The Red Cross Barge Part 4

The Herr Doktor smiled pleasantly at the old woman, and she smiled back, a broad genial smile of good fellowship. What a difference the departure of those few countrymen of his yesterday had made, to be sure!

But when he hurried down to the French ward he at once knew, without being told, that Mademoiselle Jeanne had not yet arrived. Old Therese had done her best, but it was a very poor best, to make the men lying there comfortable. Still, they all looked more cheerful than usual, and the boy he now hoped to save, the boy for whom he had a very tender corner in his kindly, sentimental soul, caught hold of his hand as he went by, and asked huskily, 'Is it true that the Prussians are gone?

_Quel bonheur!_'

It struck half-past six, seven, then half-past seven.

The Herr Doktor went up again on to the deck. Therese was sitting there sewing. 'And Mademoiselle?' he asked questioningly.

She shook her head. 'Mademoiselle was very unhappy last night. She thinks her father is much worse. I myself can see no difference. But something he said to her frightened her, and so she said she must stop at home to-day, and nurse him.'

He felt absurdly surprised, absurdly annoyed, absurdly taken aback.

Had Mademoiselle Rouannes a right to leave the ambulance barge? He doubted it--doubted it very much indeed. Of course he himself, being now in command of the barge, could _order_ her to come. He was a Red Cross doctor, and she a Red Cross nurse; he had, therefore, the absolute right to dispose of her time and services. But, sighing, he dismissed the thought. She was quite unlike any German girl he had ever seen. It would not occur to her to be flattered, or even touched, by his imperious wish for her presence.

As he stood there, wondering what he had better do, there flashed into his mind the wording of a short note which it might become his duty to write to her. The note would be written in English, and it would run somewhat in this wise: 'Gracious Miss,'--or perhaps it would be better to put plain 'Miss' in the French way--'If you your father can leave for a short time, I should be glad if to the barge you come would. One of your wounded is not so well.--Yours respectfully, MAX KELLER.'

There would be nothing offensive, nothing hectoring about such a missive, and he thought, he felt sure, that it would bring her. But he would not write that note yet. He would wait till he had seen his own patient, Prince Egon. Luckily, there was no hurry as to that, and, still secretly hoping she would come, he lingered on, up on deck.

The sun had gone behind a cloud. There was an autumnal chill in the morning air. The waters of the slowly flowing river looked grey and sullen. Suddenly the Herr Doktor felt oddly friendless, and alone.

'This morning felt I so foolishly cheerful, and this the natural reaction is!' he exclaimed to himself.

He turned and walked down to Prince Egon's small quarters. Cautiously he opened the narrow door, but his patient was awake and smiling.

What a contrast this curious little cabin presented, especially to-day, to that containing the French wounded! Here everything was ship-shape, even to a modest degree, luxurious. On an inlaid table, which had been 'commandeered' from an empty villa, were laid out gold-backed brushes, and a number of pretty trifles. Above the table hung a circular mirror, also commandeered, and there was a whiff of some sweet, pungent scent in the air. How different, too, the white and pink yellow-haired youth lying there from the small, dark, and now unshaved Frenchmen on the other side. Old Jacob was kept too busy attending on the Prussian prince to spare any time for his own countrymen.

The Herr Doktor looked at what had partly been his own handiwork--the handiwork of which he had felt proud on the first evening of his arrival at Valoise--with a feeling of dissatisfaction, almost of disgust.

Over a basket-chair was carefully spread out a green-and-gold-silk dressing-gown, in the Weimar surgeon's eyes a garment of almost Oriental splendour.

'If you will allow of it, Herr Doktor, I propose to get up,' said Prince Egon cheerfully. 'I feel wonderfully better to-day! It is extraordinary what good this rest has done me. And then that old Jacob! An almost perfect valet! What good fortune for me that he should be here! He has already made me a delicious omelette this morning.'

'And your Highness was not afraid to eat it?' This was really a little joke on the Herr Doktor's part. But his patient did not so accept it. An extraordinary change came over the rec.u.mbent man's fair face; it became livid, discomposed.

'G.o.d in heaven!' he cried. 'Do you suspect old Jacob, Herr Doktor?'

And then the older man burst into laughter. 'No, no,' he said soothingly. 'I suspect nothing! Besides your Highness has made it very much worth old Jacob's while to keep you alive.'

