The Red Cross Barge Part 11

Fumbling in her pocket, she found a little box he had given her two days ago, when she had confessed to a spasm of the headache which was now again full on her, making her feel blind and sick. She had not believed that one of the tiny white capsules in this little box would do her any good--but she had taken it to please him, to show courtesy to one who was always so kind and courteous to her, and who had been so good, so more than good, to her dear father. And then a miracle had happened! Not only had her headache gone, but also her sense of utter weariness and confusion of mind. 'Not more than every four hours must you one take,'

he had explained, and she had tried not to exceed the allowance. She had lived and worked on those capsules ever since. But it was eight hours since she had had the last.

Nothing on the part of those whom she still in her heart called 'the Prussians'--a name dating from her childhood--could now surprise Jeanne Rouannes. She was equally ready for their hearty kindness or their equally strong and heartless brutality. During those last three days she had seen much of both.

And yet she was surprised--surprised and, yes, terribly moved--when, on opening the sacristy door, she saw what was going on in the church. All that had been brought there, unpacked and arranged with so much science and care five days ago, was now being prepared for removal. The Sanitats-Aerzte were busily engaged in supervising the work, and the old Frenchwomen who had been impressed to help in the improvised Feld-Lazaret were a.s.sisting the German orderlies with what looked unnecessarily cheerful zeal.

It was a painful scene, a scene of noise, of confusion, and of the angry, hoa.r.s.e shouting of orders. Lying in the beds arranged in rows on either side of the aisles, stretched out on the now sodden, dirty straw which had been brought in when the beds had given out, the wounded, and, in many cases, the dying, men lay staring with glazed, apathetic eyes at all that was going on about them.

Suddenly an order rang out, in a voice with which Jeanne Rouannes had only kindly, almost pleasant, a.s.sociations--that of the Herr Stabsarzt.

At once, wheeling about with sharp precision, each of the German orderlies ceased whatever work he was engaged on, and with firm, ungentle hands began rolling up in their bed-coverings those among the wounded--French as well as German--who were regarded as 'hopeful cases.'

The moans, the sudden cries of pain and fear of the wretched men rang out, and the Red Cross nurse rushed impulsively forward, words of protest on her lips.

'You will have enough to do caring for those we are compelled to leave behind us,' said the Herr Stabsarzt Octavius Mott dryly, and then, as he looked into her young, grieving face, his voice softened. 'I know my poor fellows will have care and goodness from you, my dear demoiselle.'

But even now Jeanne Rouannes did not understand, and it fell to her old friend, the Herr Doktor Max Keller, to tell her the truth. She attributed his strange, agitated manner, the look of dreadful suffering on his plain, pallid face, to the nature of that truth, for 'The French will soon in this town be,' he muttered hurriedly. 'Therefore must we this morning in retreat go. That is why I am compelled you to leave.

But permission your Cure here to bring obtained have I. I can you with that good old man safely leave.'

The Germans evacuating Valoise? She knew now why the women round her were working so well and briskly, why there were even furtive smiles on some of their weary faces. The Prussians were being driven away--the victorious French would soon be here!

But Jeanne Rouannes was too tired, too bewildered, to feel more than dully glad.

A few moments later Max Keller obtained from the Herr Stabsarzt unwilling permission to leave the church. 'You must find the priest as soon as you can,' said the old German gruffly, 'for we have to be off in about an hour. Mademoiselle Rouannes will be quite safe here--with the wounded.' But as he shot a look into the younger man's set, unhappy face, he said to himself, 'You'd like to take her along with you, my poor fellow. So? But this is no time for love nonsense!'

3

The Mairie of Valoise was close to the church, and had, so far, escaped bombardment. It was a shabby-looking, modern house, in a narrow street now filled with military motors and transport wagons. And now, both within and without the Mairie, were all the signs of rather hurried, ignominious departure.

