Captain Lucy in France

by Aline Havard

“Oh, Colonel Gordon, if only the Allies could take the town to-day! The Germans have given orders to evacuate the hospitals. They are taking out the German patients now, and in another hour the rest must follow.” Her voice shook and her eyes filled with tears as they met his with a look of almost hopeless misery, but in the same moment she wiped the tears away and turned back to the ward to resume her share of the tremendous task.

Colonel Gordon stood motionless where she had left him. Then, his thoughts a little collected, he glanced sharply out into the hurry and movement of the ward, where the work of evacuation had begun. He sprang toward the window once more, trying to learn something of the battle’s progress amidst the roar of the artillery. A German regiment was running along the street toward the west, making its utmost speed among the impeding stones and rubbish. The shells no longer fell near by. He could hear them screaming over the town, but they fell short of the centre, avoiding the hospitals and searching out the German main headquarters and supply depot, behind the trenches. He thought the two airplanes circling far overhead were accountable for this change. The sentry had deserted the garden to help in the interior of the hospital. Motor-lorries and ambulances were drawn up outside the doors, and the German wounded had begun to be carried out.

Colonel Gordon entered the ward, and finding himself unobserved in the general confusion, went out into the garden, and from there to the street beyond. The regiment had passed, and the street was deserted. He glanced back and saw that the angle of the hospital wall hid him from the group about the ambulances. He drew a long breath and began to run in the direction of the firing.

Not far from the street which Lucy had followed to the château hill the night before he stopped, breathing a little hard after his enforced idleness of the past weeks. The chief reason for his pause, however, was the change in the noise of the attack which became distinguishable to his ears as he drew nearer. The rat-tat-tat of machine guns and rifle fire was plainly audible in the midst of the bombardment. It came from his left, the direction of the hill. He ran forward again until between the houses he could obtain a distant view of the hillside.

The fog had now lifted from all but the lowlands, and at the sight which met his eyes he gave a shout of amazement and exultation. All over the hill-tops behind the château khaki-clad men were advancing in skirmish line. Now they ran on a few steps, now dropped to earth or fell back before a sudden onset from the enemy concealed in the woods in front of them, while the bursting flame from machine guns, the volleys of musketry fire, and the gaps opening in the thinning ranks announced a bitter and desperate struggle. It could mean but one thing. The German line still held before Château-Plessis, but at this, the extreme southern point of the town, it had been broken by a bold surprise. Colonel Gordon stood staring toward the hill, convincing himself of the truth of what he saw. While his heart throbbed with triumph, every nerve in his body rebelled at remaining an idle spectator to that thrilling and unequal conflict. Barely two companies of Americans had breasted the hill from the swampy land below, and they had all they could do to hold their own. At that moment he heard the thud of footsteps behind him and glanced quickly back. A German infantry column, making double-time toward the front, was debouching from a street on his right.

The foremost officer gave one look at the uniformed American and sent a shot from his pistol at Colonel Gordon’s breast. The bullet whizzed by his shoulder, and a second kicked up the dust behind him. For he did not wait to furnish a target to the German captain. Those shots more than anything else added to the strength and ardor of his purpose. The German thought him a combatant, and a combatant he was from that instant.

He had slipped around the corner of the church at the head of the street leading to the hill. Once out of sight of his enemy, who was leading his men on too desperate an errand to turn aside in pursuit, he ran on until the road sloped upward. The American shells had penetrated this far before the infantry had advanced to climb the hillside under cover of the fog. Right before him gaped a huge shell-hole, whose flying earth had partly concealed a shattered German machine gun, with the crew lying dead beside it. Colonel Gordon bent over one of the dead soldiers, seized the pistol from his holster and unbuckled his cartridge-belt. In another second he stood up, no longer unarmed and defenseless. With every pulse on fire, though his brain remained keen and watchful, he ran on toward the hill.

To skirt its northern side would be to run full into the German trenches. Any way was perilous enough, but he was thoroughly familiar with the ground. It was the same over which he had advanced six weeks before to victory. He could not linger at the base of the hill either, where bodies of troops might be met with at any moment. Just now he saw only a straggling group of women and children fleeing from a near-by cottage toward the town. He plunged into the wood and began mounting the hill among the thick growth of pines, while above him increased the hammer of machine-gun fire, the rattle of musketry and the shouts of furious men. The hillside up which he climbed was deserted. The Germans had gone to the defense of the position by way of the trenches, and, though already driven back to seek cover in the woods, they had not yet retreated down the slope.

As he neared the crest, Colonel Gordon crept cautiously up behind a rock which overhung the hillside, and, breathing fast, crouched low to peer out from its concealing shelter. Directly in front of him, about twenty yards away, gray-clad soldiers were falling back in disorder, though firing as they retired. In a moment they were almost at the rock’s level, and now the Americans burst out from the lingering fog wreaths among the pines, pursuing the demoralized foe at the point of the bayonet. Colonel Gordon started up from the ground, victory the one thought in his exultant heart. At that instant a sharp command rang out from the trees on his right. Before it died away a heavy rifle-fire was discharged on the flank of the advancing Americans, a dozen of whom fell forward in the midst of their triumphant charge. He knew in a second what had happened. German reinforcements had crept up by the road which wound about the hillside. The swift retreat of the Germans defending the hill was playing into the very hands of these newcomers, who had the surprised Americans for the moment at their mercy.

An American soldier, pitching forward as he fell, rolled down to the rock close by Colonel Gordon’s side. He was already dead. Colonel Gordon saw the gaping wound in his temple, and in the same glance he read the number on his insignia. These men were from his own regiment! In that breath of time that he had remained inactive his mind had been desperately planning how to make the most of the help he could offer. Now he hesitated no longer.