"What's the matter with your leg?" I asked.
The brilliant eyes flashed. "Ah!" he brought out, "One hoped—If M'sieur le Docteur would but see. I may be cured. To be straight—to march!" He was trembling.
Later, in the shifting sunshine at the camp door, with the odors of hemlocks and balsams about us, the lake rippling below, I had an examination. I found that the lad's lameness was a trouble to be cured easily by an operation. I hesitated. Was it my affair to root this youngster out of safety and send him to death in the débâcle over there? Yet what right had I to set limits? He wanted to offer his life; how could I know what I might be blocking if I withheld the cure? My job was to give strength to all I could reach.
"Philippe," I said, "if you'll come to New York next month I'll set you up with a good leg."
In September, 1915, Dick and I came up for our yearly trip, but Philippe was not with us. [pg 253] Philippe, after drilling at Valcartier, was drilling in England. I had lurid post cards off and on; after a while I knew that he was "somewhere in France." A grim gray card came with no post-mark, no writing but the address and Philippe's labored signature; for the rest there were printed sentences: "I am well. I am wounded. I am in hospital. I have had no letter from you lately." All of which was struck out but the welcome words, "I am well." So far then I had not cured the lad to be killed. Then for weeks nothing. It came to be time again to go to Canada for the hunting. I wrote the steward to get us four men, as usual, and Lindsley and I alighted from the rattling train at the club station in September, 1916, with a mild curiosity to see what Fate had provided as guides, philosophers and friends to us for two weeks. Paul Sioui—that was nice—a good fellow Paul; and Josef—I shook hands with Josef; the next face was a new one—ah, Pierre Beauramé—one calls one's self that—on s'appelle comme ça. Bon jour! I turned, and got a shock. The fourth face, at which I looked, was the face of [pg 254] Philippe Martel. I looked, speechless. And with that the boy laughed. "It is that M'sieur cannot again cure my leg," answered Philippe, and tapped proudly on a calf which echoed with a wooden sound.
"You young cuss," I addressed him savagely. "Do you mean to say you have gone and got shot in that very leg I fixed up for you?"
Philippe rippled more laughter—of pure joy—of satisfaction. "But, yes, M'sieur le Docteur, that leg même. Itself. In a battle, M'sieur le Docteur gave me the good leg for a long enough time to serve France. It was all that there was of necessary. As for now I may not fight again, but I can walk and portage comme il faut. I am capable as a guide. Is it not, Josef?" He appealed, and the men crowded around to back him up with deep, serious voices.
"Ah, yes, M'sieur."
"B'en capable!"
"He can walk like us others—the same!" they assured me impressively.