The Red Cross Barge Part 8

Taking the curiously shaped _benitier_ in her right hand, she raised it slowly in the air, and then, in startled surprise, she paused, for all at once there rose above the silent crowd, almost entirely composed of old women and little children, a long drawn-out, sibilant scream.

Only one of those now gathered there, in that wind-swept cemetery of Valoise, knew what that sinister sound portended; so well indeed did he know it that instinctively he made a movement as if to throw himself on the ground. But he restrained the impulse. And as Jeanne Rouannes waited uncertainly, the women round her gazed up into the sky from whence came the strange sound. Like her, they were all startled and surprised rather than afraid.

Then came a m.u.f.fled sound of explosion; an acrid smell floated on the light wind, and the Herr Doktor, glancing round, saw that the missile had struck the further wall of the enclosure.

The priest raised his hand. 'I think it is only a stray sh.e.l.l,' he called out in a loud voice. 'Do not be frightened, my children. Go home quietly, and take to your cellars, in case others follow it.'

There followed a general _sauve-qui-peut_. Mothers and grandmothers took up their little children, and galloped down the stony way, wailing as they ran. Alone among the women there Jeanne Rouannes remained quietly standing in front of her father's bier. As for the old priest, he moved quickly to the aperture in the wall from whence the country below lay spread out map-wise, and the Herr Doktor followed him.

Both men bent down over the parapet, and then each straightened himself and looked at the other quickly, furtively, to see if what he had seen was indeed there, and no delusion bred of a weary and excited brain.

The Route Nationale, which followed the course of the river at the bottom of the town, was dark with moving ma.s.ses of artillery, of motor wagons, horses, and men. The long sinuous coil was slow moving, yet there was an air of haste and of disorder about it. With an uneasy sense of surprise and discomfort the Herr Doktor gradually began to realise that they were his own countrymen hastening thus in the wrong direction--away from Paris, instead of towards it.

Even as the two, the Frenchman and the German, looked amazedly down, the dark, thick line halted, broke, and swerved; it was clear that in a few minutes the troops composing it would be over-running all Valoise.

The priest turned to the man standing by his side. 'The Germans have come back,' he said, and there was a note of deep sadness in his voice.

'They are in great force, and I trust, Monsieur, that you will help me to keep order in my poor town.'

'The town has nothing to fear.' The Herr Doktor spoke in a loud voice.

His nerves were taut. The other's tone, at once commanding and appealing, irritated him. 'With every consideration will you treated be,' he said stiffly. 'I will myself go and the Commandant seek out.'

The old priest, glancing round, saw that Jeanne Rouannes was practically out of earshot. Approaching yet closer, he said urgently, 'I also trust to you, Monsieur le Medecin, to make a special effort to protect that poor girl, and I appeal to you to tell me now, at once, if she will be safer with you or with me? In any case it is clear she must go home as soon as possible, and a.s.sume there once more her Red Cross uniform. That in itself is a protection.'

The Herr Doktor looked straight into the face of the priest. He saw there fear, horror, and indignation struggling for mastery. Very different had been the att.i.tude, the appearance, of Monsieur le Cure when they had first met on that August day, nearly three weeks ago, when the Uhlans had taken peaceful possession of Valoise! Then there had been no sign of fear on the priest's face, and that though he had absurdly supposed himself to be about to be led out and shot. But now? Now the old Frenchman did look afraid.

As for a moment the Herr Doktor remained silent, the other repeated, with a touch of angry impatience and urgency in his voice--'What is it you advise? What do you believe will be best for the protection of Mademoiselle Rouannes? I beg of you to tell me! There is no time to lose--soon it will be too late for me to do anything, for they will want me again as a hostage.'

'Yes,' said the Herr Doktor reluctantly, 'I fear it is true that you an hostage will have to be. But as--as for Mademoiselle Rouannes, she, I a.s.sure you, will be perfectly safe! Of her to ask that she should her Red Cross dress again put on, that could I not on the day of her father's funeral do. Indeed, there is no reason why she again should to the barge go down. The men whom I have been compelled as prisoners to keep down there are nearly well, and she has never my own patient nursed.'

His French was poor and halting, but the old priest understood it well enough to be filled with dismay at such--such an obstinate blindness!

'Is it possible you do not know,' he said in a quick whisper, 'how the Prussians have been behaving since they began to retreat--since there began that great battle three days ago?'

