He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel drive to the stable.
"Alixe!" he called.
She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely knew it.
"What can I do?" he asked.
"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"
He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges, basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.
"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not—when I am ready," he said.
"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."
He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.
"We are holding the Château," he said. "Will you stay quietly for a little while longer, if I go out again?"