'Aye, aye! That's true.' The prince was rea.s.sured. 'As I was saying just now, I feel so much better that, if you permit it, I propose to get up.

I will wear my dressing-gown, not my uniform, and I will go up on deck.

There I will sit and chat with the beautiful English-speaking Mamselle.

Jacob tells me that on her mother's side she is of n.o.ble birth, and that, although her father is only a physician, she----'

The Herr Doktor put up his hand. 'I must now take your Highness'

temperature,' he said a little sharply. 'I doubt much if you are well enough to go upstairs. A chill would be very serious in your Highness's condition. As for the Red Cross Sister, she is not here to-day. Her father is very ill.'

'Not here? But that is absurd!' The young man spoke with a touch of imperious decision. 'You must send for her, my dear Herr Doktor; she must be requisitioned!' He smiled--an insolent smile.

The other shook his head. A sudden pa.s.sion of dislike, of contempt, for his patient filled his heart. But all he said was--'Impossible! Her father is very ill indeed.'

'Then I will not trouble to get up. I am very well where I am. It is very comfortable here.'

Prince Egon spoke pettishly. He had looked forward to an amusing flirtation with the Mamselle with whose manifold perfections old Jacob sometimes entertained him.

The hours of the morning dragged wearily on. To the Herr Doktor it seemed as if there had never been such a long, such an utterly lacking-in-flavour, day as was this day. For the first time he talked to the convalescent Frenchmen at some length of themselves. Not one of them had been a soldier at the time the war broke out on that fateful 1st of August, and yet it surprised him, and in a sense moved him, to see that every one of them wished to go back and fight. Not one of them seemed conscious that he was now a prisoner, and that, unless peace was made at once, he would soon be in Germany....

2

At twelve o'clock the Herr Doktor walked up to the Tournebride. He had thought it possible that he might meet Mademoiselle Rouannes in the town--but it was in vain that he lingered on the way, and glanced up each steep byway, and quiet, shady street.

While he was eating an excellent _dejeuner_ at a table spread under the trees in the courtyard of the inn, he cleverly led Madame Blanc on to the subject of Dr. Rouannes. She, too, seemed quite another woman now that the Tournebride was her own again. To-day she was eager for a gossip.

Yes, '_ce bon docteur_' was certainly seriously ill. He had looked so well, so vigorous, when he had started, a month ago, for the Frontier.

It was there that a sh.e.l.l had exploded in the room where he was actually performing a small operation on a man wounded during the dash into Alsace. As he had been struck in the left leg, it was impossible for him to go on with his work, and he had managed to get home. At first it had been said that he would soon be all right again. But now it was rumoured that he was dying! If that were indeed true, Dr. Rouannes would be a great loss to Valoise, for he was an excellent doctor, much beloved in the town. His daughter was thought rather proud--very good to '_les pauvres_,' but unwilling to frequent the more well-to-do townsfolk.

This, no doubt, because her mother was '_une n.o.ble_.' Madame Blanc smiled as she did not often smile now, as she recalled the marriage of Dr. Rouannes. He had refused such excellent '_occasions_'--such rich marriages when he was young and good-looking! Then, when he was forty-six years of age, and a confirmed bachelor, he had suddenly married Mademoiselle Jeanne de Bligniere, the younger of the two daughters of the Count de Bligniere, a poor, proud old gentleman whom he, the doctor, had attended, out of charity no doubt. Curious to relate, this '_mariage etrange_' had been a very happy one, and this though Madame Rouannes was very, very quiet, gentle, and pious too, in fact rather like '_une bonne Soeur_.' She had been ill two years, and Dr. Rouannes had brought many physicians from Paris to see her. It was said that the chemist's bill alone had been a thousand francs! But the poor lady had died all the same, and she, Madame Blanc, would never forget Monsieur le Medecin's tragic, stricken face at the funeral.

It had been thought that he would surely marry again. But no, he had not done so. At first Madame Rouannes' sister had come to take care of the motherless little girl, but Mademoiselle de Bligniere had never liked her brother-in-law, so she soon went back to Paris. Then for some time Mademoiselle Jeanne had had '_une anglaise_.' It was only last winter, while visiting her aunt in Paris, that she had learnt the Red Cross work.

