CHAPTER X
THE PLAN OF THE DEFENSES
It was a dull, gloomy day, with rain clouds dissolving into showers at intervals, and the half-ruined streets of Château-Plessis looked sad and sodden in their battered abandonment. Only an occasional German soldier, wrapped in his poncho, or a woman hurrying by with a shawl over her head passed in front of the hospital. Within, things looked dreary too, Lucy thought, as in her little cap and apron she helped Brêlet wheel the last of the convalescents into the hall off the old court of justice. For the past three days she had undertaken the task of finding amusement and occupation for fifteen or twenty men on the road to recovery, and she had found it the hardest kind of work, since her own spirits were none too high or hopeful. Some of the convalescents were Germans, too, and Lucy had not quite mastered the Red Cross motto of “Neutrality, Humanity.”
But to-day she was cheerful and felt equal to doing her very best. The most trying work grows easier if it is done in pleasant company, and Major Greyson had obtained from the German senior surgeon an indifferent consent for Michelle de la Tour to help occasionally among the convalescents at the American hospital. There Michelle sat now, by one of the windows opening on the garden, talking to a French soldier with bandaged eyes. Lucy smiled across the room at her, and in her gratitude for her friend’s presence on this dark and depressing morning, she seated herself by the side of a young German, who leaned languidly back in his chair, still weak from fever.
“What would you like, Paul?” she asked, kindly. “Some water? All right—in a moment.”
She rose to bring the water and, after satisfying half a dozen other demands for it, helped Brêlet distribute the few books and papers available among those well enough to read. Some of the men who felt too weak to make any effort were wheeled in front of the windows, though the outlook of driving rain on crumbling walls Lucy did not think particularly cheering for the wounded poilus. It was extraordinary, though, how little attention it took to brighten up a soldier’s tired face. Often a few words were enough to start them talking among themselves. Of the twenty in the hall eight were Americans, and the poilus always got some amusement in practising their English on their new allies.
Michelle, far more inventive and resourceful than Lucy, made up her mind at once to help find occupation for the convalescents.
“Maman and I have already done so in our hospital,” she said eagerly. “It is not so hard—though of course we can do little.”
“What, for instance?” asked Lucy, puzzling. “We can’t possibly get any more papers—except German ones, and the German patients have too many of those already.”
“No, but there are other ways,” Michelle insisted. “We have many willows over by Mère Breton’s cottage. I have brought the young branches for our poilus to cut with the knife and weave paniers. Oh, they are glad to have work in their fingers! Also, Clemence and I dug the clay from the little brook near the old château. It is far from here. They send a Boche soldier with us. I know well the place, for Armand and I were friends, in the peace, with the children of the château. The poilus can make of the clay all kinds of cups and bowls. I know that is pleasant work, for Armand and I have made them, when I was sick long ago and he played with me.”
“I never thought of those things, Michelle,” said Lucy, but in the same breath she added, doubtfully, “Who will show them how to make baskets? Can you?”