Chapter XIX

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

　　In the little house of mercy two weeks went by, and then a third.Soldiers marching out to the trenches sometimes wore flowers tuckedgayly in their caps. More and more Allied aëroplanes were in theair. Sometimes, standing in the streets, Sara Lee saw one far overhead,while balloon-shaped clouds of bursting shells hung far below it.

　　Once or twice in the early morning a German plane, flying so low thatone could easily see the black cross on each wing, reconnoitered thevillage for wagon trains or troops. Always they found it empty.

　　Hope had almost fled now. In the afternoons Marie went to the ruinedchurch, and there knelt before the heap of marble and masonry that hadonce been the altar, and prayed. And Sara Lee, who had been brought upa Protestant and had never before entered a Catholic church, took togoing there too. In some strange fashion the peace of former daysseemed to cling to the little structure, roofless as it was. On quietdays its silence was deeper than elsewhere. On days of much firing thesound from within its broken walls seemed deadened, far away.

　　Marie burned a candle as she prayed, for that soul in purgatory which shehad once loved, and now pitied. Sara Lee burned no candle, but sheknelt, sometimes beside Marie, sometimes alone, and prayed for manythings: that Henri should be living, somewhere; that the war might end;that that day there would be little wounding; that some day the Belgiansmight go home again; and that back in America Harvey might grow tounderstand and forgive her. And now and then she looked into the verydepths of her soul, and on those days she prayed that her homelandmight, before it was too late, see this thing as she was seeing it. Thewanton waste of it all, the ghastly cruelty the Germans had brought intothis war.

　　Sara Lee's vague thinking began to crystallize. This war was nota judgment sent from on high to a sinful world. It was the wickedimposition of one nation on other nations. It was national. It wasalmost racial. But most of all it was a war of hate on the Germanside. She had never believed in hate. There were ugly passions in theworld—jealousy, envy, suspicion; but not hate. The word was not in herrather limited vocabulary.

　　There was no hate on the part of the men she knew. The officers whostopped in on their way to and from the trenches were gentlemen andsoldiers. They were determined and grave; they resented, they evenloathed. But they did not hate. The little Belgian soldiers werebewildered, puzzled, desperately resentful. But of hate, as translatedinto terms of frightfulness, they had no understanding.

　　Yet from the other side were coming methods of war so wantonly cruel,so useless save as inflicting needless agony, as only hate could devise.No strategic value justified them. They were spontaneous outgrowths ofvenom, nursed during the winter deadlock and now grown to full size anddestructive power.

　　The rumor of a gas that seared and killed came to the little house asearly as February. In March there came the first victims, poor writhingcreatures, deprived of the boon of air, their seared lungs collapsedand agonized, their faces drawn into masks of suffering. Some of themdied in the little house, and even after death their faces held theimprint of horror.

　　To Sara Lee, burying her own anxiety under the cloak of service, therecame new and terrible thoughts. This was not war. The Germans had senttheir clouds of poisoned gas across the inundation, but had made noattempt to follow. This was killing, for the lust of killing; suffering,for the joy of inflicting pain.

　　And a day or so later she heard of The Hague Convention. She had notknown of it before. Now she learned of that gentlemen's agreement amongnations, and that it said: "The use of poison or of poisoned weapons isforbidden." She pondered that carefully, trying to think dispassionately.Now and then she received a copy of a home newspaper, and she saw thatthe use of poison gases was being denied by Germans in America and setdown to rumor and hysteria.

　　So, on a cold spring day, she sat down at the table in the salle à mangerand wrote a letter to the President, beginning "Dear Sir"; and tellingwhat she knew of poison gas. She also, on second thought, wrote one toAndrew Carnegie, who had built a library in her city. She felt thatthe expense to him of sending some one over to investigate would not beprohibitive, and something must be done.

　　She never heard from either of her letters, but she felt better forhaving written them. And a day or two later she received from Mrs.Travers, in England, a small supply of the first gas masks of the war.Simple and primitive they were, those first masks; useless, too, as itturned out—a square of folded gauze, soaked in some solution and thendried, with tapes to tie it over the mouth and nose. To adjust them thesoldiers had but to stoop and wet them in the ever-present water inthe trench, and then to tie them on.

　　Sara Lee gave them out that night, and there was much mirth in the littlehouse, such mirth as there had not been since Henri went away. TheBelgians called it a bal masque, and putting them on bowed before oneanother and requested dances, and even flirted coyly with each other overtheir bits of white gauze. And in the very middle of the gayety someone propounded one of Henri's idiotic riddles; and Sara Lee went acrossto her little room and closed the door and stood there with her eyesshut, for fear she would scream.

