1
The cemetery of what was once Valoise commands the wide valley of the
Marne, and, as so often happens in France, it is on the highest ground
in the town, at a considerable distance from the parish church.
On the morning of the eighth day of September the Herr Doktor was
betaking himself there to attend the funeral of his late colleague and
patient, Dr. Rouannes.
During the last three days he had scarcely ever left the house of the
dying man. No son could have been more vigilantly, unwearyingly, devoted
than had been this German surgeon to the dying Frenchman; but while to
her whose vigils he shared time had seemed to drag with leaden feet, to
him the hours had gone all too quickly, and every moment spent with the
woman he loved had been fraught with emotions which gained in intensity
owing to enforced lack of expression.
No wonder that he grew to care with an intimate, caressing affection for
everything in the little homestead that now belonged to Jeanne Rouannes.
No wonder that he put far from him, even if he could not always wholly
forget it, the fact that now, at this pregnant moment of their joint
lives, their two countries were at war. Sometimes, indeed, he did
actually forget it, for there was nothing to remind him of the conflict
in the still, sunlit little house, hidden in its fragrant garden behind
high walls. Even outside those walls, along the quiet, rudely paved
streets and stony, steep byways of the town, there came no surge of the
fierce, devastating tide of war now sweeping ever nearer and nearer to
doomed Paris. Max Keller, one side of his nature absorbed in what had
become an all-encompassing vision of coming joy, of heart-hunger
satisfied, another side concerned with alleviating the last hours of
Jeanne Rouannes' father, scarcely heard the little there was to hear, or
saw the little there was to see. He heard, that is, without hearing,
the rumours, now glad, now sad, which flew, even in remote Valoise, from
lip to lip. He saw, without seeing, the streets become more solitary and
barer of human life, as those first September days passed by, bringing,
as they always do in Northern France, a wonder of beautiful autumnal
colour....
And now, this morning, as the Herr Doktor trudged up to the cemetery, he
was conning over a suitable form of English words in which to tell
Jeanne of her father's last wish and injunction--that they two should
proceed to Paris without delay. As to what should follow their arrival
in Paris he, Max Keller, must wait upon events. In any case, he knew
that it would be an easy matter for him to afford the aunt and niece
help and protection during the short time that must elapse ere Germany
made peace with France.
In one thing, and one thing only, he had been keenly disappointed. Since
they, together, had left the death-chamber, Mademoiselle Rouannes had
gently and courteously refused to see him, and he had been made to feel
by old Therese that his further presence in that house of bitter
mourning was superfluous. Reluctantly he had gone off to the Tournebride
to find there, as is always the case with an empty inn, an unnatural
sense of peace and void. Madame Blanc had the spacious hostelry all to
herself, and she spent her time in a restless coming to and fro about
her one guest. Of her two young daughters there was now, to his
indifferent surprise, no sign at all.
Half an hour ago the Herr Doktor and his hostess had started out
together, she bound for the parish church, he for the cemetery. Soon
their ways had parted, and it had seemed to the German surgeon that the
whole remaining population of Valoise, or at any rate all the old women
and all the children too, intended to be present at the funeral of Dr.
Rouannes. He noted, with a certain indulgent amusement, that there was
an air of subdued festivity about those black-clad feminine mourners,
for the French are a gregarious people, and to the women walking in
slow-moving groups towards the church, any excuse for meeting was
welcome.
Now he had left them all behind him, and as, breasting the light wind,
he strode up the last lap of the stony thoroughfare which led to the
cemetery, the practical side of his German mind asked itself, with a
kind of impatient wonder, why such a peculiarly unsuitable stretch of
high ground should have been chosen.
But there is something very appealing, and very intimate, in the final
resting-places of the French dead, and the Herr Doktor, when he at last
walked through the gates, and found himself in the strangely situated
cemetery of Valoise, looked about him with a good deal of sympathetic
interest and curiosity.
To his now brimful-of-sentiment heart there was nothing jarring in the
ugly, often even grotesque, mementoes which here surrounded him. In his
present mood the stone and marble hands clasped closely together struck
him as exquisitely symbolic of the highest type of human love; he was
touched by the quaint conceit of a black tablet bedewed with a
widower's white tears, and he gazed with softened eyes at the contorted
bead wreaths and crosses inscribed 'A notre pere,' 'Mon cher petit
enfant,' 'Regrets sinceres,' which were among the humbler forms of
commemoration.
While walking with reverent footsteps along a narrow pathway, his eyes
were suddenly arrested by an English inscription. Though cut deep into a
now very weather-beaten stone cross, the words had become partly
effaced. He soon, however, made out their sense:
On September 29, 1870, there fell, close to Valoise, three brave
men, nameless German officers. An Englishwoman, a lover of Germany,
has put up this cross to their memory. May they rest in peace.
There came a deep frown over the Herr Doktor's mouth. He turned his back
abruptly on the old stone cross, wondering bitterly whether the
Englishwoman who had done this kindly act was still alive. If so, what
must she now think of the treachery of her decadent fellow-countrymen?
