The Red Cross Barge Part 6

With a curiously impulsive gesture she clasped her hands together. 'But no, father!' she exclaimed. 'Remember that I am your nurse! Surely you will let me stay?' She looked beseechingly, not at her father, but at the silent man now standing by her side.

'Mademoiselle your daughter is an excellent nurse,' observed the Herr Doktor awkwardly.

The old man leant back on his pillow, wearily. He had hoped his English colleague would be more expansive, and '_sympathique_.' Also, he had thought to see an older man, one who would understand, without any need for explanation, his point of view about his daughter.

'I only wish you to leave the room for five minutes, my child. One word I _must_ say to Monsieur alone.'

She obeyed without further demur, and as the door closed behind her, the Frenchman put out his hot, sinewy, right hand and seized the younger man's.

'Not a word!' he exclaimed in a hurried whisper. 'Not a word, you understand, of the truth for her! Gangrene has set in. There is nothing to be done now--it's too late. Why I consented to see you was, first, to procure for myself the pleasure of meeting an English confrere (an honour as well as a very great pleasure, I a.s.sure you)--and then with the hope that you were likely to know some--what shall I say?--palliative--ay, that's the word!--to make things less painful for her, as well as for me too, when comes the end.'

The Herr Doktor nodded his head understandingly.

'I tell you this,' went on the other quickly, 'because my daughter, as a matter of fact, knows nothing of illness, nothing of wounds----' He waited a moment. 'Perhaps you have a daughter--a child of your own?'

The Herr Doktor shook his head.

'Ah well, at your age I too was not married! More, like you, perhaps, I intended not to marry. But, some day your heart will play you a trick--wait till then, it's worth it--and you will come to realise how carefully one tries to guard one's children, especially one's daughter, from what is painful and disagreeable. I could not prevent Jeanne from taking charge of this Red Cross barge. She belongs to the Secours aux Blesses Militaires, and she has been through the course they give their young girl members. But, naturally, I should not have allowed her to go to a military hospital. A Red Cross barge is different. There are only convalescents there--and old Jacob, whom you will have seen, gave me his word that she should be sheltered from anything unpleasant or--or unsuitable.' He waited a few moments, and then, in a very different voice, added: 'But now, my dear colleague, we will consider my case--otherwise she will be growing impatient.'

He drew down his bed-clothes, and an involuntary exclamation of concern, of surprise, of regret escaped from the Herr Doktor's lips.

'Yes, you see how it is with me? One of those new-fangled injections at the right moment might have stopped the mischief. On the other hand, it might not.' He shrugged his shoulders, and exclaimed, 'Yes, there's nothing to be done! But I want to know if your opinion coincides with mine as to how much time I have left. That is important, for I have arrangements to make. When I am gone, my daughter will have to find her way to Paris, to her aunt, Mademoiselle de Bligniere.'

'To Paris?' The Herr Doktor could not keep the amazement he felt out of his voice.

The old man looked up at him quickly. 'Yes, my dear colleague, to Paris--why not?'

'But--but----' The Herr Doktor reddened, then very quietly, even deprecatingly, he said, 'But, Monsieur le Docteur--the Germans? Will they not in Paris be?'

'No,' said Dr. Rouannes confidently. 'They will be kept out of Paris. I only wish she--aye, and I too--were in Paris now!'

There was a pause, a rather painful pause, between the two men.

'You do not believe what I say about Paris?' said Dr. Rouannes abruptly.

'No, I regret to say that I cannot your opinion share.' The Herr Doktor forced himself to say the words.

'You do not know Joffre.' The old doctor looked up at him reflectively.

'Very few people know Joffre--I do. We were at school together. I saw him not so very long ago. In fact just before I was wounded.' Then he called out, 'Jeanne! Ma pet.i.te Jeanne!'

The door opened, and Mademoiselle Rouannes walked in, pale, composed, but with lips quivering piteously.

'Do not look so anxious,' said her father quickly. 'As I have always told you, there is no mystery about my condition--none at all! My English colleague agrees with me that it's a very nasty wound. Well, you know that already! I'm not as young as I was--that is against me; on the other hand, I'm a very healthy man. You are not to trouble about me one way or the other. Certain things which we are lacking this gentleman will provide out of his stores. The English ambulance service is the best in the world.'

And then the Herr Doktor made his one mistake. 'Nein, nein!' he muttered. And then he felt his heart stand still.

But his new patient had not heard the protest. In a stronger, heartier voice he exclaimed, 'Ah yes, that's right! I wondered when it was coming----'

The door had opened, and Therese walked round the corner of the screen, carrying a tray on which were three small gla.s.ses, a bottle of Malaga, and some little dry cakes.

'Do you mind stopping a few minutes and having a talk with my father?'

Jeanne Rouannes spoke in English. 'It's very'--she hesitated for a word, then found it--'it's very dull for him when I am away all day.'

Eagerly the Herr Doktor sat down.

'And now,' exclaimed the patient, 'we will forget illness and trouble!

We will talk of the glorious British Army, and of your ships--that splendid navy which encircles and guards our sh.o.r.es. What would the Little Corporal have said to all this, hein?' Then more seriously he went on, 'I was put out of action almost at once, and that is why I saw nothing of my British confreres. I regret to say that I did see something of the German doctors'--the colour rushed into his face, flamed over his broad forehead, and up to the roots of his white hair.

'Father!' said his daughter imploringly, 'Father, be calm!'

'I am calm--I am absolutely calm! But I must tell our friend of my experience, if only because it will show him--it will show him----'

'Father!' she said again, 'why talk of it now? It will only excite you unduly.'

