The Old Blood Part 25

"My business is making sketches, not making promises!" replied Helen.

"You----" The General made for her threateningly with his stick and she ran on down the path.

"This was her doing, sticking on here, wasn't it?" asked the General.

"I've known her, Monsieur, since she was a child," he added thoughtfully.

Professional instinct crowded her out of mind as he swept the field with '70 field gla.s.ses which were slung over his shoulder.

"No rout--an orderly retreat!" he said. "We are not beaten. Joffre having failed to bar the way in Belgium is going to fight on the Marne.

I have seen our corps commander and talked to him. Oh, it was very fortunate to find that I knew him. He was one of my lieutenants when I was a captain. I'm very happy, Monsieur, for I feel that I still serve--yes, serve France!"

"I wish I could!" exclaimed Phil. "It hurts to see those blue coats and red trousers coming back; but I don't believe they will go far."

"Then you are for France! I am glad! But only a Frenchman can know how a Frenchman is for France!"

A shrapnel broke over the woods, its bullets slittering through the leaves.

"We had better see if those young women have gone into the cellar,"

said the General. Another shrapnel crashed its ugly message even nearer, a fragment striking at his feet. "Women are the very devil under fire," he added. "They will never take cover. A soldier considers it duty. Now if that does not send them into the cellar," he continued, as a heavy reverberation came from the direction of the village, "they have no sense at all. You have young legs. Run on and look after them."

Phil found it no effort to run; his only regret was that he could not fly.

"Never did have much respect for sh.e.l.l-fire!" mumbled the General. "I hope they don't hit my pigeons. I'd better go home and look after them."

He walked on at a dignified pace, while the sh.e.l.ls continued to burst over the woods and occasional high explosives in the village. Phil met him at the door of the house and reported:

"Your orders are obeyed, sir. They are in the cellar."

"Excellent!"

"And they have sent orders to you. You are to come into the cellar, too, sir!"

"I must look after my pigeons. I never had much respect for sh.e.l.l-fire----" He stopped short, struck by a thought. "If I were hit it would be just as serious as if my pigeons were hit. I----"

"Quite so!" put in Phil. He had taken a liking to the General, whom war, to his mind, had transformed from a gallant old fussbudget of a beau to a brave and simple gentleman.

"You have guessed my secret--the secret of my pigeons?" gasped the General in alarm.

"Have I? Yes, I'm afraid I have, and I----" Something caught in his throat as he looked into the piercing grey eyes of the General. "I hope you know that the secret is safe."

"I do. You are a man of honour and you have said that you are for France. And the only way to do my duty to France is to keep alive. I go into the cellar."

As they pa.s.sed through the kitchen a pane of gla.s.s fell with a tinkling crash as a sh.e.l.l-fragment hit it and a saucepan rattled.

"Jacqueline will object to the Germans making omelets in her kitchen,"

said the General. "No one has ever appreciated Madame Ribot's cellar more than myself," he remarked as he descended the stairs. "Her wines are excellent. H-m, they are sh.e.l.ling the village pretty freely, though we have no troops there--a joke on the Germans."

"But the people--what of them? Are they safe? Will they know enough to take cover?" asked Helen.

"Of course," said the General.

"It's horrible to think that Mere Perigord and the children should be exposed out of ignorance!" Helen sprang past the General and up the stairs.

"This is where I intervene!" said Phil, starting after her.

"I told you women were the very devil under fire," murmured the General. "No sense of fear like men."

"And why not I?" Henriette, too, was going.

But the General stopped the way.

"No, young woman," he said. "I'm looking after you and if I had been your mother----"

"You'd have spanked me!" put in Henriette, making a charming grimace and dropping back into her seat against the wine bin. "Helen will be the death of Cousin Phil yet," she added. "She's in an awful state of nerves."

"Seems perfectly normal," remarked the General. "I've always liked Helen," he added tartly.

When Helen and Phil came out into the village street not a soul was in sight. The little community of peasants' houses with its old church was as dead as Pompeii. They went into Mere Perigord's living-room and looked into the bedroom without finding her. When Helen called down into the cellar a quavering voice answered:

"Of course, you goose, and do you go right back to your own cellar or come down here. What do you think we are--fools? Why, one goes to a cellar as naturally as one puts up an umbrella in a rain!"

The sh.e.l.ling had stopped when Helen and Phil reached the street again.

Soon faces began to appear in the doorways and the village came to life.

"It reminds me of prairie dogs ducking for their burrows," said Phil.

"I ought to explain that----"

"Oh, I know what prairie dogs are," replied Helen. "But, seriously, there is a question I want to ask." She was smiling faintly, but her eyes had a defiant spark. "Are you going to follow me wherever I go?"

"Yes, if you are in danger."

"Is that fair?" she demanded.

"It's cousinly," he replied.

"But what if Henriette and I go in different directions?" she continued methodically.

"In that case, I see that you prefer that I go with Henriette. I--I think you know better how to take care of yourself."

She flushed and looked down. It had not occurred to her whither the questions were leading.

"Yes, of course," she said.

"Then I shall follow her, unless she remains in the cellar. In that case I'll follow you."

"Very well," she a.s.sented, with a shrug; and looking up again: "I'm ashamed of myself for fainting this afternoon. It was the sight of blood. I haven't thought of that. It makes me afraid, and war means that, and I had wanted to see war."

They met the General coming out of the chateau, and Phil noted again how straight he was and how confident and happy. It was a picture of the old warrior which he was ever to remember. Indoors they found Jacqueline, now that the sh.e.l.l-fire had ceased, busy preparing _dejeuner_, while she abused the Germans for having dented a saucepan.