A LITTLE FRENCH HEROINE
“=LUCY=, will you do something for me?” asked Miss Pearse, as they
mounted the hospital steps early in the morning, two days later. “Miss
Willis and Brêlet are going to the German supply depot after some things
we need. I wish you would go with them and see if you can’t bring back
more soap and matches. We want them terribly, and we always have to wait
for them at a separate door from the food depot. It’s impossible to
spare any one else from here,” she added, turning toward Lucy a
decidedly reproachful look, “or I’d keep you working in the hospital.
Goodness knows what you’ll do, once I let you out.”
Lucy, not having any defense ready, said nothing. But she did not look
particularly repentant. Miss Pearse had come face to face with her
outside the hospital when she returned the morning after Bob’s visit.
Astonished at catching sight of her charge, whom she thought still in
bed and asleep, she had insisted on a complete explanation. Lucy had
received a scolding, but underneath all of her severity, Miss Pearse
could not hide the sympathetic heart that beat in warm response to
Lucy’s hope and anxiety. Her lecture had weakly broken down into a fire
of questions about Bob’s daring flight, which left Lucy feeling less
remorseful than Miss Pearse intended.
Now, after waiting a moment while their passes were inspected by a
deliberate German sentry, she followed the nurse into the hospital,
saying, “Of course I’ll go, Miss Pearse. Right after breakfast? Just let
me tell Father good-morning first.”
Colonel Gordon was sitting up in bed, for his convalescence had now
really begun, and his thin face, from which the tan had almost faded,
was tinged with the first suggestion of returning health. His eyes,
though, held a sombre look in their gray depths, and at sight of Lucy it
did not leave them, even when he smiled cheerfully and held out a
welcoming hand.
Lucy had told her father everything about Bob’s visit and the news that
he had brought, and in the thrilling story Colonel Gordon’s fear for his
son’s safety had been almost outweighed by admiration of his pluck and
skill. His face had lighted up as he listened, and Lucy had repeated the
details of Bob’s message and landing twice over. It meant much to the
wounded officer to feel that, if he himself must remain a helpless
prisoner of war, his son at least was doing a brave part alone.
Lucy had not told him a word about her visit to Captain Beattie’s
prison. She had not accomplished what she hoped, and she dreaded lest
her father’s fears for her safety might lead him to make her promise not
to go there again. Just now she felt she could not give up the one
chance that might mean so much. And had she not given a promise, too,
that she would do what she could to make the young Englishman’s lot more
bearable?
This morning she told her father of her intended trip across the town
for the supplies doled out by the German conquerors. Colonel Gordon lay
watching his daughter with anxious eyes as she sat beside him, thankful
to see that her cheeks had not yet lost their color, in spite of all she
had endured, nor her hazel eyes their brightness.
“I’m all right, Father, so long as I have work to do,” said Lucy,
reading his troubled thoughts. “It was sitting idle and worrying that I
couldn’t stand. Now that you are getting well, and we know the worst
about the town, I can grin and bear it.”
“A weight is off my mind since I know Bob has told your mother we are
safe,” said Colonel Gordon. “As for grinning and bearing it, our troops
won’t be satisfied to do that, thank heaven. They’ll push through again
somehow—they must! I don’t know what I’d do if I thought I was a
prisoner for the rest of the war.”
Lucy was silent, but again she resolved to tell her father nothing of
the secret Captain Beattie held, until she had revisited the prison and
accomplished at least a part of what she sought.
“I must go to breakfast now, Father,” she said, after a moment. “I’ll
come in to see you again just as soon as I get back from my morning’s
work.”
Lucy needed no urging to do all in her power to help inside the
hospital. To her natural eagerness to be of service to the Allies’ cause
was added a keen desire to show the Germans in command that she was
useful. She had a secret dread that they might think her in the way and
forbid her to remain where she longed to stay, close by her father’s
side.
The streets were glowing in hot sunshine when she started out with Miss
Willis and Brêlet, an hour later. Since the night before, the guns had
been almost silent, and every soul among the Allies in the town wondered
how things were going on the battle-front, but steadfastly refused to
ask their conquerors, certain they would hear of nothing else than a
German victory. But even the Germans could not claim much of an advance,
for the firing of the past night showed their line to be still held at
about four miles west of Château-Plessis.
