CHAPTER XXXVII

The morning wore on. The firing grew nearer, louder, more insistent. Madame, watching at the window, suddenly uttered a cry. The others rushed to her side.

Outside on the road an ambulance had stopped, gone on again, and through the gates came two soldiers bearing a stretcher.

Slowly, tenderly, they carried their burden toward the house.

The women stared through the window with an agony of apprehension, each with the name of the one she loved best trembling on her lips. Was it Gerome--the General--Jacques?

The men entered through the long window the women opened for them, and laid their burden on the couch. As they did so, the fainting man revived and lifted his head. With a cry Nanine stumbled to his side.

"Jacques! Jacques! Couldn't I save one of the three?"

The boy turned his eyes toward her.

"I'm all right, mother," he said bravely.

The old woman fondled him, the slow tears following the wrinkles down her cheeks.

"My boy," she cried, brokenly, "my last one; is it bad?"

He turned his head on the cushion she had placed under it.

"I'm a sergeant, mother," he murmured, his eyes lighting up.

Little Angéle was standing staring down at him, her pretty mouth quivering, her breast fluttering. She was afraid, somehow, to speak, to call his attention to herself.

Marie looked on helplessly, with a feeling of detachment. She felt as one in a dream. These men who had stared death in the face within so brief a time, seemed unreal to her.

Madame turned to one of the stretcher-bearers.

"What is happening out there?" she asked.

He looked at her, his eyes, in his square, mud-plastered face, bloodshot from lack of sleep.

"We don't know, Madame," he said, removing his cap; "we can't tell, we can only hope."

She turned to the other man and recoiled slightly.

He wore the field-gray uniform of a German private soldier. His face was pale and expressionless, a red stubble covered his cheeks and chin. Under one eye was a gash with the blood blackened on it and surrounded by purple discolorations. There was a bloody rag around his closely cropped head, and his spiked helmet sat upon this in a grotesquely jaunty fashion.

"What is this man doing here?" she asked.

"He is a prisoner, Madame." The orderly hunched an expressive shoulder toward Jacques, "he helped bring him in."

Madame's eyes were on the bloody bandage.

"You are hurt, too," she said.

The man smiled, a wan, crooked smile.

"Yes, Madame," he said in guttural French. "It is not serious." The orderly frowned as he looked from one to the other.

"They both need patching up," he said; "can you get water and bandages and perhaps something to eat?"

Nanine was still bending over Jacques, and Angéle, too, was on her knees beside the couch as Madame turned to go.

Marie touched her arm.

"Let me help," she said.

"Yes, dear, you go," she said softly. It would do the girl good, she thought, to be occupied in this service. "Bring water and some food."

Suddenly the pale face of the German soldier went a shade whiter, he staggered a step toward the couch and put out a shaking hand to steady himself. Nanine, suspicious of his uniform, made a quick gesture of protection over her wounded son, but the boy looked up quickly.

"He's all right, mother," he said; "he's my friend."

"Your friend," said Madame in astonishment. To these women the uniform this man was wearing was symbolic of everything barbarous.

Jacques held up a feeble hand and clasped the one the German held out to him.

"I wouldn't be here, if it weren't for him," he said brokenly. "We charged early this morning. We reached their first trench. I got this," he laid his free hand on his side. "I didn't know anything for awhile. When I came to, the rest of our boys had gone on and left me behind. God, I was thirsty--I tried to crawl----" the horror of it all twisted his face in an agony of memory.

"Hush, _mon lapin_, hush," whispered his mother, but the boy went on:

"I tried to crawl," he panted; "I couldn't! Over me, around me, beside me--dead bodies--everywhere----" He tightened his grasp on the German's hand; "then he dragged himself over to me--he had some water--I believe I got most of it--he opened his kit and gave me first aid----"

Madame looked on in astonishment.

"One of the enemy to do such a thing!" she wondered. It was incredible to think that two men who only so short a time before had been striving for each other's lives should now call one another "friend."

Through the door came Marie with a tray of bread and coffee, and a basin of water and some bandages.