Unchallenged the Herr Doktor walked into a dirty hall full of huge packing-cases and crates ready for removal. To the left, above a large half-open door, were inscribed the words 'Salle des Mariages,' and pulling open the door, he walked in.

At an ornate table covered with maps and papers, below an allegorical painting of Hymen, an intelligence officer sat writing. He looked hot, tired and flurried. Raising his head, he frowned disagreeably. 'What is the matter now, Herr Doktor? I sent all the necessary orders to the Field Ambulance three hours ago!' he exclaimed. 'I regret to tell you that every moment is of value, for Valoise must be entirely evacuated by eight o'clock. We have certain information that the town is to be again bombarded at nine, but this time the French will be destroying what will be left here of their own people!'

At that pleasant thought his countenance lightened.

The Herr Doktor walked right up to the table. He was not in a mood to stand any bullying. 'We have to give the parish priest instructions about our wounded,' he said curtly.

'The parish priest? You mean one of the hostages?' The intelligence officer pushed aside a packet of printed forms and sought hastily under it. 'Here is the key of their prison--if indeed it is still standing! To tell you the truth, I have been too busy to concern myself about these two Frenchmen, and it is a good thing for them, Herr Doktor, that you have this business with the Cure! Yes, by all means, bring the priest to the church, and leave him there in charge. As for the Mayor, he can be released later. That Mayor is a truculent fellow!' He smiled a little grimly. 'You can hand this key to the priest just before you move off.'

The Herr Doktor took the key, and walked quietly to the door. Did the Herr Major mean that, but for his, Max Keller's, accidental intervention, the hostages would have been left to await release by their own countrymen? But that was quite against the usages of civilised warfare!

After he had left the Rue de la Mairie and entered the zone of destruction caused by the bombardment of the last few days, the Herr Doktor had to pick, to leap, sometimes almost to excavate, his way through the ruins of what had been a pleasant, residential quarter of the happy little town.

What a scene of tragic and, yes, sordid desolation lay all about him, and what an awful stillness--a stillness which made him start at the sounds made by his own footfalls!

All the landmarks with which he had become vaguely familiar during the last three weeks were gone. They seemed obliterated. Heaps of rubble, and decomposing ma.s.ses of filth, from which he hastily averted his eyes when warned of their nearness by another of his sensitive senses, rose mountainously round the shattered sides and backs of those houses of which the walls remained standing. Where there had been placid beauty, there was now an ugliness that verged on the diabolic grotesque; where there had been healthy life, there was now foul corruption.

At last, after what seemed an eternity of difficult going, he saw, through a hole blown out in an otherwise still intact wall, a beautiful garden. Beds of blooming, delicately tinted flowers rose amid gra.s.s which still looked fresh and green, though here and there, across a stretch of lawn, there yawned a deep pit made by a bursting sh.e.l.l.

He clambered through into the peaceful demesne with a sensation of gasping relief, and wandered on till a turn brought him close to what looked like a ma.s.sive ruin, out of which, high up above his head, there lurched two large pieces of fine, bra.s.s-incrusted, mahogany furniture.

With a shock of regret he realised that this was all that now remained of the largest of the villas commanding the Grande Place, for through an open door, set deep in the wall of the garden, he caught a glimpse of the familiar open s.p.a.ce.

He hurried forward, relieved to know that his perilous, disagreeable journey was nearing its end.

And then, as he emerged on to the now deserted Grande Place, the Herr Doktor's feelings of relief changed with terrible suddenness to horror.

For the first time he felt his nerve give way, and there swept over him an overmastering desire to rush back and obliterate from his memory the hideous sight on which his eyes now rested.

Bathed in the bright, early morning sunlight, close to him, on his right, the stone-rimmed Abreuvoir was surrounded by a herd of dead and dying horses. There they had galloped, maddened by pain; there they had wandered down, wounded, starving, and thirsty, from the uplands, drawn by some strange, secret instinct as to where water was. Many of the poor creatures still had saddles on their sore backs, and others had attached to them remains of the harness which had bound them to artillery and transport wagons.

