The Happy Foreigner Part 11

"Open number seven."

The soldier took his bunch of keys and opened the door.

"Now fetch mademoiselle's effects from the other corridor. Which number was your room, mademoiselle?"

"Twenty-two. But I can fetch them ... I have really nothing."

The soldier withdrew.

"He will get them. You dine with us, I hope, to-night at seven. Are you English, mees?"

"Yes, English--with the French Army. I am really so grateful...."

"The other room was not possible. I like the English, mees. I have known them at my home near Biarritz. You and I must talk a little. Do you care to read?"

"Oh, yes, if I get time...."

"Any books you may want please take from my sitting-room, number sixteen in this corridor. _Tenez!_ I have an English book there--'The Light that Failed'--I will get it for you."

"Oh! I have read ... But thank you."

_"De rien, de rien!_ I will get it now." He hastened up the corridor and returned with the book in his hand.

The soldier, too, returned, bearing the seven objects which had accompanied her travels.

"You will clean mademoiselle's shoes, brush her uniform, and bring her hot water when she needs it," ordered the commandant, and the soldier saluted impa.s.sively--a watch-dog who had been told that it was the house-cat after all.

Left alone, she searched all her pockets for some forgotten stick of chocolate, and finding nothing, sat down upon the bed to wait hungrily till seven. The air in the tunnels was heavy and dry, and throwing off her tunic she lay down on the bed and slept until footsteps pa.s.sing her door awoke her.

She became aware that the inhabitants of her corridor were washing their hands for dinner, and sitting up sleepily found that it was already seven. In a few minutes she hurried from her room and out into the main tunnel, glad to get nearer the fresh air which filtered in through the opening at the far end.

Reaching a door which she had noticed before, marked "_popote_," she paused a second, listening to the hum of voices within, then pushed at the door and entered.

Instantly there was a hush of astonishment as seventy or eighty officers, eating at a long trestle table, sharply turned their heads towards her, their forks poised for a second, their hands still. Then, with a quick recovery, all was as before, and the stream of talk flowed on.

The first section of the table was reserved for strangers pa.s.sing through Verdun, and here sat a party of young Russian officers in light blouse-tunics, an American or two, and a few French officers. At the next section sat the officers of the _citadelle_, a pa.s.sing general, and at the left hand of the commandant, Monsieur Dellahousse and the mild lieutenant.

Overhead the stone roof of the tunnel was arched with flags, and orderlies hurried up and down serving the diners.

f.a.n.n.y, halfway up the long table, wavered in doubt. Where, after all, was she supposed to sit? At the top section, as a guest--or, as a driver, among the whispering Russians at the "stranger" section? Her anxiety showed in her face as she glanced forwards and backwards and an orderly hurried towards her. "Par ici, mademoiselle, par ici!" and she followed him towards the head of the table. Her doubts dissolved as she saw the gap left for her by the friendly arm of the lieutenant, and, arrived at the long wooden bench upon which they sat, she bowed to the commandant, and lifting one leg beneath her skirt as a hen does beneath its feathers, she straddled the difficult bench and dropped into position.

"Beer, mademoiselle? Or red wine?" asked the Russian, suddenly turning to her; and the commandant, released from his conversation, called out gaily: "The mees will say 'water'--but one must insist. Take the wine, mees, it is better for you." The idea of water had never crossed f.a.n.n.y's mind, but having decided on beer she changed it politely to red wine, which she guessed to be no other than the everlasting _pinard_.

"I know them...." continued the commandant, smiling at the general. "I know the English! My home is at Biarritz and there one meets so many."

And this old man thus addressed, a great star blazing on his breast, and tears of age trembling in his blue eyes, lifted his hand to attract her attention, and said to f.a.n.n.y in gentle English: "Verdun honours a charming guest, mademoiselle."

_"Verdun ... honours...."_ His words lingered in her ear. She a guest, _she_ honoured ... _here_!

Up till now the novelty of her situation had engrossed her, the little soldiers watching in the tunnels, the commandant so eager to air his stumbling English, these had amused her.

And when she had perceived herself rare, unique, she had forgotten why she was thus rare, and what strange, romantic life she meddled in.

Here in this womanless region, in this fortress, in this room, night after night, month after month, the commandant and his officers had sat at table; in this room, which, unlike the tomb, had held only the living, while the dead and the threatened-with-death inhabited the earth above.

They had finished dinner and Monsieur Dellahousse signalled to f.a.n.n.y that she might rise. She rose, and at the full sight of her uniform he remembered her duties and said stiffly: "Be good enough to wait up till ten to-night. I may need you."

They pa.s.sed out again down the length of the tables. Near the door the Russian paused to speak with his countrymen, who rose and stood respectfully round him. f.a.n.n.y and the lieutenant went on alone to the corridor.

"You have travelled with him before?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. I am lent to him to help him through the country. He is on a tour of inspection for the Red Cross; he visits all the camps of Russian prisoners liberated from Germany."

"But are there many round Verdun?"

"Thousands. You will see to-morrow. And be prepared for early rising. If he doesn't send for you by ten to-night I will tell the orderly to let you know the hour at which you will be wanted to-morrow morning. The car is all ready to start again?"

"I am going out to her now."

He turned away to join the Russian, and f.a.n.n.y pa.s.sed the sentry at the tunnel's mouth, and stood in the road outside.

Verdun by night, Verdun by starlight, awaited her.

Up the slopes of the hill, every spar, brick and beam, carried its bristle of gold. At her own head's imperceptible movement flashes came and went between the ribs of the Bishop's Palace. The sentry by the tunnel stood between the upper and the underground:--with his left eye he could watch the lights that strung back into the hollow hill, with his right, the smiling and winking of the stars in the sky.

"Fait beau dehors." His voice startled her. She turned to him, but he stood immobile in the shadow as though he had never spoken. She could not be sure that he had indicated to her that every man has his taste and his choice.

She set to work on her car which stood in the shelter of an archway opposite, and for half an hour the sky trembled unregarded above her head. When she had finished she stood back and gazed at the Rochet with an anxious friendly enmity--the friendship of an infant with a lion.

"The garage is eighty miles away," she sighed, "with its friendly men who know all where I know so little.... Ah, do I know enough? What have I left undone?" For she felt, what was the truth, that the whole expedition depended on her, that the stately Russian had perhaps never known what it was to have a breakdown--that in Moscow, in Petrograd, in his faraway life, he had sat in town cars behind two chauffeurs, unaware of the deadly traps in rubber and metal.

CHAPTER V

VERDUN

Night was the same as day in the tunnels; the electric light was always on, and with the morning no daylight crept in to alter it. The orderly called her at half-past six and she took her "clients" to a barracks in the suburbs of Verdun, where Russian prisoners "liberated" from Germany crowded and jostled to see her from behind the bars of the barrack square, like wild animals in a cage. Armed sentries paced backwards and forwards across the gateway to the yard. As it came on to snow a French soldier came out of a guardroom and invited her in by the fire.

Inside, the rest of the guard huddled about the stove, and behind them a Russian prisoner with a moon face swept up the crumbs from their last meal.

"Why do Americans guard the gate?" she asked, "since you are a French guard?"

"Because we don't shoot with enough goodwill," grinned a little man.

"But who do you want to shoot?"

"Those fellows!" said the little man, slapping the moon-faced Russian on the thigh. "We used to guard the gates a week ago. But the Russians were always escaping, and not enough were shot as they got over the wall. So they said: 'The Americans are the types for that!' and they put them on to guard the gates. Look outside! You are having a success, mademoiselle!"