Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ Leaving the bedside of a dying German over whom she had been bending, the young Red Cross nurse hastened down the nave towards him. Her face was a little flushed, her eyes wet, from the piteous ordeal of trying to ease the last moments of a dying man with whose language she was unacquainted, whose last earnest messages she could never hope to transmit to those he loved. ”

“ But even so, as nearer and nearer came the sound of trampling feet, of loud, confused talk, there did come over the Herr Doktor's mind a disagreeable recollection of the old priest's hurried, broken account of the looting and the drinking which were said to have been going on in places near Valoise.
It would be indeed a misfortune were Mademoiselle Rouannès to see the noble German soldier at a disadvantage. And then, while this unspoken fear was still passing through his brain, there suddenly surged up one of the narrower streets leading into the little square a motley crowd of grey-clad men. ”

“ The Paris of these young officers—and he regretted indeed that it was so—was the Paris which, as every good German knew, so aroused the anger and contempt of God as to cause France to be once more crushed and humiliated to the dust. Of this Paris there existed a very fair imitation in what had been euphemistically called 'the night life of Berlin,' but Berlin, to the Herr Doktor at any rate, did not stand for his Fatherland as Paris stands for France. ”

“ Why were the French civilian population so sullen? The great, generous-hearted, all-conquering German army did not war on children and women—not, that is, so long as these women and children behaved in a reasonable, civilised manner.
The Herr Doktor had already heard rumours of certain painful, frightening things which had had to be done, and which were still being done, in Belgium. But the French were a more civilised people than the Belgians—or so the cultured Max Keller had persuaded himself to believe. ”

“ Across the paved Route Nationale was an avenue, or mall, of lime trees which formed a green wall between the road and the river. He crossed the street as he had been directed to do, and then, when actually under the dense arch formed by interlacing branches of green leaves, he uttered an exclamation of relief; for there before him, close to the entrance of the lock, and only to be reached by a narrow stone jetty, lay on the placid, slow-moving waters of the river a broad, white barge, on the side of which was painted a large Red Cross. ”

“ Most fortunately Jeanne Rouannès, in her Red Cross dress, formed part of an International Society, and thus was assured of exceptional respect and courtesy.
And yet as he stood there, debating quickly within himself what it were best to do, he, Max Keller, felt a jealous pang of repugnance at the thought of the young Frenchwoman being brought in contact with—well, with the Prince Egon type of Prussian officer. Deep in his heart he knew only too well how small was the measure of respect that type of German is prepared to pay to any pretty woman with whom a lucky chance brings him in contact. ”

“ Then, as Max Keller, in a quick, rather anxious undertone, explained that Mademoiselle Rouannès was the just orphaned daughter of a French Red Cross doctor, the Herr Stabsarzt became perceptibly more cordial. 'She does not look strong enough for the labours which will presently begin. You must watch over the poor bereaved one,' he said kindly; 'she looks a truly refined, gentle being, as well as full of French prettiness and grace. There are plenty of ugly old women in this town whom we shall be able to make useful when the wounded come in.'
The Herr Doktor's face became transformed. ”

“ One youth, who holds a torch reversed, has his arm round the other's neck. Beneath their feet the clear water has gushed forth since the day when Goethe's eyes first rested on the finished work, and now, lying there in the little cabin-room of a French Red Cross barge, Weimar's dying son seemed to hear the delicious bubbling of the spring. ”

“ But as—as for Mademoiselle Rouannès, she, I assure you, will be perfectly safe! Of her to ask that she should her Red Cross dress again put on, that could I not on the day of her father's funeral do. Indeed, there is no reason why she again should to the barge go down. The men whom I have been compelled as prisoners to keep down there are nearly well, and she has never my own patient nursed.'
His French was poor and halting, but the old priest understood it well enough to be filled with dismay at such—such an obstinate blindness! ”

“ At once, wheeling about with sharp precision, each of the German orderlies ceased whatever work he was engaged on, and with firm, ungentle hands began rolling up in their bed-coverings those among the wounded—French as well as German—who were regarded as 'hopeful cases.' The moans, the sudden cries of pain and fear of the wretched men rang out, and the Red Cross nurse rushed impulsively forward, words of protest on her lips. ”