Somewhat ruffled by this untoward incident, he walked on, till he found
the deep, roughly made grave wherein his French colleague was about to
be laid.
Above the now open vault rose a miniature stone chapel, and below the
lintel of the roof ran in gold letters the words: 'Famille Rouannes.'
Walking slowly forward Max Keller went and stood before the gates,
between which rose the pair of trestles placed ready for the coffin.
Four marble tablets were fixed on the left-hand side of the entrance to
the chapel, and on each was commemorated a member of the Rouannes
family. Jeanne's grandfather, dead forty-five years ago; her
grandmother; an uncle who had died in childhood. And then, in blacker,
clearer characters, an inscription which touched him nearly:
Dame Emile Rouannes, nee Demoiselle Jeanne de Bligniere. Mere
aimee. Femme adoree.
To the right of the Rouannes monument, a square aperture cut in the
cemetery wall commanded a wonderful view, not only of the town of
Valoise, but of the spreading plains below. He went there, and leaning
over the low parapet, gazed down at the place where, some hundred feet
beneath him, was a little square from which fell away the grey and red
roofs which seemed, in their turn, to drop sheer into the valley.
An autumn haze, rising from the river, and from the many other smaller
waterways intersecting the woods and lands beyond the river, hung over
the countryside. And as his short-sighted eyes tried to pierce the
masses of shifting mist which moved over the wide, flat expanse of land
below, there suddenly broke on the still air the sound of solemn
chanting, and he saw, moving up the long winding street which led from
the parish church to the cemetery, the funeral procession of Jeanne
Rouannes' father.
2
The procession was headed by a woman whom he knew to be the old priest's
plain-featured housekeeper. She bore in her uplifted arms a cross, and,
immediately after her, came Monsieur le Cure himself. In his
black-and-silver mourning vestments the parish priest of Valoise looked
an imposing, as well as a reverent, figure. Behind him were eight little
boys in black cassocks, each of whom in his right hand held a lighted
candle, which guttered and spluttered in the wind. Very slowly, and
pacing in ordered array, the priest and his attendant acolytes debouched
into the little square.
There followed a moment of confusion, and in the centre of a black-robed
crowd of elderly women--of women the majority of whom each held a child
by the hand--the Herr Doktor suddenly saw something which made him
recoil and press further in to that side of the wall which concealed him
from the people below.
On a rickety low cart, drawn by a decrepit pony, was a large wooden
packing-case on which some well-meaning hand had drawn, in black paint
which still gleamed wetly in the sun, a rude cross.
Such was the makeshift coffin of Doctor Rouannes.
The colour flamed up into the Herr Doktor's face. With a shock of shame
and, yes, of naive surprise, he realised how barbarous, how lamentable,
even how grotesque, can be the minor consequences of Glorious War.
Behind the little cart and its untoward burden, Jeanne Rouannes,
shrouded in black, and heavily veiled, walked alone, followed at a few
paces by the two servants of the dead man. Suddenly the cart stopped,
and out of the crowd there came forward eight very old men. Stooping
down till their knees almost touched the ground, they lifted the white
deal case on to their shoulders, and slowly, pantingly, began the task
of bearing it up the stony path which led to the cemetery.
The Herr Doktor, shrinking back, instinctively held his breath; he
feared that each dragging moment might bring with it the slipping of the
awkward burden from some heaving shoulder, and at last the strain on his
nerves became so great that he deliberately turned away, and stared, in
wretched suspense, unseeingly before him.
It seemed as if hours instead of minutes passed by ere he heard the
muttered exclamations of relief: 'Ca y est!' 'Enfin!' 'Oh, la, la!'
which signified that the eight old men had reached level ground at last.
Then, and not till then, the onlooker left the embrasure in the wall
where he had been hidden. But no one glanced his way, or seemed
conscious of his alien presence, and with aching heart he gazed his fill
at the mournful little procession which was now passing a few yards to
his left.
The coffin bearers walked more firmly, their burden now better adjusted
to their frail shoulders, and close behind them came Jeanne Rouannes.
She had thrown back her long black veil; her face looked as though it
were of wax; alone her blue eyes, gleaming dry and bright, seemed alive.
Very soon the crowd surged up, forming a large semicircle, and the one
stranger there fell back, on to the outer rim of it. But, even so, he
could still see Jeanne Rouannes quite clearly. And when the rude case
which served as her father's coffin had been placed on the trestles
standing ready for it, the hard waxen look left her face, a long
quivering sigh escaped her lips, and these same poor lips began to
tremble piteously. As the tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down
her cheeks, the Herr Doktor's filled in sympathy....
Suddenly their tear-dimmed eyes met, and though he did not know it, and
was never to know it, she saw him, this German man, Max Keller, who
loved her, as if for the first time--for the agony she was feeling
unlocked the key to his heart, and made her see therein.
