"Well," he said, "I want to know how it happens that you--a foreigner,
and a woman--happen to be living in what looks like exile--all alone on
the top of a hill--in war-time?"
I looked at him a moment--and--well, conditions like these make people
friendly with one another at once. I was, you know, never very
reticent, and in days like these even the ordinary reticences of
ordinary times are swept away. So I answered frankly, as if these men
were old friends, and not the acquaintances of an hour, that, as I was,
as they could see, no longer young, very tired, and yet not weary with
life, but more interested than my strength allowed. I had sought a
pleasant retreat for my old age,--not too far from the City of my
Love,--and that I had chosen this hilltop for the sake of the panorama
spread out before me; that I had loved it every day more than the day
before; and that exactly three months after I had sat down on this
hilltop this awful war had marched to within sight of my gate, and
banged its cannon and flung its deadly bombs right under my eyes.
Do you know, every mother's son of them threw back his head--and laughed
aloud. I was startled. I knew that I had shown unnecessary feeling--but
I knew it too late. I made a dash for the house, but the lieutenant
blocked the way. I could not make a scene. I never felt so like it in
my life.
"Come back, come back," he said. "We all apologize. It was a shame to
laugh. But you are so vicious and so personal about it. After all, you
know, the gods were kind to you--it did turn back--those waves of
battle. You had better luck than Canute."
"Besides," said the chef-major, "you can always say that you had front
row stage box."
There was nothing to do to save my face but to laugh with them. And they
were still laughing when they tramped across the road to dinner. I
returned to the house rather mortified at having been led into such an
unnecessary display of feeling, but I suppose I had been in need of some
sort of an outlet.
After dinner they came back to the lawn to lie about smoking their
cigarettes. I was sitting in the arbor. The battle had become a duel
of heavy artillery, which they all found "magnificent," these men who
had been in such things.
Suddenly the chef-major leaped to his feet.
"Listen--listen--an aeroplane."
We all looked up. There it was, quite low, right over our heads.
"A Taube!" he exclaimed, and before he had got the words out of his
mouth, Crick-crack-crack snapped the musketry from the field behind
us--the soldiers had seen it. The machine began to rise. I stood like
a rock,--my feet glued to the ground,--while the regiment fired over my
head. But it was sheer will power that kept me steady among these men
who were treating it as if it were a Fourteenth of July show. I heard a
ping.
"Touched," said the officer as the Taube continued to rise. Another
ping.
Still it rose, and we watched it sail off toward the hills at the
southeast.
"Hit, but not hurt," sighed the officer, dropping down on the grass
again, with a sigh. "It is hard to bring them down at that height with
rifles, but it can be done."
"Perhaps the English battery will get it," said I; "it is going right
toward it."
"If there is an English battery up there," replied he, "that is probably
what he is looking for. It is hardly likely to unmask for a Taube. I
am sorry we missed it. You have seen something of the war. It is a
pity you should not have seen it come down. It is a beautiful sight."
I thought to myself that I preferred it should not come down in my
garden. But I had no relish for being laughed at again, so I did not
say it.
Soon after they all went to bed,--very early,--and silence fell on the
hilltop. I took a look round before I went to bed. I had not seen
Amelie since the regiment arrived. But she, who had done
everything to spare me inconvenience, had fourteen officers quartered in
her place, and goodness knows how many horses, so she had little time to
do for me.
The hillside was a picture I shall never forget. Everywhere men were
sleeping in the open--their guns beside them. Fires, over which they
had cooked, were smouldering; pickets everywhere. The moon shed a pale
light and made long shadows. It was really very beautiful if one could
have forgotten that to-morrow many of these men would be sleeping for
good--"Life's fitful dream" over.