In obedience to Paula's command and a little push upon her shoulder, the V. A. D. sat down at the piano and touched the notes softly, feeling for the key, then fell in with the violin.
At the first note, Barry turned sharply about and as she found her key and began to follow, he stepped back to her side. Immediately, from his instrument, there seemed to flow a richer, fuller stream of melody. From the solemn and stately harmonies of the Largo, he passed to those old familiar airs, that never die and never lose their power over the human heart—“Annie Laurie” and “Ben Bolt,” and thence to a rollicking French chanson, which rather bowled over his accompanist, but only for the first time though, for she had the rare gift of improvisation, and sympathetic accompaniment.
Then with a full arm bowing, he swept them into the fiercely majestic strains of the “Marseillaise,” bringing the blue-coated orderlies about the door, and such patients as could stand, and the group about the piano to rigid attention. From the “Marseillaise” it was easy to pass into the noble simplicity of his own national song, “Oh, Canada!” where again his accompanist was quite able to follow, and thence to the Empire's National Anthem, which had for a hundred years or more lifted to their feet British soldiers and sailors the world over.
As he drew his bow over the last chord, Paula stepped to his side, and whispered in his ear:
“Where's America in this thing?”
Without an instant's break in the music, he dropped into a whimsical and really humorous rendering of “Yankee Doodle.” Quickly the V. A. D. moved from the stool, caught Paula and thrust her into the vacant place. Then together the violin and piano rattled into a fantastic and brilliant variation of that famous and trifling air. Again, with a sudden change of mood, Barry swung into that old song of the homesick plantation negro, “The Suwanee River”—a simple enough air, but under the manipulations of a master lending itself to an interpretation of the deep and tender emotions which in that room and in that company of French, British, Canadian, American folk were throbbing in a common longing for the old home and the “old folks at home.” Before he had played the air once through, the grey-haired American doctor was openly wiping his eyes, and his colleagues looking away from each other, ashamed of the tears that did them only honour.
Paula's flushed face and flashing eyes were eloquent of her deep emotion, while at her side the V. A. D. stood quiet, controlled, but with a glow of tender feeling shining in her face and in her soft brown eyes.
Not long did Barry linger amid those deeps of emotion, but straightening his figure to its full height, and throwing up his head, he, in full octaves, played the opening bars of what has come to be known as America's national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Instantly the A. D. C. S., the orderlies about the door, the wounded French, British and Canadian soldiers that could stand, sprang to attention and so remained while the violin, with its piano accompaniment, throbbed forth the sonorous chords. With the last bar, Barry dropped his bow to his side, but held the violin still at his chin. Not one of that company moved, but stood with their eyes fastened upon his face. After a moment's pause, he quietly lifted his bow again, and on the silence, still throbbing to the strains of that triumphant martial air, there stole out pure, sweet, as from some ethereal source, the long drawn, trembling notes of that old sacred melody, which, sounding over men and women in their hours of terror and anguish and despair, has lifted them to peace and comfort and hope—“Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
The tension which had held the company was relaxed, the wounded men sank to their seats, the A. D. C. S. removed his hat, which, according to military regulations, he had worn to this moment. On all sides, heads dropped in an attitude of reverence, and so continued until Barry had drawn the last deep, vibrating note to a close.