'No, it does not excite me--not in the least! Our English friend here will be interested--deeply interested--in my story. It is one which should be published in'--he waited a moment, then brought out triumphantly the name--'yes, the _Lancet_--it should be written in the _Lancet_. Perhaps M. le Docteur will himself write it?'

He stopped short, and looked inquiringly at the man sitting by his bedside.

'Most certainly will I it do, my dear confrere.' As he spoke the lying words, Max Keller looked, not at the old man in bed, but at Mademoiselle Jeanne, and there was a kindly, steady, rea.s.suring expression in his eyes.

She had grown scarlet with annoyance, with--was it fear? The Herr Doktor longed to rea.s.sure her, to make her feel at ease. How little she understood the self-control, the generosity, the masculine good sense of the German character! As if he would or could mind anything which this poor, old, prejudiced Frenchman, dying so bravely of a gangrenous wound, was likely to say or think of the splendid surgeons now adorning the German Medical Corps! Courteously he bent forward to hear what the man in bed was saying.

'Yes, my dear confrere, what I am about to tell you deserves to be put on record! But I will not take up much of your time--I will be brief, very brief.'

He waited a moment, and then, with a curious change of tone, very quietly Dr. Rouannes told his story. 'It was a few days before I was wounded, between two of the early battles. Six of us had been sent to hastily organise a field hospital'--a bitter look came into his face.

'As you know, for it is, alas! no secret, we were caught, thanks to our fine Government, quite unprepared.... But to return to our muttons--we of the Red Cross were being cordially entertained by one of our generals and his staff, when one afternoon a number of our brave fellows came in with a capture! Such fools were we, such quixotic fools--it is not yet a month ago, but we have all changed by now--that we were angered when we discovered that this capture consisted of four German ambulance waggons, and of ten German doctors.'

The Herr Doktor moved uncomfortably in his chair; it creaked a little.

'Because we were such quixotic fools--and our general, Monsieur, shared our folly and our quixotry--we invited these German confreres to join us at dinner. We were sorry for them, we felt ashamed they had been detained. We intended to send them away next day, back to their own side. We were the more interested in them owing to the simple fact that, like ourselves, they had not yet been in action--so far was clear, they wore quite new uniforms and their equipment was superb. Ah, Monsieur, their equipment made our mouths water! Another thing also filled us with envy and, yes, a little shame. All ten of these medical gentlemen spoke French, and excellent French too; but only one of us six spoke German!

Fortunately three or four of the officers attached to our General spoke German too--not perhaps very well, but still sufficiently to understand. Fortunately, very fortunately as it turned out, the one of us doctors who could speak German was a very intelligent man. He was, Monsieur, from Luxembourg, and some of his medical studies had actually been carried out in Germany. Bref, he spoke German like a German.'

The old man waited a moment. 'Have patience with me,' he said quietly.

'It will not take you long to hear my story, but the preliminaries are important.... Down we all sat to an excellent dinner. "One thing at least we can show them," observed a friend to me. "Our cooking, at any rate, is superior to theirs!" Our confrere, the man who spoke German, did not say much, he remained curiously silent during the meal; but the Germans talked a good deal with us other five. They proved pleasant, for they were each and all cultivated men. Before we sat down we Frenchmen arranged not to touch on anything controversial. But, as was natural under the circ.u.mstances, we talked what you English call "shop"--we talked, that is, in an impersonal, courteous manner of wounds, and of the treatment of wounds; for from the day war had broken out we had naturally all been reading up everything we could lay our hands on about this terrible and fascinating subject.'

'You are getting tired, Father----'

Jeanne Rouannes came forward as she said the words, but the old man raised his voice: 'No, I am not tired--not tired at all! They were ten Germans to us five Frenchmen, for, as I have already told you, our Luxembourg confrere hardly spoke at all. It was he, however, who towards the end of dinner got up and left the room, and his absence, rather to our surprise, seemed to make certain of our German confreres slightly uneasy. More than one of them asked why he had thus absented himself....

They soon had an answer to their question, for at the end of perhaps ten minutes he came back, and with him was the General. Our German guests rose to their feet with perfect courtesy as the General walked forward.

He was pale, Monsieur--he was pale as you may be sure he never had been, he never would be, in action. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "I have to perform a disagreeable task! Your confrere here--if indeed he is your confrere--is convinced that among you there are a proportion of men who are not doctors, and who, to put it bluntly, know nothing of medicine.

He is convinced, gentlemen, that out of you ten men there are four spies who have taken advantage of the Red Cross uniform to obtain information useful to our enemies. I now ask him, and his five French confreres, to const.i.tute themselves into a court-martial; and you, gentlemen, will each in turn submit yourself to a short cross-examination. You all speak French so perfectly that it will be a very easy matter for you to answer the simple questions which will be put to you."'

Dr. Rouannes drew a long breath.

'I do not mind confessing to you that I thought this proposal an outrage! I had no doubt at all that the ten men before me were Red Cross surgeons. I come, Monsieur, of a Bonapartist family. I can remember 1870--the foolish, senseless cry, "We are betrayed!" On this occasion I felt as if that same ign.o.ble cry was being raised again. "This Luxembourg confrere is afraid. He is nervous. He has the spy mania!" I exclaimed to myself. But I did notice--I could not help noticing--that of the ten men standing before us two had turned horribly pale. But what of that? Might not anyone turn pale when accused of so hateful and loathly a thing as is that of which those men were being accused?'

He paused--it seemed a very long time to his two listeners.