Part 33 (1/2)

JULIE LANNES

John Scott came slowly out of the darkness and hovered for a while between dusk and light. It was not an unpleasant world in which he lingered. It seemed full of rest and peace. His mind and body were relaxed, and there was no urgent call for him to march and to fight. The insistent drumming of the great guns which could play upon the nervous system until it was wholly out of tune was gone. The only sound he heard was that of a voice, a fresh young voice, singing a French song in a tone low and soft. He had always liked these little love songs of the kind that were sung in a subdued way. They were pathetic and pure as a rose leaf.

He might have opened his eyes and looked for the singer, but he did not.

The twilight region between sleep and consciousness was too pleasant. He had no responsibilities, nothing to do. He had a dim memory that he had belonged to an army, that it was his business to try to kill some one, and to try to keep from getting killed, but all that was gone now. He could lie there, without pain of body or anxiety of mind, and let vague but bright visions pa.s.s through his soul.

His eyes still closed, he listened to the voice. It was very low, scarcely more than a murmur, yet it was thrillingly sweet. It might not be a human voice, after all, just the distant note of a bird in the forest, or the murmur of a brave little stream, or a summer wind among green leaves.

He moved a little and became conscious that he was not going back into that winter region of dusk. His soul instead was steadily moving toward the light. The beat of his heart grew normal, and then memory in a full tide rushed upon him. He saw the great cavalry battle with all its red turmoil, the savage swing of von Boehlen's saber and himself drifting out into the darkness.

He opened his eyes, the battle vanished, and he saw himself lying upon a low, wooden platform. His head rested upon a small pillow, a blanket was under him, and another above him. Turning slowly he saw other men wrapped in blankets like himself on the platform in a row that stretched far to right and left. Above was a low roof, but both sides of the structure were open.

He understood it all in a moment. He had come back to a world of battle and wounds, and he was one of the wounded. But he listened for the soft, musical note which he believed now, in his imaginative state, had drawn him from the mid-region between life and death.

The stalwart figure of a woman in a somber dress with a red cross sewed upon it pa.s.sed between him and the light, but he knew that it was not she who had been singing. He closed his eyes in disappointment, but reopened them. A man wearing a white jacket and radiating an atmosphere of drugs now walked before him. He must be a surgeon. At home, surgeons wore white jackets. Beyond doubt he was one and maybe he was going to stop at John's cot to treat some terrible wound of which he was not yet conscious. He s.h.i.+vered a little, but the man pa.s.sed on, and his heart beat its relief.

Then a soldier took his place in the bar of light. He was a short, thick man in a ridiculous, long blue coat, and equally ridiculous, baggy, red trousers. An obscure cap was c.o.c.ked in an obscure manner over his ears, and his face was covered with a beard, black, thick and untrimmed. He carried a rifle over his shoulder and n.o.body could mistake him for anything but a Frenchman. Then he was not a prisoner again, but was in French hands. That, at least, was a consolation.

It was amusing to lie there and see the people, one by one, pa.s.s between him and the light. He could easily imagine that he was an inspection officer and that they walked by under orders from him. Two more women in those somber dresses with the red crosses embroidered upon them, were silhouetted for a moment against the glow and then were gone. Then a man with his arm in a sling and his face very pale walked slowly by. A wounded soldier! There must be many, very many of them!

The musical murmur ceased and he was growing weary. He closed his eyes and then he opened them again because he felt for a moment on his face a fragrant breath, fleeting and very light. He looked up into the eyes of Julie Lannes. They were blue, very blue, but with infinite wistful depths in them, and he noticed that her golden hair had faint touches of the sun in it. It was a crown of glory. He remembered that he had seen something like it in the best pictures of the old masters.

”Mademoiselle Julie!” he said.

”You have come back,” she said gently. ”We have been anxious about you.

Philip has been to see you three times.”

He noticed that she, too, wore the somber dress with the red cross, and he began to comprehend.

”A nurse,” he said. ”Why, you are too young for such work!”

”But I am strong, and the wounded are so many, hundreds of thousands, they say. Is it not a time for the women of France to help as much as they can?”

”I suppose so. I've heard that in our civil war the women pa.s.sed over the battle fields, seeking the wounded and nursed them afterward. But you didn't come here alone, did you, Mademoiselle Julie?”

”Antoine Picard--you remember him--and his daughter Suzanne, are with me. My mother would have come too, but she is ill. She will come later.”

”How long have I been here?”

”Four days.”

John thought a little. Many and mighty events had happened in four days before he was wounded and many and mighty events may have occurred since.

”Would you mind telling me where we are, Mademoiselle Julie?” he asked.

”I do not know exactly myself, but we are somewhere near the river, Aisne. The German army has turned and is fortifying against us. When the wind blows this way you can hear the rumble of the guns. Ah, there it is now, Mr. Scott!”

John distinctly heard that low, sinister menace, coming from the east, and he knew what it was. Why should he not? He had listened to it for days and days. It was easy enough now to tell the thunder of the artillery from real thunder. He was quite sure that it had never ceased while he was unconscious. It had been going on so long now, as steady as the flowing of a river.