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THE RED CROSS BARGE
by
MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
Author of 'The Chink in the Armour,' 'The Lodger,' 'Good Old Anna,' etc.
London
Smith, Elder & Co.
15 Waterloo Place
1916
[All rights reserved]
THE RED CROSS BARGE
PART I
1
The Herr Doktor moved away his chair from the large round table across
half of which, amid the remains of a delicious dessert a large-scale map
of the surrounding French countryside had been spread out.
On the other half of the table had been pushed a confusion of delicate
white-and-gold coffee-cups and almost empty liqueur-bottles--signs of
the pleasant ending to the best dinner the five young Uhlan officers who
were now gathered together in this French inn-parlour had eaten since
'The Day.'
Although the setting sun still threw a warm, lambent light on the high
chestnut trees in the paved courtyard outside, the low-walled room was
already beginning to be filled with the pale golden shadows of an August
night. A few moments ago the Herr Commandant had loudly called for a
lamp, and Madame Blanc, owner of the Tournebride, had herself brought it
in. Placed in the centre of the table the lamp illumined the flushed,
merry young faces now bent over the large coloured map.
Alone the Herr Doktor sat apart from the bright circle of light, and,
although he was himself smoking a pipe, the fumes of the other men's
strong cigars seemed to stifle him.
Of only medium height, with the thoughtful, serious face which marks the
thinker and worker; clad, too, in the plain, practical 'feld-grau'
uniform of a German Red Cross surgeon, he was quite unlike his temporary
comrades. And there was a further reason for this unlikeness. The Herr
Doktor, Max Keller by name, was from Weimar; the young officers now
round him were Prussians of the Junker class. They were quite civil to
the Herr Doktor--in fact they were too civil--and their high spirits,
their constant, exultant boasts of all they meant to do in Paris--in
Paris where they expected to be within a week, for it was now August 27,
1914--jarred on his tired, sensitive brain.
Behind his large tortoise-shell spectacles the Herr Doktor's eyes ached
and smarted. He belonged to the generation which had been, even as
children, put into spectacles. His present companions, more fortunate
than he, had been born into the 'nature-eye' cycle of German oculistic
research. Not one of them wore spectacles, and their exemption was one
of the many reasons why he, though only thirty-four years of age, felt
so much older, and so apart from them in every way.
Alone, of the six men gathered together to-night in that French
inn-parlour, the Herr Doktor knew what war really means, and
something--as yet he did not know much--of what it brings with it. He
had been, if not exactly in, then what he secretly thought far worse,
close to, the battle of Charleroi, and for the ten days which had
followed that battle he had been plunged in all the stern horrors, and
the gaspingly hurried, unceasing work, of an improvised field hospital.
The fine abounding-with-life young officers, with whom a special
circumstance had thrown him for some days, had so far escaped even a
skirmish with the unfeared enemy; that they loudly lamented the fact,
that they cursed, in all sincerity, the chance which had delayed their
regiment till the first series of victories--Mons, St. Quentin,
Charleroi--which had opened the wide road to Paris, was over, secretly
irritated the Herr Doktor. _He_ knew the limitless extent to which they
were to be envied. And that knowledge made him hopelessly out of touch
with them--out of touch as he could never be with the arrogant
by-his-mother-spoilt lieutenant, his Highness Prince Egon von
Witgenstein, whose arrival in the luxurious motor ambulance now standing
just outside in the courtyard of the Tournebride alone accounted for the
Herr Doktor's presence here. It was true that the boastful, childishly
vain, fretful-tempered Prince Egon also talked unceasingly of the baser
charms of Paris, but he, at any rate, had earned his right to those
same base charms by the three wounds from which he was now slowly
recovering, thanks to the skill and care of the Weimar surgeon.
Sitting there, apart from the others, puffing steadily, silently, at his
pipe, the Herr Doktor's mind, his dreamy, sensitive, imaginative mind,
retraced all that had happened in the last two hours.
The taking possession of this charming little town of Valoise-sur-Marne
had been carried through with most agreeable ease. The Mayor had
blustered a bit, and had expressed his determination to write an account
of all that had taken place to his Government. But when he had been
told, in language of careful, cold, calculated brutality, that at the
slightest disturbance or ill-behaviour of his townsmen or townswomen, he
himself would be at once led out and shot, he had come to heel, and
promised to do his best to preserve order.
There had been, however, a rather painful scene, one which the Herr
Doktor disliked to remember, with the parish priest. The Cure of Valoise
was an old, white-haired man, and at first he had behaved with
considerable dignity--with far more dignity, for instance, than the
excitable Mayor. Also he had expressed himself as quite willing to be
hostage for his flock's good behaviour.
The scene had occurred when the priest had been ordered off with the
guard to the temporary prison he was to share with the Mayor. With what
had seemed a most uncalled-for agitation, he had pleaded to be allowed
to go and pay a last visit to three dying men. 'Surely you will accept
my word of honour to return within one hour?' he had exclaimed, and
then, in answer to a natural, if sharply uttered question--'No, I
cannot--I will not--tell you where these dying men are! All I can say is
that they are well within the limits of the town.' To accede to his
request had been, of course, out of the question; and to the Herr
Doktor's surprise, and indeed to his disgust, it was plain that the
German Commandant's refusal to let the old priest have his way had
gratified the Mayor--indeed the only smile any of them had seen on the
French Republican official's face was while this discussion, this
urgent painful discussion, was going on.
After it was over, the two of them had been marched off to the
Tournebride, where a large windowless fruit and tool house, standing
isolated in the middle of Madame Blanc's kitchen garden, had been
assigned to them as prison.