She blushed--a dusky, painful blush of outraged pride, anger, surprise,
and quick self-examination and reproach. But no, she had done nothing to
deserve, to bring upon herself, this new, this inconceivably outrageous
humiliation! But very soon the deep colour receded, leaving her pale as
she had been red, and it was with a composed countenance and downcast
eyes that she stepped forward to perform the last of the pious offices
the Catholic living perform to the Catholic dead--that of sprinkling
holy water on the coffin.
Taking the curiously shaped _benitier_ in her right hand, she raised it
slowly in the air, and then, in startled surprise, she paused, for all
at once there rose above the silent crowd, almost entirely composed of
old women and little children, a long drawn-out, sibilant scream.
Only one of those now gathered there, in that wind-swept cemetery of
Valoise, knew what that sinister sound portended; so well indeed did he
know it that instinctively he made a movement as if to throw himself on
the ground. But he restrained the impulse. And as Jeanne Rouannes waited
uncertainly, the women round her gazed up into the sky from whence came
the strange sound. Like her, they were all startled and surprised rather
than afraid.
Then came a muffled sound of explosion; an acrid smell floated on the
light wind, and the Herr Doktor, glancing round, saw that the missile
had struck the further wall of the enclosure.
The priest raised his hand. 'I think it is only a stray shell,' he
called out in a loud voice. 'Do not be frightened, my children. Go home
quietly, and take to your cellars, in case others follow it.'
There followed a general _sauve-qui-peut_. Mothers and grandmothers
took up their little children, and galloped down the stony way, wailing
as they ran. Alone among the women there Jeanne Rouannes remained
quietly standing in front of her father's bier. As for the old priest,
he moved quickly to the aperture in the wall from whence the country
below lay spread out map-wise, and the Herr Doktor followed him.
Both men bent down over the parapet, and then each straightened himself
and looked at the other quickly, furtively, to see if what he had seen
was indeed there, and no delusion bred of a weary and excited brain.
The Route Nationale, which followed the course of the river at the
bottom of the town, was dark with moving masses of artillery, of motor
wagons, horses, and men. The long sinuous coil was slow moving, yet
there was an air of haste and of disorder about it. With an uneasy sense
of surprise and discomfort the Herr Doktor gradually began to realise
that they were his own countrymen hastening thus in the wrong
direction--away from Paris, instead of towards it.
Even as the two, the Frenchman and the German, looked amazedly down, the
dark, thick line halted, broke, and swerved; it was clear that in a few
minutes the troops composing it would be over-running all Valoise.
The priest turned to the man standing by his side. 'The Germans have
come back,' he said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice.
'They are in great force, and I trust, Monsieur, that you will help me
to keep order in my poor town.'
'The town has nothing to fear.' The Herr Doktor spoke in a loud voice.
His nerves were taut. The other's tone, at once commanding and
appealing, irritated him. 'With every consideration will you treated
be,' he said stiffly. 'I will myself go and the Commandant seek out.'
The old priest, glancing round, saw that Jeanne Rouannes was practically
out of earshot. Approaching yet closer, he said urgently, 'I also trust
to you, Monsieur le Medecin, to make a special effort to protect that
poor girl, and I appeal to you to tell me now, at once, if she will be
safer with you or with me? In any case it is clear she must go home as
soon as possible, and assume there once more her Red Cross uniform. That
in itself is a protection.'
The Herr Doktor looked straight into the face of the priest. He saw
there fear, horror, and indignation struggling for mastery. Very
different had been the attitude, the appearance, of Monsieur le Cure
when they had first met on that August day, nearly three weeks ago, when
the Uhlans had taken peaceful possession of Valoise! Then there had been
no sign of fear on the priest's face, and that though he had absurdly
supposed himself to be about to be led out and shot. But now? Now the
old Frenchman did look afraid.
As for a moment the Herr Doktor remained silent, the other repeated,
with a touch of angry impatience and urgency in his voice--'What is it
you advise? What do you believe will be best for the protection of
Mademoiselle Rouannes? I beg of you to tell me! There is no time to
lose--soon it will be too late for me to do anything, for they will want
me again as a hostage.'
'Yes,' said the Herr Doktor reluctantly, 'I fear it is true that you an
hostage will have to be. But as--as for Mademoiselle Rouannes, she, I
assure you, will be perfectly safe! Of her to ask that she should her
Red Cross dress again put on, that could I not on the day of her
father's funeral do. Indeed, there is no reason why she again should to
the barge go down. The men whom I have been compelled as prisoners to
keep down there are nearly well, and she has never my own patient
nursed.'
His French was poor and halting, but the old priest understood it well
enough to be filled with dismay at such--such an obstinate blindness!
'Is it possible you do not know,' he said in a quick whisper, 'how the
Prussians have been behaving since they began to retreat--since there
began that great battle three days ago?'
The German surgeon stared at the old French priest. He felt amazed,
incredulous, and yet--yet a gleam of doubt filled his soul. 'I have
nothing heard!' he exclaimed. 'You forget that I the last few days
constantly with Dr. Rouannes have been. Why did you me unknowing leave
of what you seem to think I should have known? Even now I do not what
you mean understand. And I must of you request to tell me what it is you
believe?'
