Part 34 (1/2)

Julie said some words to Picard, and with a little _au revoir_ to John, went away. John watched her until she was out of sight. He realized again that young French girls were kept secluded from the world, immured almost. But the world had changed. Since a few men met around a table six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had come. Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might be going faster. War, the leveler, was prodigiously at work.

These were tremendous things, but he had himself to think about too, and personality can often outweigh the universe. Julie was gone, taking a lot of the light with her, but Picard was still there, and while he was grizzled and stern he was a friend.

John sat up quite straight and Picard did not try to keep him from it.

”Picard,” he said, ”you see me, don't you?”

”I do, sir, with these two good eyes of mine, as good as those in the head of any young man, and fifty is behind me.”

”That's because you're not intellectual, Picard, but we'll return to our lamb chops. I am here, I, a soldier of France, though an American--for which I am grateful--laid four days upon my back by a wound. And was that wound inflicted by a sh.e.l.l, shrapnel, bomb, lance, saber, bullet or any of the other n.o.ble weapons of warfare? No, sir, it was done by a horse, and not by a kick, either, he jostled me with his knee when he wasn't looking. Would you call that an honorable wound?”

”All wounds received in the service of one's country or adopted country are honorable, sir.”

”You give me comfort, Picard. But spread the story that I was not hit by a horse's knee but by a piece of sh.e.l.l, a very large and wicked piece of sh.e.l.l. I want it to get into the histories that way. The greatest of Frenchmen, though he was an Italian, said that history was a fable agreed upon, and you and I want to make an agreement about myself and a sh.e.l.l.”

”I don't understand you at all, sir.”

”Well, never mind. Tell me how long Mademoiselle Julie is going to stay here. I'm a great friend of her brother, Lieutenant Philip Lannes. Oh, we're such wonderful friends! And we've been through such terrible dangers together!”

”Then, perhaps it's Lieutenant Lannes and not his sister, Mademoiselle Julie, that you wish to inquire about.”

”Don't be ironical, Picard. I was merely digressing, which I admit is wrong, as you're apt to distract the attention of your hearer from the real subject. We'll return to Mademoiselle Julie. Do you think she's going to remain here long?”

”I would tell you if I could, sir, but no one knows. I think it depends upon many circ.u.mstances. The young lady is most brave, as becomes one of her blood, and the changes in France are great. All of us who may not fight can serve otherwise.”

”Why is it that you're not fighting, Picard?”

The great peasant flung up his arms angrily.

”Because I am beyond the age. Because I am too old, they said. Think of it! I, Antoine Picard, could take two of these little officers and crush them to death at once in my arms! There is not in all this army a man who could walk farther than I can! There is not one who could lift the wheel of a cannon out of the mud more quickly than I can, and they would not take me! What do a few years mean?”

”Nothing in your case, Antoine, but they'll take you, later on. Never fear. Before this war is over every country in it will need all the men it can get, whether old or young.”

”I fear that it is so,” said the gigantic peasant, a shadow crossing his stern face, ”but, sir, one thing is decided. France, the France of the Revolution, the France that belongs to its people, will not fall.”

John looked at him with a new interest. Here was a peasant, but a thinking peasant, and there were millions like him in France. They were not really peasants in the old sense of the word, but workingmen with a stake in the country, and the mind and courage to defend it. It might be possible to beat the army of a nation, but not a nation in arms.

”No, Picard,” said John, ”France will not fall.”

”And that being settled, sir,” said Picard, with grim humor, ”I think you'd better lie down again. You've talked a lot for a man who has been unconscious four days.”

”You're right, my good Picard, as I've no doubt you usually are. Was I troublesome, much, when I was out in the dark?”

”But little, sir. I've lifted much heavier men, and that Dr. Delorme is strong himself, not afraid, either, to use the knife. Ah, sir, you should have seen how beautifully he worked right under the fire of the German guns! Psst! if need be he'd have taken a leg off you in five minutes, as neatly as if he had been in a hospital in Paris!”

John felt apprehensively for his legs. Both were there, and in good condition.

”If that man ever comes near me with the intention of cutting off one of my legs I'll shoot him, good fellow and good doctor though he may be,”

he said. ”Help me up a little higher, will you, Picard? I want to see what kind of a place we're in.”

Picard built up a little pyramid of saddles and knapsacks behind him and John drew himself up with his back against them. The rows and rows of wounded stretched as far as he could see, and there was a powerful odor of drugs. Around him was a forest, of the kind with which he had become familiar in Europe, that is, of small trees, free from underbrush. He saw some distance away soldiers walking up and down and beyond them the vague outline of an earthwork.