Everything else had gone quite smoothly, and both officers and men had
found delightful quarters in the fine old inn which stood at the top of
the hill, taking up all one side of the Grande Place. The Tournebride,
so the Commandant informed the Herr Doktor, had been noted among gay
Parisians, in the days of peace which now seemed so long ago, as a
motoring luncheon and supper resort. Thus the conquerors of Valoise had
found there the best of good wine, good food, and good beds.
2
At last the Herr Doktor got up from his chair. Unnoticed by the others,
he slipped out into the cooler air outside. The courtyard, shaded by
high horse chestnut trees, was now crowded with good-humoured German
cavalry-men waiting, patiently enough, for the savoury meal which Madame
Blanc and her two anxious-faced young daughters were engaged in
preparing for them.
As the Herr Doktor walked quickly over to the other side of the
quadrangle, the soldiers respectfully made way for him, and he stood,
for a few moments unnoticed, on the threshold of the big kitchen of the
Tournebride. To eyes already war-worn it was a pleasant sight.
To and fro in her low, arch-roofed, spacious domain, the landlady came
and went, busily intent on her considerable task of feeding over a
hundred men. There were huge copper cauldrons on the steel top of the
_fourneau_, and Madame Blanc herself constantly stirred and inspected
their contents. But when she became suddenly aware of the German
doctor's presence at the kitchen door, she stayed her labours and came
towards him.
Silently she waited, a stern look of heavy-hearted endurance on her
face, for him to speak; and at last, in a French which was somewhat
halting, he put the question he had come to ask, and on the answer to
which, as he well knew, depended a good deal of the future comfort of
his illustrious, tiresome patient, Prince Egon von Witgenstein. Was
there a hospital in Valoise?
'There is no hospital in Valoise.' Madame Blanc's voice was very, very
cold. But after a moment's pause she added: 'The nuns were chased away
four years ago, and the Government have not yet decided what to do with
their convent.'
As there came a look of disappointment on his mild face she went on, as
if the words were being dragged from her reluctant lips: 'But M. le
Medecin will find a Red Cross barge on the river.'
Madame Blanc's powerful, swarthy face was set and grim; she did not look
as if she had ever smiled, or if she had, would ever smile again. Yet
the man now standing opposite to her remembered that, when he had first
arrived with his patient, she had shown a certain maternal interest in
the inmate of the Red Cross motor ambulance which now stood in a corner
of her large paved courtyard, also that within a few minutes of the
peaceful assault of her inn she had herself cooked for the wounded
officer a delicate little meal.
The Herr Doktor smiled conciliatingly, but she gave him no answering
smile. Her heart was still too full of wrath, of surprise, of agonised,
impotent rage, at the happenings of the last two hours.
A troop of the abhorred, dreaded Uhlans had suddenly appeared,
clattering along the wide Route Nationale which followed the right bank
of the river Marne. Without drawing rein they had ridden up the steep,
central street of Valoise, and then they had turned straight into the
courtyard of the Tournebride.
Madame Blanc had been amazed at the extent and particularity of the
Prussians' knowledge of the town, and of her inn. Not only had they
greeted her, with a strange mixture of joviality and sternness, by name,
but the golden-haired, pink-cheeked commanding officer had actually
alluded to the _specialite_ of the Tournebride--a certain chicken-liver
omelette which Parisians motored out to enjoy on all fine Sundays from
each May to each October! And then, perhaps because she had tacitly
refused to fall in with his pleasant humour, the young Uhlan officer,
after his first roughly jovial words, had suddenly threatened her with
mysterious and terrible penalties if she disobeyed, in any one
particular, his own and his comrades' confusing orders.
Yes, they had only arrived two hours ago, and yet already Madame Blanc
hated these arrogant Uhlan officers with all the strength of her
powerful, secretive French nature. Quite willingly, had she thought it
would have served the slightest good purpose, would she have put a good
dose of poison in the excellent soup they, in the company of the man now
talking to her, had just eaten.
She also hated, but in an infinitely lesser degree, their men--those
big, bearded, splendidly equipped soldiers clad in the grey-green cloth
which her strong common sense had at once told her must be so far more
serviceable, because blending with nature's colouring, than the bright
blue and red uniforms of her own countrymen. But for the wounded youth,
who now lay straight and still in the huge grey motor-car, bearing on
its side a painted Red Cross which she could almost touch from where she
stood at her low kitchen door, she felt a thrill of motherly pity and
concern....
'A Red Cross barge on the river?' repeated the Herr Doktor doubtfully.
For a man who had never been in France before, and who had been taught
French by a German who, in his turn, had never been in France save
during the brief, glorious-and-ever-victorious-campaign of 1870, the
Herr Doktor spoke very fair French. But while he spoke, and even more
while he listened to Madame Blanc's quick, short utterances, he blamed
himself severely for having wasted so much time on the English language.
English was now never likely to be of much use to him, save perhaps
during the coming Occupation of London. If only he had spent as much
time and trouble over French as he had done over English, not only
would it have been useful here and now, but it would have been
invaluable a little later on--when he took up his quarters, as he hoped
to do within the next two or three weeks, at the Pasteur Institute in
Paris.
'Yes,' said Madame Blanc, with a touch of irritation in her even,
vibrating voice, 'as I have just had the honour of explaining to M. le
Medecin, there is a Red Cross barge on our river. Mademoiselle Rouannes
is there all day, from six in the morning till nine o'clock each night.'
'Is Mademoiselle'--he had not really caught the curious name, 'is
she'--he hesitated for the right phrase--'is she a Sister of
Compassion?'
'I have just told M. le Medecin that all our good sisters were chased
away by the Government four years ago. Mademoiselle Rouannes is our
doctor's daughter.'