　　Then, one day, coming out of the little church, she saw the low brokengray car turn in at the top of the street and come slowly, so veryslowly, toward her. There were two men in it.

　　One was Henri.

　　She ran, stumbling because of tears, up the street. It was Henri! Therewas no mistake. There he sat beside Jean, brushed and very neat; andvery, very white.

　　"Mademoiselle!" he said, and came very close to crying himself when hesaw her face. He was greatly excited. His sunken eyes devoured her asshe ran toward him. Almost he held out his arms. But he could not dothat, even if he would, for one was bandaged to his side.

　　It is rather sad to record how many times Sara Lee wept during heramazing interlude. For here is another time. She wept for joy andwretchedness. She stood on the running board and cried and smiled. AndJean winked his one eye rapidly.

　　"This idiot, mademoiselle," he said gruffly, "this maniac—he would notremain in Calais, with proper care. He must come on here. And rapidly.Could he have taken the wheel from me we should have been here an hourago. But for once I have an advantage."

　　The car jolted to the little house, and Jean helped Henri out. Such astrange Henri, smiling and joyous, and walking at a crawl, even withJean's support. He protested violently against being put to bed, andwhen he found himself led into Sara Lee's small room he openly rebelled.

　　"Never!" he said stubbornly, halting in the doorway. "This ismademoiselle's boudoir. Her drawing-room as well. I am going to themill house and—"

　　He staggered.

　　So Sara Lee's room had a different occupant for a time, a thin andfine-worn young Belgian, who yielded to Sara Lee when Jean gave up indespair, and who proceeded, most unmanfully, to faint as soon as he wasbetween the blankets.

　　If Sara Lee hoped to nurse Henri she was doomed to disappointment. Jeanit was who took over the care of the boy, a Jean who now ate prodigiously,and whistled occasionally, and slept at night robed in his blanket on thefloor beside Henri's bed, lest that rebellious invalid get up and try tomove about.

　　On the first night, with the door closed, against Henri's entreaties,while the little house received its evening complement of men, and withHenri lying back on his pillows, fresh dressed as to the wounds in hisarm and chest, fed with Sara Lee's daintiest, and resting, Jean found theboy's eyes resting on the mantel.

　　"Dear and obstinate friend," said Henri, "do you wish me to be happy?"

　　"You shall not leave the room or your bed. That is arranged for."

　　"How?" demanded Henri with interest.

　　"Because I have hidden away your trousers."

　　Henri laughed, but he sobered quickly.

　　"If you wish me to be happy," he said, "take away that Americanphotograph. But first, please to bring it here."

　　Jean brought it, holding it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger.And Henri lay back and studied it.

　　"It is mademoiselle's fiancé," he said.

　　Jean grunted.

　　"Look at it, Jean," Henri said in his half-bantering tone, with despairbeneath it; "and then look at me. Or no—remembering me as I was whenI was a man. He is better, eh? It is a good face. But there is a jaw,a—Do you think he will be kind to her as she requires? She requiresmuch kindness. Some women—"

　　He broke off and watched Jean anxiously.

　　"A half face!" Jean said scornfully. "The pretty view! As forkindness—" He put the photograph face down on the table. "I knewonce a man in Belgium who married an American. At Antwerp. They weremost unhappy."

　　Henri smiled.

　　"You are lying," he said with boyish pleasure in his own astuteness."You knew no such couple. You are trying to make me resigned."

　　But quite a little later, when Jean thought he was asleep, he said:"I shall never be resigned."

　　So at last spring had come, and Henri and the great spring drive. TheGermans had not drained the inundation, nor had they broken through toCalais. And it is not to be known here how much this utter failure hadbeen due to the information Henri had secured before he was wounded.

　　One day in his bed Henri received a visit from the King, and was leftlying with a decoration on his breast and a beatific, if somewhatsheepish, expression on his face. And one night the village wasbombarded, and on Henri's refusing to be moved to the cellar Sara Leetook up a determined stand in his doorway, until at last he made a mosthumiliating move for safety.

　　Bit by bit Sara Lee got the story, its bare detail from Henri, itscourage and sheer recklessness from Jean. It would, for instance, runlike this, with Henri in a chair perhaps, and cutting dressings—sincethat might be done with one hand—and Sara Lee, sleeves rolled up anda great bowl of vegetables before her:

　　"And when you got through the water, Henri?" she would ask: "What then?"

　　"It was quite simple. They had put up some additional wire, however—"

　　"Where?"

　　"There was a break," he would explain. "I have told you—between theirtrenches. I had used it before to get through."

　　"But how could you go through?"

　　"Like a snake," he would say, smiling. "Very flat and wriggling. I haveeaten of the dirt, mademoiselle."

