The Red Cross Barge Part 2

It was a good thing for him as well as for Jeanne Rouannes that, while she busied herself with the lighting of a hand lamp, she had no clue to his exultant, disconnected thoughts.

More and more as she accompanied him to each bedside, and as he listened to her low, harmonious voice explaining the various cases of those poor human wrecks--flotsam and jetsam of cruel war--for whom she showed such pitiful concern, he felt the surprise he had not thought to feel, and the admiration he was ready to encourage, grow and grow. Glad indeed was the Herr Doktor to know that there were certain things which he could do to ease that last, losing conflict with death now being waged by two of the Frenchmen lying there before him. Impulsively he turned to her--Ah!

if only he could express himself adequately in her difficult, attractive language!

And then there came to him a sudden inspiration.

'Do you speak English?' he asked in the language which, however much he hated it in theory, came yet so far more easily to his tongue than did that of France.

In a surprised tone the Red Cross nurse answered, in the same uncouth tongue, with the one word, 'Yes.'

And then, as she listened to his now quick, clear, intelligent explanation of what might at least bring the ease bred of oblivion to her dying patients, the look of anxious, almost agonised, strain faded from her blue eyes and delicately chiselled face; while as for the Herr Doktor, he felt as though they two had suddenly glided into a harbour of that happy, innocent No Man's Land where the gigantic absurdities, the incredible inhumanities of war had never been, and never could take place.

Only an hour ago Max Keller would have fiercely denied that anything connected with England or with the English could be anything but hateful to him--yet how thankful was he now for that sudden inspiration! It reversed the roles, gave him the advantage, and that most agreeably, of this Red Cross nurse, for though he did not speak English nearly as correctly as did Mademoiselle Rouannes, he expressed himself more fluently.

'Have you ever to England been?' he ventured at last.

She shook her head. 'No, but for some time I had an English lady for a governess. And now--now I love England!' She looked at him quite straight as she spoke, and he felt a sudden sense of unease. It was as if the tide had turned. They were drifting away from that pleasant harbour of No Man's Land....

When they had finished their round, she led him through the little square pa.s.sage room into the other and smaller half of the hold. This cabin was empty, save for a row of pallet beds. 'Will this be suitable for your wounded officer?' she asked him gently.

'Yes, very well it will do,' he said hastily. 'And now with your permission, gracious miss, my two orderlies I will send for the Prince to prepare.'

'Cannot my servants make what preparation is needed?' she asked, and there was a tremor of fear and of revolt in her voice.

'I fear not. First these beds must moved out be. But do not be afraid--they will great care take you not in any way to trouble. Indeed, you will not here be, it must now the time be when you away go.' And as she looked at him in surprise, he added awkwardly, 'The hostess of the Tournebride--I think Madame Blanc her name is--told me that you the barge at nine o'clock always left.'

'When there are soldiers dying,' she said in a low voice, 'I arrange to stay here all night'; and then, looking at him pleadingly, she added, 'Could you wait just one little hour before bringing your patient to the barge?'

Reluctantly he shook his head. 'I must as soon as possible the Prince here bring. It is bad for him in a courtyard full of noisy men to be.'

But she went on, making an evident effort to speak calmly, conciliatingly. 'Our cure is on his way to administer these poor dying.

I cannot think why he has delayed so long--I sent for him at five o'clock----'

'But--but'--and now it was the Herr Doktor's turn to hesitate--'your cure cannot come here to-night, gracious miss--at least the old priest who lives in the house next the church cannot do so. He has been taken as a hostage for the good behaviour of the population of this town.

Temporarily is he prisoner. A sad necessity of war such things are.' He looked at her deprecatingly--for the first time it occurred to him that the Herr Commandant might have contented himself with locking up the truculent mayor, and letting the old priest alone.

He saw her wince, he saw the colour rush into her face. 'But surely Monsieur le Cure will be allowed to administer the last Sacraments to dying soldiers!' she exclaimed.