And then, as the man standing before her uttered a quick guttural
exclamation of relief, she added sharply, 'You cannot see Doctor
Rouannes, for he is very ill--some say he is dying.' As again she saw a
look of disappointment overcast his face, she added--'But his daughter
is a very serious demoiselle. The wounded have every confidence in
Mademoiselle Rouannes.'
'Thank you, Madame, I will now the barge of the Red Cross go and seek,'
he said, and bowed courteously.
'It is just at the bottom of the hill, this side of the lock. But wait a
minute--I can show you the exact place from the _abreuvoir_.'
She stepped across the threshold of her kitchen, and walked, with a good
deal of simple dignity, through the groups of tall soldiers who stood at
ease, contentedly smoking their big pipes under the chestnut-leaves
canopy of her courtyard. They made way for her pleasantly enough--some
even smiled the foolish, fond smile of the big man-child, for she
reminded more than one of these burly giants of his own mother. But
Madame Blanc gave no answering smile, as, gazing straight before her,
she hurried on towards the high gilt gates of her domain--a domain which
till a hundred years ago, and for more than a hundred years before that,
had kennelled royal staghounds, and housed their huntsmen.
The Herr Doktor stopped for a moment to speak to a non-commissioned
officer, a good fellow who came from his own town of Weimar. 'Keep an
eye on the motor ambulance,' he muttered. 'You might, in fact, go and
ask His Highness if he requires anything further just now. Tell him I
have gone out to look for quiet quarters. It would be impossible to have
the Prince here to-night; the house won't settle down for a long time.'
The other grinned, broadly. 'These are comfortable,
greatly-to-be-commended quarters, nevertheless, Herr Doktor.' And the
Herr Doktor, nodding, hastened after his guide.
He followed her through the wrought-iron gilt gates, now wreathed with
white jessamine and orange-coloured trumpet flowers, and so to the great
open space which formed the apex, not only of the hill, but of the
little town, of Valoise-sur-Marne.
A moment later they stood before the oval _abreuvoir_, a stone-rimmed
pool at which the timid does sometimes came, even now, to quench their
thirst at night.
For a few moments Madame Blanc gazed dumbly over the dear familiar
scene, and the German surgeon respected her silence.
Lit by the afterglow of the setting August sun, the little town of
Valoise lay spread before them ... a picturesque, gaily charming cluster
of white, grey, and red roof-trees, full of the peaceful stateliness of
aspect which is a distinguishing mark of so many of the old villages and
towns set amid chestnut groves, and on river banks, within easy reach of
Paris.
From the days of Henri IV, the Kings of France had possessed a favourite
hunting lodge on the edge of the wooded uplands stretching behind the
town, and though the Pavillon du Roi had been destroyed during the
Revolution, the avenue of high forest trees which had once bounded the
royal demesne still remained, faithful witness to a vanished glory,
while a fragmentary survival of what had been a grandiose and splendid
whole remained in the stone _abreuvoir_.
And yet, as following his companion's example, the Herr Doktor gazed
over what was in truth a singularly pleasing and soothing scene, a
sense of chill, even of discomfort, crept over his kindly heart.
Valoise looked, on this fine summer evening, as might look a place
stricken with the plague. Some melancholy-looking dogs had been shut out
of doors: they, and a few cats who leapt furtively out of their way,
seemed the only living things in the town.
Why were the French civilian population so sullen? The great,
generous-hearted, all-conquering German army did not war on children and
women--not, that is, so long as these women and children behaved in a
reasonable, civilised manner.
The Herr Doktor had already heard rumours of certain painful,
frightening things which had had to be done, and which were still being
done, in Belgium. But the French were a more civilised people than the
Belgians--or so the cultured Max Keller had persuaded himself to
believe. Further, the Germans had no real quarrel with the French, the
foolish, impulsive, chivalrous French, who had allowed themselves to be
dragged into a quarrel with which they had no concern, in order to
support barbarous Russia and lawless, savage Servia!
Standing by the side of the sensible, clean housewife who had just
served him so admirably cooked a meal, the Herr Doktor reflected
complacently that very soon some sort of peace would be signed in Paris,
after which the French and Germans, friends as they had never been
before, would join together to break the might of the now decadent,
nerveless, and treacherous English.
He would have liked to have expressed some of this comfortable,
so-friendly-to-the-French feeling to the woman who now stood, her hands
clenched together, as if absorbed in painful, far-away thoughts, by his
side. But he knew that his French was too halting to convey these
cultured-and-so-humane and German sentiments. He started slightly when
Madame Blanc suddenly turned to him with the words, 'It is getting
rather too dark to see the place clearly from here, but if M. le Medecin
will go straight down to the river, and across the wall, he will see the
Red Cross barge just in front of him.'
Before he had time to utter the words aloud, 'Very truly, Madame, do I
thank you,' she had left his side, and was halfway across the Grande
Place, on her way towards the Tournebride.
Feeling a little discomfited by her abrupt departure, the Herr Doktor
stepped forward, and started walking briskly down the hill.
How pleasant it was to be alone--alone with his own exciting and, yes,
glorious thoughts! The absence of solitude had been the thing which had
tried Max Keller the most in this amazing-and-ever-victorious campaign.
During the last three days he had found the conversation of Prince
Egon's brother officers particularly wearing, as also very, very--he
hardly knew what phrase to use even in his inmost mind, but at last he
found it--very-lacking-in-culture-and-seriousness.
