CHAPTER XVI
"Fret not thyself, Fräulein," Jacob said, with tenderness, patting her shoulder. "These are thine own people. If Germany is stern to her enemies, she is generous to her friends."
And Belinda wondered! She had listened to the patriotic speeches of the wounded Frenchmen for months. She had considered herself almost wholly French. She had scarcely endured, because it was her duty, these wounded Germans.
But they were her mother's people. She remembered clearly her visits to Germany and how kind her cousins—these two boys, Carl Baum and Paul Genau—had been to her. They had half quarreled over her at her last visit, indeed, being at that age when boys are apt to be much "taken" with pretty cousins.
The family life of the Genaus and the Baums, as she had seen it, was ideal. They were quiet, humdrum, peaceable folk, possessing all the sturdy virtues of the Teutonic race. Who would have thought that when next she should meet her two playmates they would be in the habiliments of war?
She waited in some perturbation of mind for what should next befall her. She was actually glad that her personal possessions had been left in old Minerva's cottage. There was nothing belonging to her here at the hospital, she told herself, to arouse suspicion.
But she forgot one thing—one very important thing.
She heard footsteps without once more. The sentinel grounded arms. In came a young man, smiling, handsome in a keen-featured way, and brisk. Carl was behind him.
Belinda would not have known her cousin, Paul Genau, he had so changed. Unlike Carl, his military service—both before and since the beginning of the war—had vastly altered him. He was plainly one of those young Germans who ape the junker class—who absorb and seemingly thrive upon Prussian militarism.
"By the great god Thor!" ejaculated this breezy young sergeant-major. "It surely is! I believed Carl here had quite lost his wits—I did upon my life, Cousin. Welcome to Germany, dear Belinda!"
He caught her unexpectedly in his arms and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek before she could defend herself.
"Hold on!" growled Carl from the background. "That is an unfair advantage. 'Linda is my cousin as well as yours—and she did not welcome me so."
"Nor did she invite her Cousin Paul to welcome her so warmly!" exclaimed Belinda, freeing herself quickly. "Your ear shall ring, Paul, if you do that again."
The sergeant-major laughed easily.
"Never wait to ask a pretty girl for such favors, my Carl. I have told you so before. You are too slow. 'When the orchard fruit hangs ripe over the hedge, pluck it and go thy way.' It is a good motto."
"No more of your mottoes, Paul," Belinda said with some sharpness. She was suddenly doubtful of this cousin, if not of the other. "Has Carl told you the position I am in?"
"Verily. So you have been aiding your French cousins? One of them—Leon Mandeville—is in one of our prison camps."
"Poor Leon!" sighed Belinda.
"And serves him right," growled Carl stoutly.
"Worry not, sweet Cousin. His whole nation will soon be in like condition."
"Yes," said the girl. "I see you callthisGermany."
"We will never give up these provinces, once belonging to France," Paul returned quickly. "You see, we advance. Well! We will not quarrel, sweet Cousin. I will inform the Herr Lieutenant—the captain himself if need be—of our relationship. They knowme," said Paul proudly.
"You are doing a noble work, Cousin Belinda. These are all Germans, you say? Are you sure?"
He asked the question keenly, glancing about the ward.
"You would better question them," said Belinda with scorn.
"Oh, the Herr Doktor will do that—without a doubt. He will arrive soon. And he is a great man, indeed! But I will report," he added, swinging on his heel. "You may as well come, too, Carl. I don't wish to give you any advantage with our cousin.
"You are very charming, Belinda. And I am considered a judge of the charms of pretty fräuleins."
"Is it so, Paul?" she retorted. "I see you are a very forward boy. You have yet to learn your place. Carl," she added, smiling at his rather downcast face, "will you do something for me?"
"A thousand, Cousin!" he cried, his stolid countenance beaming again.
"Find my littleinfirmier, Erard. He speaks enough German to make himself understood. You must be kind to him."
"He will be questioned by the Herr Lieutenant," promised Paul, laughing.
