in the stone _abreuvoir_. + +And yet, as following his companion's example, the Herr Doktor gazed +over what was in truth a singularly pleasing and soothing scene, a +sense of chill, even of discomfort, crept over his kindly heart. + +Valoise looked, on this fine summer evening, as might look a place +stricken with the plague. Some melancholy-looking dogs had been shut out +of doors: they, and a few cats who leapt furtively out of their way, +seemed the only living things in the town. + +Why were the French civilian population so sullen? The great, +generous-hearted, all-conquering German army did not war on children and +women--not, that is, so long as these women and children behaved in a +reasonable, civilised manner. + +The Herr Doktor had already heard rumours of certain painful, +frightening things which had had to be done, and which were still being +done, in Belgium. But the French were a more civilised people than the +Belgians--or so the cultured Max Keller had persuaded himself to +believe. Further, the Germans had no real quarrel with the French, the +foolish, impulsive, chivalrous French, who had allowed themselves to be +dragged into a quarrel with which they had no concern, in order to +support barbarous Russia and lawless, savage Servia! + +Standing by the side of the sensible, clean housewife who had just +served him so admirably cooked a meal, the Herr Doktor reflected +complacently that very soon some sort of peace would be signed in Paris, +after which the French and Germans, friends as they had never been +before, would join together to break the might of the now decadent, +nerveless, and treacherous English. + +He would have liked to have expressed some of this comfortable, +so-friendly-to-the-French feeling to the woman who now stood, her hands +clenched together, as if absorbed in painful, far-away thoughts, by his +side. But he knew that his French was too halting to convey these +cultured-and-so-humane and German sentiments. He started slightly when +Madame Blanc suddenly turned to him with the words, 'It is getting +rather too dark to see the place clearly from here, but if M. le Medecin +will go straight down to the river, and across the wall, he will see the +Red Cross barge just in front of him.' + +Before he had time to utter the words aloud, 'Very truly, Madame, do I +thank you,' she had left his side, and was halfway across the Grande +Place, on her way towards the Tournebride. + +Feeling a little discomfited by her abrupt departure, the Herr Doktor +stepped forward, and started walking briskly down the hill. + +How pleasant it was to be alone--alone with his own exciting and, yes, +glorious thoughts! The absence of solitude had been the thing which had +tried Max Keller the most in this amazing-and-ever-victorious campaign. +During the last three days he had found the conversation of Prince +Egon's brother officers particularly wearing, as also very, very--he +hardly knew what phrase to use even in his inmost mind, but at last he +found it--very-lacking-in-culture-and-seriousness. + +The Paris of which these Junkers talked incessantly was not the Paris to +which he, the Herr Doktor, looked forward so eagerly, the Paris, for +instance, of the Pasteur Institute, and of the Salpetriere. The Paris of +these young officers--and he regretted indeed that it was so--was the +Paris which, as every good German knew, so aroused the anger and +contempt of God as to cause France to be once more crushed and +humiliated to the dust. Of this Paris there existed a very fair +imitation in what had been euphemistically called 'the night life of +Berlin,' but Berlin, to the Herr Doktor at any rate, did not stand for +his Fatherland as Paris stands for France. + +So musing, so thankful for even a few moments of peace and solitude, the +mildest of the conquerors of Valoise reached the bottom of the hill. + + * * * * * + +Across the paved Route Nationale was an avenue, or mall, of lime trees +which formed a green wall between the road and the river. He crossed the +street as he had been directed to do, and then, when actually under the +dense arch formed by interlacing branches of green leaves, he uttered an +exclamation of relief; for there before him, close to the entrance of +the lock, and only to be reached by a narrow stone jetty, lay on the +placid, slow-moving waters of the river a broad, white barge, on the +side of which was painted a large Red Cross. The small, square, white +curtained windows just above the dimpling water line were all open, and, +set amidships, was a round porthole, on whose edge stood a pot of +brilliant scarlet geraniums. + +On the deck of the barge stood a woman. She wore the loose, unbecoming +white overall which forms the only uniform of a French Red Cross nurse, +and there was a red cross on her breast. From where he stood the German +surgeon could see that she was young, straight, and lithe. The gleams of +the sun, which was now resting, like a huge scarlet ball, on the +horizon, lit up her fair hair, which was massed, in the French way, +above her forehead. He saw her in profile, for she seemed to be gazing, +through the waning light, down the river beyond the lock. + +With a queer thrill at the heart the Herr Doktor told himself that so +might Wagner have visioned his Elsa in war-time. Since the Herr Doktor +had left Weimar, he had not seen a so awakening-to-the-better-feelings +and pleasant-to-the-senses-of-man sight as was this French golden-haired +girl. + +Taking off his cap--for Max Keller was aware that Frenchwomen are +curiously punctilious, and he did not wish her to suppose that a +cultured German could be lacking in even unnecessary courtesy--he +started walking along the narrow stone jetty. + +And then, when at last he stood just opposite to the barge, and as +suddenly the Red Cross nurse became aware of his presence, he saw a +dreadful look of aversion and dread flash into her face and she turned +and hastened away, down what he concluded must be a stairway leading to +the interior of the barge. + +For what seemed to him a considerable time the Herr Doktor stared at the +now empty deck with a feeling of sharp exasperation and disappointment. + +In the little town where had come that awful rush of wounded after the +battle of Charleroi he had already been in contact with the French Red +Cross. There had been several Frenchwomen--two countesses, so he had +been told, and a duchess--middle-aged ladies who had treated him with +suave, if distant, courtesy, and who had always deferred, most politely +and sensibly, to his professional knowledge. In the same hastily +improvised Feld-Lazaret there had also been three English nurses; +them he had naturally disliked, the more so that they had a sharp, +short way with them, and always seemed to disapprove of his +methods--methods which, being German, were of course in every way +superior-and-more-truly-scientific than anything likely to issue from +the English Army Medical Service. + + +3 + +For some time, perhaps for as long as five minutes, the Herr Doktor +stood on the stone jetty. He did not like to step down upon the barge +and at once take possession of it, as it was his undoubted right, almost +his duty, to do. Also, though in no way a coward, his nerve had been +shaken by the terrible things he had seen, and by the long fatiguing +hours of desperately hard work he had lately gone through. Horrible +stories were whispered as to what the French were capable of doing to an +unarmed enemy. The inside of this big, roomy barge might contain youths +and old men armed with knives and scythes.... Perhaps his wisest course +would be to go up the hill again, and, together with his patient, +return with an armed escort who would deal in summary fashion with any +evil-intentioned inmates of the Red Cross barge. + +While he was thus hesitating, there suddenly floated towards him the +stifled sounds of hurried whisperings. They were followed, a moment +later, by the lady of the barge herself. But her fair hair was now +almost entirely hidden by the severe, unbecoming head-dress of a French +Red Cross nurse; and the hard white coif and flowing veil obscured the +free, graceful, rather haughty poise of her head. + +As at last she faced him squarely, he became painfully aware of the +mingled terror and anger which made her face turn from white to red, and +filled her blue eyes with a dreadful look of haunting fear. + +The Herr Doktor was well read in the great Romantics of the world, and +quite involuntarily he thought of Rebecca and a certain scene in +'Ivanhoe.' + +Just behind the tall, slender figure, forming at once a guard and an +escort to the Red Cross nurse, came a short, sturdy-looking, elderly +woman, clad in a dark blue-and-white check gown, and an old man, dressed +in a shabby black suit. + +Stepping forward alone, Mademoiselle Rouannes stood close to the plank +which connected the stone jetty with the barge, and while the Herr +Doktor was trying to compose the right form of words, at once firm and +conciliatory, with which to address her, she suddenly spoke. + +'How many wounded have you?' she asked, in a low, clear voice. 'I must +tell you, Monsieur, that we have not room for many here, for we already +have eighteen.' As he remained silent, she went on, a little +breathlessly, and he saw that her under-lip was quivering, 'We have one +empty cabin, but it is not very large; it will not hold more than six.' + +And then at last the Herr Doktor found the French words he wanted with +which to answer and to reassure her. + +'I have but one wounded man, gracious demoiselle. It is his Highness +Prince Egon von Witgenstein. You may of him have heard?' + +She shook her head with a touch of scorn, and he saw with relief that, +for some difficult-to-understand reason, she was now no longer as afraid +of him as she had been. + +'Is he very badly wounded?' she asked in the clear, grave voice which +already kindled his heart. + +'He has very badly wounded been, but now on the way to recovery is,' +said the Herr Doktor decidedly. He felt more at ease with this serious, +beautiful maiden now that they were discussing his patient. 'What the +Prince requires rest and care and quiet is. There could not a better +place for him than your Red Cross barge be. Perhaps will you me allow +with your doctor the arrangements to discuss?' His eyes sought +uncertainly the man in the background, the thin, frightened-looking old +man dressed in seedy black. Could this be a French physician? + +Even while speaking he had edged cautiously down the plank footway. +'Have I your gracious permission to advance?' he asked politely. + +And she bent her head. + +A moment later he was standing close to her, gazing with an earnest, +conciliating gaze into her sad blue eyes. She looked pale and worn, but +it was only the transitory pallor and fatigue of youth unaccustomed to +the strain of anxiety, and the wear of work and sorrow. + +'We have no doctor,' she said and, sighing, looked away. 'My father, who +is a doctor, would be here were it not that'--her voice broke +suddenly--'he was terribly wounded--wounded when himself tending the +wounded!' + +'Sorry am I to hear that!' exclaimed the Herr Doktor, and he was indeed +sorry. 'But who attends the eighteen men you tell me you on this barge +have?' + +'_I_ attend them,' she said, and a little more colour came into her +face. 'I and my two friends whom you see here. Most of them were only +slightly wounded, but we have three serious cases.' + +'Perhaps you will allow me to visit them, and see how helpful I to your +three serious cases may be?' He spoke deferentially, and the rigid lines +in which her soft mouth was set relaxed. + +'I thank you,' she said quietly, 'but I fear they are beyond your help.' + +She turned, and preceded him down the narrow, shaftlike stairway. It +terminated in a square passage place, lighted by a porthole, on the +ledge of which stood the pot of geraniums the Herr Doktor had noticed +when standing under the lime tree mall. + +Opening a narrow door to her right, the French girl led him into a +large, low, cabin-room which looked the larger and the barer because +here too everything was white--the walls, the floor, the curtains drawn +across each small square window, and even the coverlets of the pallet +beds in which lay the eighteen wounded men. + +And as he followed the young Red Cross nurse from bed to bed, as he +divined what had once been the condition of most of the young soldiers +there, and saw what it was now, the Herr Doktor paid his guide a secret, +involuntary tribute of respect. She had not exaggerated, as the amateur +nurse so often does, the state of three of her patients. The German +surgeon saw with concern that two out of the three were indeed beyond +his help--they were even now dying. + +'The lad over there might by skilled attention benefit. Has no doctor +him seen?' he asked abruptly. He had not raised his voice, but his +companion's hand shot out; she touched his arm. + +'Don't speak so loudly,' she whispered, 'or he will hear you. The poor +fellow does not know how ill he is!' + +The Herr Doktor felt at once a little irritated and a little moved. +Apparently all Frenchwomen were like that! The only time he had had the +slightest unpleasantness with one of those French noblewomen at the +Feld-Lazaret was when he had suddenly spoken, in front of a certain +wounded boy, of the fact that he could not last many hours. But whereas +he had felt very much annoyed, annoyed and angry, with the rebuke +uttered so sharply by the Red Cross nurse on that former occasion, this +time irritation was merged in indulgent amusement. This fair-haired, +blue-eyed girl--this French Elsa--was after all only a novice, though a +most capable, conscientious, hard-working novice! + +It was good to know that very soon--perhaps as soon as another fortnight +or three weeks--the awful cloud of war would be lifted off beautiful, +prosperous, frivolous France. She would be conquered for her own good, +and would of course have to pay in treasure, as she was now paying in +lives, heavily, for her lesson. But after the coming peace France would +become, not only a peaceful, but what she had never before been, an +affectionate neighbour to wise, masculine, masterful Germany. Already +the Herr Doktor found himself celebrating the peace with France by +planning a return visit to this charming, peaceful, little town of +Valoise-sur-Marne. + +It was a good thing for him as well as for Jeanne Rouannes that, while +she busied herself with the lighting of a hand lamp, she had no clue to +his exultant, disconnected thoughts. + +More and more as she accompanied him to each bedside, and as he listened +to her low, harmonious voice explaining the various cases of those poor +human wrecks--flotsam and jetsam of cruel war--for whom she showed such +pitiful concern, he felt the surprise he had not thought to feel, and +the admiration he was ready to encourage, grow and grow. Glad indeed was +the Herr Doktor to know that there were certain things which he could do +to ease that last, losing conflict with death now being waged by two of +the Frenchmen lying there before him. Impulsively he turned to her--Ah! +if only he could express himself adequately in her difficult, attractive +language! + +And then there came to him a sudden inspiration. + +'Do you speak English?' he asked in the language which, however much he +hated it in theory, came yet so far more easily to his tongue than did +that of France. + +In a surprised tone the Red Cross nurse answered, in the same uncouth +tongue, with the one word, 'Yes.' + +And then, as she listened to his now quick, clear, intelligent +explanation of what might at least bring the ease bred of oblivion to +her dying patients, the look of anxious, almost agonised, strain faded +from her blue eyes and delicately chiselled face; while as for the Herr +Doktor, he felt as though they two had suddenly glided into a harbour of +that happy, innocent No Man's Land where the gigantic absurdities, the +incredible inhumanities of war had never been, and never could take +place. + +Only an hour ago Max Keller would have fiercely denied that anything +connected with England or with the English could be anything but hateful +to him--yet how thankful was he now for that sudden inspiration! It +reversed the roles, gave him the advantage, and that most agreeably, of +this Red Cross nurse, for though he did not speak English nearly as +correctly as did Mademoiselle Rouannes, he expressed himself more +fluently. + +'Have you ever to England been?' he ventured at last. + +She shook her head. 'No, but for some time I had an English lady for a +governess. And now--now I love England!' She looked at him quite +straight as she spoke, and he felt a sudden sense of unease. It was as +if the tide had turned. They were drifting away from that pleasant +harbour of No Man's Land.... + +When they had finished their round, she led him through the little +square passage room into the other and smaller half of the hold. This +cabin was empty, save for a row of pallet beds. 'Will this be suitable +for your wounded officer?' she asked him gently. + +'Yes, very well it will do,' he said hastily. 'And now with your +permission, gracious miss, my two orderlies I will send for the Prince +to prepare.' + +'Cannot my servants make what preparation is needed?' she asked, and +there was a tremor of fear and of revolt in her voice. + +'I fear not. First these beds must moved out be. But do not be +afraid--they will great care take you not in any way to trouble. Indeed, +you will not here be, it must now the time be when you away go.' And as +she looked at him in surprise, he added awkwardly, 'The hostess of the +Tournebride--I think Madame Blanc her name is--told me that you the +barge at nine o'clock always left.' + +'When there are soldiers dying,' she said in a low voice, 'I arrange to +stay here all night'; and then, looking at him pleadingly, she added, +'Could you wait just one little hour before bringing your patient to the +barge?' + +Reluctantly he shook his head. 'I must as soon as possible the Prince +here bring. It is bad for him in a courtyard full of noisy men to be.' + +But she went on, making an evident effort to speak calmly, +conciliatingly. 'Our cure is on his way to administer these poor dying. +I cannot think why he has delayed so long--I sent for him at five +o'clock----' + +'But--but'--and now it was the Herr Doktor's turn to hesitate--'your +cure cannot come here to-night, gracious miss--at least the old priest +who lives in the house next the church cannot do so. He has been taken +as a hostage for the good behaviour of the population of this town. +Temporarily is he prisoner. A sad necessity of war such things are.' He +looked at her deprecatingly--for the first time it occurred to him that +the Herr Commandant might have contented himself with locking up the +truculent mayor, and letting the old priest alone. + +He saw her wince, he saw the colour rush into her face. 'But surely +Monsieur le Cure will be allowed to administer the last Sacraments to +dying soldiers!' she exclaimed. + +He shook his head solemnly. It was indeed unfortunate for him that war, +and the cruel, grotesque inhumanities of war, were invading the stretch +of neutral country on which he and this--this so refined and _zierliches +Madchen_ had glided so pleasantly but a short half-hour ago. Full of +very real concern he nerved himself to reject the personal appeal he +felt sure she was about to make to him. But Mademoiselle Rouannes did +nothing of the kind. Instead she turned, and looking up the shaft of the +stairway, called out sharply 'Jacob!' and then 'Therese!' + +The thin man and the stout woman both came hurrying down, and at once +she spoke to them in quiet, dry, urgent tones. 'The Prussian doctor of +the Red Cross is going to bring a wounded Prussian officer on to the +barge. He will occupy the smaller cabin. Two orderlies are coming to +help you to prepare the cabin; and you, Jacob, will have to show the +Prussians how the crane is worked.' + +The Herr Doktor, himself much ruffled by hearing himself described as a +Prussian, saw a look of sullen ill-temper come over Jacob's face. But +Mademoiselle Rouannes put out her hand and laid it on the old fellow's +shoulder. 'My good friend,' she said, and her voice quivered for the +first time, 'pray do what I ask of you without discussion. And you, +Therese, I must ask to go home and tell my father that I am taking the +watch here to-night.' + +Jacob was the first to respond to the appeal. He looked fiercely at the +German Red Cross surgeon. 'At your orders, M'sieur,' he said gruffly. As +for the woman, she turned away with a sullen 'Bien, Mademoiselle,' and +started walking up the ladder-like stairway. + +The Red Cross nurse bowed distantly. 'Bon soir, Monsieur,' she said +coldly. + +The Herr Doktor also bowed stiffly. It was disconcerting, even strange, +to find himself once more in enemy country. + +She slipped through the narrow door of the larger ward, and he heard +her draw the bolt. + +Again he felt irritated, and surprised as he had been surprised at +seeing that strange look of aversion and horror flash into her face when +her eyes had first rested on him.... + +True, she was young, divinely compassionate, and very delightful to the +eye, but she evidently misunderstood the situation! It was he, Herr +Doktor Max Keller, who was now in command of the Red Cross barge, and +that by the rules of the International Red Cross Society. He might, +however, so far humour her as not to bring his orderlies to-night on +board what had been her Red Cross barge. He had noticed with sincere +annoyance that his men--who, by the way, were Prussians--were rough, not +to say brutal, in their manner to those French people with whom they +were perforce brought into contact. + +So after he had made the old Frenchman understand what he wanted done, +he asked him, in his halting French, 'Is there an hotel close by where +sleep I can?' + +'There's a kind of cabaret yonder'--and then, as if rather ashamed of +his ungraciousness, the man added, 'I will come and show Monsieur le +Medecin where it is.' + +Together they climbed up on to the deck of the barge, and there the Herr +Doktor stopped a moment, and looking round about him, drew a deep, long +breath. The falling of the shade of night was singularly beautiful on +this quiet stretch of slow-moving waters. Across the river a line of +poplars looked like a row of ghostly, giant sentinels.... + +The two men, the Frenchman in front, the German behind, stepped off the +barge on to the narrow stone jetty, and then they walked for a few yards +in darkness along the leafy mall. None of the street lamps had been lit +on this, the evening of the most tragic day in the life of Valoise, but +dim lights twinkled in the house across the roadway to which old Jacob +now led his enemy. + +'M'sieur will find this place quite clean,' he observed, vigorously +pulling the bell of a narrow door. There was a long delay--then a young +woman, opening her door a few inches, looked timorously out at them. +But Jacob now took everything on himself. With what seemed to his +companion an unnecessary torrent of words, he explained that 'Monsieur' +was a doctor of the Red Cross, who had come to look after the wounded on +the Red Cross barge, and that therefore a room must at once be prepared +for him. The woman's face cleared, she opened her narrow door widely, +and led the way up to a large, clean bedroom on the first floor, of +which the windows overlooked the mall, the river, and--the barge. + +As a few moments later they left the house the Herr Doktor could not +help feeling grateful to old Jacob. Jacob? Why 'twas almost a German +name! + + +4 + +Half an hour later the great grey ambulance, drawn up close to the gates +of the Tournebride, was ready to start down the hill, and the Herr +Doktor waited impatiently while the five hale and whole officers bade +their wounded comrade a hearty, lengthy, and jovial good-night. + +They were all _uebermuetig_--bubbling over with wild spirits--and still +talking of their Mecca--Paris--now only some thirty miles away. Any hour +might come the longed-for order to advance thither! + +The Herr Doktor's illustrious patient seemed the most eager of them all. +But he hoped the order to advance would be delayed till he himself were +well enough to be in time for the solemn entry into the conquered +city--that entry through the Arc de Triomphe which was to be a more +superb replica of that which had taken place in 1871. Some days must +surely elapse before that glorious pageant could take place, although +everything was ready for it--in Luxembourg. In Luxembourg, so Prince +Egon now told his comrades--for he alone among them was in touch with +the Court--the Kaiser was waiting impatiently for the glad news that +Paris had fallen or surrendered. There too, even now, the Imperial +Master of the Horse had everything prepared--the state chargers, even, +had been brought from Potsdam.... + +At last the Herr Doktor went up to the youthful commanding officer. 