The Flag Part 29

It was agreed that he should accompany his daughter and his daughter-in-law to New York, aid them in securing pa.s.sage, pa.s.sports and credentials, and see them safely aboard ship for their perilous journey, after which he was to return home and spend the time quietly with his niece Eleanor, and make necessary preparations for the return of the invalid, later on, to Bannerhall.

He carried out his part of the New York program in good faith, and had the satisfaction, three days later, of bidding the two women good-by on the deck of a French liner bound for Havre. He had no apprehension concerning the fitness of his daughter to go abroad unaccompanied save by her sister-in-law. She had been with him on three separate trips to the continent, and, in his judgment, for a woman, she had displayed marked traveling ability. His only fear was of German submarines.

"A most cowardly, dastardly, uncivilized way," he declared, "of waging war upon an enemy's women and children."

He was in good spirits as the vessel sailed. His parting words to his daughter were:

"If you should have occasion to discuss with our friends in France the att.i.tude of this nation toward the war, you may say that it is my opinion that the conscience of the country is now awake, and that before long we shall be shoulder to shoulder with them in the destruction of barbarism."

CHAPTER XIV

For twenty-five years there has stood, in one of the faubourgs of Rouen, not far from the right bank of the Seine, a long two-story brick building, with a wing reaching back to the base of the hill. Up to the year 1915 it was used as a factory for the making of silk ribbons. Rouen had been a center of the cotton manufacturing industry from time immemorial. Why therefore should not the making of silk be added? It was added, and the enterprise grew and became prosperous.

Then came the war, vast, terrible, bringing in its train suffering, poverty, a drastic curtailment of all the luxuries of life. Silk ribbons are a luxury; they go with soft living. So, then; _voila tout!_ Before the end of the first year of the conflict the factory was transformed into a hospital. The clatter of looms and the chatter of girls gave place to the moanings of sick and wounded men, and the gentle voices of white and blue clad nurses. It was no longer bales of raw silk that were carted up to the big doors of the factory, and boxes of rolled ribbon that were trundled down the drive to the street, to the warehouses, and thence to the admiring eyes of beauty-loving women. The human freight that was brought to the big doors in these days consisted of the pierced and mutilated bodies of men; soldiers for whom the final taps would soon sound. If they chanced to be of the British troops, and held fast to the spark of life within them, then they were close enough to the seaport to be taken across the channel for final convalescence under English skies.

It was to this hospital that Lieutenant Penfield Butler was brought from the battlefield of the Somme. His battalion had done the work a.s.signed to it in the fight, had done it well, and had withdrawn to its trenches, leaving a third of its men dead or wounded between the lines. Later on, under cover of a galling artillery fire, rescue parties had gone out to bring in the wounded. They had found Pen in the shelter of the sh.e.l.l-hole, still unconscious. They had brought him back across the fire-swept field, and down through the winding, narrow trenches, to the first-aid station, from which, after a hurried examination and superficial treatment of his wounds, he was taken in a guard-car to a field hospital in the rear of the lines. But s.p.a.ce in these field hospitals is too precious to permit of wounded men who can be moved without fatal results, remaining in them for long periods.

The stream of newcomers is too constant and too pressing. So, after five days, Pen was sent, by way of Amiens, to the hospital in the suburbs of Rouen. He, himself, knew little of where he was or of what was being done for him. A bullet had grazed his right arm, and a clubbed musket or revolver had laid his scalp open to the bone. But these were slight injuries in comparison with the awful wound in his breast. Torn flesh, shattered bones, pierced lungs, these things left life hanging by the slenderest thread. When the _medecin-chef_ of the hospital near Rouen took his first look at the boy after his arrival, he had him put under the influence of an anaesthetic in order that he could the more readily and effectively examine, probe and dress the wound, and remove any irritating splinters of bone that might be the cause of the continuous leakage from the lungs. But when he had finished his delicate and strenuous task he turned to the nurse at his side and gave a hopeless shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders.

"_Fichu!_" he said; "_le laisser tranquille_."

"But I am not going to let him die," she replied; "he is too young, too handsome, too brave, and _he is an American_."

He smiled, shook his head again and pa.s.sed on to the next case. The girl was an American too, and these American nurses were always so optimistic, so faithfully persistent, she might pull him through, but--the smile of incredulity still lay on the lips of the _medecin-chef_.

