Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ Harvey was there, in the crowd. He did not see her at first. He was looking toward the front of the train. So her first glimpse of him was the view of the photograph. His hat was off, and his hair, carefully brushed back, gave him the eager look of the picture.
He was a strong and manly figure, as unlike Henri as an oak is unlike one of Henri's own tall and swaying poplars. Sara Lee drew a long breath. Here after all were rest and peace; love and gentleness; quiet days and still evenings. No more crowds and wounds and weary men, no more great thunderings of guns, no imminence of death. ”

“ Some few, recognizing Henri's officer's cap, saluted. Most of them stumbled on, too weary to so much as glance aside.
Nothing that Sara Lee had dreamed of war was like this. This was dreary and sodden and hopeless. Those fresh troops at the crossroads that day had been blithe and smiling. There had been none of the glitter and panoply of war, but there had been movement, the beating of a drum, the sharp cries of officers as the lines re-formed.
Here there were no lines. Just such a stream of men as at home might issue at night from a coal mine, too weary for speech. ”

“ Gone were Henri's long clean lines, his small waist and broad shoulders, the swing of his walk. Instead, he walked with the bent-kneed swing of the French infantryman, that tireless but awkward marching step which renders the French Army so mobile.
He carried all the impedimenta of a man going into the trenches, an extra jar of water, a flat loaf of bread strapped to his haversack, and an intrenching tool jingling at his belt.
Even Jean smiled as he watched him moving along toward the crowded crossroads—smiled and then sighed. For Jean had lost everything in the war. ”

“ The Great Playwright sees fit, now and then, to take away some well-beloved players. New faces appear and disappear. The music is the thunder of many guns. Henri still plays his big part, Sara Lee her little one. Yet who shall say, in the end, which one has done the better? There are new and ever new standards, but love remains the chief. And love is Sara Lee's one quality—love of her kind, of tired men and weary, the love that shall one day knit this broken world together. And love of one man. ”

“ That was the first time Sara Lee had ever heard the quiet shuffling step of tired men, leaving their trenches under cover of darkness. Henri threw his military cape over her shoulders and she stood in the dark doorway, watching.
The empty street was no longer empty. From gutter to gutter flowed a stream of men, like a sluggish river which narrowed where a fallen house partly filled the way; not talking, not singing, just moving, bent under their heavy and mud-covered equipment. Here and there the clack of wooden sabots on the cobbles told of one poor fellow not outfitted with leather shoes. ”

“ But Henri said nothing. He had indeed thought of everything with a vengeance, with the net result that he was not looking at Sara Lee more than he could help.
These Americans were strange. An American girl would cross the seas, and come here alone with him—a man and human. And she would take for granted that he would do what he was doing for love of his kind—which was partly true; and she would be beautiful and sweet and amiable and quite unself-conscious. And then she would go back home, warm of heart with gratitude, and marry the man of the picture. ”

“ Perhaps Sara Lee was one of those women who are always loved more than they love. There are such women, not selfish, not seeking love, but softly feminine, kind, appealing and genuine. Men need, after all, but an altar on which to lay tribute. And the high, remote white altar that was Sara Lee had already received the love of two strong men.
She was not troubling her head that night, however, about being an altar, of a sort. She cried a little at first, because she was terrified for Henri and because Jean's face was growing pinched and gray. ”

“ When he had got to a canal where the pollard willows were already sending out their tiny red buds, Henri sat down again. The village lay before him, desolate and ruined, a travesty of homes. And on a slight rise, but so concealed from him by the willows that only the great wings showed, stood the windmill.
It was the noon respite then, and beyond the line of poplars all was quiet. The enemy liked time for foods and the Belgians crippled by the loss of that earlier train, were husbanding their ammunition. ”

“ It was just such an hour that she found him giving hot coffee to the German prisoner. It had been but a little earlier when he had taken her to the roof and had there shown her René, lying with his face up toward the sky which had sent him death.
A hundred memories crowded—Henri's love for the Belgian soldiers, and theirs for him; his humor; his absurd riddles. There was the one he had asked René, the very day before the air attack. He had stood stiffly and frowningly before the boy, and he had asked in a highly official tone:
"What must a man be to be buried with military honors?" ”

“ Henri counted off on his fingers.
"I thought of water," he said, "and a house, and firewood, and kettles and furniture. And there I ceased thinking."
It was dusk now. Marie lifted the lid from the stove, and a warm red glow of reflected light filled the little kitchen. It was warm and cozy; the kettle sang like the purring of a cat. And something else that had troubled Sara Lee came out.
"I wonder," she said, "if you are doing all this only because I—well, because I persuaded you." Which she had not. "Do the men really need me here?" ”

“ Sara Lee, through a mist of tears, saw them alone in their drawing-room, having tea as usual, and valiantly speaking of small things, and bravely facing the future, but never, in the bitterest moments, making complaint or protest.
Would America, she wondered, if her hour came, be so brave? Harvey had a phrase for such things. It was "stand the gaff." Would America stand the gaff so well? Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of the body rather than of the soul—physical courage, not moral. ”