'A +word with you in private,' he said hurriedly, and the other allowed +himself to be drawn aside. He was curious to know what the Herr Doktor +could possibly have to say, 'in private.' + +'I know well your humane sentiments towards the unfortunate population +of this conquered country'--the words came quickly, almost +breathlessly--'and your good heart, Herr Commandant, will perhaps +remember the curious request made to you by the old French priest when +taken hostage. I have discovered that what he said was true--that there +are indeed three wounded soldiers dying on the Red Cross barge where I +am about to take Prince Egon. Two of the men will not outlast the night, +and the Red Cross Sister, a French lady of distinction, is most anxious +they should receive religious consolation. That being so I thought I +might promise her that this pious wish should be gratified. With your +permission the priest can go in the ambulance, and I myself will bring +him back within an hour or so!' + +The Herr Commandant looked at the Herr Doktor doubtfully. He did, it +was true, hold the unusual theory that benignant justice, rather than +'frightfulness,' was the right way to deal with a conquered population. +He remembered, too, that, unlike his four lieutenants, his own instinct +had been to believe the Cure of Valoise when the old man had pleaded +that he might be allowed to attend 'trois mourants,' and that, though it +had seemed almost impossible that there could be three dying people +desiring priestly ministration in this little town, the more so that, as +all the world knew, France was now an utterly godless country. + +Still he waited a few moments before answering. It was not proper that +the Herr Doktor should take too much upon himself. But his mind was +already made up, and at last he took a large key out of one of his +pockets, and handed it to the Herr Doktor. 'You must be personally +responsible for the hostage's safe return!' He laughed rather huskily. +'The responsibility is not great, Herr Doktor, or perhaps I would not +put it upon you! That old man could not hobble away very far. The +Mayor--ah, that is another matter! He is what they call here _un fort +gaillard_.' He uttered the three French words without any accent, and +the other envied him. + +The Herr Doktor hastened across the courtyard and found the arch in the +wall which he knew led through into Madame Blanc's well-stocked kitchen +garden. In the centre of the large open space there rose, in the moonlit +darkness, the square building lit only by a skylight, which had been +chosen as making an ideal prison for the two hostages. Putting the key +the Herr Commandant had handed him in the door, he turned it, and walked +into the sweet-smelling fruit-room of the old inn. + +There a curious sight met his eyes. The two Frenchmen, companions in +misfortune though they were, had placed themselves as far the one from +the other as was possible. The priest sat on his truckle bed, reading +his breviary by the light of a candle, while the Mayor of Valoise, also +sitting on his bed--for the Tournebride had naturally proved very short +of the chairs required for the accommodation of so many hosts--was +busily writing what he intended to be the official account of his +amazing and disagreeable adventures. + +As the door opened the Mayor leapt to his feet, and a look of +apprehension shot over his dark, southern-looking face. The priest +looked up, but remained seated, and went on reading his prayer-book with +an air of ostentatious indifference. + +The Herr Doktor walked across to the old man. 'Will you please at once +come?' he said haltingly. 'Permission for you obtained I have to attend +the French wounded on the Red Cross barge.' + +The priest closed his book, and rose from his seat; but at the same +moment the Mayor came forward towards the German Red Cross doctor, but +there was a curious lack of firmness about his footsteps. It was as if +he hardly knew where his legs were bearing him. His voice, however, was +strong and defiant. 'I protest!' he cried loudly. 'I strongly and +vigorously protest against this favour being shown to the priest! It is +on me, as Mayor of Valoise, that there reposes the duty of transmitting +to their families the wishes of our dying soldiers!' + +The Herr Doktor brought his two feet together and bowed. 'Your protest, +Monsieur le Maire, duly registered will be,' he said coldly. 'Meanwhile +I must ask Monsieur le Cure my instructions to obey.' Motioning the old +man to precede him, he walked out of the door, and, shutting it, turned +the key in the lock. + +Quickly the two men walked through the dark garden, and when they were +close to the arch which led into the courtyard of the Tournebride, the +priest abruptly broke silence. 'Am I to be allowed to administer these +dying men?' he asked. + +'That may you do,' replied the Herr Doktor shortly. + +'Then, Monsieur, I must ask permission to go round by my house and by +the church.' + +Now this was not exactly in the bond, yet, rather to his own surprise, +the Herr Doktor gave his orderly-driver the command. Why not do this +thing graciously and thoroughly while he was about it? Thoroughness has +always been one of the great German virtues--so he reminded himself +while sitting in the rather airless ambulance, and listening to his +high-born patient's fretful remarks. + + * * * * * + +As the motor ambulance at last drew up on the road opposite to where the +barge was moored, there arose a sudden stir in the houses facing the +mall. Windows were flung cautiously open, and dark forms leaned out of +them. + +Curtly instructing the priest to follow him, and requesting his +orderlies to await his return, the Herr Doktor preceded the priest down +the stone gangway, and on to the deck of the barge. In spite of the +stars it was a very dark night, and suddenly he turned on the electric +torch strapped to his breast. As he did so his companion uttered a sharp +exclamation of surprise. Monsieur le Cure had never seen, he had never +even heard of such an invention! It made him realise, as he had not yet +done, what terrible, ingenious, irresistible fellows these Germans were. + +The big trap-door in the deck had been opened, and the crane for +lowering the wounded man was already in position. Mademoiselle Rouannes +had been true to her word, everything had been made ready for the new +patient, and the Herr Doktor felt suddenly very glad that he had +followed his kindly so-truly-German-and-humane impulse about the priest. + +Carefully the two went down the stairs now open to the star-powdered +sky, and then the one in command knocked at the door of what he already +called in his own mind 'Her ward.' + +There followed a moment or two of delay--long enough for the Herr Doktor +to become rather impatient. Then, slowly, the door opened, and the +electric torch flashed for a moment over Mademoiselle Rouannes' head and +breast. She no longer wore the Red Cross cap and veil, and her fair hair +formed an aureole above her delicately-tinted face and deep blue eyes. +'If you will ask Jacob, he will tell you everything, Monsieur le +Medecin. I have told him to put himself entirely at your disposal. I +cannot come just now, for I must not leave my wounded. Two of them are +even now dying.' + +She spoke in a quick whisper and in her own language. But the Herr +Doktor answered in English. 'Gracious miss, I have to you the priest +brought,' he said eagerly. + +'I thank you--oh! how I thank you!' There was a thrill of real, +heartfelt gratitude in her voice--and something in the Herr Doktor's +heart thrilled in answer, as she opened wide the narrow door to let them +both come through. + +Most of the men, lying stretched out there, on those narrow pallet beds, +were asleep, but only the two now so near to death seemed really at +peace. The others moved uneasily, and from their bloodless lips there +issued painful mutterings and groans. One very young soldier kept +counting over and over again--from one to thirty-seven. When he came to +_trente-sept_, he always broke off, and began again. In answer to a +mute, questioning glance from the Herr Doktor, the Red Cross nurse +whispered, 'The thirty-eighth shot struck him. But he only counts like +that when he is asleep.' A lad in the farthest corner, the third man in +the danger zone, asked again and again, with a terrible, monotonous +reiteration, '_Mais pourquoi? Pourquoi suis-je ici?_' + +Again the doctor turned questioningly to Jeanne Rouannes. 'He also +always begins asking that question as soon as he falls asleep,' she said +sighing; 'when awake he seems quite happy.' + +The Herr Doktor was strangely reluctant to leave the mournful scene. He +felt an uneasy curiosity as to what was going to take place. Even now +the Red Cross nurse was turning a little table, which had been covered +with various odd French medicaments, into an altar. But his duty to his +own patient called him insistently away, and slowly he backed towards +the door. Once there, however, he called out, but in a low voice, 'Miss? +Miss? A word with you.' + +She came and stood by him, a lovely vision of health, purity, and +strength, in that piteous, pain-bound place. + +'When the priest finished has,' he murmured, 'again back him I will +take. I have myself responsible for him made.' + +'I promise you that he will not be very long!' And then she added +softly, 'I thank you again, sir, for having done this good action. The +good God will reward you.' + +She opened the door, and after she had closed it again, the Herr Doktor +lingered for a moment outside in the little passage which was now open +to the stars and cool night air. + +And during the hour he spent in the low-ceilinged, white-washed cabin +where Prince Egon now lay comfortably settled in a real bed, the Herr +Doktor, though his body was by his patient's side, in his spirit dwelt +in the other half of the Red Cross barge--where was taking place the +ever august and awe-inspiring transit from life to death of two young, +sentient, human beings. So little indeed was he present in mind where +his body was, that he experienced a feeling of astonishment, as well as +of discomfort, when he suddenly realised that a quick, amicable +conversation was going on between the young Prussian officer and +Mademoiselle Rouannes' old French man-servant. + +'Herr Doktor!' cried Prince Egon joyfully, 'this fellow was once a +valet--valet to a Prince de Ligne! I have told him that henceforth he is +commandeered by me! He will be _my_ valet. I would far rather be waited +on by him than by that tiresome Fritz of yours. This one is a thoroughly +intelligent fellow; he knows a house in this town where there is a great +store of those _unanstaendige_ Parisian comic papers. He will bring them +here to-morrow morning--so I now have something pleasant to dream +about!' + +'That is good,' said the Herr Doktor absently. 'I felt sure your +Highness would prefer this place to the Tournebride. I hope you will not +be disturbed by the French wounded. There is a passage room between.' + +'The French wounded will not disturb me!' The young man lifted himself +slightly in his bed and smiled. 'It is not as if they were our brave +fellows, after all!' + + + + +PART II + + +1 + +It was half-past five on this, the sixth morning of the Herr Doktor's +stay at Valoise. + +He leapt out of bed and had a cold plunge bath-a most peculiar, +un-German habit he had acquired during the months he had boarded with an +English family at Munich. + +Then, when he was dressed, not before, he put on his spectacles and went +across to the window. On the first morning of his stay there, he had +been filled with a queer misgiving that perhaps when he looked out the +Red Cross barge would have drifted away-disappeared, fairy-wise, in the +night. That he now no longer feared, and on this lovely September +morning his eyes rested with a feeling of exultant ownership on the now +familiar scene before him. The trim, leafy mall just across the paved +road, the slowly flowing river gleaming in the bright morning sun, the +line of poplars above the opposite bank--and then in the centre, as it +were, of the placid landscape, the Red Cross barge ... they were his, +for ever--the harvest of his eyes, of his imagination, of his heart. + +The Red Cross barge? The man standing at the window of this humble +French wine-shop told himself how good it was that now, to-day, that +work of mercy before him was the only reminder in Valoise that France +was at war. Till the day before there had been a hundred and five +spurred and booted reminders, but yesterday afternoon the Uhlans had +ridden off eagerly, exultantly, to join their main victorious army--that +army which was now engaged in pursuing the defeated English and the +retreating French. + +The Herr Doktor, on this peaceful, sunny morning, quite forgot that he +himself was a constant reminder of the awful struggle, of the losing +fight now going on between those the women of Valoise had sent +forth--their husbands, sons, and lovers--and his countrymen. + +But it was natural he should make this capital omission, for as he stood +there, looking out on a still unawakened world, the people of Valoise, +well disposed as he felt towards them, formed but a blurred background +to the one figure which now possessed all his waking, aye, and all his +dreaming thoughts. Not only did he now know, but he exulted in the +knowledge that, with his first vision-like sight of Jeanne Rouannes, had +come that 'love-at-once' of which some of his comrades had rhapsodised +in the now-so-distant-as-to-be-almost-forgotten pre-war time. Those +rhapsodies of long ago had left him unmoved, partly because as a student +he had adored, with a selfless, hopeless passion, a famous singer far +older than himself, and partly because, with the passing of years, he +had seen the springtide romance of youth almost invariably dulled down +into what would have been, to such a man as he knew himself to be, +unendurably dull domesticity. + +Was this new, and at once rapturous and painful, absorption in another +human being the outcome of great, noble, war-provoked emotions? If so, +how amazing that a Frenchwoman should have compelled the flowering of +his soul, the awakening of both spirit and senses to what the union of a +man and woman may mean! But well content was he that it should be so. +This side of the great war--so futile from the point of view of happy, +prosperous France--would soon be at an end. That he had been confidently +assured, some three weeks ago, by a member of General von Kluck's own +able staff. Within a very short time of the German occupation of +Paris--some even believed within a few hours of the capitulation of the +city--peace would be signed with France. There would be bitterness among +certain sections of the French people--among the Chauvinists, for +instance, who still hankered after Alsace. But the Conquerors had +behaved so humanely and so wisely during their triumphant rush through +Northern France, that this very natural feeling would soon fade away, +while the love he, Max Keller, now bore Jeanne Rouannes was of the +eternal, enduring quality which compels its own fulfilment.... Already +in his dreams the Herr Doktor saw his house, his childhood's home, at +Weimar, beflowered and garlanded to receive a bride. + +But these dreams were far more living and tangible to his imagination +during those waking hours when they two were apart, than when the Herr +Doktor was faced with the reality of his and Mademoiselle Rouannes' +necessarily formal relationship. More than once he had tried to engage +her in talk on 'safe' subjects--such subjects, for instance, as that of +the Great Revolution--but she had quietly eluded him, and he sometimes +had to face the fact that the only common ground on which they met each +day was that on which lay the wounded Frenchmen to whom she gave so much +anxious care. It was a ground on which the Herr Doktor spent all the +time he could. But unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was ground +which was being rapidly cleared, for thanks to his skill, to her care, +and no doubt to nature too, 'our wounded,' as he had once ventured to +call them to her, were now in full convalescence, almost fit, in fact, +to be taken off as prisoners to Germany. When that thought, that +knowledge, rose to the Herr Doktor's mind he always thrust it hurriedly +away. The despatch of prisoners is purely a military duty, and would in +this case be performed by whatever officer on whom it devolved; if no +one better offered, then on the Herr Lieutenant, Prince Egon von +Witgenstein. + +Prince Egon? On this fine September morning, the Herr Doktor suddenly +found himself wondering whether it would not be advisable to move his +patient into the now empty Tournebride. The knowledge that the Prince +would soon be well enough to sit up on deck was not as agreeable to the +Herr Doktor as it ought to have been to a conscientious medical +attendant. True, Mademoiselle Rouannes never even asked him how his +noble patient was progressing, and once, when old Jacob had alluded to +the Uhlan officer, the Herr Doktor had overheard her exclaim, with a +strange touch of passion in her voice, 'I forbid you--I forbid you, +Jacob, to speak of that Prussian to me!' But Prince Egon did not share +her indifference, still less her--was it hatred? He was frankly +interested in his fair enemy, and very eager to make her acquaintance. +But the Herr Doktor was determined that this so uncalled-for and +undesirable-from-every-point-of-view desire of the Prince should not be +gratified. + + * * * * * + +There came a knock at the door; it was his _petit dejeuner_, and the +woman who brought it in smiled quite pleasantly. It was only the second +time she had smiled at her unbidden guest. It was curious how the +departure of those burly, good-natured Uhlans had affected the people of +Valoise! Within an hour of their going, windows had been unshuttered, +doors unbarred, and a stream of women, of children, and of old men the +Herr Doktor had not suspected of being in Valoise at all, had flowed +into the streets of the town.... + +He drank his coffee and ate his rolls with an excellent appetite, and +then he glanced at his chronometer. It was three minutes to six--time he +went across to the barge. For when six struck by the church tower +(which, according to his Baedeker, had been built by the English in the +now utterly departed days of their valour and military prowess, that is +in the thirteenth century) the Herr Doktor invariably met Mademoiselle +Rouannes by accident, either in the road, or, what was pleasanter still, +under the trees in the mall. When he saw her coming, gravely he would +stop and bow, and she would bend her head in greeting. It would have +been natural, and agreeable too, for them to linger a few moments; but +that he had soon found she would never do. Singularly reserved always +was she in her manner, and in vain did he persist in his attempts to +persuade her to engage in general beneficial-to-the-intellect and +pleasantly-agreeable-to-the-cultured-mind conversation. + +Two cases, as we know, had been beyond human help when he had first +undertaken the care of the French wounded, but the third case, greatly +owing to his skill and untiring efforts, seemed likely to pull through. +Still, even so, the Herr Doktor and Mademoiselle Rouannes were very +anxious about this case, a boy of nineteen, a clever, well-mannered, +gentle boy of the peasant class, who had been shot through the lung. +What had touched the German surgeon's heart, what had made him +especially interested in this young soldier, were a few words which had +been uttered by the Red Cross nurse very early in their joint work of +mercy. '_Il est le seul soutien de sa vieille grand'mere._' Now, +curiously enough, he, Max Keller, was also 'the sole support of his old +grandmother,' a grand old woman of seventy-nine, now eating her heart +out in placid, cultured Weimar, while thanking God her boy was not in +the firing line. + + * * * * * + +The Herr Doktor went across the road to the grateful shade of the lime +trees. There he waited, his heart beating, his pulse throbbing, for what +seemed a long, long time. Every moment he hoped, nay, he expected +confidently, to see her hastening towards him, clad in the white dress +and wearing the medieval-looking cap, with its red cross in the centre, +which now seemed the most becoming head-dress in the world. Hastening +towards him? Nay, nay,--hastening towards the Red Cross barge. + +But the minutes went slowly by, and Mademoiselle Rouannes did not come. +Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps she was already on the barge. +If so, he had indeed wasted precious moments.... + +As he hurried along the stone jetty he saw the stout figure of old +Therese on deck. That meant that her young mistress was below, in the +ward. + +The Herr Doktor smiled pleasantly at the old woman, and she smiled back, +a broad genial smile of good fellowship. What a difference the departure +of those few countrymen of his yesterday had made, to be sure! + +But when he hurried down to the French ward he at once knew, without +being told, that Mademoiselle Jeanne had not yet arrived. Old Therese +had done her best, but it was a very poor best, to make the men lying +there comfortable. Still, they all looked more cheerful than usual, and +the boy he now hoped to save, the boy for whom he had a very tender +corner in his kindly, sentimental soul, caught hold of his hand as he +went by, and asked huskily, 'Is it true that the Prussians are gone? +_Quel bonheur!_' + +It struck half-past six, seven, then half-past seven. + +The Herr Doktor went up again on to the deck. Therese was sitting there +sewing. 'And Mademoiselle?' he asked questioningly. + +She shook her head. 