The next day the young soldier was better. The leakage had not yet wholly ceased; but the wound was apparently beginning to heal. He was still dazed, and his pain was still too severe to be endured without opiates. It was five days later that he came fully to his senses, was able to articulate, and to frame intelligent sentences. He indicated to his nurse, Miss Byron, that he wished to have his mother written to.

"No especial message," he whispered, "just that I am here--have been wounded--recovering."

But the nurse had already learned from other men of Pen's company, less seriously wounded than he, who were at the same hospital, something about the boy's desperate bravery, and how his stern fighting qualities were combined with great tenderness of heart and a most loving disposition, and she could not avoid putting an echo of it in her letter to his mother.

Later on Pen developed symptoms of pneumonia, a disease that follows so often on an injury to the structure of the lungs.

When the _medecin-chef_ came and noted the increase in temperature and the decrease in vitality, he looked grave. Every day, with true French courtesy, he had congratulated Miss Byron on her remarkable success in nursing the young American back to life. But now, perhaps, after all, the efforts of both of them would be wasted. Pneumonia is a hard foe to fight when it attacks wounded lungs. So an English physician was called in and joined with the French surgeon and the American nurse to combat the dreaded enemy. It seemed, somehow, as if each of them felt that the honor of his or her country was at stake in this battle with disease and death across that hospital bed in the old factory near Rouen.

It was late in February when Pen's mother and his Aunt Millicent reached Havre, and took the next available train up to Rouen. They had not heard from Pen since sailing, and they were almost beside themselves with anxiety and apprehension. But the telephone service between the city and its faubourgs is excellent, Aunt Millicent could speak French with comparative fluency, and it was not many minutes after their arrival before they had obtained connection with the hospital and were talking with Miss Byron.

"He is very ill," she said, "but we feel that the crisis of his disease has pa.s.sed, and we hope for his recovery."

So, then, he was still living, and there was hope. In the early twilight of the winter evening the two women rode out to the suburban town and went up to the hospital to see him. He did not open his eyes, nor recognize them in any way, he did not even know that they were with him.

"There have been many complications of the illness from his wound,"

said the nurse; "double pneumonia, typhoid symptoms, and what not; we dared not hope for him for a while, but we feel now that perhaps the worst is over. He has made a splendid fight for his life," she added; "he deserves to win. And he is the favorite of the hospital. Every one loves him. The first question all my patients ask me when I make my first round for the day is 'How is the young American lieutenant this morning?' Oh, if good wishes and genuine affection can keep him with us, he will stay."

So, with tear-wet faces, grateful yet still anxious, the two women left him for the night and sought hospitality at a modest _pension_ in the neighborhood of the hospital.

But a precious life still hung in the balance. As he had lain for many days, so the young soldier continued to lie, for many days to come, apparently without thought or vitality, save that those who watched him could catch now and then a low murmur from his lips, and could see the faint rise and fall of his scarred and bandaged breast.

Then, so slowly that it seemed to those who looked lovingly on that ages were going by, he began definitely to mend. He could open his eyes, and move his head and hands, and he seemed to grasp, by degrees, the fact that his mother and his Aunt Millicent were often sitting at his bedside. But when he tried to speak his tongue would not obey his will.

One day, when he awakened from a refreshing sleep, he seemed brighter and stronger than he had been at any time before. The two women whom he most loved were sitting on opposite sides of his cot, and his devoted and delighted nurse stood near by, smiling down on him. He smiled back up at each of them in turn, but he made no attempt to speak. He seemed to know that he had not yet the power of articulation.

His cot, in an alcove at the end of the main aisle, was so placed that, when the curtains were drawn aside, he could, at will, look down the long rows of beds where once the looms had clattered, and watch wan faces, and rec.u.mbent forms under the white spreads, and nurses, some garbed in white, and some in blue, and some in more sober colors, moving gently about among the sufferers in performance of their thrice-blest and most angelic tasks. It was there that he was looking now, and the two women at his bedside who were watching him, saw that his eyes were fixed, with strange intensity, on some object in the distance. They turned to see what it was. To their utter astonishment and dismay they discovered, marching up the aisle, accompanied by an _infirmiere_, Colonel Richard Butler. Whence, when, and how he had come, they knew not. He stopped at the entrance to the alcove, and held up his hand as though demanding silence. And there was silence. No one spoke or stirred. He looked down at Pen who lay, still speechless, staring up at him in surprise and delight.