The German food supply depot was about a mile north from the American
hospital. It was inconveniently placed for both hospitals and for the
few hundred inhabitants remaining in the town, but naturally the Germans
gave no thought to this. Every one wishing to buy or beg food was
obliged to go in person, showing the registry card which had been
furnished each inhabitant soon after the town’s capture. This systematic
arrangement promised well, but in reality many a tired and over-worked
French citizen had a long, hot walk to the supply depot for nothing. The
food was scanty, and only the worst portions of it were reserved for the
townspeople. In addition to this, the long wait necessary to secure
anything kept those away who had a few vegetables left growing in their
little gardens.
The old men and boys of Château-Plessis had been put to work clearing
the streets of broken stone and rubbish, for there was no more than a
company of soldiers in the town, and these contented themselves with
mounting guard and exercising a general supervision. But the civilian
workers received no more food than if they had been idle, and, hungry
and dejected, worked grudgingly at their task, fearful lest they should
be in some way aiding the German advance. Lucy watched these unwilling
workers, as the three passed close to a little group of them, on their
way across the town. Somehow they seemed even more pitiful to her than
soldier prisoners. The soldier has at least had a chance to strike his
enemy, and he is at a time of life when blows are given and endured. But
these old men, weather-worn and bent with labor, had earned a quiet home
in the little town where most of them were born. The boys, from twelve
to about sixteen years old, glanced up with shamefaced and defiant
looks. They had had no chance at self-defense, and Lucy guessed with a
quick throb of sympathy how their young, loyal hearts must suffer in
obeying the conqueror’s commands.
“Suppose it were America, and the Germans were ordering us to work for
them,” she thought, and her cheeks flushed with anger at the triumphant
foe who caused such misery. Then she shook her head impatiently at
herself, as the house used for the food depot came into sight. “I’ll
have to feel a little more polite than this, if I’m to get any soap and
matches out of them,” she decided.
“There’s not much of a crowd to-day, thank goodness,” remarked Miss
Willis, looking at the scattered handful of people standing about the
building. “But I suppose there are enough more indoors to keep us
waiting half the morning.”
“Well, I’ll go to the other side and try my luck,” said Lucy, making for
the left-hand door and taking her place in line, with the written
request from the hospital in her hand. Presently her turn came to step
inside the door and hand her paper to the sergeant at the desk. He read
it, pursing his lips doubtfully, glanced at a written list beside him,
and finally told Lucy to come back in half an hour. He shouted it, under
the odd impression that people who could not understand German would get
his meaning somehow if he spoke loud enough. Lucy nodded, wanting to
laugh at his hot, bothered-looking face, and went out in search of Miss
Willis and Brêlet.
The people of the hospital, owing in great part to the German wounded
sheltered there, were in a much easier position than the rest of the
population in regard to food. The German authorities allowed them
hand-carts to convey the somewhat variable supplies allotted to them.
To-day the chief part of the food had already been sent over, but some
necessary things were missing, and these Miss Willis had volunteered to
bring back. The chances looked uncertain, however. The German non-com in
charge as a matter of course appeared doubtful about granting her
request. Perhaps—after a while——When Lucy entered the room things had
advanced no further than this. Seeing every prospect of a long wait she
glanced about her to see who else was in the same plight. Twenty-five or
thirty people were standing wearily waiting on the sergeant’s pleasure.
Some of them had sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall.
Among these last was a slight delicate-looking woman whom Lucy noticed
because she seemed so sadly out of place seated on the dusty floor in
the midst of the noisy and perspiring crowd. She was plainly dressed in
black with a widow’s cap over her soft, dark hair, but something about
her face and bearing set her apart from the peasants and townspeople
around her. Beside her stood an old woman who was evidently a servant,
with an empty basket on her arm and an angry scowl on her forehead as
she watched the German soldiers leisurely dealing out supplies to the
waiting crowd. But it was the third member of the little group to whom
Lucy’s attention quickly shifted. This was a girl about her own age, who
stood leaning against the wall by her mother’s side, a kind of scornful
patience on her face. Her blue eyes, which looked as though not long ago
they had been full of childish gaiety, now held a defiant resolution in
their depths. Her hair was so black it reminded Lucy of Julia Houston’s,
except that Julia’s hair was straight, and this girl’s fell in soft
waves over her thin shoulders.
