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Page 91
The stalwart figure of a woman in a somber dress with a red cross sewed
upon it passed between him and the light, but he knew that it was not
she who had been singing. He closed his eyes in disappointment, but
reopened them. A man wearing a white jacket and radiating an atmosphere
of drugs now walked before him. He must be a surgeon. At home, surgeons
wore white jackets. Beyond doubt he was one and maybe he was going to
stop at John's cot to treat some terrible wound of which he was not yet
conscious. He shivered a little, but the man passed on, and his heart
beat its relief.
Then a soldier took his place in the bar of light. He was a short, thick
man in a ridiculous, long blue coat, and equally ridiculous, baggy, red
trousers. An obscure cap was cocked in an obscure manner over his ears,
and his face was covered with a beard, black, thick and untrimmed. He
carried a rifle over his shoulder and nobody could mistake him for
anything but a Frenchman. Then he was not a prisoner again, but was in
French hands. That, at least, was a consolation.
It was amusing to lie there and see the people, one by one, pass between
him and the light. He could easily imagine that he was an inspection
officer and that they walked by under orders from him. Two more women in
those somber dresses with the red crosses embroidered upon them, were
silhouetted for a moment against the glow and then were gone. Then a man
with his arm in a sling and his face very pale walked slowly by. A
wounded soldier! There must be many, very many of them!
The musical murmur ceased and he was growing weary. He closed his eyes
and then he opened them again because he felt for a moment on his face a
fragrant breath, fleeting and very light. He looked up into the eyes of
Julie Lannes. They were blue, very blue, but with infinite wistful
depths in them, and he noticed that her golden hair had faint touches of
the sun in it. It was a crown of glory. He remembered that he had seen
something like it in the best pictures of the old masters.
"Mademoiselle Julie!" he said.
"You have come back," she said gently. "We have been anxious about you.
Philip has been to see you three times."
He noticed that she, too, wore the somber dress with the red cross, and
he began to comprehend.
"A nurse," he said. "Why, you are too young for such work!"
"But I am strong, and the wounded are so many, hundreds of thousands,
they say. Is it not a time for the women of France to help as much as
they can?"
"I suppose so. I've heard that in our civil war the women passed over
the battle fields, seeking the wounded and nursed them afterward. But
you didn't come here alone, did you, Mademoiselle Julie?"
"Antoine Picard--you remember him--and his daughter Suzanne, are with
me. My mother would have come too, but she is ill. She will come later."
"How long have I been here?"
"Four days."
John thought a little. Many and mighty events had happened in four days
before he was wounded and many and mighty events may have occurred
since.
"Would you mind telling me where we are, Mademoiselle Julie?" he asked.
"I do not know exactly myself, but we are somewhere near the river,
Aisne. The German army has turned and is fortifying against us. When the
wind blows this way you can hear the rumble of the guns. Ah, there it is
now, Mr. Scott!"
John distinctly heard that low, sinister menace, coming from the east,
and he knew what it was. Why should he not? He had listened to it for
days and days. It was easy enough now to tell the thunder of the
artillery from real thunder. He was quite sure that it had never ceased
while he was unconscious. It had been going on so long now, as steady as
the flowing of a river.
"I've been asking you a lot of questions, Mademoiselle Julie, but I want
to ask you one more."
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