In the scorching heat of a summer afternoon, Petite Simunde was washing
some linen outside her cottage home. The silence, like the heat, was
oppressive, and seemed more so by contrast with the noise of the troops
who had been there a week before. An apple falling from a tree to the
ground; the restless pounding of a horse's hoof in its stall; the
distant hum of an aeroplane; the rumble of guns, faint but
ominous--these and the sighs of the little woman at her task, were the
only sounds that broke the stillness of the air.
She heard footsteps, and her heart, more than her eyes, told her that
the man she dreaded had come. Her face blanched, and she caught her
breath with a spasm of pain.
"Simunde"--Campbell's voice was gentle but firm--"where is Jacque?"
She continued her work without looking up.
"Simunde"--again the quiet monotone--"where is Jacque?"
She shook her head. "No compree" she faltered, falling into the jargon
of war.
"Simunde!" There was an inflection in his voice, an almost
imperceptible note of severity, that set her heart throbbing with fear.
This was a new person to her, this calm, stern, blue-eyed man who
showed no excitement, no anger, only a quiet, kindly severity that gave
her no chance for subterfuge. She hated him for his calmness--because
he was English--because he was unfair. If he had only shouted or
gesticulated--but this brown-haired giant! To oppose him was like
trying to stem the incoming tide.
She looked up suddenly, and her dripping hands were clenched in a fever
of supplication. Madly she pleaded for her lover, as a woman will plead
only for the man she loves or for her child. Tears ran down her cheeks,
and her voice was choked with sobs.
Patiently he listened, gathering from the anguish more than from her
words the story he had already guessed. In a climax of grief, she
groped for him with her hands and would have cried on his breast. But
he made no move; only his eyes were very grave and tender.
"Simunde," he reiterated in English, "where is Jacque?"
With a shrill cry of rage, she stamped her foot on the ground. This
great iceberg of a man was a devil! He had come for her lover. He would
take Jacque away to be shot. With an involuntary instinct of dismay,
she glanced at the barn some little distance away; then, fearful that
he had read her meaning, she forced a smile with her lips.
Without a word, he put her gently aside and started for the barn. He
had gone ten steps before she moved, when he heard her hurried
breathing and her hands were on his arm.
"_Monsieur_" she cried--"_monsieur le major_--Jacque--Jacque _keel_
you!" She spoke in broken English, remembering one of Des Rosiers's
stories of his misdeeds. Releasing her fingers, he reached the barn in
a few short paces. Opening the door, he cautiously entered and tried to
accustom himself to the semi-darkness--and saw the barrel of a rifle in
the loft slowly aligning itself in his direction.
"Des Rosiers!" His voice rang out like a pistol-shot. "It is I--your
officer!"
There was no sound for almost a full minute, then the rifle was
withdrawn, and the unshaved, disheveled French-Canadian stood before
him.
"Why you come?" he said brokenly. "I can no shoot my officier. Why you
come, eh?"
"Because you will go back with me, Des Rosiers."
The deserter's eyes filled with tears. "By Gar!" he said, "it is not,
what you say, play fair. I say I shoot who come, and Jacque Des
Rosiers, he is no afraid. But you--my boss--_mais non_! Maybe I go
back with you and maybe they shoot me, yes?"
"You have deserted, and the punishment is--well, you know as well as I.
If you come with me now there is a small chance of mercy."
The man's eyes flashed. "I no ask for mercy," he cried. "I, Jacque Des
Rosiers want mercy? Pouf! I laugh. They tell me I no see Simunde again,
when I do nottings wrong. _Très bien_--I say sometings about it too. I
go, I stay--_mêm' chose_; I am shot. Good! I stay with Simunde."
Campbell took a step forward, and there was metal in his voice as well
as in his eyes. His hand fell on the other's shoulder and gripped it
like a vice. "You will come back with me," he said, and again there was
a strange similarity to a machine-gun; "not that you may receive mercy,
but because you are a coward, and must face your punishment for
desertion in the presence of the enemy."
Des Rosiers's face darkened.
"Now, at this minute," went on Campbell, "the battalion, your battalion
and mine, is in the line. Because you were not there, another man is in
your place, perhaps at sentry duty. He may be dead by now--and why?
Because he did his duty, and took the place of a man who was afraid."
The French-Canadian's breath was hot with fury. He clenched his fists,
and great veins stood out on his forehead. "By gosh, me!" he yelled;
"who say Jacque Noir, she is afraid?"
With apparent calm, but his muscles poised for action, the officer
looked squarely at him. "I say you are a coward," he answered. "You
were afraid to go to the line with your comrades. You are afraid now to
face your punishment."
He noticed that Jacque was crouching for a spring. With a shrug of his
shoulders, he produced a cigarette-case and put a cigarette into his
mouth.
"Well?" he said.
It was the second time he had beaten Des Rosiers. The poor fellow
paused, then fell at his feet and exhausted his passion in a sobbing
explanation that would have been ludicrous but for the sincerity of
anguish behind it.
A few minutes later they went together from the barn. Simunde was
standing by her door. From the interior of the house the lamentations
of "madame" could be heard. With a simplicity that strangely ennobled
the rough fellow, Des Rosiers stopped and spoke to Simunde in French,
then kissed her on the lips with a reverence that was more moving than
the deepest passion. Without a word, he entered the motor-car and
stared fixedly ahead at the road which climbed by the château. With a
half-sob, Simunde turned to the officer. She said nothing, but her
tears spoke a language that needed no words. The metal in his eyes
melted into a deep compassionate blue; and Petite Simunde's troubled
little heart thanked God for the great, broad-shouldered man with the
hair that was almost red.