“ And as he followed the young Red Cross nurse from bed to bed, as he divined what had once been the condition of most of the young soldiers there, and saw what it was now, the Herr Doktor paid his guide a secret, involuntary tribute of respect. She had not exaggerated, as the amateur nurse so often does, the state of three of her patients. The German surgeon saw with concern that two out of the three were indeed beyond his help—they were even now dying.
'The lad over there might by skilled attention benefit. Has no doctor him seen?' he asked abruptly. ”

“ Thoroughness has always been one of the great German virtues—so he reminded himself while sitting in the rather airless ambulance, and listening to his high-born patient's fretful remarks.
As the motor ambulance at last drew up on the road opposite to where the barge was moored, there arose a sudden stir in the houses facing the mall. Windows were flung cautiously open, and dark forms leaned out of them.
Curtly instructing the priest to follow him, and requesting his orderlies to await his return, the Herr Doktor preceded the priest down the stone gangway, and on to the deck of the barge. ”

“ But, with the breaking of the cloudless dawn, came a new terror to the unhappy people, for shells again began dropping into the town, and, for a while at least, panic and confusion reigned, even among the sated German soldiery. The French batteries, hidden away to the right of Valoise, had evidently obtained trustworthy information from within the town, for their attack was carefully directed to the group of villas on the hill where the officers had established themselves, but the church,—the church which now flew the Red Cross flag, and was still the glory of Valoise, was spared. ”

“ The hand she now held was small and delicate, the hand of a surgeon and a student. How kindly that poor hand, now lying limply clasped in hers, had tended her father! At this thought, this recollection, she pressed it more closely, and as she did so, Max Keller, unknowing where he was, though aware of her nearness, came back to semi-consciousness.
Before his sightless eyes there suddenly gleamed the lights of the Schloss at Weimar, reflected in the waters of the Ulm. ”

“ The good God will reward you.'
She opened the door, and after she had closed it again, the Herr Doktor lingered for a moment outside in the little passage which was now open to the stars and cool night air.
And during the hour he spent in the low-ceilinged, white-washed cabin where Prince Egon now lay comfortably settled in a real bed, the Herr Doktor, though his body was by his patient's side, in his spirit dwelt in the other half of the Red Cross barge—where was taking place the ever august and awe-inspiring transit from life to death of two young, sentient, human beings. ”

“ But, naturally, I should not have allowed her to go to a military hospital. A Red Cross barge is different. There are only convalescents there—and old Jacob, whom you will have seen, gave me his word that she should be sheltered from anything unpleasant or—or unsuitable.' He waited a few moments, and then, in a very different voice, added: 'But now, my dear colleague, we will consider my case—otherwise she will be growing impatient.'
He drew down his bed-clothes, and an involuntary exclamation of concern, of surprise, of regret escaped from the Herr Doktor's lips. ”

“ The poor fellow does not know how ill he is!'
The Herr Doktor felt at once a little irritated and a little moved. Apparently all Frenchwomen were like that! The only time he had had the slightest unpleasantness with one of those French noblewomen at the Feld-Lazaret was when he had suddenly spoken, in front of a certain wounded boy, of the fact that he could not last many hours. But whereas he had felt very much annoyed, annoyed and angry, with the rebuke uttered so sharply by the Red Cross nurse on that former occasion, this time irritation was merged in indulgent amusement. ”

“ And then, as he emerged on to the now deserted Grande Place, the Herr Doktor's feelings of relief changed with terrible suddenness to horror. For the first time he felt his nerve give way, and there swept over him an overmastering desire to rush back and obliterate from his memory the hideous sight on which his eyes now rested.
Bathed in the bright, early morning sunlight, close to him, on his right, the stone-rimmed Abreuvoir was surrounded by a herd of dead and dying horses. There they had galloped, maddened by pain ”

