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Page 21
In the lower ground on the near side of the stream were many small board
houses arranged in a square, and these he knew were the hospital. He
would remain there until the last of the wounded were discharged, and
then he would enter Chastel. Mallet informed him that his surmises were
correct and he saw for himself that the head of the train had already
turned into the square around which the little board houses were built.
The transferring of the hurt, took nearly all the morning, and John
faithfully performed his part. There was Chastel only a few hundred
yards away, now clearly visible despite the massive clouds that floated
persistently across the sky. Yet he made no attempt to reach it until
his work was done, nor did he speak of it, not even to the chauffeur,
Mallet, of whom he had made a good friend.
Near noon, the task finished, he ate luncheon and started toward
Chastel. His orders from Captain Colton allowed him much liberty, and he
was not compelled to account to anyone, when he chose to enter the town.
He crossed the stream, muddy from the melting snow, on a small stone
bridge, which he believed from its steep arch must date almost back to
the time of the Romans, and pausing on the other side looked up once
more at Chastel. He had no doubt that, seen in the sunshine and as it
was, it had been both picturesque and beautiful. But now it lay half in
ruins, under a sullen sky, and he beheld no sign of life. Just above him
within its grounds stood a large ch�teau, that had been riven through
and through by shells. The walls looked as if they were ready to fall
apart and John shivered a little. Farther on was a public building of
some kind, destroyed by fire, all save the walls which stood, blackened
and desolate, and now he saw that the cathedral too had been damaged.
A flake of snow, large and damp, settled on his hand. The clouds were
massing, directly over his head, and he feared another fall. It was
unfortunate, but nothing could drive him back, and finding a flight of
stone steps he ascended them and entered the village.
Chastel had looked somber from the plain below, where some of the
effect, John had thought, might be due to distance, but here it was a
silent ruin, tragic and terrible. Over this village, once so neat and
trim, as he could easily see, war had swept in its most hideous fashion.
Houses were riddled and the gray light showed through them from wall to
wall where the great shells had passed. A bronze statue standing in a
fountain in the center of the little place or square had been struck,
and it lay prone and shattered in the water.
The first flakes of the new snow began to fall, and the sinister sky,
heavy with clouds, took on the darkness of twilight, although night was
far away. Yet the huge rents and holes in the houses and the fallen
masonry seemed to grow more distinct in the gloom. The village consisted
chiefly of one long street, and as John looked up and down it, he did
not see a single human being. Nothing was visible to him but the iron
hoof of war crushing everything under it, and he shuddered violently.
The snow began to drive, whipped by a bitter wind, and he drew the heavy
blue overcoat closely about him. The shuddering which was not of the
snow and the cold, passed, but his heart was ice. The abandoned town
over which Germans and French had fought oppressed him like a nightmare.
What had become of Julie? Why had Philip asked her to meet him at such a
place? There was the hospital, but it was in the plain below, where
lights now shone faintly through the heavy gray air and the driving
snow.
Surely Lannes could not have made any mistake! John had learned to trust
his judgment thoroughly and Philip, too, knew the country so well. If he
had sent for Julie to come to Chastel he must have had a good reason
for it, although the snow was bound to delay the coming of the _Arrow_
to meet her. If she had reached Chastel she would remain there, and not
go to the hospital in the plain below. She trusted her brother as
implicitly as John did.
John, taking thought with himself, concluded that she must be now in the
village. It was not possible that Chastel, silent as it was and desolate
as it seemed, could be entirely deserted. Although leaving ruin behind,
the fury of battle had passed and some of the people would return to
their homes. Chastel lay behind the French lines, a great hospital camp
was not far away, and the fear of further German invasion could not be
present now.
He put one hand in his overcoat pocket over the butt of the automatic,
and then, remembering how General Vaugirard whistled, he too whistled,
not for want of thought but to encourage himself, to make his heart beat
a little less violently, and to hear a cheerful sound where there was
nothing else but the soft swish of the snow and the desolate moaning of
the wind among the ruins.
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