The battalion bugles were blowing and the men were falling in on the
square by the church. The transports had hooked in and were waiting in
the little Rue des Fermes. Half Myonville was there by the church,
crowded against the fronts of the little white houses and under the
pollarded limes, laughing and exchanging banter with the soldiers and
wishing them good luck.
“Where’s the C.O.?”
The adjutant, glancing at his watch and rather worried, threw this
question at Haines the doctor, who came up jamming a packet of
sandwiches into his haversack.
“He left me at the mess. Said he had forgotten something at his billet.”
“It’s three minutes to nine. Sergeant-Major!”
“Sir?”
“Send the colonel’s horse along to his billet, the café down by the
school.”
“Never known him late,” said James to the doctor, “not by ten seconds.”
Tod had gone back to his billet, for an overmastering impulse had taken
him there. Claire had hidden herself and he had not seen her to say
“good-bye” when he had left the house at half-past seven. And suddenly
the thought had shocked him, the thought of “I shall never see her
again,” and his heart had answered—“I must.”
The café door was locked. Tod went round to the gate that led into the
yard, and came face to face with Josephine.
“Mademoiselle.”
Josephine understood.
“She is in her room.”
“I have a minute, no more. Josephine, you can trust me.”
“I trust you,” she said, and walked away towards the orchard.
Tod stood in the little brick-paved yard, looking up at the house all
green with the leaves of the great pear tree. A little smoke rose from
one of the chimneys. Claire’s window, with its white lace curtains, was
half closed.
“Claire,” he called softly, “Mademoiselle Claire.”
Then he saw her at the window. She was dressed, and he had a glimpse of
her white blouse and the top of her black apron with the blue pansies.
“Monsieur——!”
She had gone pale at the sound of his voice, and she was trembling.
“It is au revoir, I had not seen you.”
“Je ne descende pas,” she said; “I cannot, monsieur.”
She looked down at him for a moment with a sudden tragic radiance that
was near to tears. And then her hand dropped something, a little book
bound with a slip of blue ribbon. It was a little Testament that had
belonged to her mother. Tod picked it up.
“God bless you for ever and ever,” he said.
And then he turned and ran.
He was buttoning that little brown book into the breast pocket of his
tunic, when an orderly met him with his horse.
“All right, Smith. Thanks. Now then, Punch, old boy.”
He swung into the saddle and rode down the street to the church. The
church clock struck nine as he reached the battalion, those brown men in
their fighting kit standing steady, eyes to the front.
And Tod smiled. It was a brave smile. He was the soldier again.
“Nearly late, James.”
“It never happens, sir.”
“All ready?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Then we’ll move off.”
So Tod rode out of Myonville at the head of his men, and Claire went to
the school and sat calmly through the morning under the eyes of the
children.
“Is it all true?” her heart kept saying. “Why did he ever come to me?”
And yet she knew that she would not have had it otherwise.