The Paris of which these Junkers talked incessantly was not the Paris to
which he, the Herr Doktor, looked forward so eagerly, the Paris, for
instance, of the Pasteur Institute, and of the Salpetriere. The Paris of
these young officers--and he regretted indeed that it was so--was the
Paris which, as every good German knew, so aroused the anger and
contempt of God as to cause France to be once more crushed and
humiliated to the dust. Of this Paris there existed a very fair
imitation in what had been euphemistically called 'the night life of
Berlin,' but Berlin, to the Herr Doktor at any rate, did not stand for
his Fatherland as Paris stands for France.
So musing, so thankful for even a few moments of peace and solitude, the
mildest of the conquerors of Valoise reached the bottom of the hill.
* * * * *
Across the paved Route Nationale was an avenue, or mall, of lime trees
which formed a green wall between the road and the river. He crossed the
street as he had been directed to do, and then, when actually under the
dense arch formed by interlacing branches of green leaves, he uttered an
exclamation of relief; for there before him, close to the entrance of
the lock, and only to be reached by a narrow stone jetty, lay on the
placid, slow-moving waters of the river a broad, white barge, on the
side of which was painted a large Red Cross. The small, square, white
curtained windows just above the dimpling water line were all open, and,
set amidships, was a round porthole, on whose edge stood a pot of
brilliant scarlet geraniums.
On the deck of the barge stood a woman. She wore the loose, unbecoming
white overall which forms the only uniform of a French Red Cross nurse,
and there was a red cross on her breast. From where he stood the German
surgeon could see that she was young, straight, and lithe. The gleams of
the sun, which was now resting, like a huge scarlet ball, on the
horizon, lit up her fair hair, which was massed, in the French way,
above her forehead. He saw her in profile, for she seemed to be gazing,
through the waning light, down the river beyond the lock.
With a queer thrill at the heart the Herr Doktor told himself that so
might Wagner have visioned his Elsa in war-time. Since the Herr Doktor
had left Weimar, he had not seen a so awakening-to-the-better-feelings
and pleasant-to-the-senses-of-man sight as was this French golden-haired
girl.
Taking off his cap--for Max Keller was aware that Frenchwomen are
curiously punctilious, and he did not wish her to suppose that a
cultured German could be lacking in even unnecessary courtesy--he
started walking along the narrow stone jetty.
And then, when at last he stood just opposite to the barge, and as
suddenly the Red Cross nurse became aware of his presence, he saw a
dreadful look of aversion and dread flash into her face and she turned
and hastened away, down what he concluded must be a stairway leading to
the interior of the barge.
For what seemed to him a considerable time the Herr Doktor stared at the
now empty deck with a feeling of sharp exasperation and disappointment.
In the little town where had come that awful rush of wounded after the
battle of Charleroi he had already been in contact with the French Red
Cross. There had been several Frenchwomen--two countesses, so he had
been told, and a duchess--middle-aged ladies who had treated him with
suave, if distant, courtesy, and who had always deferred, most politely
and sensibly, to his professional knowledge. In the same hastily
improvised Feld-Lazaret there had also been three English nurses;
them he had naturally disliked, the more so that they had a sharp,
short way with them, and always seemed to disapprove of his
methods--methods which, being German, were of course in every way
superior-and-more-truly-scientific than anything likely to issue from
the English Army Medical Service.
3
For some time, perhaps for as long as five minutes, the Herr Doktor
stood on the stone jetty. He did not like to step down upon the barge
and at once take possession of it, as it was his undoubted right, almost
his duty, to do. Also, though in no way a coward, his nerve had been
shaken by the terrible things he had seen, and by the long fatiguing
hours of desperately hard work he had lately gone through. Horrible
stories were whispered as to what the French were capable of doing to an
unarmed enemy. The inside of this big, roomy barge might contain youths
and old men armed with knives and scythes.... Perhaps his wisest course
would be to go up the hill again, and, together with his patient,
return with an armed escort who would deal in summary fashion with any
evil-intentioned inmates of the Red Cross barge.
While he was thus hesitating, there suddenly floated towards him the
stifled sounds of hurried whisperings. They were followed, a moment
later, by the lady of the barge herself. But her fair hair was now
almost entirely hidden by the severe, unbecoming head-dress of a French
Red Cross nurse; and the hard white coif and flowing veil obscured the
free, graceful, rather haughty poise of her head.
As at last she faced him squarely, he became painfully aware of the
mingled terror and anger which made her face turn from white to red, and
filled her blue eyes with a dreadful look of haunting fear.
The Herr Doktor was well read in the great Romantics of the world, and
quite involuntarily he thought of Rebecca and a certain scene in
'Ivanhoe.'
Just behind the tall, slender figure, forming at once a guard and an
escort to the Red Cross nurse, came a short, sturdy-looking, elderly
woman, clad in a dark blue-and-white check gown, and an old man, dressed
in a shabby black suit.
Stepping forward alone, Mademoiselle Rouannes stood close to the plank
which connected the stone jetty with the barge, and while the Herr
Doktor was trying to compose the right form of words, at once firm and
conciliatory, with which to address her, she suddenly spoke.
'How many wounded have you?' she asked, in a low, clear voice. 'I must
tell you, Monsieur, that we have not room for many here, for we already
have eighteen.' As he remained silent, she went on, a little
breathlessly, and he saw that her under-lip was quivering, 'We have one
empty cabin, but it is not very large; it will not hold more than six.'
And then at last the Herr Doktor found the French words he wanted with
which to answer and to reassure her.
'I have but one wounded man, gracious demoiselle. It is his Highness
Prince Egon von Witgenstein. You may of him have heard?'
She shook her head with a touch of scorn, and he saw with relief that,
for some difficult-to-understand reason, she was now no longer as afraid
of him as she had been.
'Is he very badly wounded?' she asked in the clear, grave voice which
already kindled his heart.