The German surgeon stared at the old French priest. He felt amazed, incredulous, and yet--yet a gleam of doubt filled his soul. 'I have nothing heard!' he exclaimed. 'You forget that I the last few days constantly with Dr. Rouannes have been. Why did you me unknowing leave of what you seem to think I should have known? Even now I do not what you mean understand. And I must of you request to tell me what it is you believe?'

But even as he asked the question the Herr Doktor's mind had rushed back to many apparently insignificant happenings of the last few days....

All through those days there had arisen an unwonted stir outside the little house where he was engaged in so skilfully tending a dying man.

Along the quiet, sunny Rue des Jardins there had been an incessant coming and going of peasant women pouring into Valoise from the surrounding country. He also remembered now that a group of girls, crying bitterly, had come to see Mademoiselle Rouannes, and that old Therese had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself, to a Sodalite, or religious society, and that they were leaving the town.

But he, Max Keller, had been too absorbed in his dying patient, and in that dying patient's daughter, to give any thought at all to what was going on in Valoise, outside the house and walled garden where he spent so many hours of each day.

'There has been a great battle,' went on the priest quickly, 'nay, a series of battles, in which your armies have been turned back--back from the very gates of Paris! I regret, Monsieur, to be the one to give what to you must be bad tidings----'

The Herr Doktor shook his head impatiently. He did not believe a word of the old Frenchman's incredible statement. It was possible that some trifling portion of the victorious German hosts had been caught at a disadvantage--not likely to be so, but still possible; and a temporary check would, of course, explain what was now going on down there by the river....

But what was this the parish priest of Valoise was muttering, almost in his ear, speaking so fast and so low that he, Max Keller, found it hard to follow him?

'And in their retreat--the retreat which is now a rout--I regret to tell you that your countrymen are doing terrible things! They are burning, Monsieur le Medecin, burning and sacking as they go--terrorising our population. Sometimes they do worse--far worse even than that!' He came nearer to the younger man, and more slowly, more calmly, he said: 'Four days ago, I arranged to send most of the young girls away from Valoise.

They had to go walking, poor lambs of the Lord. We sent them through the woods,'--he waved his arm vaguely towards the further side of the cemetery--'where our own soldiers are said to be. It was but a measure of precaution, and one urged on me--I will do him that justice--by the Mayor. He always believed that some of your soldiery would come back this way. I did not agree with him. But I was wrong and he was right, and the G.o.d in whom he does not believe will, I feel sure, reward him for having saved so many poor innocents. But, as you will at once comprehend, to get Jeanne Rouannes away was out of the question--I did not even think of it.'

And then the Herr Doktor uttered the first insulting words he had said in France: 'Your Mayor, and you yourself, Monsieur le Cure, judge Germans by Frenchmen. Believe me, your young countrywomen in no danger are.'

Again there suddenly rose that long drawn-out whistling, portent of destruction and disaster, and this time the Herr Doktor rushing forward, called out loudly, 'Prostrate yourself, Mademoiselle! Prostrate yourself, Monsieur le Cure!'

But neither of the two who heard his shout of warning followed his example, indeed the meaning of his words scarcely penetrated their brains. Again the noisesome missile struck the further wall of the cemetery, and this time a huge fragment of the sh.e.l.l hurled itself backwards, to within a few inches of the head of the rudely-fashioned coffin.

With a startled cry of pain and fear Mademoiselle Rouannes shrank back, and covered her eyes with her hands.

'I can you indeed no moment longer allow to remain!' the Herr Doktor made a leap to where she stood. With an awkward movement he took hold of her arm, and, unresisting, she allowed herself to be hurried along the broad sanded path, and down the steep, stony way into the deserted square.

3

When they had reached the middle of the square, the Herr Doktor slackened his pace and looked about him in some perplexity. He suspected the two sh.e.l.ls which had fallen so wide to be French sh.e.l.ls, and if that were so, there might soon be sharp fighting in the very streets of Valoise. Anxiously he began asking himself which would be the safest shelter for the girl who now stood, silent and rigid, by his side?

Should he take her home to the house in the Haute-Ville or down to the Red Cross barge?