Lucy could not take her eyes away from that pretty, sensitive face, so
pathetic in its look of having been roughly wakened from the happy
childhood that French girls know until well into their teens. In another
moment the object of her gaze looked around and caught sight of her.
Lucy did not hesitate. She had longed for the companionship of a girl
her own age since she had found time to think in these last few days,
and she had seen this girl once before in crossing the town with Brêlet
and Elizabeth, and had heard from Brêlet something of her history. She
made a difficult way across the crowded room to her side and, overcoming
a sudden shyness as the stranger’s eyes met hers, she said in French
with a friendly smile, “You won’t mind if I speak to you? I’d like so
much to have another girl to talk to.”
For a second her listener looked puzzled, for Lucy’s French was much
worse than her German. Then her face lighted comprehendingly, and a
bright smile chased away all the scornful sadness from her look.
“I shall be glad!” she exclaimed, her pretty voice sounding pleasantly
on Lucy’s ears after the shouts of the German soldiers calling off the
names upon their lists. Then, hesitating for a second, the girl said in
careful, foreign-sounding English, “If you prefer, we can talk in
English. I speak enough that you can understand me, though I make some
mistakes at every moment.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Lucy, enormously relieved at the loosening of her
tongue. “I can understand you perfectly, and you tell me if I talk too
fast.”
“Then let us sit on the floor,” the French girl suggested, dropping down
as she spoke against the wall.
Lucy quickly followed suit, and when they were seated side by side on
the rickety floor, which shook and creaked under many footsteps, her
companion continued, “I know a little of you already. Clemence, our
servant, has told me how you came here to see your father.” A look of
such keen sympathy shone in the blue eyes fixed on hers that Lucy for a
moment could not speak, and the French girl added, “You are American,
no? Tell me your name.”
“Lucy Gordon. And I know part of yours. You are Mademoiselle de la Tour,
but what is your first name?”
“Michelle. It was the poilu who was with you when you saw me in the
street who has told you that. He knows well this town. He was—how you
call it? _Jardinier_ of my uncle, very near here, before the war.”
Brêlet had in fact told Lucy more of Michelle de la Tour than her name.
He had described the first German advance early in the war, which had
driven the widow and her little daughter from their beautiful
country-place to find refuge in the town. Since then things had gone
from bad to worse with this family, once so honored and fortunate.
Madame de la Tour’s only son was fighting for his country, while his
mother and sister were left, poor and needy, in German hands.
Lucy wondered what stories of privation and sacrifice Michelle’s lips
could tell. But she also guessed that she would hear little of them.
Impelled by an instinctive confidence and liking which made her feel
more warmly toward this girl than five minutes’ acquaintance warranted,
she began telling her a little of her own history. Of her coming from
England, of her father’s recovery in the midst of the German advance, of
her mother’s vain attempts to reach them, and lastly she spoke of Bob.
Not, of course, of his visit since the town’s capture, for Lucy had
learned prudence enough in the last week. She did not say a word that
could have brought danger to any friend of the Allies, however unlikely
it was that her English would be understood. Michelle heard her with an
eager intentness, and Lucy’s friendly interest seemed reflected in her
listener’s eyes, which in their changing brightness expressed her
thoughts far better than her halting English. At last she turned to
where her mother sat, and reached out an eager hand to her.
“_Maman!_ I have a friend—a little _Americaine. Mees_, here is my
mother.”
Lucy crawled over and held out a dusty hand to Madame de la Tour, who
gave her in return a firm, lingering clasp of her delicate fingers.
Michelle’s mother had her daughter’s radiant smile, and it hid for an
instant even the heavy lines of weariness and anxiety in her pale face.
“I am very glad if you will be company to my little girl,” she said, in
better English than Michelle’s. At the same time her dark eyes searched
Lucy’s face, as though the terrible years of doubt, dread and suspicion
had made her slow to accept any friendship, even one so innocent as this
little American’s. But Lucy’s frank, honest glance seemed to convince
her. She patted her hand and smiled again, as though the ever-lurking
dangers were forgotten for the moment in motherly pity for the lonely
child before her.
“Michelle,” she said quickly, “you must ask _la petite_ to come and
visit us. Very sad it must be for her always in the hospital.”