'He has very badly wounded been, but now on the way to recovery is,'
said the Herr Doktor decidedly. He felt more at ease with this serious,
beautiful maiden now that they were discussing his patient. 'What the
Prince requires rest and care and quiet is. There could not a better
place for him than your Red Cross barge be. Perhaps will you me allow
with your doctor the arrangements to discuss?' His eyes sought
uncertainly the man in the background, the thin, frightened-looking old
man dressed in seedy black. Could this be a French physician?
Even while speaking he had edged cautiously down the plank footway.
'Have I your gracious permission to advance?' he asked politely.
And she bent her head.
A moment later he was standing close to her, gazing with an earnest,
conciliating gaze into her sad blue eyes. She looked pale and worn, but
it was only the transitory pallor and fatigue of youth unaccustomed to
the strain of anxiety, and the wear of work and sorrow.
'We have no doctor,' she said and, sighing, looked away. 'My father, who
is a doctor, would be here were it not that'--her voice broke
suddenly--'he was terribly wounded--wounded when himself tending the
wounded!'
'Sorry am I to hear that!' exclaimed the Herr Doktor, and he was indeed
sorry. 'But who attends the eighteen men you tell me you on this barge
have?'
'_I_ attend them,' she said, and a little more colour came into her
face. 'I and my two friends whom you see here. Most of them were only
slightly wounded, but we have three serious cases.'
'Perhaps you will allow me to visit them, and see how helpful I to your
three serious cases may be?' He spoke deferentially, and the rigid lines
in which her soft mouth was set relaxed.
'I thank you,' she said quietly, 'but I fear they are beyond your help.'
She turned, and preceded him down the narrow, shaftlike stairway. It
terminated in a square passage place, lighted by a porthole, on the
ledge of which stood the pot of geraniums the Herr Doktor had noticed
when standing under the lime tree mall.
Opening a narrow door to her right, the French girl led him into a
large, low, cabin-room which looked the larger and the barer because
here too everything was white--the walls, the floor, the curtains drawn
across each small square window, and even the coverlets of the pallet
beds in which lay the eighteen wounded men.
And as he followed the young Red Cross nurse from bed to bed, as he
divined what had once been the condition of most of the young soldiers
there, and saw what it was now, the Herr Doktor paid his guide a secret,
involuntary tribute of respect. She had not exaggerated, as the amateur
nurse so often does, the state of three of her patients. The German
surgeon saw with concern that two out of the three were indeed beyond
his help--they were even now dying.
'The lad over there might by skilled attention benefit. Has no doctor
him seen?' he asked abruptly. He had not raised his voice, but his
companion's hand shot out; she touched his arm.
'Don't speak so loudly,' she whispered, 'or he will hear you. The poor
fellow does not know how ill he is!'
The Herr Doktor felt at once a little irritated and a little moved.
Apparently all Frenchwomen were like that! The only time he had had the
slightest unpleasantness with one of those French noblewomen at the
Feld-Lazaret was when he had suddenly spoken, in front of a certain
wounded boy, of the fact that he could not last many hours. But whereas
he had felt very much annoyed, annoyed and angry, with the rebuke
uttered so sharply by the Red Cross nurse on that former occasion, this
time irritation was merged in indulgent amusement. This fair-haired,
blue-eyed girl--this French Elsa--was after all only a novice, though a
most capable, conscientious, hard-working novice!
It was good to know that very soon--perhaps as soon as another fortnight
or three weeks--the awful cloud of war would be lifted off beautiful,
prosperous, frivolous France. She would be conquered for her own good,
and would of course have to pay in treasure, as she was now paying in
lives, heavily, for her lesson. But after the coming peace France would
become, not only a peaceful, but what she had never before been, an
affectionate neighbour to wise, masculine, masterful Germany. Already
the Herr Doktor found himself celebrating the peace with France by
planning a return visit to this charming, peaceful, little town of
Valoise-sur-Marne.
It was a good thing for him as well as for Jeanne Rouannes that, while
she busied herself with the lighting of a hand lamp, she had no clue to
his exultant, disconnected thoughts.
More and more as she accompanied him to each bedside, and as he listened
to her low, harmonious voice explaining the various cases of those poor
human wrecks--flotsam and jetsam of cruel war--for whom she showed such
pitiful concern, he felt the surprise he had not thought to feel, and
the admiration he was ready to encourage, grow and grow. Glad indeed was
the Herr Doktor to know that there were certain things which he could do
to ease that last, losing conflict with death now being waged by two of
the Frenchmen lying there before him. Impulsively he turned to her--Ah!
if only he could express himself adequately in her difficult, attractive
language!
And then there came to him a sudden inspiration.
'Do you speak English?' he asked in the language which, however much he
hated it in theory, came yet so far more easily to his tongue than did
that of France.
In a surprised tone the Red Cross nurse answered, in the same uncouth
tongue, with the one word, 'Yes.'
And then, as she listened to his now quick, clear, intelligent
explanation of what might at least bring the ease bred of oblivion to
her dying patients, the look of anxious, almost agonised, strain faded
from her blue eyes and delicately chiselled face; while as for the Herr
Doktor, he felt as though they two had suddenly glided into a harbour of
that happy, innocent No Man's Land where the gigantic absurdities, the
incredible inhumanities of war had never been, and never could take
place.
Only an hour ago Max Keller would have fiercely denied that anything
connected with England or with the English could be anything but hateful
to him--yet how thankful was he now for that sudden inspiration! It
reversed the roles, gave him the advantage, and that most agreeably, of
this Red Cross nurse, for though he did not speak English nearly as
correctly as did Mademoiselle Rouannes, he expressed himself more
fluently.
'Have you ever to England been?' he ventured at last.
