IX

While she was breakfasting the next morning there was a tap at the door,

and thinking it the maid she called to her to come in.

But it was Jean, an anxious Jean, twisting his cap in his hands.

"You have had a message from the captain, mademoiselle?"

"No, Jean."

"He was to have returned during the night. He has not come,

mademoiselle."

Sara Lee forgot her morning negligée in Jean's harassed face.

"But--where did he go?"

Jean shrugged his shoulders and did not reply.

"Are you worried about him?"

"I am anxious, mademoiselle. But I am often anxious; and--he always

returns."

He smiled almost sheepishly. Sara Lee, who had no subtlety but a great

deal of intuition, felt that there was a certain relief in the smile, as

though Jean, having had no message from his master, was pleased that

she had none. Which was true enough, at that. Also she felt that Jean's

one eye was inspecting her closely, which was also true. A new factor

had come into Henri's life--by Jean's reasoning, a new and dangerous

one. And there were dangers enough already.

Highly dangerous, Jean reflected in the back of his head as he backed

out with a bow. A young girl unafraid of the morning sun and sitting

at a little breakfast table as fresh as herself--that was a picture for

a war-weary man.

Jean forgot for a moment his anxiety for Henri's safety in his fear for

his peace of mind. For a doubt had been removed. The girl was straight.

Jean's one sophisticated eye had grasped that at once. A good girl,

alone, and far from home! And Henri, like all soldiers, woman-hungry

for good women, for unpainted skins and clear eyes and the freshness and

bloom of youth.

All there, behind that little breakfast table which might so pleasantly

have been laid for two.

Jean took a walk that morning, and stood staring for twenty minutes into

a clock maker's window, full of clocks. After which he drew out his

watch and looked at the time!

At two in the afternoon Sara Lee saw Henri's car come into the square.

It was, if possible, more dilapidated than before, and he came like a

gray whirlwind, scattering people and dogs out of his way. Almost

before he had had time to enter the hotel Sara Lee heard him in the

hall, and the next moment he was bowing before her.

"I have been longer than I expected," he explained. "Have you been

quite comfortable?"

Sara Lee, however, was gazing at him with startled eyes. He was dirty,

unshaven, and his eyes looked hollow and bloodshot. From his neck to

his heels he was smeared with mud, and his tidy tunic was torn into

ragged holes.

"But you--you have been fighting!" she gasped.

"I? No, mademoiselle. There has been no battle." His eyes left her

and traveled over the room. "They are doing everything for you? They

are attentive?"

"Everything is splendid," said Sara Lee. "If you won't tell me how you

got into that condition, at least you can send your coat down to me to

mend."

"My tunic!" He looked at it smilingly. "You would do that?"

"I am nearly frantic for something to do."

He smiled, and suddenly bending down he took her hand and kissed it.

"You are not only very beautiful, mademoiselle, but you are very good."

He went away then, and Sara Lee got out her sewing things. The tunic

came soon, carefully brushed and very ragged. But it was not Jean who

brought it; it was the Flemish boy.

And upstairs in a small room with two beds Sara Lee might have been

surprised to find Jean, the chauffeur, lying on one, while Henri shaved

himself beside the other. For Jean, of the ragged uniform and the patch

over one eye, was a count of Belgium, and served Henri because he loved

him. And because, too, he was no longer useful in that little army

where lay his heart.

Sometime a book will be written about the Jeans of this war, the great

friendships it has brought forth between men. And not the least of its

stories will be that of this Jean of the one eye. But its place is not

here.

And perhaps there will be a book about the Henris, also. But not for a

long time, and even then with care. For the heroes of one department of

an army in the field live and die unsung. Their bravest exploits are

buried in secrecy. And that is as it must be. But it is a fine tale to

go untold.

After he had bathed and shaved, Henri sat down at a tiny table and wrote.

He drew a plan also, from a rough one before him. Then he took a match

and burned the original drawing until it was but charred black ashes.

When he had finished Jean got up from the bed and put on his overcoat.

"To the King?" he said.

"To the King, old friend."

Jean took the letter and went out.

Down below, Sara Lee sat with Henri's ragged tunic on her lap and

stitched carefully. Sometime, she reflected, she would be mending worn

garments for another man, now far away. A little flood of tenderness

came over her. So helpless these men! There was so much to do for them!