He shook his head solemnly. It was indeed unfortunate for him that war, and the cruel, grotesque inhumanities of war, were invading the stretch of neutral country on which he and this--this so refined and _zierliches Madchen_ had glided so pleasantly but a short half-hour ago. Full of very real concern he nerved himself to reject the personal appeal he felt sure she was about to make to him. But Mademoiselle Rouannes did nothing of the kind. Instead she turned, and looking up the shaft of the stairway, called out sharply 'Jacob!' and then 'Therese!'

The thin man and the stout woman both came hurrying down, and at once she spoke to them in quiet, dry, urgent tones. 'The Prussian doctor of the Red Cross is going to bring a wounded Prussian officer on to the barge. He will occupy the smaller cabin. Two orderlies are coming to help you to prepare the cabin; and you, Jacob, will have to show the Prussians how the crane is worked.'

The Herr Doktor, himself much ruffled by hearing himself described as a Prussian, saw a look of sullen ill-temper come over Jacob's face. But Mademoiselle Rouannes put out her hand and laid it on the old fellow's shoulder. 'My good friend,' she said, and her voice quivered for the first time, 'pray do what I ask of you without discussion. And you, Therese, I must ask to go home and tell my father that I am taking the watch here to-night.'

Jacob was the first to respond to the appeal. He looked fiercely at the German Red Cross surgeon. 'At your orders, M'sieur,' he said gruffly. As for the woman, she turned away with a sullen 'Bien, Mademoiselle,' and started walking up the ladder-like stairway.

The Red Cross nurse bowed distantly. 'Bon soir, Monsieur,' she said coldly.

The Herr Doktor also bowed stiffly. It was disconcerting, even strange, to find himself once more in enemy country.

She slipped through the narrow door of the larger ward, and he heard her draw the bolt.

Again he felt irritated, and surprised as he had been surprised at seeing that strange look of aversion and horror flash into her face when her eyes had first rested on him....

True, she was young, divinely compa.s.sionate, and very delightful to the eye, but she evidently misunderstood the situation! It was he, Herr Doktor Max Keller, who was now in command of the Red Cross barge, and that by the rules of the International Red Cross Society. He might, however, so far humour her as not to bring his orderlies to-night on board what had been her Red Cross barge. He had noticed with sincere annoyance that his men--who, by the way, were Prussians--were rough, not to say brutal, in their manner to those French people with whom they were perforce brought into contact.

So after he had made the old Frenchman understand what he wanted done, he asked him, in his halting French, 'Is there an hotel close by where sleep I can?'

'There's a kind of cabaret yonder'--and then, as if rather ashamed of his ungraciousness, the man added, 'I will come and show Monsieur le Medecin where it is.'

Together they climbed up on to the deck of the barge, and there the Herr Doktor stopped a moment, and looking round about him, drew a deep, long breath. The falling of the shade of night was singularly beautiful on this quiet stretch of slow-moving waters. Across the river a line of poplars looked like a row of ghostly, giant sentinels....

The two men, the Frenchman in front, the German behind, stepped off the barge on to the narrow stone jetty, and then they walked for a few yards in darkness along the leafy mall. None of the street lamps had been lit on this, the evening of the most tragic day in the life of Valoise, but dim lights twinkled in the house across the roadway to which old Jacob now led his enemy.

'M'sieur will find this place quite clean,' he observed, vigorously pulling the bell of a narrow door. There was a long delay--then a young woman, opening her door a few inches, looked timorously out at them.

But Jacob now took everything on himself. With what seemed to his companion an unnecessary torrent of words, he explained that 'Monsieur'

was a doctor of the Red Cross, who had come to look after the wounded on the Red Cross barge, and that therefore a room must at once be prepared for him. The woman's face cleared, she opened her narrow door widely, and led the way up to a large, clean bedroom on the first floor, of which the windows overlooked the mall, the river, and--the barge.

As a few moments later they left the house the Herr Doktor could not help feeling grateful to old Jacob. Jacob? Why 'twas almost a German name!

4

Half an hour later the great grey ambulance, drawn up close to the gates of the Tournebride, was ready to start down the hill, and the Herr Doktor waited impatiently while the five hale and whole officers bade their wounded comrade a hearty, lengthy, and jovial good-night.

They were all _ubermutig_--bubbling over with wild spirits--and still talking of their Mecca--Paris--now only some thirty miles away. Any hour might come the longed-for order to advance thither!