Four streets led out of the square. It was clear that the widest must lead more or less straight down to the river. It was along that wider way that Monsieur le Cure, his sable-and-silver vestments flapping in the wind, was now hurrying. Staring after the strange, solitary figure, the Herr Doktor bethought himself uneasily of the old man's words of warning. It might well be true that Jeanne Rouannes would be safer in her Red Cross uniform--safer, that is, from the discourtesy of rough, stern words. Not for a moment did Max Keller fear or admit, even in his innermost heart, that his fellow-countrymen could behave ill to the women of conquered France. To his mind such an accusation was as base as it was baseless. But he knew that many apparently harsh rules and regulations had had to be drawn up concerning the conduct of the civilian population. Most fortunately Jeanne Rouannes, in her Red Cross dress, formed part of an International Society, and thus was a.s.sured of exceptional respect and courtesy.

And yet as he stood there, debating quickly within himself what it were best to do, he, Max Keller, felt a jealous pang of repugnance at the thought of the young Frenchwoman being brought in contact with--well, with the Prince Egon type of Prussian officer. Deep in his heart he knew only too well how small was the measure of respect that type of German is prepared to pay to any pretty woman with whom a lucky chance brings him in contact. Governed by that secret, reluctant knowledge, the Herr Doktor at last traced out a certain line of conduct for himself--one, too, which he believed it would be quite easy to carry out. That course was to take Mademoiselle Rouannes back to her own house, after which, having left her safe with old Jacob and Therese, he, in his official capacity, would seek out the officer in command of the troops about to occupy Valoise, and obtain a pa.s.s for a French Red Cross nurse. With that in his possession, it would surely be easy for them to proceed to Paris in his motor ambulance.

'Which way to your house leads?' he asked quietly.

But even as the words left his lips, there suddenly surged up a loud, confused, and menacing sound. With a strange feeling of fear, strange to Max Keller, for he was a brave man, he realised that it was the curious, sinister clamour caused by the undisciplined tramp of a crowd of hurrying men--a sound differing ominously from that produced by the ordered, measured, rhythmic march of soldiers....

Nearer and nearer came the tramp of thudding, shuffling feet. Jeanne Rouannes moved closer to him, so close that he heard the hoa.r.s.e, despairing whisper answering her own unuttered question--'_Ce sont les Prussiens!_'

She was glancing about her this way and that--a wild spasm of dread, that of a trapped creature, in her pale face. But every window in the square had been shuttered, every door locked and barred.

'Shall I go up into the cemetery again?' She spoke in English, her lips hardly moving.

The Herr Doktor looked straight into her face; her eyes were steady, but her lips trembled, and her hands were pressed together. He divined the mingled fear and shame--the shame and fear of being so horribly afraid--which possessed her.

'No, no--with me are you quite safe!'

Ah! If only he could make her, his beloved, understand his own complete understanding of her--if only he could lift her beautiful soul up into the ether where his own had dwelt ever since he had first seen her--then she would know how secure from harm she was in his company, and in that of his fellow-countrymen!

But the time had not yet come when he could say even a millionth part of what was in his heart, and so with a jolt he came down to this earth-bound little French town of Valoise, and once more he repeated rea.s.suringly, 'With me are you quite safe.' And indeed he believed what he said. He had no fear but that his fellow-countrymen, even if drunk with victory, aye, and perchance with good French wine as well, would respect his uniform, and the presence of the mourning lady by his side.

But even so, as nearer and nearer came the sound of trampling feet, of loud, confused talk, there did come over the Herr Doktor's mind a disagreeable recollection of the old priest's hurried, broken account of the looting and the drinking which were said to have been going on in places near Valoise.

It would be indeed a misfortune were Mademoiselle Rouannes to see the n.o.ble German soldier at a disadvantage. And then, while this unspoken fear was still pa.s.sing through his brain, there suddenly surged up one of the narrower streets leading into the little square a motley crowd of grey-clad men.

Soldiers? Yes, men belonging to the famous Brandenburg Regiment, but now, to the Herr Doktor's disciplined eyes, presenting a sorry, and indeed, a shocking appearance. Some lacked their helmets, some their coats; a few still had their rifles, but all were dirty and unkempt.

It was not the first time the Herr Doktor had seen soldiers in this guise; so had many of the victorious German troops appeared after the hard-fought battle of Charleroi. And yet? And yet there had been a vast difference between those men and these, though he was not yet able to define where that difference lay.