And soon, please God, she would be helping other tired and weary men,

with food, and perhaps a word--when she had acquired some French--and

perhaps a thread and needle.

She dined alone that night, as usual. Henri did not appear, though she

had sent what she suspected was his only tunic back to him neatly mended

at five o'clock. As a matter of fact Henri was sound asleep. He had

meant to rest only for an hour a body that was crying aloud with fatigue.

But Jean, coming in quietly, had found him sleeping like a child, and

had put his own blanket over him and left him. Henri slept until morning,

when Jean, coming up from his vigil outside the American girl's door,

found him waking and rested, and rang for coffee.

Jean sat down on the edge of his bed and put on his shoes and puttees.

He was a taciturn man, but now he had something to say that he did not

like to say. And Henri knew it.

"What is it?" he asked, his arms under his head. "Come, let us have it!

It is, of course, about the American lady."

"It is," Jean said bluntly. "You cannot mix women and war."

"And you think I am doing that?"

"I am not an idiot," Jean growled. "You do not know what you are doing.

I do. She is young and lonely. You are young and not unattractive to

women. Already she turns pale when I so much as ask if she has heard

from you."

"You asked her that?"

"You were gone much longer than--"

"And you thought I might send her word, and not you!" Henri's voice was

offended. He lay back while the boy brought in the morning coffee and

rolls.

"Let me tell you something," he said when the boy had gone. "She is

betrothed to an American. She wears a betrothal ring. I am to her--the

French language!"

But, though Henri laughed, Jean remained grave and brooding. For Henri

had not said what Sara Lee already was to him.

It was later in the morning that Henri broached the subject again. They

were in the courtyard of an old house, working over the engine of the car.

"I think I have found a location for the young American lady," he said.

Jean hammered for a considerable time at a refractory rim.

"And where?" he asked at last.

Henri named the little town. Like Henri's family name, it must not be

told. Too many things happened there, and perhaps it is even now Henri's

headquarters. For that portion of the line has changed very little.

Jean fell to renewed hammering.

"If you will be silent I shall explain a plan," Henri said in a cautious

tone. "She will make soup, with help which we shall find. And if coming

in for refreshments a soldier shall leave a letter for me it is natural,

is it not?"

"She will suspect, of course."

"I think not. And she reads no French. None whatever."

Yet Jean's suspicions were not entirely allayed. The plan had its

advantages. It was important that Henri receive certain reports, and

already the hotel whispered that Henri was of the secret service. It

brought him added deference, of course, but additional danger.

So Jean accepted the plan, but with reservation. And it was not long

afterward that he said to Sara Lee, in French: "There is a spider on

your neck, mademoiselle."

But Sara Lee only said, "I'm sorry, Jean; you'll have to speak English

to me for a while, I'm afraid."

And though he watched her for five minutes she did not put her hand

to her neck.

However, that was later on. That afternoon Henri spent an hour with the

Minister of War. And at the end of that time he said: "Thank you, Baron.

I think you will not regret it. America must learn the truth, and how

better than through those friendly people who come to us to help?"

It is as well to state, however, that he left the Minister of War with

the undoubted impression that Miss Sara Lee Kennedy was a spinster of

uncertain years.

Sara Lee packed her own suitcase that afternoon, doing it rather

nervously because Henri was standing in the room by the window waiting

for it. He had come in as matter-of-factly as Harvey had entered the

parlor at Aunt Harriet's, except that he carried in his arms some six

towels, a cake of soap and what looked suspiciously like two sheets.

"The house I have under consideration," he said, "has little to

recommend it but the building, and even that--The occupants have gone

away, and--you are not a soldier."

Sara Lee eyed the bundle.

"I don't need sheets," she expostulated.

"There are but two. And Jean has placed blankets in the car. You must

have a pillow also."

He calmly took one of the hotel pillows from the bed.

"What else?" he asked calmly. "Cigarettes? But no, you do not smoke."

Sara Lee eyed him with something very like despair.

"Aren't you ever going to let me think for myself?"

"Would you have thought of these?" he demanded triumphantly. "You--you

think only of soup and tired soldiers. Some one must think of you."