She shook her head. 'No, but for some time I had an English lady for a
governess. And now--now I love England!' She looked at him quite
straight as she spoke, and he felt a sudden sense of unease. It was as
if the tide had turned. They were drifting away from that pleasant
harbour of No Man's Land....
When they had finished their round, she led him through the little
square passage room into the other and smaller half of the hold. This
cabin was empty, save for a row of pallet beds. 'Will this be suitable
for your wounded officer?' she asked him gently.
'Yes, very well it will do,' he said hastily. 'And now with your
permission, gracious miss, my two orderlies I will send for the Prince
to prepare.'
'Cannot my servants make what preparation is needed?' she asked, and
there was a tremor of fear and of revolt in her voice.
'I fear not. First these beds must moved out be. But do not be
afraid--they will great care take you not in any way to trouble. Indeed,
you will not here be, it must now the time be when you away go.' And as
she looked at him in surprise, he added awkwardly, 'The hostess of the
Tournebride--I think Madame Blanc her name is--told me that you the
barge at nine o'clock always left.'
'When there are soldiers dying,' she said in a low voice, 'I arrange to
stay here all night'; and then, looking at him pleadingly, she added,
'Could you wait just one little hour before bringing your patient to the
barge?'
Reluctantly he shook his head. 'I must as soon as possible the Prince
here bring. It is bad for him in a courtyard full of noisy men to be.'
But she went on, making an evident effort to speak calmly,
conciliatingly. 'Our cure is on his way to administer these poor dying.
I cannot think why he has delayed so long--I sent for him at five
o'clock----'
'But--but'--and now it was the Herr Doktor's turn to hesitate--'your
cure cannot come here to-night, gracious miss--at least the old priest
who lives in the house next the church cannot do so. He has been taken
as a hostage for the good behaviour of the population of this town.
Temporarily is he prisoner. A sad necessity of war such things are.' He
looked at her deprecatingly--for the first time it occurred to him that
the Herr Commandant might have contented himself with locking up the
truculent mayor, and letting the old priest alone.
He saw her wince, he saw the colour rush into her face. 'But surely
Monsieur le Cure will be allowed to administer the last Sacraments to
dying soldiers!' she exclaimed.
He shook his head solemnly. It was indeed unfortunate for him that war,
and the cruel, grotesque inhumanities of war, were invading the stretch
of neutral country on which he and this--this so refined and _zierliches
Madchen_ had glided so pleasantly but a short half-hour ago. Full of
very real concern he nerved himself to reject the personal appeal he
felt sure she was about to make to him. But Mademoiselle Rouannes did
nothing of the kind. Instead she turned, and looking up the shaft of the
stairway, called out sharply 'Jacob!' and then 'Therese!'
The thin man and the stout woman both came hurrying down, and at once
she spoke to them in quiet, dry, urgent tones. 'The Prussian doctor of
the Red Cross is going to bring a wounded Prussian officer on to the
barge. He will occupy the smaller cabin. Two orderlies are coming to
help you to prepare the cabin; and you, Jacob, will have to show the
Prussians how the crane is worked.'
The Herr Doktor, himself much ruffled by hearing himself described as a
Prussian, saw a look of sullen ill-temper come over Jacob's face. But
Mademoiselle Rouannes put out her hand and laid it on the old fellow's
shoulder. 'My good friend,' she said, and her voice quivered for the
first time, 'pray do what I ask of you without discussion. And you,
Therese, I must ask to go home and tell my father that I am taking the
watch here to-night.'
Jacob was the first to respond to the appeal. He looked fiercely at the
German Red Cross surgeon. 'At your orders, M'sieur,' he said gruffly. As
for the woman, she turned away with a sullen 'Bien, Mademoiselle,' and
started walking up the ladder-like stairway.
The Red Cross nurse bowed distantly. 'Bon soir, Monsieur,' she said
coldly.
The Herr Doktor also bowed stiffly. It was disconcerting, even strange,
to find himself once more in enemy country.
She slipped through the narrow door of the larger ward, and he heard
her draw the bolt.
Again he felt irritated, and surprised as he had been surprised at
seeing that strange look of aversion and horror flash into her face when
her eyes had first rested on him....
True, she was young, divinely compassionate, and very delightful to the
eye, but she evidently misunderstood the situation! It was he, Herr
Doktor Max Keller, who was now in command of the Red Cross barge, and
that by the rules of the International Red Cross Society. He might,
however, so far humour her as not to bring his orderlies to-night on
board what had been her Red Cross barge. He had noticed with sincere
annoyance that his men--who, by the way, were Prussians--were rough, not
to say brutal, in their manner to those French people with whom they
were perforce brought into contact.
So after he had made the old Frenchman understand what he wanted done,
he asked him, in his halting French, 'Is there an hotel close by where
sleep I can?'
'There's a kind of cabaret yonder'--and then, as if rather ashamed of
his ungraciousness, the man added, 'I will come and show Monsieur le
Medecin where it is.'
Together they climbed up on to the deck of the barge, and there the Herr
Doktor stopped a moment, and looking round about him, drew a deep, long
breath. The falling of the shade of night was singularly beautiful on
this quiet stretch of slow-moving waters. Across the river a line of
poplars looked like a row of ghostly, giant sentinels....
The two men, the Frenchman in front, the German behind, stepped off the
barge on to the narrow stone jetty, and then they walked for a few yards
in darkness along the leafy mall. None of the street lamps had been lit
on this, the evening of the most tragic day in the life of Valoise, but
dim lights twinkled in the house across the roadway to which old Jacob
now led his enemy.
'M'sieur will find this place quite clean,' he observed, vigorously
pulling the bell of a narrow door. There was a long delay--then a young
woman, opening her door a few inches, looked timorously out at them.
