Red and Black

by Grace S. Richmond

“Yes, but this is different, Miss Ray. I’m responsible for you now.”

“Not a bit, General. It’s my responsibility, if I ask it—as I do.”

He couldn’t resist her, or that sweet sturdiness of hers which made her seem unlike the women for whom a man had to be “responsible.” So he bade his chauffeur drive on. Thus it came about that Jane had her wish and was actually in this most noteworthy of French towns when, at the close of that last hour of roaring guns and bursting shells, it all came to an end, as one graphic account put it, “as though God Himself had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of hell.”

So, after that first breathless stillness which succeeded upon the din, Jane heard that which she could never afterward forget—nor could any other who heard it. From the high tower which had come through scatheless above the otherwise ruined cathedral, rang out a great peal of bells. The cathedral doors were opened, and hundreds of soldiers surged in. Jane saw them go, and called General Lewiston’s attention.

“Mayn’t we follow?” she urged, and the officer nodded. They got out of the car and crossed the space and went in at the great battered doors in the roofless walls which still stood to protect the sacred enclosure. As they went in they heard the notes of “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” break from a young tenor in the very centre of the crowd, and heard it taken up and grow and swell till it seemed to lift above the broken walls to the very sky. And then they saw the wonderful thing which followed. If, before this hour, Jane by her own experience had not been brought to her knees, surely she must have fallen upon them now—as she did, with the General beside her on one side and the Lieutenant on the other, both with bared heads. For all those men before her, British and French and Mohammedan and Jew, had now dropped to their knees, and led by an unknown man with a Red Triangle on his sleeve who had lifted his arms to them as a signal were devoutly saying together the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Such a deep, whole-hearted sound it was which came from all those brawny throats as Jane had never heard before. She had heard men cheer—she had heard them sing—she had never heard men pray together, regardless of sect or creed, as she heard them now. And suddenly she realized what she had never understood before, that it is not one man here or there who believes that it is of use to say “Our Father,” but that it is the great, all but universal cry from every heart in time of stress. The armistice was signed, the guns had ceased—it was the first deep instinct of these men of every creed to speak their gratitude to high Heaven.

There was singing again then—glorious singing of national anthems, British and French and American. Jane’s voice joined the General’s and the Lieutenant’s and the three looked at one another. The General’s eyes were wet, and the Lieutenant’s lips were trembling, while Jane frankly wiped the streaming tears away as she smiled into the two faces, which smiled understandingly back. And presently they were out and away again, and the General was saying to Jane, “I’m glad you had your way, Miss Ray, since you didn’t get hurt, for you’ve seen to-day what must almost have paid you for all you have spent since you came over.”

“I’m paid a thousand times,” she answered, and so she felt about it.

Things happened rapidly now. There was plenty of work still for the hospitals, but it was of a different sort. No longer did the ambulances bring to Jane the freshly wounded. She was sent back to a Base Hospital, where were the cases which needed long care before they could be discharged. She had had more than one letter from Robert Black urging her to keep in close touch with him, before the one came which said that he was soon to be sent home. He asked if it would be possible for her to get leave and come to London, where the final days of his convalescence were to be spent. He was walking about now, he said, and—what it would be to walk down certain streets with her! He added other statements calculated to have their effect upon her, if only to make her understand how very much he wanted to see her.

It was not easy to bring about, but at length she obtained a four days’ leave, and through the influence of Doctor Leaver secured the difficult permission to cross the Channel on one of the crowded boats. An early December night saw her making the crossing, the wind and spray stinging her face into brilliant colour, her big coat-collar turned well up about her throat, her eyes set straight ahead toward the English coast. It was almost sixteen months since she had left England on her way to France—sixteen months of the hardest work she had ever dreamed of doing—and the happiest. Not one hard hour would she take back—not one!

Dover, and many delayed hours to London, with post-war conditions, crowded trains, upset schedules—and always the wounded and crippled everywhere, that she might not for a minute forget. Then, at last, Charing Cross Station, and the lights of the great city, no longer obscured because of enemy air-raids. As Jane came out upon the street she drew a deep breath of content. She had been several times in London, and knew her way about. It was not far to the house where she was expected, but she had not been met because it had been impossible to know beforehand just when she might get in. The days of making careful consultation of railway schedules and then wiring an expectant friend the hour and minute of one’s intended arrival were long gone by—and had not yet come again.