“Will you come, _Mees_?” asked Michelle, eagerly.
“Yes, but please call me Lucy,” was the prompt reply, to which Michelle
agreed with a nod and a smile, saying:
“You, too, call me Michelle. So it is much pleasanter.”
“Where do you live?” was on the tip of Lucy’s tongue, but at that moment
she saw Brêlet making energetic signals to her across the room. With a
sudden conscience-stricken remembrance of her supplies next door, she
sprang up and bade her new friends a hasty good-bye.
“I hope to see you very soon again,” she found time to say, before she
squeezed her way through the increasing crowd.
“All right, Brêlet, just wait a minute until I get my things. Is Miss
Willis ready to go?” she asked the poilu, who stood by the door, his
full basket slung over his shoulder.
“Yes, I will come with Mademoiselle,” he said, following Lucy outside to
the other door, where a scanty supply of the articles she wanted were
handed from the desk after a further wait of a quarter of an hour.
All during the hot walk home Lucy thought of Michelle and wondered how
soon she should be able to see her again. That afternoon as soon as she
sat down to work on the torn linen with Elizabeth, she asked her old
nurse how she could manage to visit her new friend. “You see, I suppose
she works in the French hospital with her mother, so I don’t know how we
can do any work together. Will the Germans let me go to her house?” she
asked doubtfully.
“The Germans here not so many are that they will bother to see what you
do, unless you the town try to leave,” was Elizabeth’s answer. “When I
in the morning to the cottage in the meadows go, you may come with me
and stop at the house of your friend.”
“Oh, do you know where she lives?” cried Lucy, overjoyed.
“Surely do I. Near by to where stood the sentry when we passed him the
other night.”
Lucy left off working toward sundown to go and sit with her father, and
in him she had an interested listener to Elizabeth’s plan for visiting
Michelle.
“I’m so glad you’ve found a friend, little daughter,” he said, with
sober satisfaction. “It must be so almighty hard and lonesome for you
here. But remember, you’re never to cross the town even that far without
Elizabeth or some one else from the hospital.”
Lucy nodded, thinking rather guiltily of her determination to visit
Captain Beattie on the first night that Elizabeth was off duty.
Just now, though, she had only one thought in her head. It is no small
thing to find a companion one’s own age after many days spent among
grownups. And this girl had appealed to Lucy from the first glimpse she
caught of her in the street a week ago. Lucy was not given to rushing
headlong into friendships, but she did follow her impulses frankly, and
on the whole did not often have reason to regret it.
By the following morning Elizabeth had forgotten all about Lucy’s
inquiries of the day before, and looked up in surprise when she came
early into the dining-room greeting her with, “Well, Elizabeth, when may
we start?”
Lucy had risen at daybreak, obtained Miss Pearse’s consent to her plan,
and arranged breakfast trays for the convalescents an hour under the
nurse’s direction. Then she had sat with her father a while, for it was
early in the day that he felt most rested and ready for conversation.
Now she felt that it was time her wish was gratified, and sighed
regretfully when Elizabeth answered:
“So soon as I can I will go, Miss Lucy. But first I have some work to
do, and the Sergeant must sign us the permissions for to-day.”
“Oh, all right,” agreed Lucy, somewhat pacified at sight of the
breakfast Elizabeth was placing on the table.
It was a beautiful early summer morning, with white clouds piled against
the soft blue sky, and the sun just warm enough to make the shade feel
pleasant. After the unusual heat of the past few days it was
exhilarating to both mind and body. Lucy felt filled to the brim with
life and energy. In spite of herself her spirits soared with hope and
confidence in better things to come. Somehow she believed to-day, when
she and Elizabeth set out from the hospital half an hour later, that
Château-Plessis must soon be restored to its rightful owners. It seemed
as though this nightmare of German conquest were but a passing thing and
could be bravely borne with that assurance.
There was nothing whatever to suggest a change for the better in reality
as they crossed the town. The guns were still silent, except for
scattered shots, the German sentries still kept guard over the desolate
streets, and the gangs of unhappy old men and boys labored at the piles
of débris in sullen submission. Still Lucy’s spirits refused to be much
dampened. In her mind she debated schemes for carrying food to Captain
Beattie, resolving to tell Michelle all about the prisoner at the first
opportunity.
