He shouldered his way through the crowd, and I followed him. The people made a gap for us, seeing our uniforms, and desired us to enjoy the joke. What I saw when I came closer was a group of young men holding a limp figure. One of them was brandishing a large pair of scissors, as large as shears. Another held up a tangled mass of red hair.
“Regardez!” he shouted to the crowd, and they cheered and laughed.
I had seen the hair before, as I knew when I saw a girl’s face, dead-white, lifeless, as it seemed, and limp against a man’s shoulder.
“It is Marthe!” I said to Brand. “Pierre Nesle’s sister.”
A curious sense of faintness overcame me, and I felt sick.
Brand did not answer me, but I saw his face pale under its tan. He pushed forward through the crowd and I lost sight of him for a few moments. After that I saw him carrying the girl; above the heads of the people I saw her head flopping from side to side horribly, a head with close-cropped hair. They had torn her clothes off her shoulders, which were bleeding.
“Help me,” said Brand.
I am not quite clear what happened. I have only a vague remembrance of the crowd making way for us, with murmurs of surprise, and some hostile cries of women. I remember helping Brand to carry the girl—enormously heavy she seemed with her dead weight—but how we managed to get her into Dr. Small’s car is to this day a blank in my mind. We must have seen and hailed him at the Corner of the Grande Place as he was going back to his billet. I have a distinct recollection of taking off my Burberry and laying it over the girl, who was huddled in the back of the car, and of Brand saying, “Where can we take her?” I also remember trying to light a cigarette and using many matches which went out in the wind. It was Brand’s idea that we should go to Madame Chéri’s house for sanctuary, and by the time we had driven to that place we had left the crowd behind and were not followed.
“You go in and explain things,” said Brand. “Ask Madame to give the girl a refuge.”
I think Madame Chéri was startled by the sight of the car, and perhaps by some queer look I had. I told her what had happened. This girl was the sister of Pierre Nesle, whom Madame Chéri had met. The crowd, for some reason, had cut off her hair. Would Madame save the poor child, who was unconscious?