'Mademoiselle was very unhappy last night. She +thinks her father is much worse. I myself can see no difference. But +something he said to her frightened her, and so she said she must stop +at home to-day, and nurse him.' + +He felt absurdly surprised, absurdly annoyed, absurdly taken aback. + +Had Mademoiselle Rouannes a right to leave the ambulance barge? He +doubted it--doubted it very much indeed. Of course he himself, being now +in command of the barge, could _order_ her to come. He was a Red Cross +doctor, and she a Red Cross nurse; he had, therefore, the absolute right +to dispose of her time and services. But, sighing, he dismissed the +thought. She was quite unlike any German girl he had ever seen. It would +not occur to her to be flattered, or even touched, by his imperious wish +for her presence. + +As he stood there, wondering what he had better do, there flashed into +his mind the wording of a short note which it might become his duty to +write to her. The note would be written in English, and it would run +somewhat in this wise: 'Gracious Miss,'--or perhaps it would be better +to put plain 'Miss' in the French way--'If you your father can leave for +a short time, I should be glad if to the barge you come would. One of +your wounded is not so well.--Yours respectfully, MAX KELLER.' + +There would be nothing offensive, nothing hectoring about such a +missive, and he thought, he felt sure, that it would bring her. But he +would not write that note yet. He would wait till he had seen his own +patient, Prince Egon. Luckily, there was no hurry as to that, and, still +secretly hoping she would come, he lingered on, up on deck. + +The sun had gone behind a cloud. There was an autumnal chill in the +morning air. The waters of the slowly flowing river looked grey and +sullen. Suddenly the Herr Doktor felt oddly friendless, and alone. +'This morning felt I so foolishly cheerful, and this the natural +reaction is!' he exclaimed to himself. + +He turned and walked down to Prince Egon's small quarters. Cautiously he +opened the narrow door, but his patient was awake and smiling. + +What a contrast this curious little cabin presented, especially to-day, +to that containing the French wounded! Here everything was ship-shape, +even to a modest degree, luxurious. On an inlaid table, which had been +'commandeered' from an empty villa, were laid out gold-backed brushes, +and a number of pretty trifles. Above the table hung a circular mirror, +also commandeered, and there was a whiff of some sweet, pungent scent in +the air. How different, too, the white and pink yellow-haired youth +lying there from the small, dark, and now unshaved Frenchmen on the +other side. Old Jacob was kept too busy attending on the Prussian prince +to spare any time for his own countrymen. + +The Herr Doktor looked at what had partly been his own handiwork--the +handiwork of which he had felt proud on the first evening of his +arrival at Valoise--with a feeling of dissatisfaction, almost of +disgust. + +Over a basket-chair was carefully spread out a green-and-gold-silk +dressing-gown, in the Weimar surgeon's eyes a garment of almost Oriental +splendour. + +'If you will allow of it, Herr Doktor, I propose to get up,' said Prince +Egon cheerfully. 'I feel wonderfully better to-day! It is extraordinary +what good this rest has done me. And then that old Jacob! An almost +perfect valet! What good fortune for me that he should be here! He has +already made me a delicious omelette this morning.' + +'And your Highness was not afraid to eat it?' This was really a little +joke on the Herr Doktor's part. But his patient did not so accept it. An +extraordinary change came over the recumbent man's fair face; it became +livid, discomposed. + +'God in heaven!' he cried. 'Do you suspect old Jacob, Herr Doktor?' + +And then the older man burst into laughter. 'No, no,' he said +soothingly. 'I suspect nothing! Besides your Highness has made it very +much worth old Jacob's while to keep you alive.' + +'Aye, aye! That's true.' The prince was reassured. 'As I was saying just +now, I feel so much better that, if you permit it, I propose to get up. +I will wear my dressing-gown, not my uniform, and I will go up on deck. +There I will sit and chat with the beautiful English-speaking Mamselle. +Jacob tells me that on her mother's side she is of noble birth, and +that, although her father is only a physician, she----' + +The Herr Doktor put up his hand. 'I must now take your Highness' +temperature,' he said a little sharply. 'I doubt much if you are well +enough to go upstairs. A chill would be very serious in your Highness's +condition. As for the Red Cross Sister, she is not here to-day. Her +father is very ill.' + +'Not here? But that is absurd!' The young man spoke with a touch of +imperious decision. 'You must send for her, my dear Herr Doktor; she +must be requisitioned!' He smiled--an insolent smile. + +The other shook his head. A sudden passion of dislike, of contempt, for +his patient filled his heart. But all he said was--'Impossible! Her +father is very ill indeed.' + +'Then I will not trouble to get up. I am very well where I am. It is +very comfortable here.' + +Prince Egon spoke pettishly. He had looked forward to an amusing +flirtation with the Mamselle with whose manifold perfections old Jacob +sometimes entertained him. + +The hours of the morning dragged wearily on. To the Herr Doktor it +seemed as if there had never been such a long, such an utterly +lacking-in-flavour, day as was this day. For the first time he talked to +the convalescent Frenchmen at some length of themselves. Not one of them +had been a soldier at the time the war broke out on that fateful 1st of +August, and yet it surprised him, and in a sense moved him, to see that +every one of them wished to go back and fight. Not one of them seemed +conscious that he was now a prisoner, and that, unless peace was made at +once, he would soon be in Germany.... + + +2 + +At twelve o'clock the Herr Doktor walked up to the Tournebride. He had +thought it possible that he might meet Mademoiselle Rouannes in the +town--but it was in vain that he lingered on the way, and glanced up +each steep byway, and quiet, shady street. + +While he was eating an excellent _dejeuner_ at a table spread under the +trees in the courtyard of the inn, he cleverly led Madame Blanc on to +the subject of Dr. Rouannes. She, too, seemed quite another woman now +that the Tournebride was her own again. To-day she was eager for a +gossip. + +Yes, '_ce bon docteur_' was certainly seriously ill. He had looked so +well, so vigorous, when he had started, a month ago, for the Frontier. +It was there that a shell had exploded in the room where he was actually +performing a small operation on a man wounded during the dash into +Alsace. As he had been struck in the left leg, it was impossible for him +to go on with his work, and he had managed to get home. At first it had +been said that he would soon be all right again. But now it was rumoured +that he was dying! If that were indeed true, Dr. Rouannes would be a +great loss to Valoise, for he was an excellent doctor, much beloved in +the town. His daughter was thought rather proud--very good to '_les +pauvres_,' but unwilling to frequent the more well-to-do townsfolk. +This, no doubt, because her mother was '_une noble_.' Madame Blanc +smiled as she did not often smile now, as she recalled the marriage of +Dr. Rouannes. He had refused such excellent '_occasions_'--such rich +marriages when he was young and good-looking! Then, when he was +forty-six years of age, and a confirmed bachelor, he had suddenly +married Mademoiselle Jeanne de Bligniere, the younger of the two +daughters of the Count de Bligniere, a poor, proud old gentleman whom +he, the doctor, had attended, out of charity no doubt. Curious to +relate, this '_mariage etrange_' had been a very happy one, and this +though Madame Rouannes was very, very quiet, gentle, and pious too, in +fact rather like '_une bonne Soeur_.' She had been ill two years, and +Dr. Rouannes had brought many physicians from Paris to see her. It was +said that the chemist's bill alone had been a thousand francs! But the +poor lady had died all the same, and she, Madame Blanc, would never +forget Monsieur le Medecin's tragic, stricken face at the funeral. + +It had been thought that he would surely marry again. But no, he had not +done so. At first Madame Rouannes' sister had come to take care of the +motherless little girl, but Mademoiselle de Bligniere had never liked +her brother-in-law, so she soon went back to Paris. Then for some time +Mademoiselle Jeanne had had '_une anglaise_.' It was only last winter, +while visiting her aunt in Paris, that she had learnt the Red Cross +work. + +At last the Herr Doktor finished his delicious _dejeuner_ under the +yellowing chestnut trees in the great courtyard which now looked so +peaceful and so solitary, and he wondered, a little ashamed of the +materialism of the unspoken question, if Mademoiselle Rouannes knew +anything of the practical side of French cookery. And after he had had +his cup of coffee and smoked his pipe, he took his diary out of his +pocket. He had not opened the book for nearly a week. + +Quickly he turned over the blank pages--and then a sudden wave of +emotion swept over him. To-day was the 2nd of September--Sedan Day! And +he had not remembered it! He thought of last year's Sedan Day, spent +with some dear old friends of his childhood, and his heart became +irradiated with a peculiar, tender radiance. Beautiful, culture-filled +Weimar! How he longed to show his dear homeland to his 'Geliebte'! Then +a less noble feeling, one of fierce exultation filled him. He visioned +the great hosts of the Fatherland, his brothers all, pressing forward +through this splendid, opulent land of France. Those great hosts must +now be close to the gates of Paris--nay, they were perchance in Paris +already, celebrating the great anniversary while preparing to play the +role of magnanimous conquerors.... + +Only yesterday had come news of wonderful doings--and he had scarcely +cared to hear them! Tidings of the invading army brought by two +officers in charge of an armoured motor-car. Tidings of victory of +course; and of one especial victory which they had felt peculiarly +pleasant and _ermutigend_, the defeat and complete encirclement, that +is, of the small British Expeditionary Force. The English, so had run +the tale, still turned now and again and fought, not without courage, +small rearguard actions, but they were not causing any real trouble. +Already Compiegne was evacuated, and Chantilly was ready for the +Kaiser's occupation. It was from the magnificent home of '_Le Grand +Conde_' that the War Lord intended to start for the entry of his +victorious army through the Arc de Triomphe, into Paris. + +Of course the Herr Doktor had been quite pleased to hear all this +glorious news, but though he realised how inspiriting it was to know +that within a day and a half's march of Valoise pressed on the +relentless march on Paris, he had not really cared. Valoise had suddenly +become to him the one place in the world which mattered. The only place +where he wished to be--to stay.... + +He knew that the city of Paris, as apart from the rest of France, was +to pay a huge indemnity. Until that indemnity was paid, there was to be +an army of occupation, not only in the city, but in the surrounding +country. Of this army he, as a non-combatant, could easily obtain +permission to form part.... + +And then as he walked restlessly up and down the courtyard, there +suddenly rose on the still, warm air a long-drawn distant roar of sound. + +Thunder? The Herr Doktor shook his head, and his heart began to beat a +little quicker. He knew what that sound portended, and he also +remembered enough to know that the action proceeding must be a long, +long way off. + +Madame Blanc came out of her kitchen. '_On commence a se battre +la-bas._' There was an undertone of hope, of fierce joy--even of +boastfulness--in her voice. + +He bent his head gravely. The expression on her face irritated him. Till +to-day he had thought her an excellent, homely woman. He could no longer +think her so, for there was an awful look of vengeful longing in her +eyes. + + +3 + +And during all that warm, early September afternoon, across the golden +haze thrown up by the river, there came from '_la-bas_' the rolling, +muttering roar that was so like thunder, that now and again the Herr +Doktor asked himself whether it might not be thunder after all? But +whatever this provenance, these sounds had a strange, electric effect on +the French wounded. They became restless and excited. Hitherto they had +stayed below; now, without asking the Herr Doktor's permission, two or +three pallid faces appeared above the stairway, and there was a look of +strained suspense, almost of hope, in the eyes which avoided looking +frankly into his face. + +There was yet another curious change in all those young, wild-eyed +Frenchmen. They talked in low hoarse whispers the one with the other, +and once he heard a reference to _la nouvelle armee_, and then again to +_l'armee de Versailles_. Of what army, new or old, could they be +thinking? Brave but unready France had put every man for whom she had +proper arms and accoutrements into the field from the first day. + +Prince Egon shared in the subdued excitement. 'It is pleasant to feel +that we are no longer away from the whirlpool!' he cried joyfully, and +this was his only remark during that intolerably long afternoon. + +At six o'clock the sounds of firing ceased as suddenly as they had +begun. Four hours' desultory cannonade? It must have been a +long-drawn-out rearguard action. + +The Herr Doktor was sitting up on deck, a pocket volume of Heine in his +hand. He read the verse-- + + _Im wunderschoenen Monat Mai + Als alle Knospen sprangen + Da ist in meinem Herzen + Die Liebe aufgegangen._ + +And then he looked up and gazed across the river. Strange, strange +indeed, that love should wait till now to blossom in his heart! + +There came the sound, the now beloved, familiar sound of Her quick, +light footfalls on the jetty, and a moment later Mademoiselle Rouannes +walked on to the barge. + +Leaping to his feet, he brought his heels together and bowed. But the +ceremonious words of inquiry he was about to utter concerning her +father's state were stayed on his lip, and the secret joy which had +flooded his whole being on seeing her was suddenly changed to concern, +even distress, so unlike did Jeanne Rouannes appear to his usual vision +of her. Her face was flushed, her eyelids reddened by much crying. The +look of composure, of dignity, which always aroused his willing +admiration, if also his aching sense of her aloofness from himself, was +gone, and now there was something appealing, as well as piteous and even +helpless, in the face into which he was gazing. + +'I have come to ask you,' she said abruptly, and in English, 'if you +will give me a little of your small store of morphia or laudanum? My +father is now in constant pain--I fear he is far more ill than he will +admit is the case. I am very, very anxious about him.' She uttered the +words with quick, nervous haste, lowering her voice as she spoke. + +Was it possible that she thought there could be any fear of his refusing +her request? Apparently there was, for, 'I know you do not like to +diminish your store of narcotics. But from what I understand a quite +small amount might lessen the pain my father is enduring.' + +She had moved away from the middle of the deck, and they were standing, +side by side, on the river side of the barge. As she spoke she did not +look at the man by her side, instead she stared straight before her, and +he saw the tears well up into her tired eyes, and roll down her pale +cheeks. + +'Would it not possible be,' he asked, 'for me your father to see?' + +'No. That is quite impossible. But I thank you for thinking of doing +so.' + +'But if you tell him that to the Red Cross,--that splendid, +so-entirely-neutral and internationally-universal institution--I too +belong? Surely would he then consent me to see?' + +She shook her head. 'The truth is that--that----' She stopped, and he +said 'Yes?' interrogatively, encouragingly. 'The truth is that my poor +father had a most unfortunate experience with some German Red Cross +doctors!' + +'With German doctors,' he repeated, discomfited. 'That very strange is.' + +'Yes, it was strange--strange and most unfortunate, as matters now are; +for it makes me feel that I do not dare propose your visit to him.' + +The Herr Doktor--or so it seemed to the girl standing by his side--fell +into an abstracted silence. She respected his mood for a few moments, +then she asked timidly, in a voice very different from that which he had +ever heard issue from her proud lips before, 'I suppose your medical +stores are at the Tournebride?' + +He looked round eagerly. 'No,' he said quickly. 'I have them here, in +the motor ambulance, and what necessary is, go I at once to procure. +But, gracious miss! There has come to me a thought which I find most +illuminating, a thought which I you earnestly beg very carefully before +you it reject to consider. With my medical stores possess I naturally +operation overalls.' + +He stopped for a moment, as if anxious to give himself time, then went +on hurriedly: 'Would it not possible be for me to put on an overall (it +covers entirely my 'feld-grau' uniform) and then an English doctor to +represent by the bedside of your honoured father? He surely would not +object an English or, better still, a Scotch colleague to see?' + +'That,' she said, and drew a long breath, 'is very true.' + +And as he gazed at her with an earnest, longing look of the inner +meaning of which she was, as he well knew, utterly unconscious, he saw +surprise and indecision give way to hope and relief. + +'But are you willing to do that?' she asked.'Would it not be very--very +disagreeable for you to carry through such a--a----' Her English failed +her, and she uttered a word of which he was ignorant, and could only +guess the meaning--'to carry through such a _supercherie_? 'she said. + +He answered eagerly, 'There is nothing I would not do'--and then he +checked himself, and substituted for what he had been going to say, the +words, 'for a French colleague. Absolutely easy will it be,' he went on +confidently. 'You will him tell that I very little French know--which +indeed the truth is.' + +Even as he spoke, her woman's wit was hard at work. 'I will write my +father a note,' she said, 'and send it by Therese. Then he will not be +able to say "No" to me, and I on my side shall not have the pain of +speaking a lie to him face to face.' + +The Herr Doktor's face relaxed into a smile; women, so he reflected, +were the same all the world over--in France as in Germany. He took out +of his breast pocket a neat letter-case, of which he had made no use +since his arrival in Valoise. Deferentially he handed it to her, and +then he had the pleasure of seeing her write a letter on his note-paper. +'Do you think that will do?' she said. And he read over slowly and +carefully the short, clear French phrases. + + 'MY DEAR FATHER,--An English doctor has joined the Red Cross barge. + I much desire that he should see thee. I will bring him with me in + an hour. As far as I can judge he is experienced. + + 'Thy + 'JEANNE.' + +'Most excellent, honoured miss! And only one little word not absolutely +true is!' He ventured a smile. She smiled back with the words, 'But it +is a very important word--"English"!' And then she wondered why his face +altered and stiffened into such frowning gravity; the English, after +all, were no more the Herr Doktor's enemies than were the French. + + +4 + +They sped along, two white, ghost-like figures, in the darkness. Every +light in the little town was already extinguished, or hidden behind high +walls and closely drawn curtains. Valoise only asked to be forgotten, to +be obliterated from the map, while the awful tide of war swayed and +swept on, within some twenty miles of the town, towards Paris. + +Jeanne Rouannes walked as swiftly and unfalteringly as if it had been +broad daylight through the steep byways and up the roughly paved alleys +leading to the Haute Ville. But it seemed a long time ere they emerged +into a street, lighted by one twinkling lamp which swung suspended over +the centre of the highway. + +'You are interested in the Revolution?' she said in English. 'Well, +thirty people were hung in this street, from where that lamp now swings, +a hundred and twenty years ago. That was the meaning of "a la +lanterne!"' + +'Ach!' exclaimed the Herr Doktor, gazing upwards. 'That truly +informative is!' And while he uttered these words he was telling +himself--that secret self to whom each of us tells so many amazing, +unexpected, tragic and, yes, sometimes such delicious things--that this +was the first time she had ever spoken to him, of her own volition, on +any subject which lay quite outside her Red Cross work. That she had +done so made him feel exultant, absurdly happy. Soon, quite soon, every +barrier would surely be down between their two hearts.... + +She moved on a few steps, and then stopped in front of an aperture sunk +far back in the wall which ran to the right of the historic lantern. + +'We have arrived,' she said, and turning the handle of the door, she +stepped back to allow him to pass through first. + +He waited awkwardly for a moment. 'Won't you the way lead?' he asked; +and quickly she walked past him into a garden which in the darkness +seemed illimitable. Sweet pungent scents rose and mingled from each side +of the narrow flagged path, and to his moved and ardent imagination it +was as if Nature herself was offering the homage of her incense to the +French girl now leading him into the sanctuary of her home. + +Suddenly he saw a small low house rise whitely before him; a door +opened, and a shaft of yellow light illumined the short, broad figure of +the old woman servant, Therese, for in her hand she held a lamp with a +gay Chinese shade over it. + +Mademoiselle Rouannes called out, 'Here we are, Therese!' Then she +turned round to her companion. 'If you will kindly wait in my salon for +a moment, I will go and tell my father that you are here,' she said in a +low voice. + +Her white figure melted into the darkness and he followed the servant +down a passage, and into what was evidently the only sitting-room of +the little house. Then Therese shut the door on him, and the Herr Doktor +began looking about him with eager curiosity. + +The room was not gay and bright as he would have thought to find a young +Frenchwoman's salon. Rather was it simple and austere. The few pieces of +furniture were of the First Empire period, of mahogany and brass, +covered with bright green silk which with time had become dulled in +tint, and even frayed. In the middle of the room was a marble-topped +round table on which stood a lamp, fellow to that which old Therese had +held in her hand. On the round table lay several books, and a magazine, +the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' to which the Herr Doktor in the +now-so-far-away days of peace had been a subscriber. + +He bent down and looked at the familiar orange cover. It bore the date +of August 1. Idly he looked at the table of contents: no prevision, no +suspicion even, of the coming cataclysm! He wondered whether the number +of August 15 had been published. He thought it unlikely. + +He turned away from the table, and looked up and about him. Above a +narrow, straight settee hung two charming eighteenth-century +pastels--that of a young man in a blue and silver uniform, and that of a +slim, pale girl with powdered hair. She had a wistful and yet a proud +little face, and it pleased the Herr Doktor to trace in this portrait a +resemblance to Mademoiselle Rouannes. + +At last the door opened, and he felt a slight shock of disappointment at +seeing that it was old Therese, and not her young mistress, who had come +for him. Stepping lightly, he followed her up a shallow staircase, and +so to a landing on the first floor. + +Jeanne Rouannes was standing there, waiting for him. She had changed +from her white uniform into a black gown, and this change of dress +altered her strangely. It made her look younger, slenderer, paler, more +beautiful even than before in the Herr Doktor's eyes, for it intensified +her peculiar fairness, and deepened the fire in her blue eyes. + +Perhaps something in his face showed his surprise, for she said in +English, and in a very low voice, 'I never wear my Red Cross dress when +I am with my father. It disturbs him--makes him remember----' and then, +without finishing her sentence, she pushed open a red-baize door, and +beckoned to him to follow her. As he did so, she put her finger to her +lips and whispered, 'Wait here a moment----' + +From where he stood, just within the door, he could see only one half of +the room, and that half bare, save that the walls were lined with books +set on mahogany shelves. Standing at right angles across the one corner +visible from the door was a writing-table, covered with grey cloth. A +high screen to his left hid the rest of the room. + +The Herr Doktor's heart began to beat quickly. He told himself that he +was about to enter into the very heart of her life--to take an amazing +step forward in his intimacy with her.... + +A word or two was whispered behind the screen, and then she came for +him. As together they walked forward into the room, she exclaimed, in +French of course, 'Papa, I bring you the kind----' + +But the words were cut across by the leonine-looking, grey-haired man +sitting up in bed. 