Part 18 (1/2)

”I'm afraid he's exhausted. There he goes--” I had just time to catch the body as it slid from the chair.

Madame Guix grasped his wrist.

”His pulse is good. Hold fast till I get my needle.”

The boy's lips parted and a familiar sound filled the room.

”He's not fainted!” I gasped. ”He's asleep! Snoring!”

Poor little fellow, a bullet in the shoulder and one in the s.h.i.+n, and yet fatigue had overcome the pain! When we finally had to wake him, he apologized so nicely for the trouble he had given us, and sighed with delight when he touched the cool linen sheets.

”You must have found me a pretty mess. I haven't been out of my saddle for three weeks, and we've been fighting every minute since we left Charleroi.”

Our patients all asleep, Madame Guix and I sought a moment's rest in the open. A door in the corridor led out into a lovely old-world garden, surrounded on four sides by a delicately plastered cloister. The harvest moon shone down, covering everything with a silver sheen, and such quiet and calm reigned that it was almost impossible to believe that we were not visitors to some famous landscape, leisurely enjoying a long-planned trip.

We were given no time to dream, however, for hasty footsteps in the corridor and the appearance of a white-robed sister carrying a gun, told us that our task was not yet finished.

On a bench in the cloister, his head buried in one arm, the other tied up in an impromptu sling, we found a blue-coated soldier. He was the image of despair, and though we gently questioned him, he only shook his head from side to side without answering. Finally I sat down on the bench beside him and gently stroking his well arm, pleaded that he would tell us his trouble so that we might help him. He drew his head up with a jerk, and turning on me with an almost furious look in his big black eyes, he snapped, ”Are you married?”

”Yes.”

”Then you know what it is. My G.o.d, my wife and babies, shut up in Valenciennes. It isn't this that's killing me,” he continued, slapping his bandaged arm. ”It's only a flesh wound in the shoulder. But it's the other--the other thoughts. I've seen them at their work, the pack of cursed cowards! but if they ever touch my wife! Perhaps they have, the dirty blackguards, and I'm not there to defend her. Curse them all!”

And he beat his fist on his knees in rage. Then anger, and agony having reached paroxysm, his lips trembled, his mouth twitched, and brusquely throwing his arm around my neck, he buried his head on my shoulder and burst into tears.

The first instant of surprise over, it would have been stupid to be offended. The circ.u.mstances were such that it was impossible not to be moved.

I had never seen a man weep before; I never want to again. For a full quarter-hour he sobbed like a child--this great st.u.r.dy fellow of thirty-five, and through the mist in my eyes I could see that my companion had turned her back on us and was fumbling for her handkerchief in her pocket.

Then little by little the choking sound disappeared, his shoulders ceased to heave and shake, and a moment later our soldier lifted his head and blubbered an apology.

”Forgive me--you've done me so much good. I know I'm a fool, but it had to come--I just couldn't stand it another minute--” and other similar phrases, which we nipped in the bud by asking if he would like a cup of hot soup, or come into the dispensary when we could bandage his wound.

”Anywhere where it's light. I want you to see her picture--she'd think you're great.”

And so before he would let us touch his wound, we had to feel in his breast pocket and draw forth a wallet from which he produced the cherished photographs.

At length we completed his bandaging and I left Madame Guix to add the finis.h.i.+ng touches and went to the kitchen where Soeur Laurent was standing over a huge range, ladling soup from two immense copper boilers. There were men, women and children holding out cups and mugs, a half-dozen dusty cavalrymen were skinning two rabbits in one corner, and as many other soldiers were peeling vegetables which they threw into another pot full of boiling water.

This was no time to ask permission. The poor sister was already half distracted by the demands of the famished refugees and combatants, so taking a ladle from the wall, I dipped into the pot and strained some bouillon into a few cups that I found in a cupboard. I intended giving this to our patients should they wake and call for drink, and I was just lifting my tray to go when a loud thumping on the front door made me set it down in haste.

I looked at Soeur Laurent, who was preparing to answer the summons, much to the dismay of the soldiers.

”I'll go,” I called, and hurried out into the vestibule and down the wide white marble steps. As I threw back the huge oak door someone brushed past me, calling ”Two men and a stretcher,” and there in the brilliant moonlight I beheld the most ghastly spectacle I had as yet witnessed.

Thrown forward in his saddle, his arms clasped about the horse's neck, was the form of a dragoon. The animal that bore him had once been white, but was now so splashed with blood that it was impossible to tell what color was his originally. Both man and beast were wounded, badly wounded, and how they had come here was a miracle.

The alarm had reached the kitchen and hurrying forward, the troopers soon lifted their comrade from his mount and carried him in. A lance had pierced his thigh and the horse's flank, which meant that it had been a hand-to-hand fight, and the blood still flowing freely, proved that the combat was not an hour old!

Madame Guix and I were doing our best when the white face's of my notary and his wife appeared at the door of the dispensary.