But Jacob now took everything on himself. With what seemed to his
companion an unnecessary torrent of words, he explained that 'Monsieur'
was a doctor of the Red Cross, who had come to look after the wounded on
the Red Cross barge, and that therefore a room must at once be prepared
for him. The woman's face cleared, she opened her narrow door widely,
and led the way up to a large, clean bedroom on the first floor, of
which the windows overlooked the mall, the river, and--the barge.
As a few moments later they left the house the Herr Doktor could not
help feeling grateful to old Jacob. Jacob? Why 'twas almost a German
name!
4
Half an hour later the great grey ambulance, drawn up close to the gates
of the Tournebride, was ready to start down the hill, and the Herr
Doktor waited impatiently while the five hale and whole officers bade
their wounded comrade a hearty, lengthy, and jovial good-night.
They were all _uebermuetig_--bubbling over with wild spirits--and still
talking of their Mecca--Paris--now only some thirty miles away. Any hour
might come the longed-for order to advance thither!
The Herr Doktor's illustrious patient seemed the most eager of them all.
But he hoped the order to advance would be delayed till he himself were
well enough to be in time for the solemn entry into the conquered
city--that entry through the Arc de Triomphe which was to be a more
superb replica of that which had taken place in 1871. Some days must
surely elapse before that glorious pageant could take place, although
everything was ready for it--in Luxembourg. In Luxembourg, so Prince
Egon now told his comrades--for he alone among them was in touch with
the Court--the Kaiser was waiting impatiently for the glad news that
Paris had fallen or surrendered. There too, even now, the Imperial
Master of the Horse had everything prepared--the state chargers, even,
had been brought from Potsdam....
At last the Herr Doktor went up to the youthful commanding officer. 'A
word with you in private,' he said hurriedly, and the other allowed
himself to be drawn aside. He was curious to know what the Herr Doktor
could possibly have to say, 'in private.'
'I know well your humane sentiments towards the unfortunate population
of this conquered country'--the words came quickly, almost
breathlessly--'and your good heart, Herr Commandant, will perhaps
remember the curious request made to you by the old French priest when
taken hostage. I have discovered that what he said was true--that there
are indeed three wounded soldiers dying on the Red Cross barge where I
am about to take Prince Egon. Two of the men will not outlast the night,
and the Red Cross Sister, a French lady of distinction, is most anxious
they should receive religious consolation. That being so I thought I
might promise her that this pious wish should be gratified. With your
permission the priest can go in the ambulance, and I myself will bring
him back within an hour or so!'
The Herr Commandant looked at the Herr Doktor doubtfully. He did, it
was true, hold the unusual theory that benignant justice, rather than
'frightfulness,' was the right way to deal with a conquered population.
He remembered, too, that, unlike his four lieutenants, his own instinct
had been to believe the Cure of Valoise when the old man had pleaded
that he might be allowed to attend 'trois mourants,' and that, though it
had seemed almost impossible that there could be three dying people
desiring priestly ministration in this little town, the more so that, as
all the world knew, France was now an utterly godless country.
Still he waited a few moments before answering. It was not proper that
the Herr Doktor should take too much upon himself. But his mind was
already made up, and at last he took a large key out of one of his
pockets, and handed it to the Herr Doktor. 'You must be personally
responsible for the hostage's safe return!' He laughed rather huskily.
'The responsibility is not great, Herr Doktor, or perhaps I would not
put it upon you! That old man could not hobble away very far. The
Mayor--ah, that is another matter! He is what they call here _un fort
gaillard_.' He uttered the three French words without any accent, and
the other envied him.
The Herr Doktor hastened across the courtyard and found the arch in the
wall which he knew led through into Madame Blanc's well-stocked kitchen
garden. In the centre of the large open space there rose, in the moonlit
darkness, the square building lit only by a skylight, which had been
chosen as making an ideal prison for the two hostages. Putting the key
the Herr Commandant had handed him in the door, he turned it, and walked
into the sweet-smelling fruit-room of the old inn.
There a curious sight met his eyes. The two Frenchmen, companions in
misfortune though they were, had placed themselves as far the one from
the other as was possible. The priest sat on his truckle bed, reading
his breviary by the light of a candle, while the Mayor of Valoise, also
sitting on his bed--for the Tournebride had naturally proved very short
of the chairs required for the accommodation of so many hosts--was
busily writing what he intended to be the official account of his
amazing and disagreeable adventures.
As the door opened the Mayor leapt to his feet, and a look of
apprehension shot over his dark, southern-looking face. The priest
looked up, but remained seated, and went on reading his prayer-book with
an air of ostentatious indifference.
The Herr Doktor walked across to the old man. 'Will you please at once
come?' he said haltingly. 'Permission for you obtained I have to attend
the French wounded on the Red Cross barge.'
The priest closed his book, and rose from his seat; but at the same
moment the Mayor came forward towards the German Red Cross doctor, but
there was a curious lack of firmness about his footsteps. It was as if
he hardly knew where his legs were bearing him. His voice, however, was
strong and defiant. 'I protest!' he cried loudly. 'I strongly and
vigorously protest against this favour being shown to the priest! It is
on me, as Mayor of Valoise, that there reposes the duty of transmitting
to their families the wishes of our dying soldiers!'
The Herr Doktor brought his two feet together and bowed. 'Your protest,
Monsieur le Maire, duly registered will be,' he said coldly. 'Meanwhile
I must ask Monsieur le Cure my instructions to obey.' Motioning the old
man to precede him, he walked out of the door, and, shutting it, turned
the key in the lock.