'Welcome!' cried Dr. Rouannes heartily. He stretched +out both his hands. 'Welcome, my dear colleague--nay, I should now say, +my dear ally! My daughter tells me that you speak French. Unhappily I do +not know your splendid language, but, as you see, Jeanne was taught +English. For some years after the death of my beloved wife, we had +living with us a charming person, our excellent Miss--Miss----' + +'Miss Owen,' said Mademoiselle Rouannes quietly. + +'Yes, yes, Miss Owen!' He waited a moment; then he looked up at his +daughter. 'My little girl,' he said, and there was a very tender, +caressing inflection in his resonant French voice, 'I will now ask you +to go downstairs while I confer with our friend.' + +With a curiously impulsive gesture she clasped her hands together. 'But +no, father!' she exclaimed. 'Remember that I am your nurse! Surely you +will let me stay?' She looked beseechingly, not at her father, but at +the silent man now standing by her side. + +'Mademoiselle your daughter is an excellent nurse,' observed the Herr +Doktor awkwardly. + +The old man leant back on his pillow, wearily. He had hoped his English +colleague would be more expansive, and '_sympathique_.' Also, he had +thought to see an older man, one who would understand, without any need +for explanation, his point of view about his daughter. + +'I only wish you to leave the room for five minutes, my child. One word +I _must_ say to Monsieur alone.' + +She obeyed without further demur, and as the door closed behind her, the +Frenchman put out his hot, sinewy, right hand and seized the younger +man's. + +'Not a word!' he exclaimed in a hurried whisper. 'Not a word, you +understand, of the truth for her! Gangrene has set in. There is nothing +to be done now--it's too late. Why I consented to see you was, first, +to procure for myself the pleasure of meeting an English confrere +(an honour as well as a very great pleasure, I assure you)--and +then with the hope that you were likely to know some--what shall I +say?--palliative--ay, that's the word!--to make things less painful for +her, as well as for me too, when comes the end.' + +The Herr Doktor nodded his head understandingly. + +'I tell you this,' went on the other quickly, 'because my daughter, as a +matter of fact, knows nothing of illness, nothing of wounds----' He +waited a moment. 'Perhaps you have a daughter--a child of your own?' + +The Herr Doktor shook his head. + +'Ah well, at your age I too was not married! More, like you, perhaps, I +intended not to marry. But, some day your heart will play you a +trick--wait till then, it's worth it--and you will come to realise how +carefully one tries to guard one's children, especially one's daughter, +from what is painful and disagreeable. I could not prevent Jeanne from +taking charge of this Red Cross barge. She belongs to the Secours aux +Blesses Militaires, and she has been through the course they give their +young girl members. But, naturally, I should not have allowed her to go +to a military hospital. A Red Cross barge is different. There are only +convalescents there--and old Jacob, whom you will have seen, gave me his +word that she should be sheltered from anything unpleasant or--or +unsuitable.' He waited a few moments, and then, in a very different +voice, added: 'But now, my dear colleague, we will consider my +case--otherwise she will be growing impatient.' + +He drew down his bed-clothes, and an involuntary exclamation of concern, +of surprise, of regret escaped from the Herr Doktor's lips. + +'Yes, you see how it is with me? One of those new-fangled injections at +the right moment might have stopped the mischief. On the other hand, it +might not.' He shrugged his shoulders, and exclaimed, 'Yes, there's +nothing to be done! But I want to know if your opinion coincides with +mine as to how much time I have left. That is important, for I have +arrangements to make. When I am gone, my daughter will have to find her +way to Paris, to her aunt, Mademoiselle de Bligniere.' + +'To Paris?' The Herr Doktor could not keep the amazement he felt out of +his voice. + +The old man looked up at him quickly. 'Yes, my dear colleague, to +Paris--why not?' + +'But--but----' The Herr Doktor reddened, then very quietly, even +deprecatingly, he said, 'But, Monsieur le Docteur--the Germans? Will +they not in Paris be?' + +'No,' said Dr. Rouannes confidently. 'They will be kept out of Paris. I +only wish she--aye, and I too--were in Paris now!' + +There was a pause, a rather painful pause, between the two men. + +'You do not believe what I say about Paris?' said Dr. Rouannes abruptly. + +'No, I regret to say that I cannot your opinion share.' The Herr Doktor +forced himself to say the words. + +'You do not know Joffre.' The old doctor looked up at him reflectively. +'Very few people know Joffre--I do. We were at school together. I saw +him not so very long ago. In fact just before I was wounded.' Then he +called out, 'Jeanne! Ma petite Jeanne!' + +The door opened, and Mademoiselle Rouannes walked in, pale, composed, +but with lips quivering piteously. + +'Do not look so anxious,' said her father quickly. 'As I have always +told you, there is no mystery about my condition--none at all! My +English colleague agrees with me that it's a very nasty wound. Well, you +know that already! I'm not as young as I was--that is against me; on the +other hand, I'm a very healthy man. You are not to trouble about me one +way or the other. Certain things which we are lacking this gentleman +will provide out of his stores. The English ambulance service is the +best in the world.' + +And then the Herr Doktor made his one mistake. 'Nein, nein!' he +muttered. And then he felt his heart stand still. + +But his new patient had not heard the protest. In a stronger, heartier +voice he exclaimed, 'Ah yes, that's right! I wondered when it was +coming----' + +The door had opened, and Therese walked round the corner of the screen, +carrying a tray on which were three small glasses, a bottle of Malaga, +and some little dry cakes. + +'Do you mind stopping a few minutes and having a talk with my father?' +Jeanne Rouannes spoke in English. 'It's very'--she hesitated for a word, +then found it--'it's very dull for him when I am away all day.' + +Eagerly the Herr Doktor sat down. + +'And now,' exclaimed the patient, 'we will forget illness and trouble! +We will talk of the glorious British Army, and of your ships--that +splendid navy which encircles and guards our shores. What would the +Little Corporal have said to all this, hein?' Then more seriously he +went on, 'I was put out of action almost at once, and that is why I saw +nothing of my British confreres. I regret to say that I did see +something of the German doctors'--the colour rushed into his face, +flamed over his broad forehead, and up to the roots of his white hair. + +'Father!' said his daughter imploringly, 'Father, be calm!' + +'I am calm--I am absolutely calm! But I must tell our friend of my +experience, if only because it will show him--it will show him----' + +'Father!' she said again, 'why talk of it now? It will only excite you +unduly.' + +'No, it does not excite me--not in the least! Our English friend here +will be interested--deeply interested--in my story. It is one which +should be published in'--he waited a moment, then brought out +triumphantly the name--'yes, the _Lancet_--it should be written in the +_Lancet_. Perhaps M. le Docteur will himself write it?' + +He stopped short, and looked inquiringly at the man sitting by his +bedside. + +'Most certainly will I it do, my dear confrere.' As he spoke the lying +words, Max Keller looked, not at the old man in bed, but at Mademoiselle +Jeanne, and there was a kindly, steady, reassuring expression in his +eyes. + +She had grown scarlet with annoyance, with--was it fear? The Herr Doktor +longed to reassure her, to make her feel at ease. How little she +understood the self-control, the generosity, the masculine good sense of +the German character! As if he would or could mind anything which this +poor, old, prejudiced Frenchman, dying so bravely of a gangrenous wound, +was likely to say or think of the splendid surgeons now adorning the +German Medical Corps! Courteously he bent forward to hear what the man +in bed was saying. + +'Yes, my dear confrere, what I am about to tell you deserves to be put +on record! But I will not take up much of your time--I will be brief, +very brief.' + +He waited a moment, and then, with a curious change of tone, very +quietly Dr. Rouannes told his story. 'It was a few days before I was +wounded, between two of the early battles. Six of us had been sent to +hastily organise a field hospital'--a bitter look came into his face. +'As you know, for it is, alas! no secret, we were caught, thanks to our +fine Government, quite unprepared.... But to return to our muttons--we +of the Red Cross were being cordially entertained by one of our generals +and his staff, when one afternoon a number of our brave fellows came in +with a capture! Such fools were we, such quixotic fools--it is not yet +a month ago, but we have all changed by now--that we were angered when +we discovered that this capture consisted of four German ambulance +waggons, and of ten German doctors.' + +The Herr Doktor moved uncomfortably in his chair; it creaked a little. + +'Because we were such quixotic fools--and our general, Monsieur, shared +our folly and our quixotry--we invited these German confreres to join us +at dinner. We were sorry for them, we felt ashamed they had been +detained. We intended to send them away next day, back to their own +side. We were the more interested in them owing to the simple fact that, +like ourselves, they had not yet been in action--so far was clear, they +wore quite new uniforms and their equipment was superb. Ah, Monsieur, +their equipment made our mouths water! Another thing also filled us with +envy and, yes, a little shame. All ten of these medical gentlemen spoke +French, and excellent French too; but only one of us six spoke German! +Fortunately three or four of the officers attached to our General spoke +German too--not perhaps very well, but still sufficiently to +understand. Fortunately, very fortunately as it turned out, the one of +us doctors who could speak German was a very intelligent man. He was, +Monsieur, from Luxembourg, and some of his medical studies had actually +been carried out in Germany. Bref, he spoke German like a German.' + +The old man waited a moment. 'Have patience with me,' he said quietly. +'It will not take you long to hear my story, but the preliminaries are +important.... Down we all sat to an excellent dinner. "One thing at +least we can show them," observed a friend to me. "Our cooking, at any +rate, is superior to theirs!" Our confrere, the man who spoke German, +did not say much, he remained curiously silent during the meal; but the +Germans talked a good deal with us other five. They proved pleasant, for +they were each and all cultivated men. Before we sat down we Frenchmen +arranged not to touch on anything controversial. But, as was natural +under the circumstances, we talked what you English call "shop"--we +talked, that is, in an impersonal, courteous manner of wounds, and of +the treatment of wounds; for from the day war had broken out we had +naturally all been reading up everything we could lay our hands on about +this terrible and fascinating subject.' + +'You are getting tired, Father----' + +Jeanne Rouannes came forward as she said the words, but the old man +raised his voice: 'No, I am not tired--not tired at all! They were ten +Germans to us five Frenchmen, for, as I have already told you, our +Luxembourg confrere hardly spoke at all. It was he, however, who towards +the end of dinner got up and left the room, and his absence, rather to +our surprise, seemed to make certain of our German confreres slightly +uneasy. More than one of them asked why he had thus absented himself.... +They soon had an answer to their question, for at the end of perhaps ten +minutes he came back, and with him was the General. Our German guests +rose to their feet with perfect courtesy as the General walked forward. +He was pale, Monsieur--he was pale as you may be sure he never had been, +he never would be, in action. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "I have to +perform a disagreeable task! Your confrere here--if indeed he is your +confrere--is convinced that among you there are a proportion of men who +are not doctors, and who, to put it bluntly, know nothing of medicine. +He is convinced, gentlemen, that out of you ten men there are four spies +who have taken advantage of the Red Cross uniform to obtain information +useful to our enemies. I now ask him, and his five French confreres, to +constitute themselves into a court-martial; and you, gentlemen, will +each in turn submit yourself to a short cross-examination. You all speak +French so perfectly that it will be a very easy matter for you to answer +the simple questions which will be put to you."' + +Dr. Rouannes drew a long breath. + +'I do not mind confessing to you that I thought this proposal an +outrage! I had no doubt at all that the ten men before me were Red Cross +surgeons. I come, Monsieur, of a Bonapartist family. I can remember +1870--the foolish, senseless cry, "We are betrayed!" On this occasion I +felt as if that same ignoble cry was being raised again. "This +Luxembourg confrere is afraid. He is nervous. He has the spy mania!" I +exclaimed to myself. But I did notice--I could not help noticing--that +of the ten men standing before us two had turned horribly pale. But what +of that? Might not anyone turn pale when accused of so hateful and +loathly a thing as is that of which those men were being accused?' + +He paused--it seemed a very long time to his two listeners. + +'Well, my dear confrere--you will already have guessed the end of my +story! The two hours which followed the decree of our General were the +most painful of my life. But the Luxembourg doctor had made one mistake. +He had thought to find four spies--Monsieur, there were five. Exactly +half of these ten men wearing the Red Cross knew nothing of +medicine--nothing of surgery. The fifth man, he who had escaped +suspicion, was more intelligent than the others; he, at any rate, had +taken the trouble to make himself conversant with certain things which +are the ABC of our noble profession. Perchance he was the son of a +doctor--who knows? You will ask why we were so long as two hours? We +were two hours because we first took those whom our Luxembourg confrere +believed to be medical men. We put them through a very thorough +examination and they came out of it admirably. Then we took the others. +Ah, Monsieur, that did not take long! We knew the truth very, very +soon--almost within the first few moments. For the matter of that they +scarcely went to the trouble of denying what we suspected--only the one +of whom I have just spoken tried to deceive us. They were brave +men--that I will say frankly--those Prussian officers who had done so +dastardly a thing. Indeed, Monsieur, I do not mind admitting to you +that, in the end, I understood their point of view far more than I did +that of the five medical men who had lent themselves to so +unprofessional an act of treachery. As for the spies, they were working +for their country. I repeat, they were brave men. Not one of them +flinched. A confrere who had been attached to a medical mission in the +East said to me afterwards that to him they recalled fanatics. For the +matter of that, even the German surgeons were not aware of the enormity +of their crime. There seemed no shame among them--indeed, as one of them +put it to me quite plainly, each of them placed his Fatherland above his +sense of professional honour.' + +And then at last the Herr Doktor spoke. 'You do not think any French Red +Cross surgeon would such a--a trick have practised?' + +And Jeanne Rouannes, glancing at him quickly, and then averting her +eyes, saw that his usually pale face was red. + +The old man stared at him, surprised. He lifted his shaggy white +eyebrows. 'I cannot answer for _every_ member of the French Army Medical +Corps,' he answered, with a touch of impatience. 'But I can answer for +it that you would not have found five men, nay, not three, willing to do +such a thing in concert. Had such a proposal been made to them, one and +all, I am quite convinced, would have refused. Further, I assert that no +French general would have dared to make to them so dishonourable a +proposal. The Red Cross, as you know, my dear confrere, is an +international institution; if it is to be used to cover, to serve +military operations, then'--he shrugged his shoulders expressively. + +The Herr Doktor rose to his feet. 'Yes,' he said, 'I quite see it, and +from your point of view you have right--undoubted right!' + +'And now, my dear father, I had better take the doctor downstairs. He +has to go back to the barge.' + +Dr. Rouannes grasped his colleague's hand with both his. 'It has done me +great good to see you,' he said heartily. 'And I am sure you will be +able to alleviate the slight pain from which I now and again suffer. You +will remember all I have told you'--the old man looked up at him with a +touch of painful anxiety in his eyes, and, as he heard the door behind +the screen swing to behind his daughter--'You will help her to get to +Paris?' he muttered. 'It would not be safe for her to remain alone here. +There may be fierce fighting our way soon. You have doubtless heard of +our New Army?' + +The Herr Doktor nodded. How piteous were these delusions of the +conquered! He answered in all sincerity, 'In every possible way, my dear +confrere, will I Mademoiselle Rouannes assist, when you no longer there +to help her are.' + + + + +PART III + + +1 + +The cemetery of what was once Valoise commands the wide valley of the +Marne, and, as so often happens in France, it is on the highest ground +in the town, at a considerable distance from the parish church. + +On the morning of the eighth day of September the Herr Doktor was +betaking himself there to attend the funeral of his late colleague and +patient, Dr. Rouannes. + +During the last three days he had scarcely ever left the house of the +dying man. No son could have been more vigilantly, unwearyingly, devoted +than had been this German surgeon to the dying Frenchman; but while to +her whose vigils he shared time had seemed to drag with leaden feet, to +him the hours had gone all too quickly, and every moment spent with the +woman he loved had been fraught with emotions which gained in intensity +owing to enforced lack of expression. + +No wonder that he grew to care with an intimate, caressing affection for +everything in the little homestead that now belonged to Jeanne Rouannes. +No wonder that he put far from him, even if he could not always wholly +forget it, the fact that now, at this pregnant moment of their joint +lives, their two countries were at war. Sometimes, indeed, he did +actually forget it, for there was nothing to remind him of the conflict +in the still, sunlit little house, hidden in its fragrant garden behind +high walls. Even outside those walls, along the quiet, rudely paved +streets and stony, steep byways of the town, there came no surge of the +fierce, devastating tide of war now sweeping ever nearer and nearer to +doomed Paris. Max Keller, one side of his nature absorbed in what had +become an all-encompassing vision of coming joy, of heart-hunger +satisfied, another side concerned with alleviating the last hours of +Jeanne Rouannes' father, scarcely heard the little there was to hear, or +saw the little there was to see. He heard, that is, without hearing, +the rumours, now glad, now sad, which flew, even in remote Valoise, from +lip to lip. He saw, without seeing, the streets become more solitary and +barer of human life, as those first September days passed by, bringing, +as they always do in Northern France, a wonder of beautiful autumnal +colour.... + +And now, this morning, as the Herr Doktor trudged up to the cemetery, he +was conning over a suitable form of English words in which to tell +Jeanne of her father's last wish and injunction--that they two should +proceed to Paris without delay. As to what should follow their arrival +in Paris he, Max Keller, must wait upon events. In any case, he knew +that it would be an easy matter for him to afford the aunt and niece +help and protection during the short time that must elapse ere Germany +made peace with France. + +In one thing, and one thing only, he had been keenly disappointed. Since +they, together, had left the death-chamber, Mademoiselle Rouannes had +gently and courteously refused to see him, and he had been made to feel +by old Therese that his further presence in that house of bitter +mourning was superfluous. Reluctantly he had gone off to the Tournebride +to find there, as is always the case with an empty inn, an unnatural +sense of peace and void. Madame Blanc had the spacious hostelry all to +herself, and she spent her time in a restless coming to and fro about +her one guest. Of her two young daughters there was now, to his +indifferent surprise, no sign at all. + +Half an hour ago the Herr Doktor and his hostess had started out +together, she bound for the parish church, he for the cemetery. Soon +their ways had parted, and it had seemed to the German surgeon that the +whole remaining population of Valoise, or at any rate all the old women +and all the children too, intended to be present at the funeral of Dr. +Rouannes. He noted, with a certain indulgent amusement, that there was +an air of subdued festivity about those black-clad feminine mourners, +for the French are a gregarious people, and to the women walking in +slow-moving groups towards the church, any excuse for meeting was +welcome. + +Now he had left them all behind him, and as, breasting the light wind, +he strode up the last lap of the stony thoroughfare which led to the +cemetery, the practical side of his German mind asked itself, with a +kind of impatient wonder, why such a peculiarly unsuitable stretch of +high ground should have been chosen. + +But there is something very appealing, and very intimate, in the final +resting-places of the French dead, and the Herr Doktor, when he at last +walked through the gates, and found himself in the strangely situated +cemetery of Valoise, looked about him with a good deal of sympathetic +interest and curiosity. + +To his now brimful-of-sentiment heart there was nothing jarring in the +ugly, often even grotesque, mementoes which here surrounded him. In his +present mood the stone and marble hands clasped closely together struck +him as exquisitely symbolic of the highest type of human love; he was +touched by the quaint conceit of a black tablet bedewed with a +widower's white tears, and he gazed with softened eyes at the contorted +bead wreaths and crosses inscribed 'A notre pere,' 'Mon cher petit +enfant,' 'Regrets sinceres,' which were among the humbler forms of +commemoration. + +While walking with reverent footsteps along a narrow pathway, his eyes +were suddenly arrested by an English inscription. Though cut deep into a +now very weather-beaten stone cross, the words had become partly +effaced. He soon, however, made out their sense: + + On September 29, 1870, there fell, close to Valoise, three brave + men, nameless German officers. An Englishwoman, a lover of Germany, + has put up this cross to their memory. May they rest in peace. + +There came a deep frown over the Herr Doktor's mouth. He turned his back +abruptly on the old stone cross, wondering bitterly whether the +Englishwoman who had done this kindly act was still alive. If so, what +must she now think of the treachery of her decadent fellow-countrymen? + +Somewhat ruffled by this untoward incident, he walked on, till he found +the deep, roughly made grave wherein his French colleague was about to +be laid. + +Above the now open vault rose a miniature stone chapel, and below the +lintel of the roof ran in gold letters the words: 'Famille Rouannes.' + +Walking slowly forward Max Keller went and stood before the gates, +between which rose the pair of trestles placed ready for the coffin. + +Four marble tablets were fixed on the left-hand side of the entrance to +the chapel, and on each was commemorated a member of the Rouannes +family. Jeanne's grandfather, dead forty-five years ago; her +grandmother; an uncle who had died in childhood. And then, in blacker, +clearer characters, an inscription which touched him nearly: + + Dame Emile Rouannes, nee Demoiselle Jeanne de Bligniere. Mere + aimee. Femme adoree. + +To the right of the Rouannes monument, a square aperture cut in the +cemetery wall commanded a wonderful view, not only of the town of +Valoise, but of the spreading plains below. He went there, and leaning +over the low parapet, gazed down at the place where, some hundred feet +beneath him, was a little square from which fell away the grey and red +roofs which seemed, in their turn, to drop sheer into the valley. + +An autumn haze, rising from the river, and from the many other smaller +waterways intersecting the woods and lands beyond the river, hung over +the countryside. And as his short-sighted eyes tried to pierce the +masses of shifting mist which moved over the wide, flat expanse of land +below, there suddenly broke on the still air the sound of solemn +chanting, and he saw, moving up the long winding street which led from +the parish church to the cemetery, the funeral procession of Jeanne +Rouannes' father. + + +2 + +The procession was headed by a woman whom he knew to be the old priest's +plain-featured housekeeper. She bore in her uplifted arms a cross, and, +immediately after her, came Monsieur le Cure himself. In his +black-and-silver mourning vestments the parish priest of Valoise looked +an imposing, as well as a reverent, figure. Behind him were eight little +boys in black cassocks, each of whom in his right hand held a lighted +candle, which guttered and spluttered in the wind. Very slowly, and +pacing in ordered array, the priest and his attendant acolytes debouched +into the little square. + +There followed a moment of confusion, and in the centre of a black-robed +crowd of elderly women--of women the majority of whom each held a child +by the hand--the Herr Doktor suddenly saw something which made him +recoil and press further in to that side of the wall which concealed him +from the people below. + +On a rickety low cart, drawn by a decrepit pony, was a large wooden +packing-case on which some well-meaning hand had drawn, in black paint +which still gleamed wetly in the sun, a rude cross. + +Such was the makeshift coffin of Doctor Rouannes. + +The colour flamed up into the Herr Doktor's face. With a shock of shame +and, yes, of naive surprise, he realised how barbarous, how lamentable, +even how grotesque, can be the minor consequences of Glorious War. + +Behind the little cart and its untoward burden, Jeanne Rouannes, +shrouded in black, and heavily veiled, walked alone, followed at a few +paces by the two servants of the dead man. Suddenly the cart stopped, +and out of the crowd there came forward eight very old men. Stooping +down till their knees almost touched the ground, they lifted the white +deal case on to their shoulders, and slowly, pantingly, began the task +of bearing it up the stony path which led to the cemetery. + +The Herr Doktor, shrinking back, instinctively held his breath; he +feared that each dragging moment might bring with it the slipping of the +awkward burden from some heaving shoulder, and at last the strain on his +nerves became so great that he deliberately turned away, and stared, in +wretched suspense, unseeingly before him. + +It seemed as if hours instead of minutes passed by ere he heard the +muttered exclamations of relief: 'Ca y est!' 'Enfin!' 'Oh, la, la!' +which signified that the eight old men had reached level ground at last. + +Then, and not till then, the onlooker left the embrasure in the wall +where he had been hidden. But no one glanced his way, or seemed +conscious of his alien presence, and with aching heart he gazed his fill +at the mournful little procession which was now passing a few yards to +his left. + +The coffin bearers walked more firmly, their burden now better adjusted +to their frail shoulders, and close behind them came Jeanne Rouannes. + +She had thrown back her long black veil; her face looked as though it +were of wax; alone her blue eyes, gleaming dry and bright, seemed alive. + +Very soon the crowd surged up, forming a large semicircle, and the one +stranger there fell back, on to the outer rim of it. But, even so, he +could still see Jeanne Rouannes quite clearly. And when the rude case +which served as her father's coffin had been placed on the trestles +standing ready for it, the hard waxen look left her face, a long +quivering sigh escaped her lips, and these same poor lips began to +tremble piteously. As the tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down +her cheeks, the Herr Doktor's filled in sympathy.... + +Suddenly their tear-dimmed eyes met, and though he did not know it, and +was never to know it, she saw him, this German man, Max Keller, who +loved her, as if for the first time--for the agony she was feeling +unlocked the key to his heart, and made her see therein. + +She blushed--a dusky, painful blush of outraged pride, anger, surprise, +and quick self-examination and reproach. But no, she had done nothing to +deserve, to bring upon herself, this new, this inconceivably outrageous +humiliation! But very soon the deep colour receded, leaving her pale as +she had been red, and it was with a composed countenance and downcast +eyes that she stepped forward to perform the last of the pious offices +the Catholic living perform to the Catholic dead--that of sprinkling +holy water on the coffin. + +Taking the curiously shaped _benitier_ in her right hand, she raised it +slowly in the air, and then, in startled surprise, she paused, for all +at once there rose above the silent crowd, almost entirely composed of +old women and little children, a long drawn-out, sibilant scream. + +Only one of those now gathered there, in that wind-swept cemetery of +Valoise, knew what that sinister sound portended; so well indeed did he +know it that instinctively he made a movement as if to throw himself on +the ground. But he restrained the impulse. And as Jeanne Rouannes waited +uncertainly, the women round her gazed up into the sky from whence came +the strange sound. Like her, they were all startled and surprised rather +than afraid. + +Then came a muffled sound of explosion; an acrid smell floated on the +light wind, and the Herr Doktor, glancing round, saw that the missile +had struck the further wall of the enclosure. + +The priest raised his hand. 'I think it is only a stray shell,' he +called out in a loud voice. 'Do not be frightened, my children. Go home +quietly, and take to your cellars, in case others follow it.' + +There followed a general _sauve-qui-peut_. Mothers and grandmothers +took up their little children, and galloped down the stony way, wailing +as they ran. Alone among the women there Jeanne Rouannes remained +quietly standing in front of her father's bier. As for the old priest, +he moved quickly to the aperture in the wall from whence the country +below lay spread out map-wise, and the Herr Doktor followed him. + +Both men bent down over the parapet, and then each straightened himself +and looked at the other quickly, furtively, to see if what he had seen +was indeed there, and no delusion bred of a weary and excited brain. + +The Route Nationale, which followed the course of the river at the +bottom of the town, was dark with moving masses of artillery, of motor +wagons, horses, and men. The long sinuous coil was slow moving, yet +there was an air of haste and of disorder about it. With an uneasy sense +of surprise and discomfort the Herr Doktor gradually began to realise +that they were his own countrymen hastening thus in the wrong +direction--away from Paris, instead of towards it. + +Even as the two, the Frenchman and the German, looked amazedly down, the +dark, thick line halted, broke, and swerved; it was clear that in a few +minutes the troops composing it would be over-running all Valoise. + +The priest turned to the man standing by his side. 'The Germans have +come back,' he said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice. +'They are in great force, and I trust, Monsieur, that you will help me +to keep order in my poor town.' + +'The town has nothing to fear.' The Herr Doktor spoke in a loud voice. +His nerves were taut. The other's tone, at once commanding and +appealing, irritated him. 'With every consideration will you treated +be,' he said stiffly. 'I will myself go and the Commandant seek out.' + +The old priest, glancing round, saw that Jeanne Rouannes was practically +out of earshot. Approaching yet closer, he said urgently, 'I also trust +to you, Monsieur le Medecin, to make a special effort to protect that +poor girl, and I appeal to you to tell me now, at once, if she will be +safer with you or with me? In any case it is clear she must go home as +soon as possible, and assume there once more her Red Cross uniform. That +in itself is a protection.' + +The Herr Doktor looked straight into the face of the priest. He saw +there fear, horror, and indignation struggling for mastery. Very +different had been the attitude, the appearance, of Monsieur le Cure +when they had first met on that August day, nearly three weeks ago, when +the Uhlans had taken peaceful possession of Valoise! Then there had been +no sign of fear on the priest's face, and that though he had absurdly +supposed himself to be about to be led out and shot. But now? Now the +old Frenchman did look afraid. + +As for a moment the Herr Doktor remained silent, the other repeated, +with a touch of angry impatience and urgency in his voice--'What is it +you advise? What do you believe will be best for the protection of +Mademoiselle Rouannes? I beg of you to tell me! There is no time to +lose--soon it will be too late for me to do anything, for they will want +me again as a hostage.' + +'Yes,' said the Herr Doktor reluctantly, 'I fear it is true that you an +hostage will have to be. But as--as for Mademoiselle Rouannes, she, I +assure you, will be perfectly safe! Of her to ask that she should her +Red Cross dress again put on, that could I not on the day of her +father's funeral do. Indeed, there is no reason why she again should to +the barge go down. The men whom I have been compelled as prisoners to +keep down there are nearly well, and she has never my own patient +nursed.' + +His French was poor and halting, but the old priest understood it well +enough to be filled with dismay at such--such an obstinate blindness! + +'Is it possible you do not know,' he said in a quick whisper, 'how the +Prussians have been behaving since they began to retreat--since there +began that great battle three days ago?' + +The German surgeon stared at the old French priest. He felt amazed, +incredulous, and yet--yet a gleam of doubt filled his soul. 'I have +nothing heard!' he exclaimed. 'You forget that I the last few days +constantly with Dr. Rouannes have been. Why did you me unknowing leave +of what you seem to think I should have known? Even now I do not what +you mean understand. And I must of you request to tell me what it is you +believe?' + +But even as he asked the question the Herr Doktor's mind had rushed back +to many apparently insignificant happenings of the last few days.... + +All through those days there had arisen an unwonted stir outside the +little house where he was engaged in so skilfully tending a dying man. +Along the quiet, sunny Rue des Jardins there had been an incessant +coming and going of peasant women pouring into Valoise from the +surrounding country. He also remembered now that a group of girls, +crying bitterly, had come to see Mademoiselle Rouannes, and that old +Therese had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself, +to a Sodalite, or religious society, and that they were leaving the +town. + +But he, Max Keller, had been too absorbed in his dying patient, and in +that dying patient's daughter, to give any thought at all to what was +going on in Valoise, outside the house and walled garden where he spent +so many hours of each day. + +'There has been a great battle,' went on the priest quickly, 'nay, a +series of battles, in which your armies have been turned back--back from +the very gates of Paris! I regret, Monsieur, to be the one to give what +to you must be bad tidings----' + +The Herr Doktor shook his head impatiently. He did not believe a word of +the old Frenchman's incredible statement. It was possible that some +trifling portion of the victorious German hosts had been caught at a +disadvantage--not likely to be so, but still possible; and a temporary +check would, of course, explain what was now going on down there by the +river.... + +But what was this the parish priest of Valoise was muttering, almost in +his ear, speaking so fast and so low that he, Max Keller, found it hard +to follow him? + +'And in their retreat--the retreat which is now a rout--I regret to tell +you that your countrymen are doing terrible things! They are burning, +Monsieur le Medecin, burning and sacking as they go--terrorising our +population. Sometimes they do worse--far worse even than that!' He came +nearer to the younger man, and more slowly, more calmly, he said: 'Four +days ago, I arranged to send most of the young girls away from Valoise. +They had to go walking, poor lambs of the Lord. We sent them through the +woods,'--he waved his arm vaguely towards the further side of the +cemetery--'where our own soldiers are said to be. It was but a measure +of precaution, and one urged on me--I will do him that justice--by the +Mayor. He always believed that some of your soldiery would come back +this way. I did not agree with him. But I was wrong and he was right, +and the God in whom he does not believe will, I feel sure, reward him +for having saved so many poor innocents. But, as you will at once +comprehend, to get Jeanne Rouannes away was out of the question--I did +not even think of it.' + +And then the Herr Doktor uttered the first insulting words he had said +in France: 'Your Mayor, and you yourself, Monsieur le Cure, judge +Germans by Frenchmen. Believe me, your young countrywomen in no danger +are.' + +Again there suddenly rose that long drawn-out whistling, portent of +destruction and disaster, and this time the Herr Doktor rushing forward, +called out loudly, 'Prostrate yourself, Mademoiselle! Prostrate +yourself, Monsieur le Cure!' + +But neither of the two who heard his shout of warning followed his +example, indeed the meaning of his words scarcely penetrated their +brains. Again the noisesome missile struck the further wall of the +cemetery, and this time a huge fragment of the shell hurled itself +backwards, to within a few inches of the head of the rudely-fashioned +coffin. + +With a startled cry of pain and fear Mademoiselle Rouannes shrank back, +and covered her eyes with her hands. + +'I can you indeed no moment longer allow to remain!' the Herr Doktor +made a leap to where she stood. With an awkward movement he took hold of +her arm, and, unresisting, she allowed herself to be hurried along the +broad sanded path, and down the steep, stony way into the deserted +square. + + +3 + +When they had reached the middle of the square, the Herr Doktor +slackened his pace and looked about him in some perplexity. He suspected +the two shells which had fallen so wide to be French shells, and if that +were so, there might soon be sharp fighting in the very streets of +Valoise. Anxiously he began asking himself which would be the safest +shelter for the girl who now stood, silent and rigid, by his side? +Should he take her home to the house in the Haute-Ville or down to the +Red Cross barge? + +Four streets led out of the square. It was clear that the widest must +lead more or less straight down to the river. It was along that wider +way that Monsieur le Cure, his sable-and-silver vestments flapping in +the wind, was now hurrying. Staring after the strange, solitary figure, +the Herr Doktor bethought himself uneasily of the old man's words of +warning. It might well be true that Jeanne Rouannes would be safer in +her Red Cross uniform--safer, that is, from the discourtesy of rough, +stern words. Not for a moment did Max Keller fear or admit, even in his +innermost heart, that his fellow-countrymen could behave ill to the +women of conquered France. To his mind such an accusation was as base as +it was baseless. But he knew that many apparently harsh rules and +regulations had had to be drawn up concerning the conduct of the +civilian population. Most fortunately Jeanne Rouannes, in her Red Cross +dress, formed part of an International Society, and thus was assured of +exceptional respect and courtesy. + +And yet as he stood there, debating quickly within himself what it were +best to do, he, Max Keller, felt a jealous pang of repugnance at the +thought of the young Frenchwoman being brought in contact with--well, +with the Prince Egon type of Prussian officer. Deep in his heart he knew +only too well how small was the measure of respect that type of German +is prepared to pay to any pretty woman with whom a lucky chance brings +him in contact. Governed by that secret, reluctant knowledge, the Herr +Doktor at last traced out a certain line of conduct for himself--one, +too, which he believed it would be quite easy to carry out. That course +was to take Mademoiselle Rouannes back to her own house, after which, +having left her safe with old Jacob and Therese, he, in his official +capacity, would seek out the officer in command of the troops about to +occupy Valoise, and obtain a pass for a French Red Cross nurse. With +that in his possession, it would surely be easy for them to proceed to +Paris in his motor ambulance. + +'Which way to your house leads?' he asked quietly. + +But even as the words left his lips, there suddenly surged up a loud, +confused, and menacing sound. With a strange feeling of fear, strange to +Max Keller, for he was a brave man, he realised that it was the curious, +sinister clamour caused by the undisciplined tramp of a crowd of +hurrying men--a sound differing ominously from that produced by the +ordered, measured, rhythmic march of soldiers.... + +Nearer and nearer came the tramp of thudding, shuffling feet. Jeanne +Rouannes moved closer to him, so close that he heard the hoarse, +despairing whisper answering her own unuttered question--'_Ce sont les +Prussiens!_' + +She was glancing about her this way and that--a wild spasm of dread, +that of a trapped creature, in her pale face. But every window in the +square had been shuttered, every door locked and barred. + +'Shall I go up into the cemetery again?' She spoke in English, her lips +hardly moving. + +The Herr Doktor looked straight into her face; her eyes were steady, but +her lips trembled, and her hands were pressed together. He divined the +mingled fear and shame--the shame and fear of being so horribly +afraid--which possessed her. + +'No, no--with me are you quite safe!' + +Ah! If only he could make her, his beloved, understand his own complete +understanding of her--if only he could lift her beautiful soul up into +the ether where his own had dwelt ever since he had first seen her--then +she would know how secure from harm she was in his company, and in that +of his fellow-countrymen! + +But the time had not yet come when he could say even a millionth part of +what was in his heart, and so with a jolt he came down to this +earth-bound little French town of Valoise, and once more he repeated +reassuringly, 'With me are you quite safe.' And indeed he believed what +he said. He had no fear but that his fellow-countrymen, even if drunk +with victory, aye, and perchance with good French wine as well, would +respect his uniform, and the presence of the mourning lady by his side. + +But even so, as nearer and nearer came the sound of trampling feet, of +loud, confused talk, there did come over the Herr Doktor's mind a +disagreeable recollection of the old priest's hurried, broken account of +the looting and the drinking which were said to have been going on in +places near Valoise. + +It would be indeed a misfortune were Mademoiselle Rouannes to see the +noble German soldier at a disadvantage. And then, while this unspoken +fear was still passing through his brain, there suddenly surged up one +of the narrower streets leading into the little square a motley crowd of +grey-clad men. + +Soldiers? Yes, men belonging to the famous Brandenburg Regiment, but +now, to the Herr Doktor's disciplined eyes, presenting a sorry, and +indeed, a shocking appearance. Some lacked their helmets, some their +coats; a few still had their rifles, but all were dirty and unkempt. + +It was not the first time the Herr Doktor had seen soldiers in this +guise; so had many of the victorious German troops appeared after the +hard-fought battle of Charleroi. And yet? And yet there had been a vast +difference between those men and these, though he was not yet able to +define where that difference lay. + + * * * * * + +When those who appeared to be the leaders of the unkempt rabble saw the +two figures standing in the sunlit square, their line wavered, and some +of them drew back, while the loud talking died down into a surprised +silence. + +There came quickly forward the burly figure of a non-commissioned +officer, one, too, who had almost all of his accoutrement complete. + +'Herr Doktor?' he exclaimed eagerly. 