And there was a touch of tenderness in his voice. Sara Lee felt it and

trembled slightly. He was so fine, and he must not think of her that

way. It was not real. It couldn't be. Men were lonely here, where

everything was hard and cruel. They wanted some of the softness of life,

and all of kindness and sweetness that she could give should be Henri's.

But she must make it clear that there could never be anything more.

There was a tightness about her mouth as she folded the white frock.

"I know that garment," he said boyishly. "Do you remember the night you

wore it? And how we wandered in the square and made the plan that has

brought us together again?"

Sara Lee reached down into her suitcase and brought up Harvey's picture.

"I would like you to see this," she said a little breathlessly. "It is

the man I am to marry."

For a moment she thought Henri was not going to take it. But he came,

rather slowly, and held out his hand for it. He went with it to the

window and stood there for some time looking down at it.

"When are you going to marry him, mademoiselle?"

"As soon as I go back."

Sara Lee had expected some other comment, but he made none. He put the

photograph very quietly on the bed before her, and gathered up the linen

and the pillow in his arms.

"I shall send for your luggage, mademoiselle. And you will find me at

the car outside, waiting."

And so it was that a very silent Henri sat with Jean going out to that

strange land which was to be Sara Lee's home for many months. And a

very silent Sara Lee, flanked with pillow and blankets, who sat back

alone and tried to recall the tones of Harvey's voice.

And failed.

X

From Dunkirk to the Front, the road, after the Belgian line was passed,

was lightly guarded. Henri came out of a reverie to explain to Sara Lee.

"We have not many men," he said. "And those that remain are holding the

line. It is very weary, our army."

Now at home Uncle James had thought very highly of the Belgian Army. He

had watched the fight they made, and he had tried to interest Sara Lee

in it. But without much result. She had generally said: "Isn't it

wonderful!" or "horrible," as the case might be, and put out of her mind

as soon as possible the ringing words he had been reading. But she had

not forgotten, she found. They came back to her as she rode through that

deserted countryside. Henri, glancing back somewhat later, found her in

tears.

He climbed back at once into the rear of the car and sat down beside her.

"You are homesick, I think?"

"Yes. But not for myself. I am just homesick for all the people who

have lost their homes. You--and Jean, and all the rest."

"Some day I shall tell you about my home and what has happened to it,"

he said gravely. "Not now. It is not pleasant. But you must remember

this: We are going back home, we Belgians." And after a little pause:

"Just as you are."

He lapsed into silence after that, and Sara Lee, stealing a glance at

him, saw his face set and hard. She had a purely maternal impulse to

reach over and pat his hand.

Jean did not like Henri's shift to the rear of the car. He drove with

a sort of irritable feverishness, until Henri leaned over and touched

him on the shoulder.

"We have mademoiselle with us, Jean," he said in French.

"It is not difficult to believe," growled Jean. But he slackened his

pace somewhat.

So far the road had been deserted. Now they had come up to a stream of

traffic flowing slowly toward the Front. Armored cars, looking tall and

top-heavy, rumbled and jolted along. Many lorries, one limousine

containing a general, a few Paris buses, all smeared a dingy gray and

filled with French soldiers, numberless and nondescript open machines,

here and there a horse-drawn vehicle--these filled the road. In and

out among them Jean threaded his way, while Sara Lee grew crimson with

the effort to see it all, and Henri sat very stiff and silent.

At a crossroads they were halted by troops who had fallen out for a rest.

The men stood at ease, and stared their fill at Sara Lee. Save for a

few weary peasants, most of them had seen no women for months. But they

were respectful, if openly admiring. And their admiration of her was

nothing to Sara Lee's feeling toward them. She loved them all--boys

with their first straggly beards on their chins; older men, looking worn

and tired; French and Belgian; smiling and sad. But most of all, for

Uncle James' sake, she loved the Belgians.

"I cannot tell you," she said breathlessly to Henri. "It is like a

dream come true. And I shall help. You look doubtful sometimes, but

I am sure."

"You are heaven sent," Henri replied gravely.

They turned into a crossroad after a time, and there in a little village

Sara Lee found her new home. A strange village indeed, unoccupied and

largely destroyed. Piles of bricks and plaster lined the streets.