But even as he asked the question the Herr Doktor's mind had rushed back
to many apparently insignificant happenings of the last few days....
All through those days there had arisen an unwonted stir outside the
little house where he was engaged in so skilfully tending a dying man.
Along the quiet, sunny Rue des Jardins there had been an incessant
coming and going of peasant women pouring into Valoise from the
surrounding country. He also remembered now that a group of girls,
crying bitterly, had come to see Mademoiselle Rouannes, and that old
Therese had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself,
to a Sodalite, or religious society, and that they were leaving the
town.
But he, Max Keller, had been too absorbed in his dying patient, and in
that dying patient's daughter, to give any thought at all to what was
going on in Valoise, outside the house and walled garden where he spent
so many hours of each day.
'There has been a great battle,' went on the priest quickly, 'nay, a
series of battles, in which your armies have been turned back--back from
the very gates of Paris! I regret, Monsieur, to be the one to give what
to you must be bad tidings----'
The Herr Doktor shook his head impatiently. He did not believe a word of
the old Frenchman's incredible statement. It was possible that some
trifling portion of the victorious German hosts had been caught at a
disadvantage--not likely to be so, but still possible; and a temporary
check would, of course, explain what was now going on down there by the
river....
But what was this the parish priest of Valoise was muttering, almost in
his ear, speaking so fast and so low that he, Max Keller, found it hard
to follow him?
'And in their retreat--the retreat which is now a rout--I regret to tell
you that your countrymen are doing terrible things! They are burning,
Monsieur le Medecin, burning and sacking as they go--terrorising our
population. Sometimes they do worse--far worse even than that!' He came
nearer to the younger man, and more slowly, more calmly, he said: 'Four
days ago, I arranged to send most of the young girls away from Valoise.
They had to go walking, poor lambs of the Lord. We sent them through the
woods,'--he waved his arm vaguely towards the further side of the
cemetery--'where our own soldiers are said to be. It was but a measure
of precaution, and one urged on me--I will do him that justice--by the
Mayor. He always believed that some of your soldiery would come back
this way. I did not agree with him. But I was wrong and he was right,
and the God in whom he does not believe will, I feel sure, reward him
for having saved so many poor innocents. But, as you will at once
comprehend, to get Jeanne Rouannes away was out of the question--I did
not even think of it.'
And then the Herr Doktor uttered the first insulting words he had said
in France: 'Your Mayor, and you yourself, Monsieur le Cure, judge
Germans by Frenchmen. Believe me, your young countrywomen in no danger
are.'
Again there suddenly rose that long drawn-out whistling, portent of
destruction and disaster, and this time the Herr Doktor rushing forward,
called out loudly, 'Prostrate yourself, Mademoiselle! Prostrate
yourself, Monsieur le Cure!'
But neither of the two who heard his shout of warning followed his
example, indeed the meaning of his words scarcely penetrated their
brains. Again the noisesome missile struck the further wall of the
cemetery, and this time a huge fragment of the shell hurled itself
backwards, to within a few inches of the head of the rudely-fashioned
coffin.
With a startled cry of pain and fear Mademoiselle Rouannes shrank back,
and covered her eyes with her hands.
'I can you indeed no moment longer allow to remain!' the Herr Doktor
made a leap to where she stood. With an awkward movement he took hold of
her arm, and, unresisting, she allowed herself to be hurried along the
broad sanded path, and down the steep, stony way into the deserted
square.
3
When they had reached the middle of the square, the Herr Doktor
slackened his pace and looked about him in some perplexity. He suspected
the two shells which had fallen so wide to be French shells, and if that
were so, there might soon be sharp fighting in the very streets of
Valoise. Anxiously he began asking himself which would be the safest
shelter for the girl who now stood, silent and rigid, by his side?
Should he take her home to the house in the Haute-Ville or down to the
Red Cross barge?
Four streets led out of the square. It was clear that the widest must
lead more or less straight down to the river. It was along that wider
way that Monsieur le Cure, his sable-and-silver vestments flapping in
the wind, was now hurrying. Staring after the strange, solitary figure,
the Herr Doktor bethought himself uneasily of the old man's words of
warning. It might well be true that Jeanne Rouannes would be safer in
her Red Cross uniform--safer, that is, from the discourtesy of rough,
stern words. Not for a moment did Max Keller fear or admit, even in his
innermost heart, that his fellow-countrymen could behave ill to the
women of conquered France. To his mind such an accusation was as base as
it was baseless. But he knew that many apparently harsh rules and
regulations had had to be drawn up concerning the conduct of the
civilian population. Most fortunately Jeanne Rouannes, in her Red Cross
dress, formed part of an International Society, and thus was assured of
exceptional respect and courtesy.
