_Somewhere in France_
Through a countryside “somewhere in France” a long train was moving
slowly. The journey was from a small seaport town where, not long
before, two American ships had landed their passengers.
Yet, somehow, the news must have preceded the train, for its way was a
triumphal procession. Near the road groups of women and children and
old men and partially convalescent soldiers were waving little American
flags in response to others which, mingled with the Tricolor, flew from
the car windows.
“Long leef to the Uniteed States,” the voices outside the train were
shouting, while inside more voices called back, “Vive La France.”
For the long line of French cars was filled with a thousand of the new
American troops on the way to their permanent war base.
When the train had passed away from the villages, through the car
windows also reverberated an odd combination of sounds made up of
southern drawl, of Yankee twang and the down east and out west
dialects, for Pershing’s regulars were drawn from every part of the
United States.
Some of them were singing “Dixie,” others “There’ll be a Hot Time in
the Old Town Tonight,” or a third group, “We Don’t Know Where We are
Going, but We’re on Our Way.”
But finally the train, entering one of the French towns, began slowing
down. The soldiers were to be given refreshments from a Red Cross unit.
This was one of the little towns which had been partly destroyed,
though since cleared of the enemy. The depot had been struck by a shell
and very badly damaged, the little French Cathedral across the central
square had lost its cross and “Our Lady” now stood with empty arms, the
figure of the Christ-child having been broken away.
At present across this square a pathetic little company was marching,
carrying tiny American flags.
They wore costumes of all colors and kinds, all degrees of vicissitude,
yet somehow each one of the group of children had her own little bit
of tricolor as well, so that the French and the America symbols of
democracy were intimately mingled.
When the train finally stopped, the children, as if from an unseen
signal, kneeled reverently down in the dust of the old square. There
were about twenty of them, all children save one.
“What does that mean?” one of the soldiers in a car nearly opposite the
square inquired of his companion.
“It means that those children are the war orphans of France and that
they think we American soldiers have come to deliver them. If we needed
anything more to make us want to fight like----” He stopped abruptly,
ashamed perhaps of the huskiness in his voice.
The two young Americans, who were sitting beside each other, were both
officers. The young man who had answered was the older and had dark
hair, gray eyes and a grave, rather severe face. He wore the uniform
of a first lieutenant. The other man had light hair, blue eyes, and
delicate features, and although at present his expression was also
serious, it was a gay, boyish face, without a look of responsibility.
However, Hugh Kelley had lately graduated at West Point and received
his commission as second lieutenant.
Both soldiers remained quiet, however, while the other men were
crowding out the windows and doors to receive their gifts of food
from French and American Red Cross nurses and to talk to the French
children, who were now coming up close to the cars.
The attention of them both had been attracted by the appearance of a
little French girl, the leader of the procession, who had come up near
their window. She was not alone, but leading a French soldier by the
hand. The man was slight and dark, although one could see only the
lower part of his face, as the upper part was bandaged.
The little girl, who must have been about ten or eleven, made an
expressive gesture with her hand, touching her head and suggesting a
wound. She wished her new acquaintances to understand that whatever
might be said her companion would comprehend nothing.
“He has been hurt, my officer,” she said, almost with a slight
expression of pride.
Although not trusting themselves to speak, almost simultaneously the
two Americans put their hands into their pockets, drawing out all the
small money they possessed at the moment.
But the French girl shook her head. “We are not beggars, my Captain and
I. We have come to say _bon jour_ to the American troops.” She spoke
in French. Then seeing that the young officers continued to thrust
their money toward her, she accepted it finally with a little graceful
gesture, and nodding a friendly farewell went on along the line of
cars gazing into each window in equally interested fashion, and still
leading her officer by the hand. He went without resisting while now
and then she spoke to him gently as one would to a beloved child.
Lieutenant Hugh Kelley drew in his breath in a faint-hearted whistle.
“Some poor French chap who has lost his mind or his memory or both and
is living in one of the nearby hospitals. I suppose the little French
girl is an orphan and they are somehow trying make things up to each
other. Well, I might as well confess, Lieutenant, I’ll not forget that
child or that poor fellow soon. Maybe our own men----”
“Oh, cut it out, Hugh,” Lieutenant Martin answered, “it is one of the
fortunes of war. But that was an interesting little French girl. There
_is_ something about her one will remember. See they have stopped now
and are talking to Miss Davis and her friends.”
For it was true that in a small compartment, separated from the rest of
the long train, was a small group of American Red Cross nurses, which
included Nona Davis, Barbara Thornton, and the two nurses with whom
Nona had worked in Italy, Mollie Drew and Agatha Burton.