The German put his hand against the bloody rag about his head.

"We are not enemies now," he said in his guttural French, "only fellow-sufferers!"

"Fellow-sufferers," Marie echoed the words from the depth of her heart, as she handed the man a cup of the hot coffee.

The German took it with a polite bow.

"You are good to me," he said simply.

"In spite of the uniform you wear," said Madame, "we will do our best for you."

He shook his head sadly.

"It is our countries who are at war," he said, "not we!"

Marie's eyes turned toward the far horizon where the rumble of the guns still thundered unceasingly.

"It is the countries who are at war," she echoed, "and between them men's bodies and women's hearts are broken!"

Jacques was lying on his pillow, white-faced and with closed lids.

His mother leaned back on her heels and looked at him.

"Yes," she said, and her voice broke, "it is the people who suffer."

Her mistress' white head raised itself proudly.

"Here in France," she said, "the people and the country are one. We are fighting to preserve that unity."

For a moment there was silence, then Marie turned to fill the German prisoner's cup.

"Oh, the pity of it all," she said under her breath.

The man caught her words.

"You are right, Madame," he said, "war is pitiful! It is terrible and it is unnecessary!"

Madame looked at him wonderingly.

"You speak our language well," she said. The tales of German efficiency, their ability to do all things, had not been exaggerated.

"I was one of the professors of languages at Heidelburg," he said wistfully. "I thought to spend my life in instruction, not destruction."

Jacques stirred at his voice.

"He was good to me, mother," he muttered.

"Yes, yes, _mon chéri_," soothed Nanine. "I know! Lie quietly!"

As she spoke the thunder of the guns seemed to come nearer. The women shuddered and the orderly shook his head.

"We seem to be getting in range," he said. "I advise you all to leave this place, and go further to the rear."

Nanine's eyes were on her son.

"How can we move him?" she asked.

"Where can we go?" questioned Madame.

The orderly went to the door and peered out.

"He will be all right," he said. "I'll hail one of the passing ambulances. It can take us all in." He left the room and hurried down the driveway to the gate.

Angéle had Jacques' head against her breast now, and old Nanine rose to her feet.

"Oh, Madame," she pleaded, "let us go quickly. I must save this one."

Her mistress looked about at the house and garden where she had spent so many happy years, and which, the loud roars of bursting shells warned her, might be laid in ruins at any moment.

"Very well," she said resignedly, "the General will know we have tried to reach safety. He will understand."

The orderly at the gate had stopped a passing ambulance.

"Hurry," he called.

"Come," said Nanine to the German, "help carry him. Be careful! Don't hurt him."

As they started through the door, the boy turned and smiled into his mother's face.

"I'm all right, mother," he said, and they went out to the waiting motor, little Angéle at their heels.

With a feeling of utter hopelessness Marie watched them go, the empty coffee pot in one hand, the plate of bread in the other. All this could mean only one thing. The battle had been lost. Paulette had been too late, or had perished on the way. Before her wide, horror-stricken eyes was a vision of Gerome, dead on the field, his forgiveness lost to her forever.

Madame put a gentle hand on her arm.

"Marie," she said hurriedly, "there is no time to lose." At her words the girl seemed to waken as from a trance.

"No," she cried, "no--no--no!"

"You must come," pleaded her mother-in-law, but the girl shook her head wildly.

"I am not going," she cried. Life, for her, was finished and over. The elder woman tried to urge her, half dragging her through the door as the terrific roar of a shell bursting quite near the château, thundered in their ears, but the girl struggled and broke away.

At that moment the air seemed to split with a deafening explosion, a splintering of glass, a flash of flame. The acrid, bitter smell of powder and smoke was stifling.

Madame staggered against the door as the orderly, his head held low, came running through the courtyard. He grasped her by the hand and dragged her out to the waiting ambulance.

Marie, half fainting, fell on the couch, her head buried deep in the cushions.

Her last conscious thoughts were:

"Let the house fall upon me, the ruins cover me deep! They cannot bury my grief!"