And yet as he stood there, debating quickly within himself what it were
best to do, he, Max Keller, felt a jealous pang of repugnance at the
thought of the young Frenchwoman being brought in contact with--well,
with the Prince Egon type of Prussian officer. Deep in his heart he knew
only too well how small was the measure of respect that type of German
is prepared to pay to any pretty woman with whom a lucky chance brings
him in contact. Governed by that secret, reluctant knowledge, the Herr
Doktor at last traced out a certain line of conduct for himself--one,
too, which he believed it would be quite easy to carry out. That course
was to take Mademoiselle Rouannes back to her own house, after which,
having left her safe with old Jacob and Therese, he, in his official
capacity, would seek out the officer in command of the troops about to
occupy Valoise, and obtain a pass for a French Red Cross nurse. With
that in his possession, it would surely be easy for them to proceed to
Paris in his motor ambulance.
'Which way to your house leads?' he asked quietly.
But even as the words left his lips, there suddenly surged up a loud,
confused, and menacing sound. With a strange feeling of fear, strange to
Max Keller, for he was a brave man, he realised that it was the curious,
sinister clamour caused by the undisciplined tramp of a crowd of
hurrying men--a sound differing ominously from that produced by the
ordered, measured, rhythmic march of soldiers....
Nearer and nearer came the tramp of thudding, shuffling feet. Jeanne
Rouannes moved closer to him, so close that he heard the hoarse,
despairing whisper answering her own unuttered question--'_Ce sont les
Prussiens!_'
She was glancing about her this way and that--a wild spasm of dread,
that of a trapped creature, in her pale face. But every window in the
square had been shuttered, every door locked and barred.
'Shall I go up into the cemetery again?' She spoke in English, her lips
hardly moving.
The Herr Doktor looked straight into her face; her eyes were steady, but
her lips trembled, and her hands were pressed together. He divined the
mingled fear and shame--the shame and fear of being so horribly
afraid--which possessed her.
'No, no--with me are you quite safe!'
Ah! If only he could make her, his beloved, understand his own complete
understanding of her--if only he could lift her beautiful soul up into
the ether where his own had dwelt ever since he had first seen her--then
she would know how secure from harm she was in his company, and in that
of his fellow-countrymen!
But the time had not yet come when he could say even a millionth part of
what was in his heart, and so with a jolt he came down to this
earth-bound little French town of Valoise, and once more he repeated
reassuringly, 'With me are you quite safe.' And indeed he believed what
he said. He had no fear but that his fellow-countrymen, even if drunk
with victory, aye, and perchance with good French wine as well, would
respect his uniform, and the presence of the mourning lady by his side.
But even so, as nearer and nearer came the sound of trampling feet, of
loud, confused talk, there did come over the Herr Doktor's mind a
disagreeable recollection of the old priest's hurried, broken account of
the looting and the drinking which were said to have been going on in
places near Valoise.
It would be indeed a misfortune were Mademoiselle Rouannes to see the
noble German soldier at a disadvantage. And then, while this unspoken
fear was still passing through his brain, there suddenly surged up one
of the narrower streets leading into the little square a motley crowd of
grey-clad men.
Soldiers? Yes, men belonging to the famous Brandenburg Regiment, but
now, to the Herr Doktor's disciplined eyes, presenting a sorry, and
indeed, a shocking appearance. Some lacked their helmets, some their
coats; a few still had their rifles, but all were dirty and unkempt.
It was not the first time the Herr Doktor had seen soldiers in this
guise; so had many of the victorious German troops appeared after the
hard-fought battle of Charleroi. And yet? And yet there had been a vast
difference between those men and these, though he was not yet able to
define where that difference lay.
* * * * *
When those who appeared to be the leaders of the unkempt rabble saw the
two figures standing in the sunlit square, their line wavered, and some
of them drew back, while the loud talking died down into a surprised
silence.
There came quickly forward the burly figure of a non-commissioned
officer, one, too, who had almost all of his accoutrement complete.
'Herr Doktor?' he exclaimed eagerly. 'We were told there was a good
wine-shop up this way! Can you direct me to it? My men are badly in need
of food and rest, and every inn in the lower part of the town has
already been taken by assault'--he spoke complainingly; it was clear
that he was labouring under a sense of grievance.
'But--but where have you come from?' asked the Herr Doktor in a low
voice. He felt bewildered--bewildered and strangely oppressed. 'I
don't understand how or why you are here, in Valoise-sur-Marne?'
'And yet it's clear enough!' said the other sharply. 'We were promised
good beds, plenty to eat, and above all plenty to drink, once we reached
Valoise. We find the town practically deserted--only old women and a few
children left in it! As for wine'--he shrugged his shoulders. 'Just now
the Mayor was required to produce twenty thousand bottles of wine. Do
you know, Herr Doktor, how many he offers to provide?' He waited, and as
the Herr Doktor remained silent, he suddenly shouted out, 'Eight hundred
bottles! What is that among three thousand men? Of course we excluded
the wine-shops as a source of supply--the wine-shops were already
emptied before we managed to hunt out the Mayor. Our officers are
furious!'
