The patient—a mere lad he seemed of not more than seventeen—smiled and shook his head.
“I do not know German,” he said in French.
The nurse placed her cool hand upon the patient’s brow to assure herself that there was no access of fever.
“I speak French a little,” she said, painfully, in that language. And then she hesitated. “Tell me, Fräulein,” she went on, after a moment, “how you came to be wounded. We have wondered much.”
“My brother and I were trying to get through your lines to Brussels where our mother is,” the patient answered, readily, still smiling. “I slipped on a suit of my brother’s clothes, thinking to make better progress. But we were too late. We were caught between two fires when your men stormed that village.”
Despite the smile, there was a shimmer of anxiety in the eyes she turned upon the nurse. It was a poor story; she realized that it would not bear scrutiny, that it would break down at the first question; but, fevered and racked with pain, she had been able to devise no better one.
The nurse, at least, accepted it unquestioningly.
“Ach, how terrible!” she commented. “And your brother—what of him?”
“When I was wounded, he carried me into a house, and then hastened away to took for a cart or wagon in which to place me. Before he could get back, your men had taken the village.”
“Then he is safe at least!”