At twelve o'clock the Herr Doktor walked up to the Tournebride. He had thought it possible that he might meet Mademoiselle Rouannès 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 excellentdéjeunerat a table spread under the trees in the courtyard of the inn, he cleverly led Madame Blanc on to the subject of Dr. Rouannès. 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. Rouannès 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. Rouannès. 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 Blignière, the younger of the two daughters of the Count de Blignière, a poor, proud old gentleman whom he, the doctor, had attended, out of charity no doubt. Curious to relate, this 'mariage étrange' had been a very happy one, and this though Madame Rouannès was very, very quiet, gentle, and pious too, in fact rather like 'une bonne Sœur.' She had been ill two years, and Dr. Rouannès 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 Médecin'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 Rouannès' sister had come to take care of the motherless little girl, but Mademoiselle de Blignière 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 deliciousdéjeunerunder 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 Rouannès 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 rôle 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 andermutigend, 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 Compiègne was evacuated, and Chantilly was ready for the Kaiser's occupation. It was from the magnificent home of 'Le Grand Condé' 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 à se battre là-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.
And during all that warm, early September afternoon, across the golden haze thrown up by the river, there came from 'là-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 tola nouvelle armée, and then again tol'armée 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 wunderschönen Monat MaiAls alle Knospen sprangenDa ist in meinem HerzenDie Liebe aufgegangen.
Im wunderschönen Monat MaiAls alle Knospen sprangenDa ist in meinem HerzenDie 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 Rouannès 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 Rouannès 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 asupercherie? '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 Thérèse. 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.'
'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.'
'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.
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 Rouannès 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 "à 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, Thérèse, for in her hand she held a lamp with a gay Chinese shade over it.
Mademoiselle Rouannès called out, 'Here we are, Thérèse!' 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 Thérèse 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 Thérèse 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 Rouannès.
At last the door opened, and he felt a slight shock of disappointment at seeing that it was old Thérèse, 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 Rouannès 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. Rouannès 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 Rouannès 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 Imustsay 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 confrère (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 Blessés 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 Blignière.'
'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. Rouannès 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. Rouannès 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 Rouannès 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 Thérèse 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 Rouannès 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 confrères. 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, theLancet—it should be written in theLancet. 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 confrère.' 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 confrère, 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. Rouannès 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 confrères 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 confrère, 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 Rouannès 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 confrère 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 confrères 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 confrère here—if indeed he is your confrère—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 confrères, 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. Rouannès 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 confrère 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 confrère—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 confrère 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 confrère 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 Rouannès, 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 foreverymember 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 confrère, 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. Rouannès 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 confrère, will I Mademoiselle Rouannès assist, when you no longer there to help her are.'
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. Rouannès.
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 Rouannès. 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 Rouannès' 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 Rouannès had gently and courteously refused to see him, and he had been made to feel by old Thérèse 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. Rouannès. 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.
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 Rouannès.'
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 Rouannès 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 Rouannès, née Demoiselle Jeanne de Blignière. Mère aimée. Femme adorée.
Dame Emile Rouannès, née Demoiselle Jeanne de Blignière. Mère aimée. Femme adorée.
To the right of the Rouannès 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 Rouannès' father.
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 Curé 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 Rouannès.
The colour flamed up into the Herr Doktor's face. With a shock of shame and, yes, of naïve 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 Rouannès, 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: 'Ça y est!' 'Enfin!' 'Oh, là, là!' 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 Rouannès.
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 Rouannès 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 shapedbénitierin 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 Rouannès 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 generalsauve-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 Rouannès 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 Rouannès was practically out of earshot. Approaching yet closer, he said urgently, 'I also trust to you, Monsieur le Médecin, 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 Curé 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 Rouannès? 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 Rouannès, 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. Rouannès 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 Rouannès, and that old Thérèse had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself, to a Sodalité, 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 Médecin, 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 Rouannès 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 Curé, 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 Curé!'
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 Rouannès 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.
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 Curé, 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 Rouannès 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 Rouannès, 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 Rouannès back to her own house, after which, having left her safe with old Jacob and Thérèse, 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 Rouannès 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 Rouannès 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 onyou!' With a smile and a slight gesture towards Jeanne Rouannès, 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, thereiswine; 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 aredone—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.'