4
Half an hour later the great grey ambulance, drawn up close to the gates of the Tournebride, was ready to start down the hill, and the Herr Doktor waited impatiently while the five hale and whole officers bade their wounded comrade a hearty, lengthy, and jovial good-night.
They were all übermütig—bubbling over with wild spirits—and still talking of their Mecca—Paris—now only some thirty miles away. Any hour might come the longed-for order to advance thither!
The Herr Doktor's illustrious patient seemed the most eager of them all. But he hoped the order to advance would be delayed till he himself were well enough to be in time for the solemn entry into the conquered city—that entry through the Arc de Triomphe which was to be a more superb replica of that which had taken place in 1871. Some days must surely elapse before that glorious pageant could take place, although everything was ready for it—in Luxembourg. In Luxembourg, so Prince Egon now told his comrades—for he alone among them was in touch with the Court—the Kaiser was waiting impatiently for the glad news that Paris had fallen or surrendered. There too, even now, the Imperial Master of the Horse had everything prepared—the state chargers, even, had been brought from Potsdam....
At last the Herr Doktor went up to the youthful commanding officer. 'A word with you in private,' he said hurriedly, and the other allowed himself to be drawn aside. He was curious to know what the Herr Doktor could possibly have to say, 'in private.'
'I know well your humane sentiments towards the unfortunate population of this conquered country'—the words came quickly, almost breathlessly—'and your good heart, Herr Commandant, will perhaps remember the curious request made to you by the old French priest when taken hostage. I have discovered that what he said was true—that there are indeed three wounded soldiers dying on the Red Cross barge where I am about to take Prince Egon. Two of the men will not outlast the night, and the Red Cross Sister, a French lady of distinction, is most anxious they should receive religious consolation. That being so I thought I might promise her that this pious wish should be gratified. With your permission the priest can go in the ambulance, and I myself will bring him back within an hour or so!'
The Herr Commandant looked at the Herr Doktor doubtfully. He did, it was true, hold the unusual theory that benignant justice, rather than 'frightfulness,' was the right way to deal with a conquered population. He remembered, too, that, unlike his four lieutenants, his own instinct had been to believe the Curé of Valoise when the old man had pleaded that he might be allowed to attend 'trois mourants,' and that, though it had seemed almost impossible that there could be three dying people desiring priestly ministration in this little town, the more so that, as all the world knew, France was now an utterly godless country.
Still he waited a few moments before answering. It was not proper that the Herr Doktor should take too much upon himself. But his mind was already made up, and at last he took a large key out of one of his pockets, and handed it to the Herr Doktor. 'You must be personally responsible for the hostage's safe return!' He laughed rather huskily. 'The responsibility is not great, Herr Doktor, or perhaps I would not put it upon you! That old man could not hobble away very far. The Mayor—ah, that is another matter! He is what they call here un fort gaillard.' He uttered the three French words without any accent, and the other envied him.
The Herr Doktor hastened across the courtyard and found the arch in the wall which he knew led through into Madame Blanc's well-stocked kitchen garden. In the centre of the large open space there rose, in the moonlit darkness, the square building lit only by a skylight, which had been chosen as making an ideal prison for the two hostages. Putting the key the Herr Commandant had handed him in the door, he turned it, and walked into the sweet-smelling fruit-room of the old inn.
There a curious sight met his eyes. The two Frenchmen, companions in misfortune though they were, had placed themselves as far the one from the other as was possible. The priest sat on his truckle bed, reading his breviary by the light of a candle, while the Mayor of Valoise, also sitting on his bed—for the Tournebride had naturally proved very short of the chairs required for the accommodation of so many hosts—was busily writing what he intended to be the official account of his amazing and disagreeable adventures.
As the door opened the Mayor leapt to his feet, and a look of apprehension shot over his dark, southern-looking face. The priest looked up, but remained seated, and went on reading his prayer-book with an air of ostentatious indifference.
The Herr Doktor walked across to the old man. 'Will you please at once come?' he said haltingly. 'Permission for you obtained I have to attend the French wounded on the Red Cross barge.'
The priest closed his book, and rose from his seat; but at the same moment the Mayor came forward towards the German Red Cross doctor, but there was a curious lack of firmness about his footsteps. It was as if he hardly knew where his legs were bearing him. His voice, however, was strong and defiant. 'I protest!' he cried loudly. 'I strongly and vigorously protest against this favour being shown to the priest! It is on me, as Mayor of Valoise, that there reposes the duty of transmitting to their families the wishes of our dying soldiers!'
The Herr Doktor brought his two feet together and bowed. 'Your protest, Monsieur le Maire, duly registered will be,' he said coldly. 'Meanwhile I must ask Monsieur le Curé my instructions to obey.' Motioning the old man to precede him, he walked out of the door, and, shutting it, turned the key in the lock.