The Herr Doktor's ill.u.s.trious patient seemed the most eager of them all.

But he hoped the order to advance would be delayed till he himself were well enough to be in time for the solemn entry into the conquered city--that entry through the Arc de Triomphe which was to be a more superb replica of that which had taken place in 1871. Some days must surely elapse before that glorious pageant could take place, although everything was ready for it--in Luxembourg. In Luxembourg, so Prince Egon now told his comrades--for he alone among them was in touch with the Court--the Kaiser was waiting impatiently for the glad news that Paris had fallen or surrendered. There too, even now, the Imperial Master of the Horse had everything prepared--the state chargers, even, had been brought from Potsdam....

At last the Herr Doktor went up to the youthful commanding officer. 'A word with you in private,' he said hurriedly, and the other allowed himself to be drawn aside. He was curious to know what the Herr Doktor could possibly have to say, 'in private.'

'I know well your humane sentiments towards the unfortunate population of this conquered country'--the words came quickly, almost breathlessly--'and your good heart, Herr Commandant, will perhaps remember the curious request made to you by the old French priest when taken hostage. I have discovered that what he said was true--that there are indeed three wounded soldiers dying on the Red Cross barge where I am about to take Prince Egon. Two of the men will not outlast the night, and the Red Cross Sister, a French lady of distinction, is most anxious they should receive religious consolation. That being so I thought I might promise her that this pious wish should be gratified. With your permission the priest can go in the ambulance, and I myself will bring him back within an hour or so!'

The Herr Commandant looked at the Herr Doktor doubtfully. He did, it was true, hold the unusual theory that benignant justice, rather than 'frightfulness,' was the right way to deal with a conquered population.

He remembered, too, that, unlike his four lieutenants, his own instinct had been to believe the Cure of Valoise when the old man had pleaded that he might be allowed to attend 'trois mourants,' and that, though it had seemed almost impossible that there could be three dying people desiring priestly ministration in this little town, the more so that, as all the world knew, France was now an utterly G.o.dless country.

Still he waited a few moments before answering. It was not proper that the Herr Doktor should take too much upon himself. But his mind was already made up, and at last he took a large key out of one of his pockets, and handed it to the Herr Doktor. 'You must be personally responsible for the hostage's safe return!' He laughed rather huskily.

'The responsibility is not great, Herr Doktor, or perhaps I would not put it upon you! That old man could not hobble away very far. The Mayor--ah, that is another matter! He is what they call here _un fort gaillard_.' He uttered the three French words without any accent, and the other envied him.

The Herr Doktor hastened across the courtyard and found the arch in the wall which he knew led through into Madame Blanc's well-stocked kitchen garden. In the centre of the large open s.p.a.ce there rose, in the moonlit darkness, the square building lit only by a skylight, which had been chosen as making an ideal prison for the two hostages. Putting the key the Herr Commandant had handed him in the door, he turned it, and walked into the sweet-smelling fruit-room of the old inn.

There a curious sight met his eyes. The two Frenchmen, companions in misfortune though they were, had placed themselves as far the one from the other as was possible. The priest sat on his truckle bed, reading his breviary by the light of a candle, while the Mayor of Valoise, also sitting on his bed--for the Tournebride had naturally proved very short of the chairs required for the accommodation of so many hosts--was busily writing what he intended to be the official account of his amazing and disagreeable adventures.

As the door opened the Mayor leapt to his feet, and a look of apprehension shot over his dark, southern-looking face. The priest looked up, but remained seated, and went on reading his prayer-book with an air of ostentatious indifference.

The Herr Doktor walked across to the old man. 'Will you please at once come?' he said haltingly. 'Permission for you obtained I have to attend the French wounded on the Red Cross barge.'

The priest closed his book, and rose from his seat; but at the same moment the Mayor came forward towards the German Red Cross doctor, but there was a curious lack of firmness about his footsteps. It was as if he hardly knew where his legs were bearing him. His voice, however, was strong and defiant. 'I protest!' he cried loudly. 'I strongly and vigorously protest against this favour being shown to the priest! It is on me, as Mayor of Valoise, that there reposes the duty of transmitting to their families the wishes of our dying soldiers!'