“Look, Miss Lucy,” said Elizabeth, presently, as they neared the
southeastern part of the town. “There is the house of Madame de la
Tour.” She pointed down the street to a little brick house with a gabled
roof. “It is one that she owns before, but now she goes there to live,
because it is not much by the shells hurt.”
In a minute they stopped in front of the door and Lucy asked eagerly,
“May I go in and see them now? Will you come back for me?” She glanced
along the street, which was deserted except for a shuffling old woman
making her weary way toward the food depot, and looked back at
Elizabeth, who answered thoughtfully:
“I will be only an hour gone, but no longer can I wait to take you back.
I have plenty work to do in the hospital to-day. Anyway, you will have
with your friend a little visit. But first I wait to see if she is
here.”
Lucy ran up the short flight of steps and was just about to knock on the
door when it opened and Michelle herself stood on the threshold, smiling
a welcome.
“I have seen you by the window,” she explained, “so I came to open.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you are at home,” said Lucy, delighted. “All right,
Elizabeth! Don’t forget to come back for me.”
She followed Michelle into the house, which was a bare, homely little
place, oddly furnished with a few splendid pieces brought from the old
home, eked out with simple stools and tables got from near at hand. But
it was neat and homelike, and that meant much to Lucy, after her days
spent in the midst of the hospital’s terrible activity.
Madame de la Tour had already gone to the French hospital, and Michelle
was putting the house in order while the old servant was busy in the
kitchen.
“Sit down upon this chair,” she said to Lucy, bringing an old, carved
armchair close to the open window. The windows had been open ever since
the glass was shattered by the shell-fire, but now that summer had come,
the boards which helped keep out the winter cold were put aside.
Michelle pulled up a second chair for herself, and taking some knitting
on her lap, exclaimed with a look of pleasant anticipation, “Now we are
comfortable, no? It is so long since I have company. I feel almost
strange to see a friend.”
“There is so much I want to talk about, I can’t think where to begin,”
said Lucy frankly. But as she spoke she remembered her need of making
another visit to the old prison, and realized also that such chance of
speaking in safe privacy with Michelle might not come soon again. She
did not have very long, either, for Elizabeth walked fast.
“Michelle, I want first to tell you about my brother’s coming here the
other night,” she began quickly.
“Your brother—he come here?” gasped Michelle, her English failing her in
her amazement.
“Yes,” Lucy nodded. She plunged into her story and repeated the whole
incident of Bob’s coming and of her own visit to Captain Beattie’s
prison. By the time she finished Michelle’s eyes were shining, her
cheeks were flushed with pink, and the knitting lay unheeded in her
hands. When Lucy stopped for breath she burst into such enthusiastic
praise and comment that Lucy was almost overcome.
“Goodness, I didn’t do anything,” she said hastily, for she had not told
the story with any idea of winning applause for herself. “The reasons I
want you to know about it are, first, because I hope you will let me
bring things for Captain Beattie here, and stop for them on my way to
the prison. Secondly, because we are friends, and I wanted to tell you
about Bob.”
Michelle’s face was a study; the strangest mixture of warm sympathy and
a kind of puzzled doubt. Lucy looked at her wonderingly, for she
answered with evident sincerity, “Very gladly will I help you to take
things to the poor Englishman. I will go with you if I may—I long so to
help a little bit! Oh, Lucy, only to make pass that news of Argenton
across the German lines!”
Lucy’s heart eagerly responded to this wish, but a queer discomfort at
the baffling look in Michelle’s eyes kept her a moment silent. Suddenly
she realized that while she had told this almost stranger her dearest
secrets, Michelle, on the other hand, had not opened her lips on the
subject of her brother, or of her hopes for the success of the Allies.
Lucy was too candid and impulsive to bear this state of things
unquestioningly. She looked into Michelle’s troubled face and asked,
“Why won’t you tell me anything about yourself and your family,
Michelle? I’ve trusted you in speaking of Bob’s coming. Don’t you trust
me?”
The French girl started, hesitated, looked again into Lucy’s wondering
eyes, and burst into a flood of speech.
“Oh, Lucy, I _know_ you are with us—like all America! But some Americans
are not enough on guard against our enemies. For what you are a friend
with that German woman, who has the husband in the fight against us?”
