The airman said:
"He is one of my countrymen—an American muleteer, Jack Burley—in charge at Sainte Lesse."
At the sound of the young man's name pronounced in English the girl began to cry. The big gendarme bent over and patted her cheek.
"Allons," he growled; "courage! little mistress of the bells! Let us place your friend[pg 208] in your pretty market cart and leave this accursed place, in God's name!"
He straightened up and looked over his shoulder.
"For the Boches are in Nivelle woods," he added, with an oath, "and we ought to be on our way to Sainte Lesse, if we are to arrive there at all. Allons, comrade, take him by the head!"
So the wounded airman bent over and took the body by the shoulders; the gendarme lifted the feet; the little bell-mistress followed, holding to one of the sagging arms, as though fearing that these strangers might take away from her this dead man who had been so much more to her than a mere lover.
When they laid him in the market cart she released his sleeve with a sob. Still crying, she climbed to the seat of the cart and gathered up the reins. Behind her, flat on the floor of the cart, the airman and the gendarme had seated themselves, with the young man's body between them. They were opening his tunic and shirt now and were whispering to[pg 209]gether, and wiping away blood from the naked shoulders and chest.
"He's still warm, but there's no pulse," whispered the airman. "He's dead enough, I guess, but I'd rather hear a surgeon say so."
The gendarme rose, stepped across to the seat, took the reins gently from the girl.