Lucy stared at the American’s hot, tired face, as he bent toward her to be heard in the uproar. He was a Hospital Corps man whom she had spoken with often in the past few days. Now, in excuse for his rough handling, he beckoned her to look quickly through the doorway. As she did so the explosion of a German shell threw up a great heap of stones and earth not two hundred feet away, across the square.
“They’ve got our range,” he said, close to her ear. “But this old building’s pretty solid. It will stand some hammering.” His voice was steady as ever and Lucy looked at him with respect and admiration in her frightened eyes, longing for his courage. But he had faced the enemy before. He had told her of service on Filipino and Mexican battle-fields.
Would there be fighting in the streets, in which the Germans would be victorious? Lucy had seen fighting once in the streets of a village in the island of Jolo. But then the enemy had been Filipino savages, quickly overpowered by the soldiers, and she had been too little to do more than cling to her mother’s skirts in wonder. As she turned back toward the street another shell struck a house close to the hospital, leaving a huge, gaping hole in the brick wall when the smoke and dust cleared away. Still she stood frozen to the spot, her heart beating in great throbs, helplessly waiting for she knew not what. Presently Major Greyson’s hand was laid on her trembling arm and he was saying:
“Come away from here, Lucy. Come into your father’s room.”
It was the only spot free from hurrying workers making their difficult way among beds too close together. Even here cots had been brought in and made ready for two more wounded officers. Colonel Gordon still slept on, unconscious of the day’s calamity, and Lucy breathed a quivering sigh of misery as her eyes rested on his peaceful face. Major Greyson led her to the window and pointed toward the sky above the square. “It’s almost over,” he said. “These last shots are only for bravado. Don’t you notice the slackening of the fire?”
In the sky the clouds of dust and smoke were clearing, and Lucy did distinguish a lessening in the terrific wave of sound. Its quality had changed, too. As the German infantry engaged the retreating troops, rifle and machine-gun fire was mingled with the bursting shells. In another few minutes the bombardment had sunk to single explosions at irregular intervals. Even at that awful moment the relief to her ears seemed almost like peace.
“Our batteries in the wood have been withdrawn to the new line, or silenced,” Major Greyson went on. “The Germans will stop firing until their airmen get the range again.” He took Lucy’s hand in his and held it in a strong clasp. “We’ll just have to bear up, Lucy, shan’t we? I have no fear for your courage. You’ve got the good American stuff in you—the sort that never fails. We’ll show them their new enemy is worthy of their steel.” His eyes flashed in his haggard and anxious face as he searched the street with watchful gaze. “We’ll do well enough here, you know. They’ll want us to look after their own wounded. With any luck in the counter-attack our troops will recover the town.”
At these words a great flood of hope swept back to Lucy’s heart The Germans could not hold Château-Plessis! Then she would be brave. For only a few days she could face it as Bob would do.
Suddenly she felt Major Greyson’s hand leave hers to steal about her shoulders, as though warning her to summon all her strength of will. She looked through the broken window and that arm about her shoulder tightened. Up the street were advancing a squad of mounted officers, gray-clad figures with helmets like no others in the world. Behind them came a company of infantry. The noise of the guns had died down almost to silence. Lucy’s throat began to choke her until she pressed one cold hand against it, struggling for breath. Her eyes could not bear to look upon that hateful sight, and still she could not force herself to turn away. On they came, another company behind the first and still another. She was looking at the Kaiser’s soldiers, servants of the man who was the author of all this horror—who had made the world into a battle-field. These were a part of Germany’s army, of the greedy power which had roused even peaceful America at last in furious self-defense. It had torn apart the Gordons’ happy home, sent Bob to prison and to hourly peril, and brought her father close to death.
Lucy did not put these flying thoughts in words. They passed through her mind in half-formed images of trembling dread and bitter indignation. From the hopeless conflict of her brain a despairing sigh escaped her lips, and Major Greyson’s eyes left the advancing troops to look at her.