Broken glass was everywhere. Jean blew out a tire finally, because of

the glass, and they were obliged to walk the remainder of the way.

"A poor place, mademoiselle," Henri said as they went along. "A peaceful

little town, and quite beautiful, once. And it harbored no troops. But

everything is meat for the mouths of their guns."

Sara Lee stopped and looked about her. Her heart was beating fast, but

her lips were steady enough.

"And it is here that I--"

"A little distance down the street. You must see before you decide."

Steady, passionless firing was going on, not near, but far away, like

low thunder before a summer storm. She was for months to live, to eat

and sleep and dream to that rumbling from the Ypres salient, to waken

when it ceased or to look up from her work at the strange silence. But

it was new to her then, and terrible.

"Do they still shell this--this town?" she asked, rather breathlessly.

"Not now. They have done their work. Of course--" he did not finish.

Sara Lee's heart slowed down somewhat. After all, she had asked to be

near the Front. And that meant guns and such destruction as was all

about her. Only one thing troubled her.

"It is rather far from the trenches, isn't it?"

He smiled slightly.

"Far! It is not very far. Not so far as I would wish, mademoiselle.

But, to do what you desire, it is the best I have to offer."

"How far away are the trenches?"

"A quarter of a mile beyond those poplar trees." He indicated on a slight

rise a row of great trees broken somewhat but not yet reduced to the

twisted skeletons they were to become later on. In a long line they

faced the enemy like sentinels, winter-quiet but dauntless, and behind

them lay the wreck of the little village, quiet and empty.

"Will the men know I am here?" Sara Lee asked anxiously.

"But, yes, mademoiselle. At night they come up from the trenches, and

fresh troops take their places. They come up this street and go on to

wherever they are to rest. And when they find that a house of--mercy

is here--and soup, they will come. More than you wish."

"Belgian soldiers?"

"Only Belgian soldiers. That is as you want it to be, I think."

"If only I spoke French!"

"You will learn. And in the meantime, mademoiselle, I have taken the

liberty of finding you a servant--a young peasant woman. And you will

also have a soldier always on guard."

Something that had been in the back of Sara Lee's mind for some time

suddenly went away. She had been thinking of Aunt Harriet and the Ladies'

Aid Society of the Methodist Church. She had, in fact, been wondering

how they would feel when they learned that she was living alone, the

only woman among thousands of men. It had, oddly enough, never occurred

to her before.

"You have thought of everything," she said gratefully.

But Henri said nothing. He had indeed thought of everything with a

vengeance, with the net result that he was not looking at Sara Lee more

than he could help.

These Americans were strange. An American girl would cross the seas,

and come here alone with him--a man and human. And she would take for

granted that he would do what he was doing for love of his kind--which

was partly true; and she would be beautiful and sweet and amiable and

quite unself-conscious. And then she would go back home, warm of heart

with gratitude, and marry the man of the picture.

The village had but one street, and that deserted and in ruins. Behind

its double row of houses, away from the enemy, lay the fields, a muddy

canal and more poplar trees. And from far away, toward Ypres, there

came constantly that somewhat casual booming of artillery which marked

the first winter of the war.

The sound of the guns had first alarmed, then interested Sara Lee. It

was detached then, far away. It meant little to her. It was only later,

when she saw some of the results of the sounds she heard, that they

became significant. But this is not a tale of the wounding of men.

There are many such. This is the story of a little house of mercy, and

of a girl with a dauntless spirit, and of two men who loved her. Only

that.

The maid Henri had found was already in the house, sweeping. Henri

presented her to Sara Lee, and he also brought a smiling little Belgian

boy, in uniform and with a rifle.

"Your staff, mademoiselle!" he said. "And your residence!"

Sara Lee looked about her. With the trifling exception that there was

no roof, it was whole. And the roof was not necessary, for the floors

of the upper story served instead. There was a narrow passage with a

room on either side, and a tiny kitchen behind.

Henri threw open a door on the right.

"Your bedroom," he said. "Well furnished, as you will see. It should

be, since there has been brought here all the furniture not destroyed

in the village."

