FRIENDSHIP
She tried once more to lift the big, warm, flexible body, exerting all her
slender strength. It was useless. It was like attempting to lift the
earth. The weight of the body frightened her.
Again she sank down among the ferns under the great oak tree; once more
she took his blood-smeared head on her lap, smoothing the bright, wet
hair; and her tears fell slowly upon his upturned face.
"My friend," she stammered, "--my kind, droll friend.... The first friend
I ever had----"
The gun thunder beyond Nivelle had ceased; an intense stillness reigned in
the forest; only a leaf moved here and there on the aspens.
A few forest flies whirled about her, but as yet no ominous green flies
came--none of those jewelled harbingers of death which appear with
horrible promptness and as though by magic from nowhere when anything dies
in the open world.
Her donkey, still attached to the little gaily painted market cart, had
wandered on up the sandy lane, feeding at random along the fern-bordered
thickets which walled in the Nivelle byroad on either side.
Presently her ear caught a slight sound; something stirred somewhere in
the woods behind her. After an interval of terrible stillness there came a
distant crashing of footsteps among dead leaves and underbrush.
Horror of the Hun still possessed her; the victim of Prussian ferocity
still lay across her knees. She dared not take the chance that friendly
ears might hear her call for aid--dared not raise her voice in appeal lest
she awaken something monstrous, unclean, inconceivable--the unseen thing
which she could hear at intervals prowling there among dead leaves in the
demi-light of the woods.
Suddenly her heart leaped with fright; a man stepped cautiously out of the
woods into the road; another, dressed in leather, with dry blood caked on
his face, followed.
The first comer, a French gendarme, had already caught sight of the donkey
and market cart; had turned around instinctively to look for their owner.
Now he discovered her seated there among the ferns under the oak tree.
"In the name of God," he growled, "what’s that child doing there!"
The airman in leather followed him across the road to the oak; the girl
looked up at them out of dark, tear-marred eyes that seemed dazed.
"Well, little one!" rumbled the big, red-faced gendarme. "What’s your
name?--you who sit here all alone at the wood’s edge with a dead man
across your knees?"
She made an effort to find her voice--to control it.
"I am Maryette Courtray, bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse," she answered,
trembling.
"And--this young man?"
"They shot him--the Prussians, monsieur."
"My poor child! Was he your lover, then?"
Her tear-filled eyes widened:
"Oh, no," she said naïvely; "it is sadder than that. He was my friend."
The big gendarme scratched his chin; then, with an odd glance at the young
airman who stood beside him:
"To lose a friend is indeed sadder than to lose a lover. What was your
friend’s name, little one?"
She pressed her hand to her forehead in an effort to search among her
partly paralyzed thoughts:
"Djack.... That is his name.... He was the first real friend I ever had."
The airman said:
"He is one of my countrymen--an American muleteer, Jack Burley--in charge
at Sainte Lesse."
At the sound of the young man’s name pronounced in English the girl began
to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.
"_Allons_," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us
place your friend in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed
place, in God’s name!"
He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.
"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we
ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all.
_Allons_, comrade, take him by the head!"
So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the
gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to
one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take
away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere
lover.
When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob.
Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the
reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the
gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man’s body between them.
They were opening his tunic and shirt now and were whispering together,
and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.
"He’s still warm, but there’s no pulse," whispered the airman. "He’s dead
enough, I guess, but I’d rather hear a surgeon say so."
The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from
the girl.
"Weep peacefully, little one," he said; "it does one good. Tears are the
tisane which strengthens the soul."
"Ye-es.... But I am remembering that--that I was not very k-kind to him,"
she sobbed. "It hurts--_here_--" She pressed a slim hand over her breast.
"_Allons!_ Friends quarrel. God understands. Thy friend back there--he
also understands now."
"Oh, I hope he does!... He spoke to me so tenderly--yet so gaily. He was
even laughing at me when they shot him. He was so kind--and droll--" She
sobbed anew, clasping her hands and pressing them against her quivering
mouth to check her grief.
"Was it an execution, then?" demanded the gendarme in his growling voice.
"They said he must be a franc-tireur to wear such a uniform----"
"Ah, the scoundrels! Ah, the assassins! And so they murdered him there
under the tree?"
"Ah, God! Yes! I seem to see him standing there now--his grey, kind
eyes--and no thought of fear--just a droll smile--the way he had with
me--" whispered the girl, "the way--_his_ way--with me----"
"Child," said the gendarme, pityingly, "it _was_ love!"
But she shook her head, surprised, the tears still running down her tanned
cheeks:
"Monsieur, it was more serious than love; it was friendship."