'The officers will get plenty of good wine at the Tournebride----'
The Herr Doktor knew now wherein lay the difference between the victors
of Charleroi, and the men who stood staring stupidly before him. The
victors of Charleroi had been sober; these countrymen of his were
already more or less drunk.
But what was this the corporal was saying, smiling angrily the while?
'The Tournebride? Nay, those of our comrades who passed that way three
weeks ago seem to have been locusts--what they couldn't drink they took
away! All they left behind them is poison--rank poison! Cheap blue
stuff, and not a single bottle of beer!'
There came a quick stir among the soldiers, and they parted to make way
for a tall, fine-looking young officer. But he also looked worn,
haggard, and angry. His face cleared somewhat as he came up to his two
fellow-countrymen, and softened as his eye rested on the black-draped,
fair-haired figure who now stood, with eyes cast down, and hands loosely
clasped together, some way apart from the Red Cross doctor and his
companion.
'I was told that I should probably find you up here, Herr Doktor! A
woman down by the river directed me. Is it true that you've been in this
town a fortnight, and that a number of our fellows stayed here a week
and ate and drank up everything--the locusts? Not content with drinking
up all the wine, it's clear that they also took all the young women away
with them! They had, however, mercy on _you_!' With a smile and a slight
gesture towards Jeanne Rouannes, he added a few joking words which made
the hot colour rush to the Herr Doktor's face.
'This lady,' he said stiffly, 'is a distinguished Sister of the Red
Cross. It is in that capacity that she is now under my protection and
care. Her father died but yesterday.'
The other had the grace to look slightly ashamed.
'Yes, yes,' he said hastily. 'I understand that--the woman by the river
told me of the funeral. But, Herr Doktor? In your place I should take
this Red Cross demoiselle straight back to her hospital, and, unless it
is absolutely necessary, do not go down into the lower part of the town.
When I said just now that there was no wine left in Valoise, it was
merely a figure of speech. Of course, there _is_ wine; in fact our weary
fellows have got hold of a fair amount but it is not good--it is not the
sort that we hoped to find here!'
There were many pressing questions on the Herr Doktor's lips, but he
judged it best not to ask them. Instead he only observed: 'I am very
desirous to get a pass into Paris for this Sister of Compassion. Her
father was my colleague, a doctor, that is, of the Red Cross, and on his
bed of death I promised him to try and procure a suitable escort and a
pass into Paris for his daughter. So pray inform me, Herr Captain, of
the name of our Commandant. Where can I find him?--is he at the
Tournebride?'
The other turned, and gazed with a singular expression at the Herr
Doktor. 'You will not be able to get a pass into Paris from any of us
just now,' he said slowly. 'No doubt the time will come when you will be
able to do so. But we do not yet hold the gates of Paris.' He waited a
moment, then asked abruptly, 'Does this Red Cross Sister know our
language?'
'No, not one word of it.'
'Then I will tell you,' and even so he lowered his voice, 'that we were
within one day's march of Paris when came the order to make a turning
movement. Do not ask me why, my dear fellow! I know less than nothing
about it--only the bare fact. Ask Von Kluck the reason the next time you
meet him! For the last three days we have been fighting--fighting and,
well, yes, retreating, by night as well as day. That is why my men are
worn out. Yesterday evening we were badly surprised, and as our fellows
ran they threw away everything--everything which could impede their
flight----'
'Their flight?' repeated the Herr Doktor, in a dazed voice.
'Yes, their flight,' said the other shortly, 'or if you prefer the word,
my dear Herr Doktor, their rout! But we shall soon re-form. It is but a
temporary check. We must not expect to meet nothing but astounding
victories--such victories as have blessed us hitherto--in war. The
British, at any rate are _done_--rolled up, put out of action
altogether. It is a new French army which circled round from Versailles,
commanded, they say, by Maunoury, which upset our calculations.' He
added, lowering his voice yet more: 'But we are falling back on prepared
positions, beyond the Aisne.'
'Then are the French just behind you--close to Valoise?'
'Not very far off,' said the other drily, but not likely to enter the
town yet awhile. We have found excellent gun positions up there'--he
pointed vaguely beyond the cemetery--'and this place should be easy to
defend.'
'But where are our main forces?'
'Some have cut straight across the front of what remains of the
contemptible little British army--at least that was the general
disposition when I was last in touch with the Staff. About those corps
there is no anxiety, for, as I told you just now, the British are done.'
A gleam of joy shot across the Herr Doktor's now haggard face. And the
other hurried on: 'So, too, are the French who fell back with them. But
that new, fresh army under Maunoury--that was a colossal surprise! Once
it is disposed of, we shall renew our advance on Paris.' He hesitated
for a moment, and then the pleasure of finding a listener conquered
prudence. 'The Crown Prince did not come up to time. His army was to
have joined ours on September 2--Von Kluck was waiting for him. There
could be no final attack on Paris without the "Draufgaenger." You
understand? It was our future War Lord's perquisite----'
The Herr Doktor nodded comprehendingly. Oddly enough, he had never seen
the Crown Prince, but from various things he had heard about him he
supposed him to be not unlike Prince Egon.