His blacker mood had fallen away before her naive delight. He went

about smiling boyishly, showing her the kettles in the kitchen; the

supply, already so rare, of firewood; the little stove. But he stiffened

somewhat when she placed her hand rather timidly on his arm.

"How am I ever to thank you?" she asked.

"By doing much good. And by never going beyond the poplar trees."

She promised both very earnestly.

But she was a little sad as she followed Henri about, he volubly

expatiating on such advantages as plenty of air owing to the absence of

a roof; and the attraction of the stove, which he showed much like a

salesman anxious to make a sale. "Such a stove!" he finished

contentedly. "It will make soup even in your absence, mademoiselle!

Our peasants eat much soup; therefore it is what you would call a

trained stove."

Before Sara Lee's eyes came a picture of Harvey and the Leete house,

its white dining room, its bay window for plants, its comfortable charm

and prettiness. And Harvey's face, as he planned it for her anxious,

pleading, loving. She drew a long breath. If Henri noticed her

abstraction he ignored it. He was all over the little house. One moment

he was instructing Marie volubly, to her evident confusion. On René,

the guard, he descended like a young cyclone, with warnings for

mademoiselle's safety and comfort. He was everywhere, sitting on the

bed to see if it was soft, tramping hard on the upper floor to discover

if any plaster might loosen below, and pausing in that process to look

keenly at a windmill in the field behind.

When he came down it was to say: "You are not entirely alone in the

village, after all, mademoiselle. The miller has come back. I shall

visit him now and explain."

He found Sara Lee, however, still depressed. She was sitting in a low

chair in the kitchen gazing thoughtfully at the stove.

"I am here," she said. "And here is the house, and a stove,

and--everything. But there are no shops; and what shall I make my soup

out of?"

Henri stared at her rather blankly.

"True!" he said. "Very true. And I never thought of it!"

Then suddenly they both laughed, the joyous ringing laugh of ridiculous

youth, which can see its own absurdities and laugh at them.

Henri counted off on his fingers.

"I thought of water," he said, "and a house, and firewood, and kettles

and furniture. And there I ceased thinking."

It was dusk now. Marie lifted the lid from the stove, and a warm red

glow of reflected light filled the little kitchen. It was warm and

cozy; the kettle sang like the purring of a cat. And something else

that had troubled Sara Lee came out.

"I wonder," she said, "if you are doing all this only because I--well,

because I persuaded you." Which she had not. "Do the men really need

me here?"

"Need you, mademoiselle?"

"Do they need what little I can give? They were smiling, all the ones

I saw."

"A Belgian soldier always smiles. Even when he is fighting." His voice

had lost its gayety and had taken on a deeper note. "Mademoiselle, I

have brought you here, where I can think of no other woman who would

have the courage to come, because you are needed. I cannot promise you

entire safety"--his mouth tightened--"but I can promise you work and

gratitude. Such gratitude, mademoiselle, as you may never know again."

That reassured her. But in her practical mind the matter of supplies

loomed large. She brought the matter up again directly.

"It is to be hot chocolate and soup?" he asked.

"Both, if I find I have enough money. Soup only, perhaps."

"And soup takes meat, of course."

"It should, to be strengthening."

Henri looked up, to see Jean in the doorway smiling grimly.

"It is very simple," Jean said to him in French. "You have no other

duties of course; so each day you shall buy in the market place at

Dunkirk, with American money. And I shall become a delivery boy and

bring out food for mademoiselle, and whatever is needed."

Henri smiled back at him cheerfully. "An excellent plan, Jean," he said.

"Not every day, but frequently."

Jean growled and disappeared.

However, there was the immediate present to think of, and while Jean

thawed his hands at the fire and Sara Lee was taking housewifely stock

of her new home, Henri disappeared.

He came back in a half hour, carrying in a small basket butter, eggs,

bread and potatoes.

"The miller!" he explained cheerfully to Sara Lee. "He has still a few

hens, and hidden somewhere a cow. We can have milk--is there a pail

for Marie to take to the mill?--and bread and an omelet. That is a

meal!"

