“You must come with us. You are worth the whole medical staff when it comes to actual fighting in the field.”
“Do you think I would have stayed behind?” somewhat indignantly asked Sister Claire.
On a June evening, the French column started for the plateau, where it was well understood that the Algerians meant to give battle. It was a fine sight, and as Sister Claire sat in her little white-covered cart, watching the beautiful precision with which cavalry, infantry, and artillery took their place in line, she felt more excited than she had since 1815. As the second division, headed by the artillery, was about to move, a general officer rode out from among the group of officers around the commander-in-chief and took his place at the head of the column. A tremendous cheer greeted him, which he acknowledged by lifting his chapeau and bowing ceremoniously. He was a long distance away from Sister Claire; but when the fading light fell upon his head, which was quite gray, and his bronzed features, she suddenly caught her breath and turned white. She did not need to ask his name; the thirty years of their separation melted away in one instant of time; it was De Bourmont. Several hours passed before the little ambulance brought up the end of the rear guard. As the wagon jolted over the rough road, sometimes brilliantly illuminated for a moment by the moon, which sailed high in the heavens, and, again, lost in the impenetrable darkness of wood and ravine, Sister Claire sat quite silent. Usually, like an old soldier, she was gay at the prospect of going into battle; but on this June night, under an African sky, she scarcely spoke to her companion, another white-capped sister, who, like herself, placid and silent, awaited the labors of the morrow.
Sister Claire’s retrospection was keen, but not unhappy. She knew De Bourmont’s reputation in the army well,—intrepid, devoted to his duty, idolized by his men; he might have been happier, he could not have been better. For herself, she had felt from the beginning the peace which follows the putting away of self and the devotion of one’s life to those who suffer.
The stars seemed large, and very near to her, as she looked out of the hooded wagon up at the blue-black sky. It was not her first night-march, by any means. She remembered them among the snows of Russia; she recalled the night after Waterloo, and the drenching rain, and all the horrors of that time. Near by was the steady tramp of thousands of feet, and afar off, the rolling sound of the field guns on the rocky road. The columns climbed upward steadily toward the plateau. It was only a few leagues away; Sister Claire knew they would make it before daylight. Then she must be ready for work, getting the ambulance in order, so it would be well for her to sleep. She lay down in the bottom of the cart with her companion, and in five minutes was sleeping peacefully. But she had said, with fervor, the little prayer she made every night for De Bourmont; and she had done this for more than thirty years.
The gray sky of dawn was changing to an all rose and opal tint when the cart halted, and Sister Claire, with the surgeon-in-chief, surveyed the field with an eye to establishing her ambulance. On one side the torrent Midiffla flowed noisily, while rugged ravines and rocky hills and dales were before the French troops. Already the ferocious tribesmen were seen, hovering in great numbers on the horizon, while the distant roll of wheels over the stony ground showed that the Algerians were provided with artillery.
Sister Claire chose her position with a soldier’s eye.
“It is here, I think, Monsieur le Docteur,” she said, pointing to a little hollow well up the side of the plateau, but protected from the probable range of fire. “Our brave ‘enfants’ will make a stand here; and, you see, there is a fairly good road to a spot lower down, where the wounded may be transported after their wounds are dressed, and be quite safe.”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “It will be pretty hot up here,” he said.
“Of course,” replied Sister Claire, coolly; “but where it is hot, is where we are needed.”