'We were told there was a good +wine-shop up this way! Can you direct me to it? My men are badly in need +of food and rest, and every inn in the lower part of the town has +already been taken by assault'--he spoke complainingly; it was clear +that he was labouring under a sense of grievance. + +'But--but where have you come from?' asked the Herr Doktor in a low +voice. He felt bewildered--bewildered and strangely oppressed. 'I +don't understand how or why you are here, in Valoise-sur-Marne?' + +'And yet it's clear enough!' said the other sharply. 'We were promised +good beds, plenty to eat, and above all plenty to drink, once we reached +Valoise. We find the town practically deserted--only old women and a few +children left in it! As for wine'--he shrugged his shoulders. 'Just now +the Mayor was required to produce twenty thousand bottles of wine. Do +you know, Herr Doktor, how many he offers to provide?' He waited, and as +the Herr Doktor remained silent, he suddenly shouted out, 'Eight hundred +bottles! What is that among three thousand men? Of course we excluded +the wine-shops as a source of supply--the wine-shops were already +emptied before we managed to hunt out the Mayor. Our officers are +furious!' + +'The officers will get plenty of good wine at the Tournebride----' + +The Herr Doktor knew now wherein lay the difference between the victors +of Charleroi, and the men who stood staring stupidly before him. The +victors of Charleroi had been sober; these countrymen of his were +already more or less drunk. + +But what was this the corporal was saying, smiling angrily the while? +'The Tournebride? Nay, those of our comrades who passed that way three +weeks ago seem to have been locusts--what they couldn't drink they took +away! All they left behind them is poison--rank poison! Cheap blue +stuff, and not a single bottle of beer!' + +There came a quick stir among the soldiers, and they parted to make way +for a tall, fine-looking young officer. But he also looked worn, +haggard, and angry. His face cleared somewhat as he came up to his two +fellow-countrymen, and softened as his eye rested on the black-draped, +fair-haired figure who now stood, with eyes cast down, and hands loosely +clasped together, some way apart from the Red Cross doctor and his +companion. + +'I was told that I should probably find you up here, Herr Doktor! A +woman down by the river directed me. Is it true that you've been in this +town a fortnight, and that a number of our fellows stayed here a week +and ate and drank up everything--the locusts? Not content with drinking +up all the wine, it's clear that they also took all the young women away +with them! They had, however, mercy on _you_!' With a smile and a slight +gesture towards Jeanne Rouannes, he added a few joking words which made +the hot colour rush to the Herr Doktor's face. + +'This lady,' he said stiffly, 'is a distinguished Sister of the Red +Cross. It is in that capacity that she is now under my protection and +care. Her father died but yesterday.' + +The other had the grace to look slightly ashamed. + +'Yes, yes,' he said hastily. 'I understand that--the woman by the river +told me of the funeral. But, Herr Doktor? In your place I should take +this Red Cross demoiselle straight back to her hospital, and, unless it +is absolutely necessary, do not go down into the lower part of the town. +When I said just now that there was no wine left in Valoise, it was +merely a figure of speech. Of course, there _is_ wine; in fact our weary +fellows have got hold of a fair amount but it is not good--it is not the +sort that we hoped to find here!' + +There were many pressing questions on the Herr Doktor's lips, but he +judged it best not to ask them. Instead he only observed: 'I am very +desirous to get a pass into Paris for this Sister of Compassion. Her +father was my colleague, a doctor, that is, of the Red Cross, and on his +bed of death I promised him to try and procure a suitable escort and a +pass into Paris for his daughter. So pray inform me, Herr Captain, of +the name of our Commandant. Where can I find him?--is he at the +Tournebride?' + +The other turned, and gazed with a singular expression at the Herr +Doktor. 'You will not be able to get a pass into Paris from any of us +just now,' he said slowly. 'No doubt the time will come when you will be +able to do so. But we do not yet hold the gates of Paris.' He waited a +moment, then asked abruptly, 'Does this Red Cross Sister know our +language?' + +'No, not one word of it.' + +'Then I will tell you,' and even so he lowered his voice, 'that we were +within one day's march of Paris when came the order to make a turning +movement. Do not ask me why, my dear fellow! I know less than nothing +about it--only the bare fact. Ask Von Kluck the reason the next time you +meet him! For the last three days we have been fighting--fighting and, +well, yes, retreating, by night as well as day. That is why my men are +worn out. Yesterday evening we were badly surprised, and as our fellows +ran they threw away everything--everything which could impede their +flight----' + +'Their flight?' repeated the Herr Doktor, in a dazed voice. + +'Yes, their flight,' said the other shortly, 'or if you prefer the word, +my dear Herr Doktor, their rout! But we shall soon re-form. It is but a +temporary check. We must not expect to meet nothing but astounding +victories--such victories as have blessed us hitherto--in war. The +British, at any rate are _done_--rolled up, put out of action +altogether. It is a new French army which circled round from Versailles, +commanded, they say, by Maunoury, which upset our calculations.' He +added, lowering his voice yet more: 'But we are falling back on prepared +positions, beyond the Aisne.' + +'Then are the French just behind you--close to Valoise?' + +'Not very far off,' said the other drily, but not likely to enter the +town yet awhile. We have found excellent gun positions up there'--he +pointed vaguely beyond the cemetery--'and this place should be easy to +defend.' + +'But where are our main forces?' + +'Some have cut straight across the front of what remains of the +contemptible little British army--at least that was the general +disposition when I was last in touch with the Staff. About those corps +there is no anxiety, for, as I told you just now, the British are done.' + +A gleam of joy shot across the Herr Doktor's now haggard face. And the +other hurried on: 'So, too, are the French who fell back with them. But +that new, fresh army under Maunoury--that was a colossal surprise! Once +it is disposed of, we shall renew our advance on Paris.' He hesitated +for a moment, and then the pleasure of finding a listener conquered +prudence. 'The Crown Prince did not come up to time. His army was to +have joined ours on September 2--Von Kluck was waiting for him. There +could be no final attack on Paris without the "Draufgaenger." You +understand? It was our future War Lord's perquisite----' + +The Herr Doktor nodded comprehendingly. Oddly enough, he had never seen +the Crown Prince, but from various things he had heard about him he +supposed him to be not unlike Prince Egon. + + +4 + +After leaving the square, the Herr Doktor and Jeanne Rouannes found +every street and every alley barred. And though the uniform of the +'Militaer-Arzt' generally opened a way without much difficulty, Max +Keller soon realised, with bitter, dumb self-reproach that he had wasted +priceless minutes in asking and in answering futile questions. Perhaps +because he had now spent a length of treasure-stored days in a country +where time means at once so very much more, and so very much less, than +it does in modern Germany, he was no longer in mental touch with the +type of human being created by the sinister amalgam of sentimental +idealism and military discipline. + +To a German officer any waste of time, especially on active service, is +abhorrent, and during the half-hour the Herr Doktor and his companion +had spent in the square, Valoise had been rapidly divided into +districts, and the looting therein, as far as was possible, +systematised. Thus as soon as a certain number of marauders had been +allowed to go through into it, further entry to a street was barred; +and to the Herr Doktor there was something horribly grotesque in the +contrast between the sharp discipline enforced by the patrols who sealed +each thoroughfare, and the orgy of thieving and senseless destruction +which they were apparently set there to supervise and protect. + +It seemed, too, as if Nature herself had become a willing accomplice to +the powers of evil, for the bright, delicious sunlight, the delicate +breeze already touched to an autumnal sharpness, shone on, and blew +about, the pitiful heaps of household plenishings which grew and swelled +before each doorway. + +In tacit agreement the two fugitives--for such they now felt themselves +to be--chose a roundabout way to the Rue des Jardins; and as they +hurried along, looking straight before them, averting their eyes from +the sights which lay to their right and to their left, the Herr Doktor +yet became conscious that here and there a house was being spared +outrage. Before one such a number of his fellow-countrymen had squatted +down on the cobble-stones, and were engaged in happily eating and +drinking their fill. An old Frenchwoman, with a pitifully eager, servile +manner, was waiting on them, bringing out of the villa, of which she was +evidently the care-taker, armfuls of red-sealed bottles of wine. And +yet, as he passed this house which was being spared outrage, the Herr +Doktor quickened his footsteps. Somehow the sight he saw there shocked +him more than did that of greater disorder. + +Tides of shame, bewilderment, and pain welled up in his sore, burdened +heart. Would the girl who now walked, with quick short steps, her head +held high, looking always straight before her, ever forget the scenes +they were now passing through? There was no fear now in her face, only a +look of measureless scorn, disgust, and contempt. And it was he, rather +than she, who felt a passion of relief when at last they emerged, +through a final patrol, to find the intersecting web of streets +composing the highest lap of the Haute Ville still free of soldiery. + +The long, sunny Rue des Jardins looked unnaturally as usual, but when +the two walked up through the garden of the Villa Rouannes, they saw +that the front door was still locked, and the green wooden shutters of +all the windows on the ground floor still barred. Therese and Jacob had +evidently been stopped, and turned back, on their flight home from the +cemetery. + +'I think we can get in at the back, through the kitchen,' said Jeanne, +breaking silence at last. + +She led him round the house, to a door which stood wide open, and +through the pleasant, exquisitely clean kitchen, where he had sometimes +had occasion to seek old Therese while tending the dying Frenchman. + +Together they walked through into the empty house, and the Herr Doktor +spent the short time she kept him waiting in walking restlessly about +the darkened salon, which had become so familiar and so dear. + +Each minute seemed an eternity--an eternity filled with suspense and +acute, unreasoning fear, for he knew that any moment he might hear the +sound of eager, predatory feet tramping up the Rue des Jardins; and he +visualised with dreadful clearness the little fragrant garden filled +with a mob of his fellow-countrymen, decent enough men at home no doubt, +but here, in their grey uniforms and spiked helmets, transformed into +thieves, drunkards, and, he feared, worse. + +At last Jeanne Rouannes opened the door. She was clad in the Red Cross +uniform and veil-like cap which had now come to look unfamiliar in his +eyes, for she had never worn them in her father's presence. She held a +large, shabby leathern purse in her hand. 'This is the money--a thousand +francs--my father always kept in the house. Will you take care of it for +me?' She held it out to him. 'They say that'--she hesitated a moment, +then said reluctantly--'they say that the Prussians always look first +for the money, and then for the wine.' + +He took the purse from her silently, and then, for what seemed to him a +long time, though it was not five minutes, she stood in the centre of +the square, shadowed sitting-room. A little light filtered through the +chinks in the old wooden shutters, and slowly she gazed this way and +that, as if desirous of imprinting an image of everything that was +there on her heart and memory. But when they had left the house, and +were walking through the garden, even when they reached the door in the +wall, she did not once look back. + + * * * * * + +They met with no adventures on their way to the Grande Place, for they +chose a roundabout way, along field paths, and under the glades of the +forest trees in what had been one of the loveliest of the smaller royal +demesnes of old France. And as they at last came out from behind the +Abreuvoir the Herr Doktor saw with silent, intense relief that here, +too, everything looked as usual. The great open space before them was as +empty of life and movement as he had always known it. There was, +however, one rather curious exception; but it was a pleasant exception, +for it lent an air of spurious brightness, even of cheerfulness, to the +scene. This was that the doors and windows of the large villas which +formed the left of the Grande Place of Valoise were now all wide open, +and were evidently being prepared for the overflow from the +Tournebride. + +Suddenly, however, as the Herr Doktor's eyes wandered down the broad +thoroughfare leading straight to the river, he saw that all was not +quite as normal in this part of the town as he had at first thought, for +all the way down the hill, every window of the humbler houses had been +battered in! + +An old woman was even now engaged in carefully sweeping up the glass in +the roadway in front of her little shop, and gradually he became aware +that the shop itself was completely gutted, and that there was a dark +yawning hole where the window, filled with toys and sweetmeats, had +been. + +Once more his heart ached with sick disgust and pain while slowly he and +his companion began walking towards the long, low buildings of the +Tournebride. + +The beautiful old inn, at any rate, looked exactly as when he had last +seen it that morning, though the great gilt gates, which had been closed +for over a fortnight, were now wide open. It was clear that the +Commandant of the German forces now holding Valoise had fixed his +headquarters there, but the Herr Doktor's eyes sought vainly for the +sentries who should have been standing at either side of the open gates. +This second occupation of Valoise was indeed unlike the first! + +'While I the Herr Commandant interview, can you with Madame Blanc here +stay?' he observed suddenly. + +As they passed through the gates the Herr Doktor was sorry indeed to see +that hundreds of empty and broken bottles were lying under the chestnut +trees, on the now wine-stained paving stones. These empty, broken +bottles gave an untidy, rakish air to the shady, stately courtyard where +the first conquerors of Valoise had spent such peaceful, restful hours. + +On they walked, picking their way among the debris. The place seemed +deserted. + +Puzzled, and feeling at once relieved and uncomfortable, the Herr Doktor +stayed his steps for a moment, and the girl at his side did so too. Her +eyes filled with tears, a sense of terrible degradation seemed to soil +her soul, and, as the moments sped by, her companion was filled with +growing apprehension and unease. + +Why was the Tournebride thus deserted? Officers, as well as the men who +had drunk the wine from the bottles now lying empty and broken about his +feet, had been here very lately, for on a wooden table standing in the +middle of the courtyard were a dozen or more large glass goblets--one +even now half full of white wine--and empty, gold-foiled bottles. There +also, on this wooden table, lay the bunch of keys which always dangled +at Madame Blanc's ample waist. + +Madame Blanc? Yes, if, as now seemed to be the case, the Commandant and +his staff were all out in the town, he could leave Mademoiselle Rouannes +with her while he went to look for them. In that thought he found a +measure of relief. The knowledge that Jeanne Rouannes would have to run +the gauntlet of the Prussian officers' eyes had been hateful to him. + +But where was Madame Blanc? + +Calling out her name, he walked across to the half-open door of the +kitchen; and then, suddenly, Jeanne Rouannes, hardened as she had become +that day to dreadful sights and sounds, uttered a low exclamation of +fear and surprise. 'Great God!' she exclaimed in French, 'what is that? +What is that, down there?' + +The Herr Doktor peered towards the place where she was staring, and with +eyes which gradually filled with pain and horror, he saw that a thin +stream of blood was oozing sluggishly through the doorway where he had +stood so often talking to the Frenchwoman, with whom, at last, he had +become good friends. + +He stumbled forward, full of a dreadful foreboding, and tried to push +back the door. But it would only swing forward. + +Waving the girl back with a sharp, quick gesture, he pressed through the +aperture, and then he, too, uttered an exclamation, a hoarse guttural +cry of distress, for just behind the door, huddled up on the floor of +her kitchen, lay the dead body of Madame Blanc. + +The landlady of the Tournebride had been shot half a dozen times, at +close range, in the breast, not struck--as the German surgeon for a +brief moment had supposed and hoped--by a stray fragment of shell. + +'Ach!' he muttered under his teeth, 'this is bad--very bad!' But Jeanne +Rouannes, now standing just behind him, remained silent. She looked as +if the tears had frozen on her face, and of the two she was the more +composed, as, in silence, they dragged the dead woman a little further +into the kitchen, and tried to arrange her poor, fat body into some +semblance of decent death. + +At last, having done the little they could, they came out again into the +sunshine, and crossed once more the courtyard of the ownerless +Tournebride. And still, of the two, it was the man who looked, and +perchance felt, the more affected. In his companion all sensation seemed +dulled, and as they walked along, perforce traversing many painful +scenes--for they had now re-entered the zone of looting and +disorder--she seemed really unconscious of what was going on about her. + +Not till they had wandered for a long way, hither and thither, did they +find the headquarters of the Commandant established in the Mairie. It +was there that the Herr Doktor listened, with a rush of impotent anger, +to the curt intimation that the French Red Cross nurse, instead of +receiving a pass out of Valoise, must proceed at once to the German +Field Ambulance which was already at work in the church hard by. + + + + +PART IV + + +1 + +Still draped in the black-and-silver trappings laboriously hung by the +women of Valoise to do funeral honour to Dr. Rouannes, the parish +church, when Jeanne Rouannes entered it, was already transformed into a +hospital ward; and, as she came slowly back to normal conditions of +heart and brain, she was amazed to see all that these capable, if +rough-looking, German medical orderlies had accomplished. + +Not only had every kind of bed already been commandeered from the houses +round, but through medieval glass which the Great Revolution had spared, +the sun shone on huge cases containing every kind of surgical requisite +ready for immediate use. + +An operating theatre equipment had been set out in the Lady Chapel, and +a wave of colour flooded the French girl's face when she saw that the +trestles on which her father's rude coffin had rested were now serving +as the base of the principal operating table. She could not help +wondering in her ignorance why all these elaborate preparations had been +made, for the only wounded occupant of this strange war-hospital was a +two-year-old girl, injured in the head by a fragment of one of the +half-dozen shells which had fallen in the town two hours before. + +'To the little child attend you,' the Herr Doktor muttered in her ear. +'I will ensure that no disagreeables you befall. The Herr Stabsarzt is a +good man--perhaps have you of him heard, my gracious miss; he is the +surgeon Octavius Mott of Ems. Very famous and skilful is he.' + +Quickly, and yet with much ceremony, he brought her up to the big, +shaggy, spectacled German, who greeted her courteously with the words, +uttered in a French as good as her own, 'We shall have plenty of work +for you presently, Mademoiselle.' + +Then, as Max Keller, in a quick, rather anxious undertone, explained +that Mademoiselle Rouannes was the just orphaned daughter of a French +Red Cross doctor, the Herr Stabsarzt became perceptibly more cordial. +'She does not look strong enough for the labours which will presently +begin. You must watch over the poor bereaved one,' he said kindly; 'she +looks a truly refined, gentle being, as well as full of French +prettiness and grace. There are plenty of ugly old women in this town +whom we shall be able to make useful when the wounded come in.' + +The Herr Doktor's face became transformed. He could have knelt and +kissed the hand of the great, the skilful, the so understanding and +humane Octavius Mott! The Herr Stabsarzt, looking at him from out his +shrewd little eyes, saw something in the plain sensitive face that +touched him. 