“Of course! What a donkey I am!” exclaimed Lucy, relieved beyond words
as things were thus made plain to her. “I forgot all about Elizabeth,
Michelle, or I should have guessed what you might think from seeing me
always with her. You see, Elizabeth was our old nurse in America—and
I’ve known her since I was four years old. But that would not be enough
to make us real friends now. She is just as pro-ally as we are. She does
not wish to see the Kaiser win.”
As Michelle still looked utterly unconvinced, Lucy went back to tell of
Elizabeth’s rescue of Bob from German hands the year before. She did not
stop until Michelle knew of Bob’s confidence in the German woman’s
sincerity, of the message dropped from the airplane, and of Elizabeth’s
repudiation of her country’s war aims and her promise to help in all
Lucy’s efforts.
Michelle sat silent and astonished, her blue eyes fixed upon Lucy’s
face.
“Does she hate Germany?” she asked at last.
“Oh, no, but she hates the Junkers ruling her. It is for Germany’s own
sake that she is pro-ally. Do you see what I mean? Besides, she loves
America, where she lived so long. It was the lies that they told her
about America that first taught her the truth.”
Michelle reflected for a long moment. Then she said slowly, “Lucy, I
know your brother would not be deceived, and I believe what you tell me.
But it is hard to think the wife of a Boche soldier to be pro-ally.”
“Karl isn’t a soldier—he’s too old. He’s only a cook. He was our cook
for nearly ten years at home. Anyway, Michelle, you know that I’m all
right, and you will soon see that Elizabeth is too. I know how you feel,
for I wouldn’t have believed her myself, though I’ve known and trusted
her so long, if she had not brought the message from Bob.”
Michelle nodded quickly. “Lucy, I go to tell you now about my brother.
But all the same, though I believe you, promise me you will not tell the
old nurse a word of what I say.”
“I promise,” said Lucy, wondering.
An ever-present fear, the look that Madame de la Tour’s glance had held
when she first saw Lucy’s face, lighted Michelle’s clear eyes as she
bent forward and whispered:
“My brother Armand is a spy for the French army. Once already after the
first German victory he made his way into the town.”
“How could he!” breathed Lucy with fast beating heart, sudden glorious
possibilities awaking in her thoughts.
“I tell you how,” said Michelle, her voice trembling with pride and
emotion at her brother’s gallant exploit. Changed from Michelle’s slow
and halting English, the story of Armand de la Tour’s entrance into the
captured town was this:
During an attempted night-raid made by a dozen Germans on the French
trenches before Château-Plessis, one of the Germans fell, mortally
wounded, in no-man’s-land, close to the French lines. Armand, wearing
the uniform of a German soldier, leaped out and took the fallen man’s
place in the darkness. The German attacking party, with Armand among
them, regained their own trenches, the Germans surprised at the sudden
pause in the rifle fire from the French side. Dawn found the spy inside
the town, having made a perilous way in on pretense of special duty.
Once under the shelter of his mother’s roof, he obtained the information
he came for and at nightfall returned to the German trenches. Having
arranged with his friends on the French side a preconcerted time and
place, he went over the top in a pretended attack and reached his own
lines in safety.
This feat had led directly to the capture of the town by the French and
American troops—the action in which Lucy’s father had been wounded.
There was no chance, so far as the Allies knew, of learning anything in
Château-Plessis now, but Michelle and her mother knew that anxiety on
their behalf would lead Armand to run great risks to enter the town
again, and they dreaded lest he attempt it.
“If he should, Michelle,” cried Lucy, thrilled at this story of
unselfish heroism, “he could take back word from Captain Beattie of what
they long to know.”
“That is why I make haste to tell you,” said Michelle, nodding. “Better
you get the English _Capitaine_ to write you what he knows, and you
bring it here; for though Armand wear the German uniform, he dare not
show himself about the streets. Look,” she added, pointing through the
window, “there is the German woman come for you. Poor thing, she has the
heavy basket.”
Lucy was not sure whether Michelle really believed in Elizabeth or not,
but more than satisfied in any case with her morning’s visit, she got
up, nodding to Elizabeth that she was coming. Michelle, rising too,
slipped an arm through Lucy’s with shy friendliness as they went out
toward the door.
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