CHAPTER XXIX THE GOOD HOURS
" ... All villages, châteaux, and houses are burnt down during this night. It was a beautiful sight to see the fires all round us in the distance. In every village one finds only heaps of ruins and many dead. Now come the good hours...."—Diary of German private, 4th Comp. Jäger Btln., No. 11., Aug. 23-27, 1914.
What's death?—You'll love me yet!
Pippa Passes.
When the dawn came, crystal-bright and pure, the two girls left the ruins of the Bellevue and wandered off among the hills. They had no food. They did not know where they were going. They did not know where they wanted to go. Soon rain came on, and fell in floods all day. They lost themselves in dim green valleys; they pushed through dripping copses of hazel; they sank ankle-deep in spongy mosses, and waded through unnamed torrents. Once they crouched among the bracken while a gray patrol rode by, shouting and singing, uproariously drunk. A little later they came on a lonely cottage with a dead girl lying across the threshold. She had been bayoneted, and worse. A baby of two years was strung up by the neck to the door handle; another, of only a few weeks, wailed feebly in a pool of blood and water beside the mother. Dorothea darted upon it with a cry; cradling it in her soft arms, against her breast, she stepped over the girl's body into the hut, forgetful of the horror of death in the claims of this minute piece of life. The man of the house was inside. He had been surprised at his dinner, and had defended himself with the carving-knife. He had taken a good deal of killing, as the floor and walls bore witness; nevertheless, the murderers had kicked his body into a corner, sat down at his table, and finished his meal.
Dorothea was searching the shelves for milk or any other food, when she heard a shout outside, followed by a cry—the oddest little cry she had ever heard. She caught up the knife with which the man had defended himself, and ran out. It was Lettice who had made that odd little sound; she was struggling with an Uhlan, very drunk in the legs but very strong in the arms, who was trying to force her down. Dorothea stuck the knife into his neck from behind, dragged it out and stuck it in again. The man dropped Lettice and wheeled round, firing his revolver; but his hand wavered away, and the shot went into the ground. He sank down with a grunt and lay there between them, the bright blood pumping out scarlet. Dorothea looked at Lettice; her eyes flamed; she held the baby still clasped to her breast.
"I've killed him," she said. "I'm glad."
Lettice did not speak; her hands were at her throat, mechanically settling her tie; she turned and reëntered the forest without a word. "Wait half-a-minute!" Dorothea called after her; and Lettice waited, in the brake, back turned to the house. She had to wait a good many minutes; whether one or sixty, it was all the same to her. Then Dorothea came running up, breathless. "I've found just a drop of milk, and this, see," she said, displaying one of the long Belgian loaves. Lettice was to suppose she had spent her time in ransacking the larder. In point of fact, she had been rolling, hauling, pushing the dead German into the well; she did not wish his body to be the excuse and the signal for a fresh campaign of vengeance.