"I am the corporal of the guard," he added. "The commander's
compliments, and I was to report to you that your road was picketed for
the night and that all is well."
I thanked him, and he marched away, and took up his post at the gate,
and I knew that this was the commander's way of letting me know that
Captain Simpson had kept his word. I had just time while the corporal
stood at the door to see "Bedford" on his cap, so I knew that the new
regiment was from Bedfordshire.
I sat up awhile longer, trying to fix my mind on my book, trying not to
look round constantly at my pretty green interior, at all my books,
looking so ornamental against the walls of my study, at all the
portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves,
and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my
last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how
little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the
end that my friends at Voulangis had gone--that they were at that very
moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on
this side of the water was either at Havre waiting to sail, or in
London, or shut up in Holland or Denmark; that except for the friends I
had at the front I was alone with my beloved France and her Allies.
Through it all there ran a thought that made me laugh at last--how all
through August I had felt so outside of things, only suddenly to find it
right at my door. In the back of my mind--pushed back as hard as I
could--stood the question--what was to become of all this?
Yet, do you know, I went to bed, and what is more I slept well. I was
physically tired. The last thing I saw as I closed up the house was the
gleam of the moonlight on the muskets of the picket pacing the road, and
the first thing I heard, as I waked suddenly at about four, was the
crunching of the gravel as they still marched there.
I got up at once. It was the morning of Friday, the 4th of September. I
dressed hurriedly, ran down to put the kettle on, and start the coffee,
and by five o'clock I had a table spread in the road, outside the gate,
with hot coffee and milk and bread and jam. I had my lesson, so I
called the corporal and explained that his men were to come in relays,
and when the coffee-pot was empty there was more in the house; and I
left them to serve themselves, while I finished dressing. I knew that
the officers were likely to come over, and one idea was fixed in my
mind: I must not look demoralized. So I put on a clean white frock,
white shoes and stockings, a big black bow in my hair, and I felt equal
to anything--in spite of the fact that before I dressed I heard far off
a booming-could it be cannon ?--and more than once a nearer
explosion,--more bridges down, more English across.
It was not much after nine when two English officers strolled down the
road--Captain Edwards and Major Ellison, of the Bedfordshire Light
Infantry. They came into the garden, and the scene with Captain Simpson
of the day before was practically repeated. They examined the plain,
located the towns, looked long at it with their glasses; and that being
over I put the usual question, "Can I do anything for you?" and got the
usual answer, "Eggs."
I asked how many officers there were in the mess, and he replied "Five";
so I promised to forage, and away they went.
As soon as they were out of sight the picket set up a howl for baths.
These Bedfordshire boys were not hungry, but they had retreated from
their last battle leaving their kits in the trenches, and were without
soap or towels, or combs or razors. But that was easily remedied. They
washed up in relays in the court at Amelie's--it was a little more
retired. As Amelie had put all her towels, etc., down underground, I
ran back and forward between my house and hers for all sorts of things,
and, as they slopped until the road ran tiny rivulets, I had to change
shoes and stockings twice. I was not conscious till afterward how funny
it all was. I must have been a good deal like an excited duck, and
Amelie like a hen with a duckling. When she was not twitching my sash
straight, she was running about after me with dry shoes and stockings,
and a chair, for fear "madame was getting too tired"; and when she was
not doing that she was clapping my big garden hat on my head, for fear
"madame would get a sunstroke." The joke was that I did not know it was
hot. I did not even know it was funny until afterward, when the whole
scene seemed to have been by a sort of dual process photographed
unconsciously on my memory.
When the boys were all washed and shaved and combed,--and
they were so larky over it,--we were like old friends. I did not know
one of them by name, but I did know who was married, and who had
children; and how one man's first child had been born since he left
England, and no news from home because they had seen their mail wagon
burn on the battlefield; and how one of them was only twenty, and had
been six years in the army,--lied when he enlisted; how none of them had
ever seen war before; how they had always wanted to, and "Now," said the
twenty-years older, "I've seen it--good Lord--and all I want is to get
home," and he drew out of his breast pocket a photograph of a young girl
in all her best clothes, sitting up very straight.
When I said, "Best girl?" he said proudly, "Only one, and we were to
have been married in January if this hadn't happened. Perhaps we may
yet, if we get home at Christmas, as they tell us we may."
I wondered who he meant by "they." The officers did not give any such
impression.
While I was gathering up towels and things before returning to the
house, this youngster advanced toward me, and said with a half-shy
smile, "I take it you're a lady."