Averting his eyes determinedly from the piteous sight, he ran across the Grande Place towards the screen of chestnut trees behind which lay the Tournebride, and when he reached the high gilt gates, of which the posts were wreathed in now fading orange trumpet flowers, he uttered aloud an exclamation of almost sobbing relief. The long, low, rose-red ma.s.s of brick buildings seemed intact, and that though two of the high trees in the courtyard lay split and riven, their blackened trunks broken up into what now looked like monstrous pieces of firewood.

But, alas! as he went on, as he penetrated farther and farther into the courtyard, he saw that all that now remained of the beautiful old inn was the rose-red facade; behind that facade everything had been destroyed by sh.e.l.l or fire. Through the upper windows he could see the sky, and a muslin embroidered curtain, still delicately white, fluttered outwards.

He edged his way to where an arch had given access to the kitchen garden of the inn. Arch and wall had escaped destruction, but the garden beyond had been rifled of everything; fruit, ripe or unripe, had been plucked; vegetables pulled up from the ground; and the flower borders trampled into a bare wilderness of dust and mud. Two taps had been left running, and a s.p.a.ce which had contained a miniature apple orchard had become a swamp. But the square, windowless fruit-house stood unscathed in the midst of the desolation. Yet, as he walked along the dusty path, a nervous sense of misgiving came over the Herr Doktor; he felt he would like to find the building before him empty, and that though it made his journey useless.

Putting the key in the door, he turned it--then recoiled in involuntary disgust, so fetid and so hot was the blast of air which met him. Opening the door widely he walked through into the large room, and saw that his suspicions of the officer who had handed him the key with such ambiguous, sinister words were indeed justified!

Each of the two French hostages lay stretched out on his pallet bed; the Mayor's body and face were turned to the wall, but the priest lay on his back, and all over his wax-like, yellowing, dead face, and on his white hair, a cloud of flies had settled.

Suddenly the Mayor, with a painful effort, turned and sat up. He feebly dragged his limbs across the brown blanket on which he had been lying, and whispered, 'For the love of G.o.d, a little water, Monsieur,' but his swollen tongue could hardly form the words.

The Herr Doktor rushed out into the garden. Yes, there, close by, was running water. But he could see nothing to pour it into. He made a cup of his two hands, and walking this time with slow, steady footsteps, he came back into what had become a charnel-house.

It was after his third journey for water that he heard the Frenchman speak again, in low, husky tones. 'The old man died yesterday morning.

He had, it seems, a malady of the heart. But he predicted that I should be saved, and as long as he was alive to say fine and consoling things to me, I kept my courage.'

'You have courage now,' said the German surgeon, feelingly.

'No, Monsieur, my courage has all gone. I am horribly frightened--I am like a child.' He brought out the words with a hoa.r.s.e, choking effort, and tears forced themselves into his sunken eyes, and lost themselves in his unkempt beard.

To the Herr Doktor, this unexpected incident was proving, rather to his own surprise, almost unendurably painful--and, yes, humiliating. Such accidents should not be allowed to happen in so splendidly organised an army as were the cultured German hosts. He was not a vindictive man, but he longed to bring the officer responsible for--for this bit of callous cruelty, to condign and very sharp punishment.

'Listen,' he said in his odd, twisted French. 'I now go must. But first will I something find in which plenty of water to leave. And, Monsieur le Maire, I have good news for you.' He waited a moment, then went on, with an effort, 'The French will soon in Valoise be, for within an hour shall we the town leave. But before leaving, I will arrange that food suitable to your requirements shall brought be.'

He went out again into the ravaged garden, and, now that the greatest need for it had gone by, he espied a watering-pot close to where he had looked so eagerly a few minutes ago. Filling it up, he hurried back into the fruit-house.

'Do not therein a moment longer stay,' he said in a low voice. 'Into the air and the sun come you now out. If that you do, soon recovered quite you will be.'

PART V

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