4
After leaving the square, the Herr Doktor and Jeanne Rouannes found
every street and every alley barred. And though the uniform of the
'Militaer-Arzt' generally opened a way without much difficulty, Max
Keller soon realised, with bitter, dumb self-reproach that he had wasted
priceless minutes in asking and in answering futile questions. Perhaps
because he had now spent a length of treasure-stored days in a country
where time means at once so very much more, and so very much less, than
it does in modern Germany, he was no longer in mental touch with the
type of human being created by the sinister amalgam of sentimental
idealism and military discipline.
To a German officer any waste of time, especially on active service, is
abhorrent, and during the half-hour the Herr Doktor and his companion
had spent in the square, Valoise had been rapidly divided into
districts, and the looting therein, as far as was possible,
systematised. Thus as soon as a certain number of marauders had been
allowed to go through into it, further entry to a street was barred;
and to the Herr Doktor there was something horribly grotesque in the
contrast between the sharp discipline enforced by the patrols who sealed
each thoroughfare, and the orgy of thieving and senseless destruction
which they were apparently set there to supervise and protect.
It seemed, too, as if Nature herself had become a willing accomplice to
the powers of evil, for the bright, delicious sunlight, the delicate
breeze already touched to an autumnal sharpness, shone on, and blew
about, the pitiful heaps of household plenishings which grew and swelled
before each doorway.
In tacit agreement the two fugitives--for such they now felt themselves
to be--chose a roundabout way to the Rue des Jardins; and as they
hurried along, looking straight before them, averting their eyes from
the sights which lay to their right and to their left, the Herr Doktor
yet became conscious that here and there a house was being spared
outrage. Before one such a number of his fellow-countrymen had squatted
down on the cobble-stones, and were engaged in happily eating and
drinking their fill. An old Frenchwoman, with a pitifully eager, servile
manner, was waiting on them, bringing out of the villa, of which she was
evidently the care-taker, armfuls of red-sealed bottles of wine. And
yet, as he passed this house which was being spared outrage, the Herr
Doktor quickened his footsteps. Somehow the sight he saw there shocked
him more than did that of greater disorder.
Tides of shame, bewilderment, and pain welled up in his sore, burdened
heart. Would the girl who now walked, with quick short steps, her head
held high, looking always straight before her, ever forget the scenes
they were now passing through? There was no fear now in her face, only a
look of measureless scorn, disgust, and contempt. And it was he, rather
than she, who felt a passion of relief when at last they emerged,
through a final patrol, to find the intersecting web of streets
composing the highest lap of the Haute Ville still free of soldiery.
The long, sunny Rue des Jardins looked unnaturally as usual, but when
the two walked up through the garden of the Villa Rouannes, they saw
that the front door was still locked, and the green wooden shutters of
all the windows on the ground floor still barred. Therese and Jacob had
evidently been stopped, and turned back, on their flight home from the
cemetery.
'I think we can get in at the back, through the kitchen,' said Jeanne,
breaking silence at last.
She led him round the house, to a door which stood wide open, and
through the pleasant, exquisitely clean kitchen, where he had sometimes
had occasion to seek old Therese while tending the dying Frenchman.
Together they walked through into the empty house, and the Herr Doktor
spent the short time she kept him waiting in walking restlessly about
the darkened salon, which had become so familiar and so dear.
Each minute seemed an eternity--an eternity filled with suspense and
acute, unreasoning fear, for he knew that any moment he might hear the
sound of eager, predatory feet tramping up the Rue des Jardins; and he
visualised with dreadful clearness the little fragrant garden filled
with a mob of his fellow-countrymen, decent enough men at home no doubt,
but here, in their grey uniforms and spiked helmets, transformed into
thieves, drunkards, and, he feared, worse.
At last Jeanne Rouannes opened the door. She was clad in the Red Cross
uniform and veil-like cap which had now come to look unfamiliar in his
eyes, for she had never worn them in her father's presence. She held a
large, shabby leathern purse in her hand. 'This is the money--a thousand
francs--my father always kept in the house. Will you take care of it for
me?' She held it out to him. 'They say that'--she hesitated a moment,
then said reluctantly--'they say that the Prussians always look first
for the money, and then for the wine.'
He took the purse from her silently, and then, for what seemed to him a
long time, though it was not five minutes, she stood in the centre of
the square, shadowed sitting-room. A little light filtered through the
chinks in the old wooden shutters, and slowly she gazed this way and
that, as if desirous of imprinting an image of everything that was
there on her heart and memory. But when they had left the house, and
were walking through the garden, even when they reached the door in the
wall, she did not once look back.
* * * * *
They met with no adventures on their way to the Grande Place, for they
chose a roundabout way, along field paths, and under the glades of the
forest trees in what had been one of the loveliest of the smaller royal
demesnes of old France. And as they at last came out from behind the
Abreuvoir the Herr Doktor saw with silent, intense relief that here,
too, everything looked as usual. The great open space before them was as
empty of life and movement as he had always known it. There was,
however, one rather curious exception; but it was a pleasant exception,
for it lent an air of spurious brightness, even of cheerfulness, to the
scene. This was that the doors and windows of the large villas which
formed the left of the Grande Place of Valoise were now all wide open,
and were evidently being prepared for the overflow from the
Tournebride.