　　Then he would stop and cut, very awkwardly, with his left hand.

　　"Go on," she would prompt him. "But they had put barbed wire there. Isthat it? So you could not get through?"

　　"With tin cans on it, and stones in the cans. I thought I had removedthem all, but there was one left. So they heard me."

　　More cutting and a muttered French expletive. Henri was not aparticularly patient cripple. And apparently there was an end to thestory.

　　"For goodness' sake," Sara Lee would exclaim despairingly; "so theyheard you! That isn't all, is it?"

　　"It was almost all," he would say with his boyish smile.

　　"And they shot at you?"

　　"Even better. They shot me. That was this one." And he would point tohis arm.

　　More silence, more cutting, a gathering exasperation on Sara Lee's part.

　　"Are you going on or not?"

　　"Then I pretended to be one of them, mademoiselle. I speak German asFrench. I pretended not to be hurt, but to be on a reconnoissance. AndI got into the trench and we had a talk in the darkness. It was mostinteresting. Only if they had shown a light they would have seen thatI was wounded."

　　By bits, not that day, but after many days, she got the story. In thenext trench he slipped a sling over the wounded arm and, as a Bavarianon his way to the dressing station, got back.

　　"I had some trouble," he confessed one day. "Now and then one wouldoffer to go back with me. And I did not care for assistance!"

　　But sometime later there was trouble. She was four days getting to thatpart of it. He had got behind the lines by that time, and he knew thatin some way suspicion had been roused. He was weak by that time, andcould not go far. He had lain hidden, for a day and part of a night,without water, in a destroyed barn, and then had escaped.

　　He got into the Belgian costume as before, but he could not wear a slingfor his wounded arm. He got the peasant to thrust his helpless righthand into his pocket, and for two days he made a close inspection ofwhat was going on. But fever had developed, and on the third night,half delirious, when he was spoken to by an officer he had replied, ofall tongues, in English.

　　The officer shot him instantly in the chest. He fell and lay still andthe officer bent over him. In that moment Henri stabbed him with aknife in his left hand. Men were coming from every direction, but hegot away—he did not clearly remember how. And at dawn he fell intothe Belgian farmhouse, apparently dying.

　　Jean's story, on the other hand, was given early and with no hesitation.He had crossed the border at Holland in civilian clothes, by the simpleexpedient of bribing a sentry. He had got, with little difficulty, tothe farmhouse, and found Henri, now recovering but very weak; he waslying hidden in a garret, and he was suffering from hunger and lack ofmedical attention. In a wagon full of market stuff, Henri hidden in thebed of it, they had got to the border again. And there Jean had, itseemed, stabbed the sentry he had bribed before and driven on to neutralsoil.

　　Not an unusual story, that of Henri and Jean. The journey acrossBelgium in the springless farm wagon was the worst. They had had totake roundabout lanes, avoiding the main highways. Fortunately, alwaysat night there were friendly houses, kind hands to lift Henri into warmfire-lighted interiors. Many messages they had brought back, some ofcheer, but too often of tragedy, from the small farmsteads of Belgium.

　　Then finally had been Holland, and the chartering of a boat—and atlast—"Here we are, and here we are, and here we are again," sang Henri,chopping at his cotton and making a great show of cheerfulness beforeSara Lee.

　　But with Jean sometimes he showed the black depression beneath. Hewould never be a man again. He was done for. He gained strength soslowly that he believed he was not gaining at all. He was not happy,and the unhappy mend slowly.

　　After the time he had asked Jean to take away Harvey's photograph he didnot recur to the subject, but he did not need to. Jean knew, perhapseven better than Henri himself, that the boy was recklessly, hopelessly,not quite rationally in love with the American girl.

　　Also Henri was fretting about his work. Sometimes at night, followingHenri's instructions, Jean wandered quietly along roads and paths thatparalleled the Front. At such times his eyes were turned, not towardthe trenches, but toward that flat country which lay behind, still dottedat that time with groves of trees, with canals overhung with pollardwillows, and with here and there a farmhouse that at night took on inthe starlight the appearance of being whole again.

　　Singularly white and peaceful were those small steadings of Belgiumin the night hours—until cruel dawn showed them for what theywere—skeletons of dead homes, clothed only at night with wraithlikeroofs and chimneys; ghosts of houses, appearing between midnight andcock crow.

　　Jean had not Henri's eyes nor his recklessness nor his speed, for thatmatter. Now and then he saw the small appearing and disappearing lightson some small rise. He would reach the spot, with such shelter aspossible, to find only a sugar-beet field, neglected and unplowed.

　　Then, one night, tragedy came to the little house of mercy.