“ The Herr Doktor stopped for a moment to speak to a non-commissioned officer, a good fellow who came from his own town of Weimar. 'Keep an eye on the motor ambulance,' he muttered. 'You might, in fact, go and ask His Highness if he requires anything further just now. Tell him I have gone out to look for quiet quarters. It would be impossible to have the Prince here to-night; the house won't settle down for a long time.'
The other grinned, broadly. 'These are comfortable, greatly-to-be-commended quarters, nevertheless, Herr Doktor.' And the Herr Doktor, nodding, hastened after his guide. ”

“ All through those days there had arisen an unwonted stir outside the little house where he was engaged in so skilfully tending a dying man. Along the quiet, sunny Rue des Jardins there had been an incessant coming and going of peasant women pouring into Valoise from the surrounding country. He also remembered now that a group of girls, crying bitterly, had come to see Mademoiselle Rouannès, and that old Thérèse had informed him that they belonged, like Mademoiselle herself, to a Sodalité, or religious society, and that they were leaving the town. ”

“ The Herr Doktor shook his head.
'Ah well, at your age I too was not married! More, like you, perhaps, I intended not to marry. But, some day your heart will play you a trick—wait till then, it's worth it—and you will come to realise how carefully one tries to guard one's children, especially one's daughter, from what is painful and disagreeable. I could not prevent Jeanne from taking charge of this Red Cross barge. She belongs to the Secours aux Blessés Militaires, and she has been through the course they give their young girl members. ”

“ A shell burst close to the Herr Doktor Max Keller. He has been gravely injured, wounded by large fragments of shell in the face and head, while his right arm has been crushed by a piece of masonry or iron girder. He is not in a state to be moved. We must leave him behind in your care. For his sake, I hope a French Red Cross surgeon will soon be here.' He spoke quickly, pronouncing the name of his colleague in the German way, and to Jeanne Rouannès' ears the name, so uttered, suggested nothing. ”

“ And the German Red Cross surgeons and their staff were now only waiting for the return of the Herr Doktor Max Keller, and for the parish priest of Valoise.
All final directions had been given to, and intelligently noted down by, Mademoiselle Rouannès. Not that there was much to say or to hear. Patience and pity were all that seemed likely to be needed, for only the dying—those past hope of recovery either as fighters or as prisoners—were being left behind. ”

“ Very soon—so soon that it seemed retrospectively to have been at the end of the first morning—everything a normal surgeon and his dressers require had been used up, and that though, by the forethought of Herr Doktor Max Keller, all the clean, looted linen which had been put safely away for transport to Germany had early been requisitioned by the Field Ambulance.
The German wounded far outnumbered the French, and at first the fact had filled the French Red Cross nurse with a relief of which she felt ashamed. ”

“ From the days of Henri IV, the Kings of France had possessed a favourite hunting lodge on the edge of the wooded uplands stretching behind the town, and though the Pavillon du Roi had been destroyed during the Revolution, the avenue of high forest trees which had once bounded the royal demesne still remained, faithful witness to a vanished glory, while a fragmentary survival of what had been a grandiose and splendid whole remained in the stone abreuvoir. ”

“ He clambered through into the peaceful demesne with a sensation of gasping relief, and wandered on till a turn brought him close to what looked like a massive ruin, out of which, high up above his head, there lurched two large pieces of fine, brass-incrusted, mahogany furniture. With a shock of regret he realised that this was all that now remained of the largest of the villas commanding the Grande Place, for through an open door, set deep in the wall of the garden, he caught a glimpse of the familiar open space. ”

“ Those rhapsodies of long ago had left him unmoved, partly because as a student he had adored, with a selfless, hopeless passion, a famous singer far older than himself, and partly because, with the passing of years, he had seen the springtide romance of youth almost invariably dulled down into what would have been, to such a man as he knew himself to be, unendurably dull domesticity. ”

“ Soon their ways had parted, and it had seemed to the German surgeon that the whole remaining population of Valoise, or at any rate all the old women and all the children too, intended to be present at the funeral of Dr. Rouannès. He noted, with a certain indulgent amusement, that there was an air of subdued festivity about those black-clad feminine mourners, for the French are a gregarious people, and to the women walking in slow-moving groups towards the church, any excuse for meeting was welcome. ”