At last the Herr Doktor finished his delicious _dejeuner_ under the yellowing chestnut trees in the great courtyard which now looked so peaceful and so solitary, and he wondered, a little ashamed of the materialism of the unspoken question, if Mademoiselle Rouannes knew anything of the practical side of French cookery. And after he had had his cup of coffee and smoked his pipe, he took his diary out of his pocket. He had not opened the book for nearly a week.

Quickly he turned over the blank pages--and then a sudden wave of emotion swept over him. To-day was the 2nd of September--Sedan Day! And he had not remembered it! He thought of last year's Sedan Day, spent with some dear old friends of his childhood, and his heart became irradiated with a peculiar, tender radiance. Beautiful, culture-filled Weimar! How he longed to show his dear homeland to his 'Geliebte'! Then a less n.o.ble feeling, one of fierce exultation filled him. He visioned the great hosts of the Fatherland, his brothers all, pressing forward through this splendid, opulent land of France. Those great hosts must now be close to the gates of Paris--nay, they were perchance in Paris already, celebrating the great anniversary while preparing to play the role of magnanimous conquerors....

Only yesterday had come news of wonderful doings--and he had scarcely cared to hear them! Tidings of the invading army brought by two officers in charge of an armoured motor-car. Tidings of victory of course; and of one especial victory which they had felt peculiarly pleasant and _ermutigend_, the defeat and complete encirclement, that is, of the small British Expeditionary Force. The English, so had run the tale, still turned now and again and fought, not without courage, small rearguard actions, but they were not causing any real trouble.

Already Compiegne was evacuated, and Chantilly was ready for the Kaiser's occupation. It was from the magnificent home of '_Le Grand Conde_' that the War Lord intended to start for the entry of his victorious army through the Arc de Triomphe, into Paris.

Of course the Herr Doktor had been quite pleased to hear all this glorious news, but though he realised how inspiriting it was to know that within a day and a half's march of Valoise pressed on the relentless march on Paris, he had not really cared. Valoise had suddenly become to him the one place in the world which mattered. The only place where he wished to be--to stay....

He knew that the city of Paris, as apart from the rest of France, was to pay a huge indemnity. Until that indemnity was paid, there was to be an army of occupation, not only in the city, but in the surrounding country. Of this army he, as a non-combatant, could easily obtain permission to form part....

And then as he walked restlessly up and down the courtyard, there suddenly rose on the still, warm air a long-drawn distant roar of sound.

Thunder? The Herr Doktor shook his head, and his heart began to beat a little quicker. He knew what that sound portended, and he also remembered enough to know that the action proceeding must be a long, long way off.

Madame Blanc came out of her kitchen. '_On commence a se battre la-bas._' There was an undertone of hope, of fierce joy--even of boastfulness--in her voice.

He bent his head gravely. The expression on her face irritated him. Till to-day he had thought her an excellent, homely woman. He could no longer think her so, for there was an awful look of vengeful longing in her eyes.

3

And during all that warm, early September afternoon, across the golden haze thrown up by the river, there came from '_la-bas_' the rolling, muttering roar that was so like thunder, that now and again the Herr Doktor asked himself whether it might not be thunder after all? But whatever this provenance, these sounds had a strange, electric effect on the French wounded. They became restless and excited. Hitherto they had stayed below; now, without asking the Herr Doktor's permission, two or three pallid faces appeared above the stairway, and there was a look of strained suspense, almost of hope, in the eyes which avoided looking frankly into his face.

There was yet another curious change in all those young, wild-eyed Frenchmen. They talked in low hoa.r.s.e whispers the one with the other, and once he heard a reference to _la nouvelle armee_, and then again to _l'armee de Versailles_. Of what army, new or old, could they be thinking? Brave but unready France had put every man for whom she had proper arms and accoutrements into the field from the first day.

Prince Egon shared in the subdued excitement. 'It is pleasant to feel that we are no longer away from the whirlpool!' he cried joyfully, and this was his only remark during that intolerably long afternoon.

At six o'clock the sounds of firing ceased as suddenly as they had begun. Four hours' desultory cannonade? It must have been a long-drawn-out rearguard action.

The Herr Doktor was sitting up on deck, a pocket volume of Heine in his hand. He read the verse--