Suddenly, however, as the Herr Doktor's eyes wandered down the broad
thoroughfare leading straight to the river, he saw that all was not
quite as normal in this part of the town as he had at first thought, for
all the way down the hill, every window of the humbler houses had been
battered in!
An old woman was even now engaged in carefully sweeping up the glass in
the roadway in front of her little shop, and gradually he became aware
that the shop itself was completely gutted, and that there was a dark
yawning hole where the window, filled with toys and sweetmeats, had
been.
Once more his heart ached with sick disgust and pain while slowly he and
his companion began walking towards the long, low buildings of the
Tournebride.
The beautiful old inn, at any rate, looked exactly as when he had last
seen it that morning, though the great gilt gates, which had been closed
for over a fortnight, were now wide open. It was clear that the
Commandant of the German forces now holding Valoise had fixed his
headquarters there, but the Herr Doktor's eyes sought vainly for the
sentries who should have been standing at either side of the open gates.
This second occupation of Valoise was indeed unlike the first!
'While I the Herr Commandant interview, can you with Madame Blanc here
stay?' he observed suddenly.
As they passed through the gates the Herr Doktor was sorry indeed to see
that hundreds of empty and broken bottles were lying under the chestnut
trees, on the now wine-stained paving stones. These empty, broken
bottles gave an untidy, rakish air to the shady, stately courtyard where
the first conquerors of Valoise had spent such peaceful, restful hours.
On they walked, picking their way among the debris. The place seemed
deserted.
Puzzled, and feeling at once relieved and uncomfortable, the Herr Doktor
stayed his steps for a moment, and the girl at his side did so too. Her
eyes filled with tears, a sense of terrible degradation seemed to soil
her soul, and, as the moments sped by, her companion was filled with
growing apprehension and unease.
Why was the Tournebride thus deserted? Officers, as well as the men who
had drunk the wine from the bottles now lying empty and broken about his
feet, had been here very lately, for on a wooden table standing in the
middle of the courtyard were a dozen or more large glass goblets--one
even now half full of white wine--and empty, gold-foiled bottles. There
also, on this wooden table, lay the bunch of keys which always dangled
at Madame Blanc's ample waist.
Madame Blanc? Yes, if, as now seemed to be the case, the Commandant and
his staff were all out in the town, he could leave Mademoiselle Rouannes
with her while he went to look for them. In that thought he found a
measure of relief. The knowledge that Jeanne Rouannes would have to run
the gauntlet of the Prussian officers' eyes had been hateful to him.
But where was Madame Blanc?
Calling out her name, he walked across to the half-open door of the
kitchen; and then, suddenly, Jeanne Rouannes, hardened as she had become
that day to dreadful sights and sounds, uttered a low exclamation of
fear and surprise. 'Great God!' she exclaimed in French, 'what is that?
What is that, down there?'
The Herr Doktor peered towards the place where she was staring, and with
eyes which gradually filled with pain and horror, he saw that a thin
stream of blood was oozing sluggishly through the doorway where he had
stood so often talking to the Frenchwoman, with whom, at last, he had
become good friends.
He stumbled forward, full of a dreadful foreboding, and tried to push
back the door. But it would only swing forward.
Waving the girl back with a sharp, quick gesture, he pressed through the
aperture, and then he, too, uttered an exclamation, a hoarse guttural
cry of distress, for just behind the door, huddled up on the floor of
her kitchen, lay the dead body of Madame Blanc.
The landlady of the Tournebride had been shot half a dozen times, at
close range, in the breast, not struck--as the German surgeon for a
brief moment had supposed and hoped--by a stray fragment of shell.
'Ach!' he muttered under his teeth, 'this is bad--very bad!' But Jeanne
Rouannes, now standing just behind him, remained silent. She looked as
if the tears had frozen on her face, and of the two she was the more
composed, as, in silence, they dragged the dead woman a little further
into the kitchen, and tried to arrange her poor, fat body into some
semblance of decent death.
At last, having done the little they could, they came out again into the
sunshine, and crossed once more the courtyard of the ownerless
Tournebride. And still, of the two, it was the man who looked, and
perchance felt, the more affected. In his companion all sensation seemed
dulled, and as they walked along, perforce traversing many painful
scenes--for they had now re-entered the zone of looting and
disorder--she seemed really unconscious of what was going on about her.
Not till they had wandered for a long way, hither and thither, did they
find the headquarters of the Commandant established in the Mairie. It
was there that the Herr Doktor listened, with a rush of impotent anger,
to the curt intimation that the French Red Cross nurse, instead of
receiving a pass out of Valoise, must proceed at once to the German
Field Ambulance which was already at work in the church hard by.