"The General's son! The Admiral's grandson! Monsieur Sacha!"
"Only the other day he was a petit gars in his sailor's suit. It was my man who taught him to swim."
"He made his first communion the same day as my Jean!"
"Ah! The gay eyes he had!"
Before they found him every one from the village was grouped on the beach. Sacha's father--General Lorrain--the curé, the doctor, the mayor. All stood waiting with strained, fearful faces, while the boat pulled up and down, battered by the waves. The swimmers exhausted would come up to rest in the surf, then enter again. The sunshine had gone, and the storm Sacha had prophesied the night before was creeping like a black beast across the horizon. It was a sailor in the lifeboat who spied the body at last, and diving down into the water heaved it over the side. Then they pushed the boat in through the surf, and poor Sacha was taken out and laid on the sands he had trodden so blithely an hour before.
After the first half an hour every one knew there was no hope, though none voiced the knowledge. People just stood in silent groups a little way off from the central group that knelt, and swayed, and jerked and moved unceasingly. Rupert, white and exhausted, wrapped in his bathing toga, walked up and down the beach, stopping every now and then to try and get Celine away, but Celine would not come. She was rubbing Sacha's feet, and staring, staring at his cold, calm face. Every now and then she would say imploringly:
"Listen, Sacha! Sacha, my brother! Veux tu écoute?"
The General, very calm and stern-faced, stood at the head of the group. But sometimes he would go away suddenly and walk swiftly up and down with Rupert, for a moment or two, his head high, the little ribbon of honour a red dot on his upright breast, then return to look down again at the still, still face of his only son. He could do nothing. The operations were in the hands of competent men. The doctor from Barleville had come rushing in his motor to reinforce the Mascaret doctor. Val, when she was dressed, sat on a rock with her arms round Bran, and could not bear to see the General's eyes. Haidee and Christiane de Vervanne were crouched close by.
All the sailors and lifeboatmen were acquainted with the business of resuscitation, and there was no lack of relays. When one batch of men wearied another took its place. But all was in vain. The body of Sacha Lorrain lay there, very gallant in its youth and beauty, but his soul was gone beyond recall, and
"...might not come again
Homeward to any shore on any tide."