Their presence on the soldiers’ train was due to an accident. Their
Red Cross ship, which had arrived at a French port at nearly the same
time the American soldiers’ transport, had failed to make proper
arrangements with the French authorities. As a matter of fact, the
Red Cross ship got in several days before she was expected and there
were no transportation facilities to take the nurses and doctors to the
various hospital stations at which they expected to work. Therefore a
few of them were obliged to travel whenever any opportunity presented.
Lieutenant John Martin had been right. It was Nona Davis who had first
discovered the little French girl and her companion just outside
their window, looking in at them with the same expression of friendly
interest she had shown the American officers.
After the first sensation of shocked surprise which the young Frenchman
occasioned, Nona smiled and began talking to the little girl.
“Would you mind telling me your name? Mine is Nona Davis, and I am a
Red Cross nurse on my way to one of the new hospitals.”
The child nodded, showing that she understood Nona’s French, which was
fairly good after her past experience in France.
“Jeanne Barbier, and this is Monsieur, Le Capitan. My friend has no
other name now, for he has forgotten his old one,” the little French
girl returned gravely, yet cheerfully, for in a way she had grown too
accustomed to tragedies to be overwhelmed by them. Besides, Jeanne had
the gallantry of her race. Whatever she might suffer, one smiled before
strangers.
“You see, he remembers nothing about himself, neither his family nor
where he has come from, and I, I too was alone, until we found each
other.”
Jeanne still held the French officer’s hand and he clung to her without
speaking, as if she only gave him a hold on earth. Otherwise his mind
wandered into what dim fancies, what tragic memories no one could guess.
But while this conversation was taking place, Barbara Thornton had
crowded up beside Nona and was gazing at the little French girl through
dimmed eyes. Mollie Drew was also looking out her window.
Jeanne was a typical little French girl, with wide-open dark eyes and
heavy lashes, a sallow, colorless skin, bright red lips and a slender,
pointed chin.
She now glanced from Nona to Barbara and her expression became puzzled
and sympathetic. She did not appreciate that she and her companion were
the cause of the American mademoiselle’s tears, but wondered what was
making her unhappy. Jeanne believed Barbara a young girl at this first
sight of her.
The truth was that Barbara had been fighting alternate stages of
regret at having left home and of being glad she was coming to France,
every half hour or so since her departure. But she had been more often
miserable than happy, and Barbara resented unhappiness. Moreover, she
had no one to confide in, since Nona, who was her only intimate friend
in their Red Cross unit, had intensely disapprove of her returning to
France. As nearby as she had been able to have a confidant, Barbara had
made one of Mollie Drew, as the two girls were sufficiently alike in
temperament to feel drawn to each other.
But as Barbara had just suffered a particularly deep wave of
homesickness in the past ten minutes, the French girl with her thin,
half-starved look and her smiling eyes, and the utter pathos of the man
accompanying her, had unnerved her.
“Is Mademoiselle ill, is there anything I can do?” Jeanne asked with
entire seriousness. In the past months she had grown accustomed to
being useful to a great many people. She ran errands at a convalescent
hospital, where they were keeping certain of the soldiers who had no
homes and no families to whom they could be returned. These soldiers
had become the permanent wards of France. It was in this hospital
Jeanne had found her Captain.
In response Barbara could only shake her head helplessly. She was glad
to have Nona and Mollie distracting the little girl’s attention by the
gift of a box of candy, which had been a farewell present. While they
did this she was studying the French officer.
It was strange how one was able to see he had been a gallant gentleman
and soldier of France in spite of his misfortune. There was something
in his appearance which fairly haunted Barbara. He hung his head now
and every movement of his body was uncertain, yet in the once slender,
graceful figure, the small, well-shaped head, the hands and feet,
one could see that Jeanne’s officer had been a man of breeding and
distinction.
“Why don’t his own people look for him? Surely something should be
done,” Barbara murmured, almost indignantly. “Jeanne, you must do your
best to help your Captain find his friends. There must have been some
mark upon him, his number, the uniform of his regiment.”
But before Jeanne could reply, the train upon which the American
soldiers and the four Red Cross nurses were traveling, began pulling
away from the station, and Jeanne stood waving farewell.
During the entire experience Agatha Burton had remained quiet and
uninterested. She was a surprisingly calm and self-possessed person.
Several times since her own introduction to Agatha, Barbara had
recalled Bianca’s unexpected speech in her drawing-room. Barbara
occasionally felt she agreed with Bianca. However, she did not intend
to be prejudiced against anyone, and Agatha certainly had tried to be
kind and considerate of her, more so than Nona, who was her old friend.