'So?' he said to himself, 'there is already an excellent +Franco-German alliance established here!' + + * * * * * + +The soldier looters of Valoise slept heavily that night. Their miserable +victims, those among them who had not fled into the surrounding country, +crowded back into their ravished, empty houses, and into those +out-buildings and stables which had escaped the notice of the +marauders--anywhere to be free of hateful and terrifying presences. They +hoped, poor wretches, with that curious hope and faith in the future, +which in the French temperament survives all material disasters, and +makes recuperation comparatively easy, that with the morning the enemy +would hasten away from the sacked town. This, as they all knew, was what +had happened elsewhere. + +But, with the breaking of the cloudless dawn, came a new terror to the +unhappy people, for shells again began dropping into the town, and, for +a while at least, panic and confusion reigned, even among the sated +German soldiery. The French batteries, hidden away to the right of +Valoise, had evidently obtained trustworthy information from within the +town, for their attack was carefully directed to the group of villas on +the hill where the officers had established themselves, but the +church,--the church which now flew the Red Cross flag, and was still the +glory of Valoise, was spared. + +At last the French guns found another range, that of the German +batteries, and as these replied, so strange and so exciting was the +artillery duel, that women, and even children, crowded into the streets +and, with upturned faces, watched the shells from the even then famous +'75, and the heavier German missiles, go hurtling by overhead. + +And then very soon, from the plains below and the woods above Valoise, +the wounded came pouring in. They were brought in every kind of vehicle, +from the luxurious motor ambulances belonging to the German Red Cross, +to handcarts drawn by donkeys and by dogs. + +At the end of the first hour, Jeanne Rouannes told herself that there +was no room for more. But on and on they came, in a terrible, continuous +procession, and place still had to be found for them. After the beds had +all been filled, the stone floor, hastily covered with stacks of straw, +had to serve as resting-place for many more. Very soon, too, all the +houses, and the often more comfortable stables and out-buildings of the +town, were also full and overfull.... + +The French Red Cross nurse was ordered to remain in the church, and +reluctantly she found herself compelled to admire the energy, the +method, the quick, if to her heartless, type of efficient intelligence, +the German surgeons there brought to their terrible tasks. In whatever +part of the church she happened to be, whatever the duty in which she +was engaged, during those hours of horror and strain, when all the +miraculous resources of youth--her fine health of body, and finer +stoicism of soul--alone brought her through the awful ordeal, the Herr +Doktor watched over, and as far as was in his power, helped her to +perform her arduous, pitiful works of mercy. + +Very soon--so soon that it seemed retrospectively to have been at the +end of the first morning--everything a normal surgeon and his dressers +require had been used up, and that though, by the forethought of Herr +Doktor Max Keller, all the clean, looted linen which had been put safely +away for transport to Germany had early been requisitioned by the Field +Ambulance. + +The German wounded far outnumbered the French, and at first the fact +had filled the French Red Cross nurse with a relief of which she felt +ashamed. + +Then suddenly she understood the strange disparity! To these keen, +clear-thinking German surgeons their own countrymen came first as a +matter of course, and the best was naturally reserved for them. They +were skilful, and as humane as it was in them to be, to all those whom +they attended, but the grey-clad wounded were obviously the most +important. + +The knowledge that this was so filled Jeanne Rouannes with revolt, and +bitter anger. As she half mechanically performed the duties set her, she +thought of her own shattered countrymen, lying for the most part outside +and unattended; and she was filled with repugnance, even horror, for all +these Germans, both the wounded and the whole, who lay and stood about +her. As far as was possible, she lavished the small surgical science she +possessed, and the measureless pity and tenderness that was hers in +ample measure, on the few French wounded who were brought into the +church. + +Then suddenly a strange thing happened. A dying German, to whom she had +just given an injection of camphorated oil, held out his hand, +gropingly. She took the rough, blackened hand in hers, and he murmured +'Mutter,' in a voice full of agonised longing and entreaty. From that +moment Jeanne Rouannes no longer made, even in her inmost heart, any +distinction between the French and German wounded. She tended them as +far as was in her power, and in the measure of her strength, with the +same kindness and untiring devotion. + +In addition to the wounded--the wounded brought in from the scenes of +the fierce rearguard actions now being fought round Valoise--were the +injured townspeople, the old women and the little children who became +unwitting targets for the bombs, the shells, and even the arrows, which +now and again fell from the German aeroplanes circling in the air above. + +Occasionally, not often, the French Red Cross nurse would obtain +permission to go out into the town to attend on some of them; and +perhaps because the thought of any personal danger was so far from them +both, during those strange and terrible days, the Herr Doktor Max Keller +and Jeanne Rouannes, when engaged on such outside works of mercy, met +with none of the mishaps which befell many of those about them. + +Such trifling, even childish, incidents and happenings remained +imprinted on her heart! Thus, she was shaken with rage and disgust when +shown that the curiously shaped steel arrow which had fatally injured a +little child, had fastened to it, not only a miniature German flag, but +an absurd message, written in bad French, pinned to the flag. + +As to the sights which filled her eyes when she was away from the +shadowed church, the one which remained the most vividly present to her, +in after days, was the effect produced by a fragment of shell which +happened to unseal the top of a hydrant. Just out of reach of a fiercely +burning building, the water rose like a colossal fountain, throwing +exquisite sprays of prismatic colour into the sunny air. + +All through those four September days, while friend and enemy destroyed +the Haute Ville of Valoise, the sun shone hotly in a clear sky, the air +was filled with a soft, luminous haze which rose from the river, and the +fierce fighting in the woods behind the town went on in glades and +coverts filled with the magic beauty of early autumn scents and tints. + + +2 + +Jeanne Rouannes suddenly awoke from what had been a seven hours' deep, +death-like sleep. Awoke? Ah no! As she sat up in a darkness broken by +tiny, wraithlike shafts of sunlight, she half smiled, half frowned at +the strangeness of the nightmare in the mazes of which she found herself +involved. + +Instead of being in her blue-and-white room at home, surrounded by all +her girlish treasures, and lying in the old-fashioned mahogany bed, +opposite which hung a charming portrait, painted some thirty years ago, +of her gentle, dead mother, she seemed to be--of all the most absurdly +improbable places--in the sacristy of the parish church, and sitting +up, fully dressed, on a heap of dirty grey coats! + +There came over her a sudden misgiving--a mysterious sinking of the +heart. Perhaps this was the beginning of illness--of a very serious, +terrible illness? She was conscious of agonising, shooting pain in her +head, and over her eyes, also of dull, aching sensations in her limbs, +especially in her arms.... But if only she could shake herself free of +this evil nightmare, she would not mind the pain.... + +Then there seemed to steal into her delicate nostrils a most horrible +odour--And it was that now dreadfully familiar smell, that sweetish, +sickly, penetrating smell, which brought back full consciousness to +Jeanne Rouannes. + +This was no dream--no nightmare. She was in very truth lying, or rather +now sitting up, in the sacristy of the old church! It was there that the +Herr Doktor had arranged her rude couch the night before; he, too, who +had folded one of her blood-stained Red Cross overalls to make a pillow +for her head, and, finally, with the thoughtful kindness on which she +had grown unconsciously to rely, darkened the two narrow windows with +various holy vestments which he had unceremoniously pulled out of M. le +Cure's cupboard. She even remembered, now, the form of English words in +which, with a queer break in his tired, worn voice, he had _ordered_ her +to lie down and sleep. + +He had done it all for the best--she knew that. And yet, and yet she was +faintly resentful of his well-meant care. For now she was uneasily +conscious that she felt less able than she had felt yesterday to go on +with her work--the terrible, urgent, unceasing work which lay just the +other side of the oak door leading into the church. + +Through that door there now came the loud sounds of knocking which had +evidently awakened her. Each knock reverberated horribly in her brain. + +The Herr Doktor would be sorry--concern would fill his anxious, +red-rimmed eyes, when he saw how tired, how dreadfully tired, in spite +of her long night's rest, poor Jeanne now was! + +Fumbling in her pocket, she found a little box he had given her two days +ago, when she had confessed to a spasm of the headache which was now +again full on her, making her feel blind and sick. She had not believed +that one of the tiny white capsules in this little box would do her any +good--but she had taken it to please him, to show courtesy to one who +was always so kind and courteous to her, and who had been so good, so +more than good, to her dear father. And then a miracle had happened! Not +only had her headache gone, but also her sense of utter weariness and +confusion of mind. 'Not more than every four hours must you one take,' +he had explained, and she had tried not to exceed the allowance. She had +lived and worked on those capsules ever since. But it was eight hours +since she had had the last. + +Nothing on the part of those whom she still in her heart called 'the +Prussians'--a name dating from her childhood--could now surprise Jeanne +Rouannes. She was equally ready for their hearty kindness or their +equally strong and heartless brutality. During those last three days she +had seen much of both. + +And yet she was surprised--surprised and, yes, terribly moved--when, on +opening the sacristy door, she saw what was going on in the church. All +that had been brought there, unpacked and arranged with so much science +and care five days ago, was now being prepared for removal. The +Sanitaets-Aerzte were busily engaged in supervising the work, and the old +Frenchwomen who had been impressed to help in the improvised +Feld-Lazaret were assisting the German orderlies with what looked +unnecessarily cheerful zeal. + +It was a painful scene, a scene of noise, of confusion, and of the +angry, hoarse shouting of orders. Lying in the beds arranged in rows on +either side of the aisles, stretched out on the now sodden, dirty straw +which had been brought in when the beds had given out, the wounded, and, +in many cases, the dying, men lay staring with glazed, apathetic eyes at +all that was going on about them. + +Suddenly an order rang out, in a voice with which Jeanne Rouannes had +only kindly, almost pleasant, associations--that of the Herr Stabsarzt. + +At once, wheeling about with sharp precision, each of the German +orderlies ceased whatever work he was engaged on, and with firm, +ungentle hands began rolling up in their bed-coverings those among the +wounded--French as well as German--who were regarded as 'hopeful cases.' +The moans, the sudden cries of pain and fear of the wretched men rang +out, and the Red Cross nurse rushed impulsively forward, words of +protest on her lips. + +'You will have enough to do caring for those we are compelled to leave +behind us,' said the Herr Stabsarzt Octavius Mott dryly, and then, as he +looked into her young, grieving face, his voice softened. 'I know my +poor fellows will have care and goodness from you, my dear demoiselle.' + +But even now Jeanne Rouannes did not understand, and it fell to her old +friend, the Herr Doktor Max Keller, to tell her the truth. She +attributed his strange, agitated manner, the look of dreadful suffering +on his plain, pallid face, to the nature of that truth, for 'The French +will soon in this town be,' he muttered hurriedly. 'Therefore must we +this morning in retreat go. That is why I am compelled you to leave. +But permission your Cure here to bring obtained have I. I can you with +that good old man safely leave.' + +The Germans evacuating Valoise? She knew now why the women round her +were working so well and briskly, why there were even furtive smiles on +some of their weary faces. The Prussians were being driven away--the +victorious French would soon be here! + +But Jeanne Rouannes was too tired, too bewildered, to feel more than +dully glad. + +A few moments later Max Keller obtained from the Herr Stabsarzt +unwilling permission to leave the church. 'You must find the priest as +soon as you can,' said the old German gruffly, 'for we have to be off in +about an hour. Mademoiselle Rouannes will be quite safe here--with the +wounded.' But as he shot a look into the younger man's set, unhappy +face, he said to himself, 'You'd like to take her along with you, my +poor fellow. So? But this is no time for love nonsense!' + + +3 + +The Mairie of Valoise was close to the church, and had, so far, escaped +bombardment. It was a shabby-looking, modern house, in a narrow street +now filled with military motors and transport wagons. And now, both +within and without the Mairie, were all the signs of rather hurried, +ignominious departure. + +Unchallenged the Herr Doktor walked into a dirty hall full of huge +packing-cases and crates ready for removal. To the left, above a large +half-open door, were inscribed the words 'Salle des Mariages,' and +pulling open the door, he walked in. + +At an ornate table covered with maps and papers, below an allegorical +painting of Hymen, an intelligence officer sat writing. He looked hot, +tired and flurried. Raising his head, he frowned disagreeably. 'What is +the matter now, Herr Doktor? I sent all the necessary orders to the +Field Ambulance three hours ago!' he exclaimed. 'I regret to tell you +that every moment is of value, for Valoise must be entirely evacuated +by eight o'clock. We have certain information that the town is to be +again bombarded at nine, but this time the French will be destroying +what will be left here of their own people!' + +At that pleasant thought his countenance lightened. + +The Herr Doktor walked right up to the table. He was not in a mood to +stand any bullying. 'We have to give the parish priest instructions +about our wounded,' he said curtly. + +'The parish priest? You mean one of the hostages?' The intelligence +officer pushed aside a packet of printed forms and sought hastily under +it. 'Here is the key of their prison--if indeed it is still standing! To +tell you the truth, I have been too busy to concern myself about these +two Frenchmen, and it is a good thing for them, Herr Doktor, that you +have this business with the Cure! Yes, by all means, bring the priest to +the church, and leave him there in charge. As for the Mayor, he can be +released later. That Mayor is a truculent fellow!' He smiled a little +grimly. 'You can hand this key to the priest just before you move off.' + +The Herr Doktor took the key, and walked quietly to the door. Did the +Herr Major mean that, but for his, Max Keller's, accidental +intervention, the hostages would have been left to await release by +their own countrymen? But that was quite against the usages of civilised +warfare! + + * * * * * + +After he had left the Rue de la Mairie and entered the zone of +destruction caused by the bombardment of the last few days, the Herr +Doktor had to pick, to leap, sometimes almost to excavate, his way +through the ruins of what had been a pleasant, residential quarter of +the happy little town. + +What a scene of tragic and, yes, sordid desolation lay all about him, +and what an awful stillness--a stillness which made him start at the +sounds made by his own footfalls! + +All the landmarks with which he had become vaguely familiar during the +last three weeks were gone. They seemed obliterated. Heaps of rubble, +and decomposing masses of filth, from which he hastily averted his eyes +when warned of their nearness by another of his sensitive senses, rose +mountainously round the shattered sides and backs of those houses of +which the walls remained standing. Where there had been placid beauty, +there was now an ugliness that verged on the diabolic grotesque; where +there had been healthy life, there was now foul corruption. + +At last, after what seemed an eternity of difficult going, he saw, +through a hole blown out in an otherwise still intact wall, a beautiful +garden. Beds of blooming, delicately tinted flowers rose amid grass +which still looked fresh and green, though here and there, across a +stretch of lawn, there yawned a deep pit made by a bursting shell. + +He clambered through into the peaceful demesne with a sensation of +gasping relief, and wandered on till a turn brought him close to what +looked like a massive ruin, out of which, high up above his head, there +lurched two large pieces of fine, brass-incrusted, mahogany furniture. +With a shock of regret he realised that this was all that now remained +of the largest of the villas commanding the Grande Place, for through +an open door, set deep in the wall of the garden, he caught a glimpse of +the familiar open space. + +He hurried forward, relieved to know that his perilous, disagreeable +journey was nearing its end. + +And then, as he emerged on to the now deserted Grande Place, the Herr +Doktor's feelings of relief changed with terrible suddenness to horror. +For the first time he felt his nerve give way, and there swept over him +an overmastering desire to rush back and obliterate from his memory the +hideous sight on which his eyes now rested. + +Bathed in the bright, early morning sunlight, close to him, on his +right, the stone-rimmed Abreuvoir was surrounded by a herd of dead and +dying horses. There they had galloped, maddened by pain; there they had +wandered down, wounded, starving, and thirsty, from the uplands, drawn +by some strange, secret instinct as to where water was. Many of the poor +creatures still had saddles on their sore backs, and others had attached +to them remains of the harness which had bound them to artillery and +transport wagons. + +Averting his eyes determinedly from the piteous sight, he ran across the +Grande Place towards the screen of chestnut trees behind which lay the +Tournebride, and when he reached the high gilt gates, of which the posts +were wreathed in now fading orange trumpet flowers, he uttered aloud an +exclamation of almost sobbing relief. The long, low, rose-red mass of +brick buildings seemed intact, and that though two of the high trees in +the courtyard lay split and riven, their blackened trunks broken up into +what now looked like monstrous pieces of firewood. + +But, alas! as he went on, as he penetrated farther and farther into the +courtyard, he saw that all that now remained of the beautiful old inn +was the rose-red facade; behind that facade everything had been +destroyed by shell or fire. Through the upper windows he could see the +sky, and a muslin embroidered curtain, still delicately white, fluttered +outwards. + +He edged his way to where an arch had given access to the kitchen garden +of the inn. Arch and wall had escaped destruction, but the garden +beyond had been rifled of everything; fruit, ripe or unripe, had been +plucked; vegetables pulled up from the ground; and the flower borders +trampled into a bare wilderness of dust and mud. Two taps had been left +running, and a space which had contained a miniature apple orchard had +become a swamp. But the square, windowless fruit-house stood unscathed +in the midst of the desolation. Yet, as he walked along the dusty path, +a nervous sense of misgiving came over the Herr Doktor; he felt he would +like to find the building before him empty, and that though it made his +journey useless. + +Putting the key in the door, he turned it--then recoiled in involuntary +disgust, so fetid and so hot was the blast of air which met him. Opening +the door widely he walked through into the large room, and saw that his +suspicions of the officer who had handed him the key with such +ambiguous, sinister words were indeed justified! + +Each of the two French hostages lay stretched out on his pallet bed; the +Mayor's body and face were turned to the wall, but the priest lay on +his back, and all over his wax-like, yellowing, dead face, and on his +white hair, a cloud of flies had settled. + +Suddenly the Mayor, with a painful effort, turned and sat up. He feebly +dragged his limbs across the brown blanket on which he had been lying, +and whispered, 'For the love of God, a little water, Monsieur,' but his +swollen tongue could hardly form the words. + +The Herr Doktor rushed out into the garden. Yes, there, close by, was +running water. But he could see nothing to pour it into. He made a cup +of his two hands, and walking this time with slow, steady footsteps, he +came back into what had become a charnel-house. + +It was after his third journey for water that he heard the Frenchman +speak again, in low, husky tones. 'The old man died yesterday morning. +He had, it seems, a malady of the heart. But he predicted that I should +be saved, and as long as he was alive to say fine and consoling things +to me, I kept my courage.' + +'You have courage now,' said the German surgeon, feelingly. + +'No, Monsieur, my courage has all gone. I am horribly frightened--I am +like a child.' He brought out the words with a hoarse, choking effort, +and tears forced themselves into his sunken eyes, and lost themselves in +his unkempt beard. + +To the Herr Doktor, this unexpected incident was proving, rather to his +own surprise, almost unendurably painful--and, yes, humiliating. Such +accidents should not be allowed to happen in so splendidly organised an +army as were the cultured German hosts. He was not a vindictive man, but +he longed to bring the officer responsible for--for this bit of callous +cruelty, to condign and very sharp punishment. + +'Listen,' he said in his odd, twisted French. 'I now go must. But first +will I something find in which plenty of water to leave. And, Monsieur +le Maire, I have good news for you.' He waited a moment, then went on, +with an effort, 'The French will soon in Valoise be, for within an hour +shall we the town leave. But before leaving, I will arrange that food +suitable to your requirements shall brought be.' + +He went out again into the ravaged garden, and, now that the greatest +need for it had gone by, he espied a watering-pot close to where he had +looked so eagerly a few minutes ago. Filling it up, he hurried back into +the fruit-house. + +'Do not therein a moment longer stay,' he said in a low voice. 