Part 32 (1/2)

Sound was its barometer. Farther and farther the voice of the guns had travelled, but never out of hearing. It hovered at one point as the t.i.tanic struggle came to a decision. The three talked little; consciously or unconsciously, they were always listening for something from the distance. No newspapers; no letters; no telegrams! Only flagellating wonder and suspense! All the world behind dense curtains of secrecy, not knowing whether, when they were drawn, there would be sunlight or black night outside.

Helen went on with her sketching or pretended to, but found herself staring at the paper and listening and praying for France. Twice Henriette attempted to continue with the portrait, but she made no progress. All three read a good deal, Helen by herself, slipping away from the other two when they were together. They awakened and they went to sleep to the echo of low thunder, thunder marching in a treadmill. Then there were lapses when the guns were not heard, and something seemed to catch in their throats. Had the Germans won? When the wind changed and the rumble became distinct again, what relief!

Their steps seemed always to lead to the terrace, for there they could hear more plainly; and there they would walk up and down after dinner, the dew-moist air soft against their faces, Phil in the middle, with the voices of the two girls so alike that they seemed to express a delightful cousins.h.i.+p in one personality. He had ceased to think of the future. Everything waited on the result of the battle. At times he wished for action; that he, too, might be striking some kind of a blow.

Those strolls in the darkness and the voice in his ears, now Helen's, now Henriette's, seemed to have become a part of his life; something from which he would never be disa.s.sociated. It was the symbol for Henriette, frightened and helpless, as he carried her to the gully and for Helen emerging, with triumph s.h.i.+ning in her eyes, from the dust and smoke of the sh.e.l.l that had exploded between them. Helen had a little prayer for France which she used to repeat, sometimes softly, again belligerently with hands clenched.

”As if prayers did any good!” she said. ”Only killing counts! A butcher boy from Berlin could fire a sh.e.l.l that would destroy the Venus di Milo.”

”France will win because there is still a G.o.d in heaven!” was the rallying judgment of Jacqueline, when everybody was blue.

Up at dawn, sweeping, dusting, and scouring, it was she who brought the first glorious word. She burst into Helen's room, awakening her with a cry of:

”It's nearer--nearer! Listen!”

Helen ran to Henriette's room and then she pounded on Phil's door.

Could imagination be deceiving them again? Phil slipped into his clothes and hurried out to the terrace. He could see the burst of light smoke once more against the green of the hills which had hidden the battle, and transport going to the rear along the road was more numerous. Only ammunition trucks and ambulances were moving forward.

He ran back to the house in schoolboy delight, shouting the news.

”They will dent my saucepans, will they,” said Jacqueline, ”and rub sausage grease into my floors!”

She, too, went to the terrace to watch that unfolding panorama of German retreat; of cavalry which was covering it caught in the hot breath of the _soixante-quinze_; of guns which were covering it forced back from position to position.

Staggering through the village street came the conquerors of yesterday, their glazed eyes under heavy lids, keeping dogged step from force of long discipline--they who were not to see Paris! French sh.e.l.l-fire kept approaching till shrapnel began to break over the village. Again the three had to take to the cellar, where for a while they heard the rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire and an occasional cheer--a kind of cheer that sounded strangely familiar to Phil. When they came upstairs the figures pa.s.sing in the village street were no longer in green, but in khaki. The remnants of the little British army which had retreated from Mons was tasting the joy of pursuit.

Everybody in the village was out, lining the road; everybody, from Mere Perigord to infants in arms, displaying the smiles they had been conserving while they had been glaring at the Germans. The children gathered flowers and tossed them to _les Anglais_ before their eyes in the life, looking just as they had looked in the picture papers.

”How do you like being a conquering hero, Bill?” one _Anglais_ called to another, as he stuck a rose in his cap and relit the ”f.a.g” cigarette stump which he had been saving behind his ear in the midst of charges and sh.e.l.l-fire. Plodding stoically on, these regulars, taking the day's work as it came, and this was a day's work to their liking. ”Are we down-hearted? No!” Every one of them looked at Phil. There was no mistaking him; he must speak English. The lean, tired officers waved their hands in greeting to the young man and two girls who were beaming the welcome of their hearts.

”Sorry we can't stay to tea!” one called merrily.

It was a suggestion. Afternoon tea for the Englis.h.!.+ An opportunity for the chateau to furnish an important British munition of war, as the battalion halted waiting orders from somebody up ahead! Jacqueline made a pail of tea, which the three pa.s.sed out, along with slices of bread spread with jam as long as there was any left.

”Jolly good of you!” said the officers. ”Such good tea, too--and jam!

This takes a bit of beating. Thanks awfully!”

The battalion pa.s.sed on with the tide of battle.

”This is the only time that I have not felt perfectly helpless,” said Helen. ”There is so little a woman can do when fighting is all that counts.”

”I was thinking of that myself,” said Phil. ”How helpless I am, though an able-bodied man!”

”But you did knock a German down!” said Helen, with one of her mischievous glances.

From the terrace they could now see the French everywhere, in the ravines and on the roads, sweeping across the fields in the wonderfully ordered system of a great army which had had generations of training.

”It is good--good--good!” said Helen.

They had recovered something which they had lost: the sense of freedom.