There was but one lamp, which hung over the kitchen stove. The room

across from Sara Lee's bedroom contained a small round dining table and

chairs. Sara Lee, enveloped in a large pinafore apron, made the

omelet in the kitchen. Marie brought a pail of fresh milk. Henri, with

a towel over his left arm, and in absurd mimicry of a Parisian waiter,

laid the table; and Jean, dour Jean, caught a bit of the infection, and

finding four bottles set to work with his pocketknife to fit candles

into their necks.

Standing in corners, smiling, useless against the cheerful English that

flowed from the kitchen stove to the dining room and back again, were

René and Marie. It was of no use to attempt to help. Did the fire burn

low, it was the young officer who went out for fresh wood. But René

could not permit that twice. He brought in great armfuls of firewood

and piled them neatly by the stove.

Henri was absurdly happy again. He would come to the door gravely, with

Sara Lee's little phrase book in hand, and read from it in a solemn tone:

"'Shall we have duck or chicken?' 'Where can we get a good dinner at a

moderate price?' 'Waiter, you have spilled wine on my dress.' 'Will

you have a cigar?' 'No, thank you. I prefer a pipe.'"

And Sara Lee beat up the eggs and found, after a bad moment, some salt

in a box, and then poured her omelet into the pan. She was very anxious

that it be a good omelet. She must make good her claim as a cook or

Henri's sublime faith in her would die.

It was a divine omelet. Even Jean said so. They sat, the three of them,

in the cold little dining room and never knew that it was cold, and they

ate prodigious quantities of omelet and bread and butter, and bully beef

out of a tin, and drank a great deal of milk.

Even Jean thawed at last, under the influence of food and Sara Lee.

Before the meal was over he was planning how to get her supplies to her

and making notes on a piece of paper as to what she would need at once.

They adjourned to Sara Lee's bedroom, where Marie had kindled a fire in

the little iron stove, and sat there in the warmth with two candles,

still planning. By that time Sara Lee had quite forgotten that at home

one did not have visitors in one's bedroom.

Suddenly Henri held up his hand.

"Listen!" he said.

That was the first time Sara Lee had ever heard the quiet shuffling step

of tired men, leaving their trenches under cover of darkness. Henri

threw his military cape over her shoulders and she stood in the dark

doorway, watching.

The empty street was no longer empty. From gutter to gutter flowed a

stream of men, like a sluggish river which narrowed where a fallen house

partly filled the way; not talking, not singing, just moving, bent under

their heavy and mud-covered equipment. Here and there the clack of

wooden sabots on the cobbles told of one poor fellow not outfitted with

leather shoes. The light of a match here and there showed some few

lucky enough to have still remaining cigarettes, and revealed also, in

the immediate vicinity, a white bandage or two. Some few, recognizing

Henri's officer's cap, saluted. Most of them stumbled on, too weary to

so much as glance aside.

Nothing that Sara Lee had dreamed of war was like this. This was dreary

and sodden and hopeless. Those fresh troops at the crossroads that day

had been blithe and smiling. There had been none of the glitter and

panoply of war, but there had been movement, the beating of a drum, the

sharp cries of officers as the lines re-formed.

Here there were no lines. Just such a stream of men as at home might

issue at night from a coal mine, too weary for speech. Only here they

were packed together closely, and they did not speak, and some of them

were wounded.

"There are so many!" she whispered to Henri. "A hundred such efforts as

mine would not be enough."

"I would to God there were more!" Henri replied, through shut teeth.

"Listen, mademoiselle," he said later. "You cannot do all the kind work

of the world. But you can do your part. And you will start by caring for

only such as are wounded or ill. The others can go on. But every night

some twenty or thirty, or even more, will come to your door--men

slightly wounded or too weary to go on without a rest. And for those

there will be a chair by the fire, and something hot, or perhaps a clean

bandage. It sounds small? But in a month, think! You will have given

comfort to perhaps a thousand men. You--alone!"

"I--alone!" she said in a queer choking voice. "And what about you?

It is you who have made it possible."

But Henri was looking down the street to where the row of poplars hid

what lay beyond. Far beyond a star shell had risen above the flat

fields and floated there, a pure and lovely thing, shedding its white

light over the terrain below. It gleamed for some thirty seconds and

went out.

"Like that!" Henri said to her, but in French. "Like that you are to me.

Bright and shining--and so soon gone."

Sara Lee thought he had asked her if she was cold.