Agatha had a fashion of doing one small, unexpected favors; it was
almost as if she deliberately intended to make you like and trust her.
“Would you mind telling me something of Madame Castaigne?” Mollie Drew
asked, after the slight pause which usually follows a train’s leaving a
station. “As she is to have charge of the new American hospital where
we are to work, I am interested. Is she difficult to work under? I feel
a little afraid of her, she seems to be so wonderful herself.”
Nona smiled and shook her head. “Oh, don’t feel afraid of Madame
Castaigne, although I confess that Mildred Thornton, Mrs. Thornton’s
sister-in-law, and Barbara and I were very much so in the days when
we’d just met Eugenia on our first trip to Europe for the Red Cross
nursing. She had not married then. But Madame Castaigne has been
through a great deal since. About a year or more after our work in
Europe she married a French officer, Captain Henri Castaigne. He was a
member of the old nobility, but too democratic in his ideas to use his
title. He has since disappeared and is either dead or a prisoner in
Germany. I don’t think Madame Castaigne knows. But she has kept on just
the same with her hospital work and has been helping to organize the
new hospitals for our American soldiers in France. Eugenia has a great
deal of money, and, except what she uses for her husband’s mother, she
is devoting everything she has to the Red Cross. I only hope we may not
find her too much changed.”
But Nona stopped talking because of an interruption. Someone had just
come to the door of their compartment and knocked, and Barbara was
opening it.
Outside stood two figures, Lieutenant John Martin and his companion,
Lieutenant Hugh Kelley.
The first officer’s manner betrayed the impression that although
intending to be polite, he was greatly bored. As a matter of fact,
he believed that women and girls had no part in a soldier’s life and
except that men were necessary for other work, even Red Cross nurses
were superfluous.
But by chance Lieutenant Martin and Nona Davis had a slight previous
acquaintance. Lieutenant Martin was a native of Georgia, but had been
educated at the Charleston Military Academy before going to West
Point. In Charleston he had known some friends of Nona’s and had been
introduced to her, meeting her, perhaps, only a few times afterward.
For even as a boy, Jack Martin had been supposed to be either very shy
or very disdainful of girls. He did not seem to have the least natural
interest in them. Yet he really knew almost nothing of women, having
been brought up by a bachelor uncle, who was himself a soldier, and
this may have accounted for his ungraciousness.
Both he and Nona were surprised, upon seeing each other, into
acknowledging their former acquaintance. Neither really intended it.
Afterward, Lieutenant Martin had really regretted the accidental
meeting, since it had drawn him into situations a little like the
present one.
Hugh Kelley and he were on the railroad platform, when the sight of
four American Red Cross nurses, standing together and apparently
waiting to take the same train, had attracted their attention.
Yet introducing Hugh had been the real complication. He could scarcely
be accused of disliking girls.
However, he continued to stand at the door of the compartment waiting
for Lieutenant Martin as his superior officer to open the conversation
and explain their presence.
“I, we,” Lieutenant Martin began stiffly, and then stopped, as if he
never were to go on.
Then he turned to the younger man.
“Do, Kelley, speak for us both, won’t you? Give an excuse for our
appearance. For if you are not an Irishman, with that name of yours,
your ancestors surely were.”
Hugh Kelley laughed.
“Oh, the situation isn’t so serious; please don’t be alarmed. It is
only that Lieutenant Martin is so in the habit of issuing commands
lately that he does not know how to ask a favor. And it’s a favor I be
after askin’,” Hugh continued, breaking into a fairly poor imitation of
the Irish brogue, somewhat to Mollie Drew’s amusement.
“You see, I have been feeling rather homesick for the past few hours,
so I mustered up courage to ask our Colonel if Lieutenant Martin and I
could come in here to talk to you. I told him, Miss Davis--hope you do
not mind--that you and Lieutenant Martin were old childhood friends;
kind of boy and girl business, you know the kind. So the Colonel said
we might come if I brought Martin along, and if we did not mention the
fact to any of the other fellows in our car for fear of starting a
riot in your direction. So I dragged Martin with me.” Hugh ended with
a perfectly deliberate intention of confusing his superior officer,
perhaps in revenge for past severities.
Then he dropped down into a seat between Barbara Thornton and Mollie
Drew.
“I say, isn’t this good luck? Anyhow, it is more than I deserve,” he
concluded boyishly.
Lieutenant Martin took a place beside Nona. He appeared really more
uncomfortable than necessary.
“I should like to court-martial Kelley for that speech, Miss Davis. How
can I possibly talk to you with such a beginning?”