"Where are you going with your cart?"
"To Coulommiers--to save my sister-in-law and her children."
"Good God, man! Can't you see that if this boy was wounded at Amillis
your road to Coulommiers is cut off!"
"It may not be."
"There's no time to argue. My wagons are full to overflowing. Are you
going to let this boy stay and be finished by the Germans, or are you
going to let me put him in your cart and drive to a hospital?"
"But Provins must be occupied by this time. It's east of here."
"I never had any intention of going there. I'm heading for Melun."
"Melun?"
"Yes."
"Good heavens! That's seventy kilometers! My poor sister-in-law! My
horse!" wailed the old fellow.
"Now then--one, two, three--" said I, gently patting my Browning which I
had drawn from my outside pocket. "Will you do it gracefully? That's
right. Now stop your crying. I'll release you as soon as I can find
someone else to take me on. The important thing is to get out of here
and quick! It may be too late now."
The boys had fetched a mattress, had found pillows and a sheet,
somewhere, and gently we laid the dying man on the old farm cart.
"You boys take your bikes and go ahead. Tell the refugees you meet to
pull to the right and not encumber the whole road. We're rushing a
wounded man to the hospital. When I think you've got the way clear I'll
drive on full speed. Tell our carts to head for Melun and keep on going
till they get there. I can't bother with them. We'll meet at the first
bridge over the Seine."
They departed, and climbing in beside my patient, who writhed in agony,
now lurching from one side, now rolling to the other, I tried to make
him as comfortable as possible. All the other carts had departed ere we
got away, and my tearful driver kept on grumbling and lamenting.
Two hundred yards from the hotel, where the road makes a sharp turn, we
halted abruptly, for we had come upon a group composed of my boy George
and three French chasseurs. Two were on horseback, their naked swords
glittering in the sunlight; the third on a bicycle--and all three, as
well as George, were shrieking excitedly at a phlegmatic Tommy Atkins
who, seated on a milestone, was calmly smoking his pipe. Behind him,
his horse was peacefully nibbling grass. At the sight of my armlet and
the agitated white sheet in the wagon, the chasseurs approached in
haste.
"What have you got there? Our comrade, Ballandreau?"
"Yes." (I had seen the boy's name in his military book.)
"Is he dead?"
"No."
"Badly wounded?"
"Yes."
"_Parlez-vous anglais?_" they fairly bawled, all three at once.
"Yes."
"Then, for God's sake, tell that blockhead sitting on the stone and
whose horse has gone lame, to seize the bicycle of that peasant standing
there, and follow us."