Part 12 (1/2)

At the library door he stopped, looked in, and said, ”This is nice”; and before I could get together decent French enough to say that I was honored--or my house was--at his approval, he asked if he might be so indiscreet as to take the liberty of inviting some of his fellow officers to come into the garden and see the view. Naturally I replied that Monsieur le Chef-Major was at home and his comrades would be welcome to treat the garden as if it were theirs, and he made me another of his bows and marched away, to return in five minutes, accompanied by half a dozen officers and a priest. As they pa.s.sed the window, where I still sat, they all bowed at me solemnly, and Chef-Major Weitzel stopped to ask if madame would be so good as to join them, and explain the country, which was new to them all.

Naturally madame did not wish to. I had not been out there since Sat.u.r.day night--was it less than forty-eight hours before? But equally naturally I was ashamed to refuse. It would, I know, seem super-sentimental to them. So I reluctantly followed them out. They stood in a group about me--these men who had been in battles, come out safely, and were again advancing to the firing line as smilingly as one would go into a ballroom--while I pointed out the towns and answered their questions, and no one was calmer or more keenly interested than the Breton priest, in his long soutane with the red cross on his arm.

All the time the cannon was booming in the northeast, but they paid no more attention to it than if it were a thres.h.i.+ng-machine.

There was a young lieutenant in the group who finally noticed a sort of reluctance on my part-which I evidently had not been able to conceal--to looking off at the plain, which I own I had been surprised to find as lovely as ever. He taxed me with it, and I confessed, upon which he said:--

”That will pa.s.s. The day will come--Nature is so made, luckily--when you will look off there with pride, not pain, and be glad that you saw what may prove the turning of the tide in the n.o.blest war ever fought for civilization.”

I wonder.

The chef-major turned to me--caught me looking in the other direction--to the west where deserted Esbly climbed the hill.

”May I be very indiscreet?” he asked.

I told him that he knew best.

”Well,” he said, ”I want to know how it happens that you--a foreigner, and a woman--happen to be living in what looks like exile--all alone on the top of a hill--in war-time?”

I looked at him a moment--and--well, conditions like these make people friendly with one another at once. I was, you know, never very reticent, and in days like these even the ordinary reticences of ordinary times are swept away. So I answered frankly, as if these men were old friends, and not the acquaintances of an hour, that, as I was, as they could see, no longer young, very tired, and yet not weary with life, but more interested than my strength allowed. I had sought a pleasant retreat for my old age,--not too far from the City of my Love,--and that I had chosen this hilltop for the sake of the panorama spread out before me; that I had loved it every day more than the day before; and that exactly three months after I had sat down on this hilltop this awful war had marched to within sight of my gate, and banged its cannon and flung its deadly bombs right under my eyes.

Do you know, every mother's son of them threw back his head--and laughed aloud. I was startled. I knew that I had shown unnecessary feeling--but I knew it too late. I made a dash for the house, but the lieutenant blocked the way. I could not make a scene. I never felt so like it in my life.

”Come back, come back,” he said. ”We all apologize. It was a shame to laugh. But you are so vicious and so personal about it. After all, you know, the G.o.ds were kind to you--it did turn back--those waves of battle. You had better luck than Canute.”

”Besides,” said the chef-major, ”you can always say that you had front row stage box.”

There was nothing to do to save my face but to laugh with them. And they were still laughing when they tramped across the road to dinner. I returned to the house rather mortified at having been led into such an unnecessary display of feeling, but I suppose I had been in need of some sort of an outlet.

After dinner they came back to the lawn to lie about smoking their cigarettes. I was sitting in the arbor. The battle had become a duel of heavy artillery, which they all found ”magnificent,” these men who had been in such things.

Suddenly the chef-major leaped to his feet.

”Listen--listen--an aeroplane.”

We all looked up. There it was, quite low, right over our heads.

”A Taube!” he exclaimed, and before he had got the words out of his mouth, Crick-crack-crack snapped the musketry from the field behind us--the soldiers had seen it. The machine began to rise. I stood like a rock,--my feet glued to the ground,--while the regiment fired over my head. But it was sheer will power that kept me steady among these men who were treating it as if it were a Fourteenth of July show. I heard a ping.

”Touched,” said the officer as the Taube continued to rise. Another ping.

Still it rose, and we watched it sail off toward the hills at the southeast.

”Hit, but not hurt,” sighed the officer, dropping down on the gra.s.s again, with a sigh. ”It is hard to bring them down at that height with rifles, but it can be done.”

”Perhaps the English battery will get it,” said I; ”it is going right toward it.”

”If there is an English battery up there,” replied he, ”that is probably what he is looking for. It is hardly likely to unmask for a Taube. I am sorry we missed it. You have seen something of the war. It is a pity you should not have seen it come down. It is a beautiful sight.”