"You are lying," he said with boyish pleasure in his own astuteness. "You knew no such couple. You are trying to make me resigned."
But quite a little later, when Jean thought he was asleep, he said: "I shall never be resigned."
So at last spring had come, and Henri and the great spring drive. The Germans had not drained the inundation, nor had they broken through to Calais. And it is not to be known here how much this utter failure had been due to the information Henri had secured before he was wounded.
One day in his bed Henri received a visit from the King, and was left lying with a decoration on his breast and a beatific, if somewhat sheepish, expression on his face. And one night the village was bombarded, and on Henri's refusing to be moved to the cellar Sara Lee took up a determined stand in his doorway, until at last he made a most humiliating move for safety.
Bit by bit Sara Lee got the story, its bare detail from Henri, its courage and sheer recklessness from Jean. It would, for instance, run like this, with Henri in a chair perhaps, and cutting dressings—since that might be done with one hand—and Sara Lee, sleeves rolled up and a great bowl of vegetables before her:
"And when you got through the water, Henri?" she would ask: "What then?"
"It was quite simple. They had put up some additional wire, however—"
"Where?"
"There was a break," he would explain. "I have told you—between their trenches. I had used it before to get through."
"But how could you go through?"