Into the colonel's glowing face there came a look of tenderness, of rapt sympathy, of exultant pride, that those who saw it will never forget.

He stepped lightly forward and took Pen's limp hand in his and pressed it gently.

"G.o.d bless you, my boy!" he said.

No one had ever heard Richard Butler say "G.o.d bless you" before, and no one ever heard him say it again. But when he said it that day to the dark-haired, white faced, war-worn soldier on the cot in the hospital near Rouen, the words came straight from a big, and brave, and tender heart.

He laid Pen's hand slowly back on the counterpane, and then he parted his white moustache, as he had done that night at the hotel in New York, and bent over and kissed the boy's forehead. It may have been the rapture of the kiss that did it; G.o.d knows; but at that moment Pen's tongue was loosened, his lips parted, and he cried out:

"Grandfather!"

With a judgment and a self-denial rare among men, the colonel answered the boy's greeting with another gentle hand-clasp, and a beneficent smile, and turned and marched proudly and gratefully back down the long aisle, stopping here and there to greet some sick soldier who had given him a friendly look or smile, until he stood in the open doorway and lifted up his eyes to gaze on the blue line of distant hills across the Seine.

Later, when the two women came to him, and he went with them to the _pension_ where they were staying, he explained to them the cause of his sudden and unheralded appearance. He had received their cablegrams indeed; but these, instead of serving to allay his anxiety, had made it only the more acute. To wait now for letters was impossible. His patience was utterly exhausted. He could no more have remained quietly at home than he could have shut up his eyes and ears and mouth and lain quietly down to die. The call that came to him from the bed of his beloved grandson in France, that sounded in his ears day-time and night-time as he paced the floors of Bannerhall, was too insistent and imperious to be resisted. Against the vigorous protests of his niece, and the timid remonstrances of the few friends who were made aware of his purpose, he put himself in readiness to sail on the next out-going steamer that would carry him to his longed-for destination.

And it was only after he had boarded the vessel, and had felt the slow movement of the ship as she was warped out into the stream, that he became contented, comfortable, thoroughly at ease in body and mind, and ready to await patiently whatever might come to him at the end of his journey.

So it was in good health and spirits that he landed at Havre, came up to Rouen, and made his way to the hospital.

And for once in her life his daughter did not chide him. Instinctively she felt the power of the great tenderness and yearning in his breast that had impelled him to come, and, so far as any word of disapproval was concerned, she was silent.

He talked much about Pen. He asked what they had learned concerning his bravery in battle, the manner in which he had received his wounds, the nature of his long illness, and the probability of his continued convalescence.

"I hope," said Pen's mother, "that I shall be able to take him back to Lowbridge next month."

The old man looked up in surprise and alarm.

"To Lowbridge?" he said, and added: "Not to Lowbridge, Sarah Butler.

My grandson will return to Bannerhall, the home of his ancestors."

"Colonel Butler, my son's home is with me."

"And your home," replied the colonel, "is with me. My son's widow must no longer live under any other roof than mine. The day of estrangement has fully pa.s.sed. You will find welcome and affection, and, I hope, an abundance of happiness at Bannerhall."

She did not answer him; she could not. Nor did he demand an answer. He seemed to take it for granted that his wish in the matter would be complied with, and his will obeyed. But it was not until his daughter Millicent, by much argument and persuasion, through many days, had convinced her that her place was with them, that her son's welfare and his grandfather's length of days depended on both mother and son complying with Colonel Butler's wish and demand, that she consented to blot out the past and to go to live at Bannerhall.

It was on the second day of April, 1917, that the President of the United States read his world famous message to Congress, asking that body to "declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States" and to "employ all of its resources to bring the Government of Germany to terms and to end the war."

And it was on the third day of April that Colonel Richard Butler, walking up the long aisle of the war hospital near Rouen in the late afternoon, smiled and nodded to right and left and said:

"At last we are with you; we are with you. America has answered the call of her conscience, she will now come into her own."

And they smiled back at him, did these worn and broken men, for the news of the President's declaration had already filtered through the wards; and they waved their hands to the brave American colonel with the white moustache, stern visage, and tender heart, and in st.u.r.dy English and voluble French and musical Italian, they congratulated him and his n.o.ble grandson, and the charming ladies of his family, on the splendid words of his President, to which words the patriotic Congress would surely respond.