Quickly the two men walked through the dark garden, and when they were
close to the arch which led into the courtyard of the Tournebride, the
priest abruptly broke silence. 'Am I to be allowed to administer these
dying men?' he asked.
'That may you do,' replied the Herr Doktor shortly.
'Then, Monsieur, I must ask permission to go round by my house and by
the church.'
Now this was not exactly in the bond, yet, rather to his own surprise,
the Herr Doktor gave his orderly-driver the command. Why not do this
thing graciously and thoroughly while he was about it? Thoroughness has
always been one of the great German virtues--so he reminded himself
while sitting in the rather airless ambulance, and listening to his
high-born patient's fretful remarks.
* * * * *
As the motor ambulance at last drew up on the road opposite to where the
barge was moored, there arose a sudden stir in the houses facing the
mall. Windows were flung cautiously open, and dark forms leaned out of
them.
Curtly instructing the priest to follow him, and requesting his
orderlies to await his return, the Herr Doktor preceded the priest down
the stone gangway, and on to the deck of the barge. In spite of the
stars it was a very dark night, and suddenly he turned on the electric
torch strapped to his breast. As he did so his companion uttered a sharp
exclamation of surprise. Monsieur le Cure had never seen, he had never
even heard of such an invention! It made him realise, as he had not yet
done, what terrible, ingenious, irresistible fellows these Germans were.
The big trap-door in the deck had been opened, and the crane for
lowering the wounded man was already in position. Mademoiselle Rouannes
had been true to her word, everything had been made ready for the new
patient, and the Herr Doktor felt suddenly very glad that he had
followed his kindly so-truly-German-and-humane impulse about the priest.
Carefully the two went down the stairs now open to the star-powdered
sky, and then the one in command knocked at the door of what he already
called in his own mind 'Her ward.'
There followed a moment or two of delay--long enough for the Herr Doktor
to become rather impatient. Then, slowly, the door opened, and the
electric torch flashed for a moment over Mademoiselle Rouannes' head and
breast. She no longer wore the Red Cross cap and veil, and her fair hair
formed an aureole above her delicately-tinted face and deep blue eyes.
'If you will ask Jacob, he will tell you everything, Monsieur le
Medecin. I have told him to put himself entirely at your disposal. I
cannot come just now, for I must not leave my wounded. Two of them are
even now dying.'
She spoke in a quick whisper and in her own language. But the Herr
Doktor answered in English. 'Gracious miss, I have to you the priest
brought,' he said eagerly.
'I thank you--oh! how I thank you!' There was a thrill of real,
heartfelt gratitude in her voice--and something in the Herr Doktor's
heart thrilled in answer, as she opened wide the narrow door to let them
both come through.
Most of the men, lying stretched out there, on those narrow pallet beds,
were asleep, but only the two now so near to death seemed really at
peace. The others moved uneasily, and from their bloodless lips there
issued painful mutterings and groans. One very young soldier kept
counting over and over again--from one to thirty-seven. When he came to
_trente-sept_, he always broke off, and began again. In answer to a
mute, questioning glance from the Herr Doktor, the Red Cross nurse
whispered, 'The thirty-eighth shot struck him. But he only counts like
that when he is asleep.' A lad in the farthest corner, the third man in
the danger zone, asked again and again, with a terrible, monotonous
reiteration, '_Mais pourquoi? Pourquoi suis-je ici?_'
Again the doctor turned questioningly to Jeanne Rouannes. 'He also
always begins asking that question as soon as he falls asleep,' she said
sighing; 'when awake he seems quite happy.'
The Herr Doktor was strangely reluctant to leave the mournful scene. He
felt an uneasy curiosity as to what was going to take place. Even now
the Red Cross nurse was turning a little table, which had been covered
with various odd French medicaments, into an altar. But his duty to his
own patient called him insistently away, and slowly he backed towards
the door. Once there, however, he called out, but in a low voice, 'Miss?
Miss? A word with you.'
She came and stood by him, a lovely vision of health, purity, and
strength, in that piteous, pain-bound place.
'When the priest finished has,' he murmured, 'again back him I will
take. I have myself responsible for him made.'
'I promise you that he will not be very long!' And then she added
softly, 'I thank you again, sir, for having done this good action. The
good God will reward you.'
She opened the door, and after she had closed it again, the Herr Doktor
lingered for a moment outside in the little passage which was now open
to the stars and cool night air.
And during the hour he spent in the low-ceilinged, white-washed cabin
where Prince Egon now lay comfortably settled in a real bed, the Herr
Doktor, though his body was by his patient's side, in his spirit dwelt
in the other half of the Red Cross barge--where was taking place the
ever august and awe-inspiring transit from life to death of two young,
sentient, human beings. So little indeed was he present in mind where
his body was, that he experienced a feeling of astonishment, as well as
of discomfort, when he suddenly realised that a quick, amicable
conversation was going on between the young Prussian officer and
Mademoiselle Rouannes' old French man-servant.
'Herr Doktor!' cried Prince Egon joyfully, 'this fellow was once a
valet--valet to a Prince de Ligne! I have told him that henceforth he is
commandeered by me! He will be _my_ valet. I would far rather be waited
on by him than by that tiresome Fritz of yours. This one is a thoroughly
intelligent fellow; he knows a house in this town where there is a great
store of those _unanstaendige_ Parisian comic papers. He will bring them
here to-morrow morning--so I now have something pleasant to dream
about!'
'That is good,' said the Herr Doktor absently. 'I felt sure your
Highness would prefer this place to the Tournebride. I hope you will not
be disturbed by the French wounded. There is a passage room between.'
'The French wounded will not disturb me!' The young man lifted himself
slightly in his bed and smiled. 'It is not as if they were our brave
fellows, after all!'