Instantly memory surged back upon him—memory bitter and painful. He raised his head and looked about him. He was lying under a clump of trees not far from the bank of a little stream, along which a company of Belgian soldiers were busy throwing up intrenchments.
“Ah, so you are better!” said the captain, in his clipped French, his eyes beaming with satisfaction. “That is good! A little more of that smoke, and it would have been all over with you!” and he gestured toward the eastern horizon, above which hung a black and threatening cloud.
Stewart pulled himself to a sitting posture and stared for a moment at the cloud as it billowed in the wind. Then he passed his hand before his eyes and stared again. And suddenly all his strength seemed to go from him and he lay quietly down again.
“So bad as that!” said the officer, sympathetically, struck by the whiteness of his face. “And I have nothing to give you—not a swallow of wine—not a sip!”
“It will pass,” said Stewart, hoarsely. “I shall be all right presently. But I do not understand French very well. Do you speak English?”
“A lit-tle,” answered the other, and spoke thereafter in a mixture of French and English, which Stewart found intelligible, but which need not be indicated here.
“Will you tell me what happened?” Stewart asked, at last.
“Ah, we drove them out!” cried the captain, his face gleaming. “My men behaved splendidly—they are brave boys, as you yourself saw. We made it—how you say?—too hot for the Germans; but we could not remain. They were pushing up in force on every side, and they had set fire to the place. So we took up our wounded and fell back. At the last moment, I happen to remember that I had seen you dodging along the street in face of the German fire, so I look for you in this house and in that. At last I find you in a room full of smoke, lying across a bench, and I bring you away. Now we wait for another attack. It will come soon—our scouts have seen the Germans preparing to advance. Then we fight as long as we can and kill as many as we can, and then give back to a new position. That, over and over again, will be our part in this war—to hold them until France has time to strike. But I pity my poor country,” and his face grew dark. “There will be little left of her when those barbarians have finished. They are astounded that we fight, that we dare oppose them; they are maddened that we hold them back, for time means everything to them. They revenge themselves by burning our villages and killing defenseless people. Ah, well, they shall pay! Tell me, my friend,” he added, in another tone, “why did you risk death in that reckless fashion? Why did you kneel beside that bench?”
“It was there I left my comrade,” Stewart answered, brokenly, his face convulsed. “She was wounded—she could not walk—I was too exhausted to carry her—I went to look for a cart—for an ambulance—I had scarcely taken a step, when the Germans swept over the barricade and into the town. When I got back to the house where I had left her, she was not there.”
“Ah,” said the other, looking down at Stewart, thoughtfully. “It was a woman, then?”