"So I shall be, I presume," the nurse said coolly. "But one may easily see the poor little lame man, Erard, is quite harmless."
"We have heard of these harmless people before," said Paul. "Well, we shall see."
"I will find him, Cousin 'Linda," promised Carl, following his cousin, the sergeant-major, out of the ward.
She was not disturbed thereafter for some time. Occasionally she went to the door and saw the German wounded streaming in, some afoot, but most of them borne on stretchers. She saw none of the hospital attendants to speak to at first. The sentinel at the door of her ward naturally kept the nurses away.
Erard appeared with the evening's supply of soup. A German soldier came to help carry the heavy pot. The little Frenchman gestured to Belinda to say nothing until the other had gone. Then he thrust a scrap of paper into her hand. On this twist was written:
"This is your man. He seems a harmless creature as you say. Say that your name is 'Genau'. I have so told the Herr Lieutenant. Your father's name is too French.—Thine ever,Paul."
"This is your man. He seems a harmless creature as you say. Say that your name is 'Genau'. I have so told the Herr Lieutenant. Your father's name is too French.—Thine ever,Paul."
The note made her indignant. Evidently Paul Genau had usurped the errand she had confided to Carl and with his power as a higher "non-com" had "set his cousin down a peg." She determined to punish the young sergeant-major for that in time. "He always was a crowing little bantam," she told herself indignantly.
Then she marked the remainder of Paul's note. Deny her name? The thought shocked her. "Genau" was truly her name, too—she had been baptised "Belinda Genau" to please her mother's fancy. Yet it seemed to the girl that she would be denying herself—denying the principles and beliefs she held.
Still there might be sound sense in Paul's advice. And how could she really escape this small masquerade? He had thrust it upon her!
She was much disturbed and was not at all sure of her course when a very gorgeous lieutenant came later to visit her ward. He ordered the sentinel on duty at the door relieved and walked through the ward, talking with the nurse for the most part, rather than looking at the patients or questioning them. Naturally the latter duty fell to the members of the Medical Staff.
"The Herr Doktor will do all that, Fräulein," the lieutenant said, laughing. "You may have a bad quarter of an hour with him, if all is not right. Believe me, Fräulein, I would not wish to cause so charming a lady any trouble. Fare thee well, Fräulein Genau."
Belinda knew after this interview whose manner her Cousin Paul aped. The young Lieutenant Graf von Harden was not a handsome man; but he evidently held a very high opinion of himself and was used to adulation.
The lamps were lit in the ward. She had watched several of the other huts filled with wounded. Wards I and II had most of the serious cases. The stretcher-bearers continued to come in. The surgeons were at work in the operating ward, as the French surgeons had worked there a few days before.
Save in the change of language spoken, the work of the hospital station went on much as it had before. But she saw all new faces. Few had spoken to her. There were not many women nurses, and all whom she saw were busy. From one she learned the Herr Doktor in charge was about to arrive, and she watched for him.
Suddenly there was increased bustle of attendants and soldiers at the gate in the hedge. She heard a powerful motor-car stop before the entrance. A tall figure in a helmet and long black cape and carrying a walking-stick came through the gateway.
"The Herr Doktor," was the murmur Belinda heard.
He strode down the yard. All the afternoon the hurrying stretcher-bearers had turned aside for that supine figure lying on the ground—the body of the good physician who had governed the hospital under the French régime. The advancing Prussian officer halted beside it.
"What is that?" he asked, turning the body half over with his cane. He saw the cross and military insignia upon the dead man's breast. "Ha! Chief of the Medical Staff, eh? Well, let him not lie here. Bury the dog."
He marched on, passing Belinda's door without a glance. The girl had shrunk back, hiding herself within the ward. She was trembling and afraid. Fear laid hold upon her—such fear as she had not experienced since entering upon her work on the battlefields. For it was, in large part, that uncanny shrinking of the soul she had been wont to feel in the New York hospital. And it was from the same cause.
The grim, helmeted figure that stalked down the yard, the chief of this German hospital unit, was Doctor Franz Herschall!