“ Harvey was for his own fireside, his office, his little family group. His labor would always be for himself and his own. Whereas Sara Lee was, now and forever, for all the world, her hands consecrated to bind up its little wounds and to soothe its great ones. Harvey craved a cheap and easy peace. She wanted no peace except that bought by service, the peace of a tired body, the peace of the little house in Belgium where, after days of torture, weary men found quiet and ease and the cheer of the open door. ”

“ He thrust it into Marie's open mouth. "And it is gone! Voilà tout!"
It was that evening, while Sara Lee cut bandages and Henri rolled them, that she asked him what his work was. He looked rather surprised, and rolled for a moment without replying. Then: "I am a man of all work," he said. "What you call odd jobs."
"Then you don't do any fighting?"
"In the trenches—no. But now and then I have a little skirmish."
A sort of fear had been formulating itself in Sara Lee's mind. The trenches she could understand or was beginning to understand. ”

“ In those still early days the Belgian trenches were quite accessible from the rear. There were no long tunneled ways to traverse to reach them. One went along through the darkness until the sound of men's voices, the glare of charcoal in a bucket bored with holes, the flicker of a match, told of the buried army almost underfoot or huddled in its flimsy shelters behind the railway embankment.
Beyond the lines a sentry stopped her, hailing her sharply.
"Qui vive?"
"It is I," she called through the rain. "I have brought some chocolate and some soup." ”

“ And Harvey's arms and the Leete house ready to receive her.
However, a ray of hope opened for her at the Savoy—not much, a prospect.
The Savoy was crowded. Men in uniform, a sprinkling of anxious-faced wives and daughters, and more than a sprinkling of gaily dressed and painted women, filled the lobby or made their way slowly up and down the staircase. It was all so utterly different from what she had expected—so bright, so full of life. These well-fed people they seemed happy enough. ”

“ Aviators in leather coats; a few Spahis in cloak and turban, with full-gathered bloomers and high boots; some American ambulance drivers, rather noisy and very young; and many officers, in every uniform of the Allied armies—sat at food together and for a time forgot their anxieties under the influence of lights, food and warmth, and red and white wine mixed with water.
When he chose, Jean could be a delightful companion; not with Henri's lift of spirits, but quietly interesting. And that evening he was a new Jean to Sara Lee, a man of the world, talking of world affairs. ”

“ But it was the ambulances that Sara Lee looked for. Mostly they came at night, a steady stream of them. Sometimes they moved rapidly. Again, one would be going very slowly, and other machines would circle impatiently round it and go on. A silent, grim procession in the moonlight it was, and it helped the girl to bear the solitude of those two interminable days.
Inside those long gray cars with the red crosses painted on the tops—a symbol of mercy that had ceased to protect—inside those cars were wounded men, men who had perhaps lain for hours without food or care. ”

“ Five minutes later, exactly time enough for the train to have reached the village street, German shells began to fall in it. Henri, lying flat on the ground, swore silently and deeply.
In every land during this war there have been those who would sell their country for a price. Sometimes money. Sometimes protection. And of all betrayals that of the man who sells his own country is the most dastardly. Henri, lying face down, bit the grass beneath him in sheer rage. ”

“ And upstairs in a small room with two beds Sara Lee might have been surprised to find Jean, the chauffeur, lying on one, while Henri shaved himself beside the other. For Jean, of the ragged uniform and the patch over one eye, was a count of Belgium, and served Henri because he loved him. And because, too, he was no longer useful in that little army where lay his heart.
Sometime a book will be written about the Jeans of this war, the great friendships it has brought forth between men. And not the least of its stories will be that of this Jean of the one eye. ”

“ Until now Sara Lee had given small thought to Henri's occupation. She knew nothing of war, and the fact that Henri, while wearing a uniform, was unattached, had not greatly impressed her. Had she known the constitution of a modern army she might have wondered over his freedom, his powerful car, his passes and maps. But his detachment had not seemed odd to her. Even his appearance during the bombardment in the uniform of a German lieutenant had meant nothing to her. She had never seen a German uniform. ”

“ She went on, the rumbling of her little cart deadened by the Belgian guns.
Through the near-by trenches that night went the word that near the Repose of the Angels—which was but a hole in the ground and scarcely reposeful—there was to be had hot soup and chocolate and cigarettes. A dozen or so at a time, the men were allowed to come. Officers brought their great capes to keep the girl dry. Boards appeared as if by magic for her to stand on. The rain and the bombardment had both ceased, and a full moon made the lagoon across the embankment into a silver lake. ”

“ Sara Lee, growing accustomed now to little rooms entirely filled with men and typewriters, went from one office to another, walking along the narrow pavements with Henri, through streets filled with soldiers. Once they drew aside to let pass a procession of Belgian refugees, those who had held to their village homes until bombardment had destroyed them—stout peasant women in short skirts and with huge bundles, old men, a few young ones, many children. ”