'Into the +air and the sun come you now out. If that you do, soon recovered quite +you will be.' + + + + +PART V + + +1 + +The Herr Stabsarzt was enjoying a steaming cup of hot coffee under the +porch of the church which had been his headquarters for five stirring +days. + +Everything was packed and ready for departure. And the German Red Cross +surgeons and their staff were now only waiting for the return of the +Herr Doktor Max Keller, and for the parish priest of Valoise. + +All final directions had been given to, and intelligently noted down by, +Mademoiselle Rouannes. Not that there was much to say or to hear. +Patience and pity were all that seemed likely to be needed, for only the +dying--those past hope of recovery either as fighters or as +prisoners--were being left behind. + +Suddenly a shell burst close to the porch under which the Herr Stabsarzt +was eating his hasty breakfast. He uttered a quick, sharp exclamation of +anger. It would indeed be rough luck if any of his wounded, the men now +stretched out in motor ambulances, and in other less comfortable +conveyances, were killed while waiting for the start! + +'Any harm done?' he shouted, rising to his feet. But half a dozen +reassuring voices answered him. + +The foremost portion of the melancholy convoy, that is, the motor +ambulances, crammed with the wounded men whose condition was considered +too serious for the makeshift wagons or springless carts pressed into +the Red Cross service, was already under way. Only one large grey motor, +that reserved for the Herr Stabsarzt and his own personal assistants, +stood waiting in the open space in front of the church. They would be +the last Germans to leave Valoise. + +As he sat there, under the grey stone porch--for he was a wise man, and +as he had a great deal of enforced standing to do he never stood when he +could sit--the Herr Stabsarzt felt more at ease, more 'zufrieden' than +he had felt for a long time. A successful medical man--be he physician +or surgeon--generally has a kindly, tolerant, understanding outlook on +human nature. And this was so with the Herr Stabsarzt Octavius Mott of +Ems. But as the minutes went by, and the screaming of the shells grew +more insistent, and as they began bursting nearer to the quarter of +Valoise they had hitherto spared, he blamed himself for having granted +Max Keller's request. + +'The poor devils out there, to say nothing of ourselves, will soon be in +some danger if this goes on,' he observed to his chief orderly; 'it's +time we were----' and then, before he could finish his sentence, there +came an awful explosion, followed by the dull thuds of falling masonry, +while from close by rose cries and shouts of fear, surprise, and pain. + +An Englishman or a Frenchman would have instinctively rushed to see what +damage had been done, and especially would he have done so had he been +an English or French surgeon. But the Herr Stabsarzt did not move. He +simply shrugged his shoulders. His professional labours in Valoise were +at an end. If any civilian inhabitant had been wounded by that shell he, +or more probably she, must wait for the French Red Cross. + +There was a confused stir of sound--exclamations in French and in +German. Someone had evidently been seriously hurt--someone was going to +be taken into the church. + +But what was this which was being borne along so carefully, and by four +of his own orderlies, on one of the stretchers which fitted into his own +motor ambulance? The Herr Stabsarzt stood up again, and looked anxiously +towards the little procession coming slowly towards him. Presently, with +surprise and consternation, he saw that the huddled up figure, of which +the head, face, and breast were thickly covered with dust and blood, +wore the same uniform as he did himself! + +'It's surely the Herr Doktor Max Keller?' exclaimed the man by his side. +'Ach, poor fellow! What a sight!' + +'Donnerwetter!' The Herr Stabsarzt was not given to swearing, still this +piece of black bad luck was too much for his feelings, the more so that +he knew his own sympathetic, sentimental heart was responsible. + +But after he had bent over the mangled, moaning form of his unfortunate +colleague, he softened. This, after all, was the fortune of war! If he +had drunk his coffee rather more quickly, it might have happened to +himself--it might happen yet. + +But what was to be done with the Herr Doktor? Plainly the poor man was +in no condition to be moved at all, still less to take a long journey. +The Herr Stabsarzt made a brief, but still a very thorough, examination, +out there in the wind and sunlight, and that examination made up his +mind for him. The only thing to do was to leave Max Keller behind, to +take his chance of meeting with a humane and skilful French surgeon. It +looked as if at the best there was but very, very little that could be +done for him. + +Turning away with a troubled face, the Herr Stabsarzt pushed his way +back into the church; and, as he did so, a feeling of acute nausea, of +intense depression, came over him. How awful, how inhuman, above all how +_useless_, all this was! + +Then he told himself that he had been too long in the fresh air; that +was why he suddenly found that subtle, sweetish, devilish, gangrene +stench so foul, so trying. + +He called out sharply from where he stood--'Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle +Rouannes!' + +Leaving the bedside of a dying German over whom she had been bending, +the young Red Cross nurse hastened down the nave towards him. Her face +was a little flushed, her eyes wet, from the piteous ordeal of trying to +ease the last moments of a dying man with whose language she was +unacquainted, whose last earnest messages she could never hope to +transmit to those he loved. It was an ordeal she had gone through often +during the last few days, but to which, as yet, she could not make +herself grow callously accustomed; and now she was herself too shaken, +too eager to get back to the man she had just left, to notice the +disturbed expression of the German surgeon's face. Indeed, the meaning +of the words he uttered, as he came up close to her, took some moments +to penetrate her brain. + +'There has been an accident, Mademoiselle. A shell burst close to the +Herr Doktor Max Keller. He has been gravely injured, wounded by large +fragments of shell in the face and head, while his right arm has been +crushed by a piece of masonry or iron girder. He is not in a state to be +moved. We must leave him behind in your care. For his sake, I hope a +French Red Cross surgeon will soon be here.' He spoke quickly, +pronouncing the name of his colleague in the German way, and to Jeanne +Rouannes' ears the name, so uttered, suggested nothing. + +'I will do my best to alleviate his pain and to make him comfortable,' +she spoke mechanically, and her eyes wandered uncertainly. Where was +this newly wounded man? + +'I know right well that you will!' The Herr Stabsarzt looked at the +French Red Cross nurse curiously. Was it possible that Max Keller's +absorption in herself, his plainly-to-be-perceived state of +'Verliebtheit' was ignored by her? Why the poor fellow had been injured, +practically killed, in her service! And where, by the way, was the old +Cure? + +'I ask myself, Mademoiselle, if there is any place other than here where +the Herr Doktor could be taken--a place clean, quiet and, yes, airy?' + +'The Herr Doktor?' She flushed a little. Then it was one of the German +surgeons who had been injured? She had thought the man in question to be +one of the orderlies. + +'He had a great liking for the barge. More than once he expressed to me +the opinion that it was the ideal place for wounded men. Could not room +be found there for him?' + +And then, at last, Jeanne Rouannes understood. 'Is it--is it _he_ who +has been hurt?' she asked. And now there was no lack of concern or +distress in her voice. + +'Yes, it is the Herr Doktor Max Keller--he who was in Valoise before we +arrived here,' he answered gravely. 'And the thought of my good +colleague dying in this disturbed and noisy place is painful to me.' + +'He shall immediately be taken to the barge. I will come and see to +everything. There is a small cabin where he will be quite comfortable, +and very, very quiet.' + +'And I have your promise to tend him till a French surgeon can take +charge of him?' + +'But certainly,' she answered. He noticed that she spoke a little +breathlessly. 'I promise not to leave him till then.' + +Again the Herr Stabsarzt looked at her curiously. Did her troubled face +express only the natural sympathy of a sensitive, soft-hearted woman--or +something more? + +'I will myself accompany you to the barge. We will walk behind the +stretcher. It is not very far. Do you wish to tell the women here where +you will be?' + +'No, Monsieur le Medecin,' and this time a wave of colour flooded her +face. 'If I do that, they will constantly be sending for me. Everything +is in order. There is nothing I could do, that they cannot do.' + +She spoke with the decision, the simple directness, which the Herr +Stabsarzt admired. What would he not give, in times of peace of course +he meant, to have such a capable young woman as this French girl had +proved herself to be, in charge of the nurses in his beloved clinik! + + +2 + +Jeanne Rouannes tended the Herr Doktor all that long, still, cloudless +day, as together they had tended so many wounded men during those days +and nights which had seemed, to her at least, to contain an eternity of +painful effort and strain, of dull despair, of agonising sights. + +But here, in this clean, water-lapped little cabin-room, there reigned a +delicious quietude, only broken by the drowsy murmur of the river which +flowed swiftly just outside, past the wooden walls of the barge. From +far off, making the stillness the more intense, came the deep booming of +great guns, but with the falling of night that also ceased. + +She had been prodigal with the morphia the German surgeon had left with +her, and still more with that strange, suggestively-named drug, heroine. +For she was dully, but none the less firmly, determined that this man +should not suffer as some of the men she had tended during the last few +days had suffered. He, at least, had earned immunity from that hellish +pain by all the pain he had spared others. + +He lay so rigidly unmoving that had he not sometimes breathed out a +long, tired sigh, and now and again, not often, moved his bandaged head +an inch to the right or an inch to the left, she might have doubted if +he still lived. + +At last an immense, limitless lassitude seemed to fall on Jeanne +Rouannes. Soul, as well as body, cried out and hungered for rest. +Slipping down on to the floor, to the left side of the bed, she propped +her head against the hard back of a wooden chair and dozed. + + * * * * * + +She woke--was it moments or hours later?--to hear a little, stuffless +sound--that of the Herr Doktor's hand moving feebly across the sheet. + +Turning slightly round, and lifting up her right arm, she clasped the +poor, limp, nerveless hand in hers.... + +How many hands, hard, dirty, tortured hands, she had in pity clasped +during the last few weeks!--the honest, valiant hands of her young, +wounded, fellow-countrymen, in those peaceful, early days of war that +now seemed to her so unutterably long ago. Lately, the hands she had +held in hers, often in a useless, pitiful attempt to make them +understand words of kindness or of hope, had been the huge hands of +wounded Germans, those big men-children who had seemed to her so much +less stoical in the braving of pain than the more highly-strung French +soldiers. + +The hand she now held was small and delicate, the hand of a surgeon and +a student. How kindly that poor hand, now lying limply clasped in hers, +had tended her father! At this thought, this recollection, she pressed +it more closely, and as she did so, Max Keller, unknowing where he was, +though aware of her nearness, came back to semi-consciousness. + +Before his sightless eyes there suddenly gleamed the lights of the +Schloss at Weimar, reflected in the waters of the Ulm. Then with +extraordinary vividness he saw the Schloss gates--those gates which he +had passed such myriads of times in his thirty-four years of life.... A +moment later, he was gazing, with the same sense of vivid reality, at +the bronze fountain, let into an old wall, of which the subject--found +by Goethe in a church in Spain--is that of two beautiful youths, +brothers who died young. One youth, who holds a torch reversed, has his +arm round the other's neck. Beneath their feet the clear water has +gushed forth since the day when Goethe's eyes first rested on the +finished work, and now, lying there in the little cabin-room of a French +Red Cross barge, Weimar's dying son seemed to hear the delicious +bubbling of the spring. + +There, too, he saw the door through which so often walked the one woman +whom Goethe had supremely loved. + +Thousands of times had the happy Goethe walked through that low door on +his way to the beloved.... + +At last, vaguely, obscurely, there came to the Herr Doktor the knowledge +of where he was, and who was with him there. But the knowledge brought +confusion, and distress of mind. His associations with this little +cabin-room were all of the mother-spoilt, given-to-base-pleasures +princeling, his Highness Prince Egon von Witgenstein. The thought that +the Prince might be in Valoise, lying in wait for the young French Red +Cross nurse, disturbed him, made him restless. If only he could +remember! But it was as if great stretches of his mind and memory were +darkened, hopelessly. + +'Honoured miss?' he muttered feebly. + +And she answered, oh so gently, in a voice he had never heard her use to +him, though often these last few days he had heard it whispering kind, +consoling, hopeful things to the suffering and the dying: 'Yes, my +friend?' + +'Where is Prince Egon--my patient who was here?' + +'He left for Paris the day my father became so much worse--don't you +remember?' + +He remembered nothing, but the nurse reassured and comforted him, gave +him a sense of spacious leisure in which to think of himself. 'What has +to me happened?' he asked. 'Why am I here?' + +'You were wounded by a shell, and I think by the wall of a falling +house. We--I and your head surgeon--thought you would be more +comfortable here than in the church.' + +'And have you the whole time here been?' he asked wonderingly. + +'Yes, and I have promised to stay with you till a surgeon comes.' + +'You are huelfreicher than any surgeon,' he muttered, in so low a tone +that she had to lift herself and bend over him to hear the words she did +not understand. + +The pale white glimmer of the dawn filtered through the white curtain +stretched across the little window, and she saw that there was a change, +a pinched grey look, in his face. Tears started to her eyes. Then he was +not better, as she had ardently hoped. This return to consciousness, to +connected thought, was not the good sign she had ignorantly supposed it +to be? + +Suddenly he groaned, a spent, weary groan. 'Pardon, honoured miss, it is +fatigue which the pain hard makes.' + +She gave him morphia. 'Try and sleep, my poor friend, and I will do +likewise. The morning will soon be here.' + + +3 + +There came a series of loud, excited rappings on the door. It burst +open, and a little girl--a child to whom in the past, which now seemed +aeons away, she had been kind--stood breathless, smiling, 'Mamselle! +Mamselle! Our soldiers are here! Come and see them. I ran away from +mother to tell you! They said you were here.' + +Jeanne Rouannes put a finger to her lips. She gave a swift look at the +unconscious form stretched stiffly out on the narrow bed. If only she +could get a surgeon now, at once-- + +Putting on her cap, she followed the child up the wooden steps leading +to the deck of the barge, and even as she did so, she heard the steady, +rhythmic sound of marching, broken across by confused, shrill cries of +joy and welcome. + +Her heart began to beat; she hastened across the sunlit deck of the +barge, and ran swiftly down the narrow stone jetty, with the excited +little girl clinging to her hand. + +'Les voila! Les voila!' + +And through a mist of tears Jeanne Rouannes gazed on a sight she will +never forget. + +They came swinging along, the familiar, active, red-trousered figures +looking so slight, so short, so _old-fashioned_ after the huge, +splendidly-equipped Germans. But though war-worn, shabby as their +predecessors had never been shabby even at their worst, these countrymen +of hers wore their hot, short blue jackets, their wide poppy-coloured +trousers with an air--that most inspiring air of all airs--the air of +victory. + +How ecstatically happy the sight would have made Jeanne Rouannes a month +ago! Now, they simply seemed to her oppressed heart and brain a pageant +which brought vague shadowy fears, and a need on her part for thought +and action, for which she felt unfit, inadequate. + +At last there rode up a regiment of Dragoons. Above their silver +helmets--still silver, for these were the early days of war, and the +French had not yet learnt the wise and cunning tricks of their +enemies--black plumes nodded. Suddenly they were halted, and their +commander turned his horse, and rode up under the trees to the spot +where the Red Cross nurse was standing. He lifted his helmet off his +head, and showed a young, brave, happy face. + +'Madame?' he said courteously. 'Can you tell me when the Germans left +Valoise? Have they had time to go far? Did they leave in order or in +disorder? Is it true that the upper part of the town is in ruins?' + +She answered his questions, and then put one of her own. 'Have you a Red +Cross doctor here, M. le Capitaine?' + +'Alas! no. The Red Cross attached to my brigade was sent for yesterday. +There has been very fierce fighting, Madame--a series of great combats. +But my troops are comparatively fresh--they still have to win their +laurels.' He looked round, and lowered his voice. 'Have you any German +wounded? I hope not. But though they run no real danger'--he had seen a +look of--was it fear?--flash into her face--'our soldiers are terribly +incensed, for we have come across awful things done by those brutes +during the last few days.' His face contracted with reminiscent pain and +horror. 'Such sights do not make one feel tender to even a wounded +Boche.' + +The Red Cross nurse gave him a long sad look. What beautiful, sincere, +blue eyes she had--what a firm, finely drawn mouth! He wondered where +her husband was fighting. + +'I must tell you, mon capitaine, that there are, or perhaps I should say +were, a number of dying Germans in the church. All that could be moved +"they" took away. But down here, in the barge, I have a very special +case----' + +She moistened her lips and went desperately on, scarcely aware that he +was listening to her with great respect and attention. 'The dying man on +the barge is an Englishman, himself a surgeon of the Red Cross, who was +wounded by a shell only yesterday. He was untiringly good to our +wounded--to all the wounded. It is my great wish M. le Capitaine, that +he should have a quiet death.' + +'But certainly,' he said eagerly. 'What would not I do--what would we +not all do--for any Englishman? I will put two of my own men to guard +the approaches to your barge, Madame. As for the wounded in the church, +I will at once go there myself, and see that everything is done for the +poor devils.' + +They bowed ceremoniously to one another, and 'mon capitaine' allowed +himself the pleasure of gazing after the slight, graceful figure of the +Red Cross nurse as long as it remained within his arc of vision. That +was not long, for Jeanne Rouannes sped away swiftly--fearful of what she +would find in the little cabin room. It seemed to her so long since she +had left it, and she was nervously afraid lest he might have recovered +consciousness, and missed her. 'I am coming,' she called out, +breathlessly, in English, and then again as she came close to the door, +'I am here,' she said. + +But the Herr Doktor went on staring sightlessly before him. He was +busily talking, talking argumentatively, in hoarse, broken whispers to +himself, and his fingers picked at the brown blanket. + +Sinking down on her knees, she grasped his clammy hands in hers, and +laid them to her cheek in a passion of desire to soothe, to comfort, to +make easier the struggle she thought lay immediately before him. + +Suddenly there floated in the sound of men's voices singing--a vast, +magnificent roaring volume of sound--'Allons, enfants de la +Patrie--ie--ie--ie ...' + +There came a gleam across the dying man's face. 'Das ist schoen' ('That +is beautiful'), he whispered. + +'... le jour de gloire est arrive!' + +The Herr Doktor murmured 'Das genuegt mir!' ('That is enough!') and his +head fell back, sinking deep into the soft pillow. + +Jeanne Rouannes went on holding his dead hand for a few moments. Then +she got up from her knees, and made the sign of the Cross on his damp +forehead. As she did so, there burst on her ears the closing lines of +the great battle hymn of freedom-- + + _Liberte Liberte, cherie, + Combats avec tes defenseurs! + Sous nos drapeaux que la victoire + Accoure a tes males accents! + Que tes ennemis expirants + Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!_ + +and the terrible, inspiring refrain-- + + _Aux armes, citoyens! formez vos bataillons + Marchons;--qu'un sang impur + Abreuve nos sillons!_ + + + PRINTED BY + SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., COLCHESTER + LONDON AND ETON + + * * * * * + + +CONAN DOYLE'S NEW 'SHERLOCK HOLMES' STORY. + +The Valley Of Fear. + +By the Author of 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,' 'The Memoirs of +Sherlock Holmes,' 'The Lost World,' &c. + + +_Punch._--'As rousing a sensation as the greediest of us could want. I +can only praise the skill with which a most complete surprise is +prepared.' + +_Pall Mall Gazette._--'My Dear Watson! All good "Sherlockians" will +welcome Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's new story with enthusiasm ... it is all +very thrilling and very fine reading.' + + * * * * * + +Journeys with Jerry the Jarvey. + +By the Hon. ALEXIS ROCHE. + +_Scotsman._--'The stories are so good and the epigrams so quaint that +one is loath to lay it down. A book that can call forth a hearty laugh +on nearly every page.' + +_Field._--'The stories are really irresistible, and there is not a dull +page in the whole book.' + + * * * * * + +Oliver. + +By B. PAUL NEUMAN. + +Author of 'The Greatness of Josiah Porlick,' 'Chignett Street,' &c. + +_Westminster Gazette._--'The first hundred pages contain as fine a piece +of restrained realistic writing as our recent literature has put forth. +We laid down this very individual book with a wholesome respect for Mr. +Neuman's literary art.' + +_Punch._--'The thing is remarkably well done, a close and unsparing +treatment of a subject by no means easy ... an original and successful +story.' + + * * * * * + +Two Who Declined. + +By HERBERT TREMAINE. + +_Evening Standard._--'A striking, even absorbing novel. Its author will +certainly "count" before long.' + +_Pall Mall Gazette._--'A very clever story, and a work of great +promise.' + + * * * * * + + +Some Elderly People and their Young Friends. + +By S. MACNAUGHTAN. + +Author of 'The Fortune of Christina McNab,' 'A Lame Dog's Diary,' &c. + +_Globe._--'Miss Macnaughtan at her best. All her characters are +charming. Her books are a sovereign remedy for depression and +misanthropy. + +_Daily Telegraph._--'One of the most engaging stories that we have read +for a goodly while--a story full of lively wit and mellow wisdom. +Delightful is indeed the word which best sums up the whole book.' + + * * * * * + +In Brief Authority. + +By F. Anstey, + +Author of 'Vice Versa,' 'The Brass Bottle,' &c. + + +_Punch._--'In these days a fairy fantasy by Mr. F. Anstey comes like a +breath from the old happiness ... compelling our laughter with that +delightful jumble of magic and modernity of which he owns the secret. +"In Brief Authority" shows what I may call the Anstey formula as potent +as ever. It is all excellent fooling.' + +_Athenaeum._--'At any time this book would be welcome; it is doubly so +to-day when a "short breathing-space from the battle" is a recurring +necessity.' + + * * * * * + +'K.' + +By Mary Roberts Rinehart, + +Author of 'The After House,' 'The Street of Seven Stars,' &c. + +_Sunday Times._--'A book of whose unfailing charm, firmness of handling, +and pervading atmosphere of understanding and sympathy, almost any +living writer might be proud.' + +_Morning Post._--'One of those books that have all the elements of a +sudden and overwhelming popularity. Let us recommend it with what +authority we can.' + + * * * * * + +For this I had borne Him. + +By G. F. Bradby, + +Author of 'Dick: a Story without a Plot,' 'When every Tree was Green,' +'The Lanchester Tradition,' &c. + +_Punch._--'In my opinion the present Dick is not only entirely worthy of +the earlier, but marks by far the highest level that Mr. Bradby has yet +reached. It is not too much to think that this little book will live +long as a witness to the spirit of England in her dark hour.' + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED CROSS BARGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 37294.txt or 37294.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/2/9/37294 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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