Quickly the two men walked through the dark garden, and when they were close to the arch which led into the courtyard of the Tournebride, the priest abruptly broke silence. 'Am I to be allowed to administer these dying men?' he asked.
'That may you do,' replied the Herr Doktor shortly.
'Then, Monsieur, I must ask permission to go round by my house and by the church.'
Now this was not exactly in the bond, yet, rather to his own surprise, the Herr Doktor gave his orderly-driver the command. Why not do this thing graciously and thoroughly while he was about it? 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. In spite of the stars it was a very dark night, and suddenly he turned on the electric torch strapped to his breast. As he did so his companion uttered a sharp exclamation of surprise. Monsieur le Curé had never seen, he had never even heard of such an invention! It made him realise, as he had not yet done, what terrible, ingenious, irresistible fellows these Germans were.
The big trap-door in the deck had been opened, and the crane for lowering the wounded man was already in position. Mademoiselle Rouannès had been true to her word, everything had been made ready for the new patient, and the Herr Doktor felt suddenly very glad that he had followed his kindly so-truly-German-and-humane impulse about the priest.
Carefully the two went down the stairs now open to the star-powdered sky, and then the one in command knocked at the door of what he already called in his own mind 'Her ward.'
There followed a moment or two of delay—long enough for the Herr Doktor to become rather impatient. Then, slowly, the door opened, and the electric torch flashed for a moment over Mademoiselle Rouannès' head and breast. She no longer wore the Red Cross cap and veil, and her fair hair formed an aureole above her delicately-tinted face and deep blue eyes. 'If you will ask Jacob, he will tell you everything, Monsieur le Médecin. I have told him to put himself entirely at your disposal. I cannot come just now, for I must not leave my wounded. Two of them are even now dying.'
She spoke in a quick whisper and in her own language. But the Herr Doktor answered in English. 'Gracious miss, I have to you the priest brought,' he said eagerly.
'I thank you—oh! how I thank you!' There was a thrill of real, heartfelt gratitude in her voice—and something in the Herr Doktor's heart thrilled in answer, as she opened wide the narrow door to let them both come through.
Most of the men, lying stretched out there, on those narrow pallet beds, were asleep, but only the two now so near to death seemed really at peace. The others moved uneasily, and from their bloodless lips there issued painful mutterings and groans. One very young soldier kept counting over and over again—from one to thirty-seven. When he came to trente-sept, he always broke off, and began again. In answer to a mute, questioning glance from the Herr Doktor, the Red Cross nurse whispered, 'The thirty-eighth shot struck him. But he only counts like that when he is asleep.' A lad in the farthest corner, the third man in the danger zone, asked again and again, with a terrible, monotonous reiteration, 'Mais pourquoi? Pourquoi suis-je ici?'
Again the doctor turned questioningly to Jeanne Rouannès. 'He also always begins asking that question as soon as he falls asleep,' she said sighing; 'when awake he seems quite happy.'
The Herr Doktor was strangely reluctant to leave the mournful scene. He felt an uneasy curiosity as to what was going to take place. Even now the Red Cross nurse was turning a little table, which had been covered with various odd French medicaments, into an altar. But his duty to his own patient called him insistently away, and slowly he backed towards the door. Once there, however, he called out, but in a low voice, 'Miss? Miss? A word with you.'
She came and stood by him, a lovely vision of health, purity, and strength, in that piteous, pain-bound place.
'When the priest finished has,' he murmured, 'again back him I will take. I have myself responsible for him made.'
'I promise you that he will not be very long!' And then she added softly, 'I thank you again, sir, for having done this good action. 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. So little indeed was he present in mind where his body was, that he experienced a feeling of astonishment, as well as of discomfort, when he suddenly realised that a quick, amicable conversation was going on between the young Prussian officer and Mademoiselle Rouannès' old French man-servant.
'Herr Doktor!' cried Prince Egon joyfully, 'this fellow was once a valet—valet to a Prince de Ligne! I have told him that henceforth he is commandeered by me! He will be my valet. I would far rather be waited on by him than by that tiresome Fritz of yours. This one is a thoroughly intelligent fellow; he knows a house in this town where there is a great store of those unanständige Parisian comic papers. He will bring them here to-morrow morning—so I now have something pleasant to dream about!'
'That is good,' said the Herr Doktor absently. 'I felt sure your Highness would prefer this place to the Tournebride. I hope you will not be disturbed by the French wounded. There is a passage room between.'
'The French wounded will not disturb me!' The young man lifted himself slightly in his bed and smiled. 'It is not as if they were our brave fellows, after all!'