The incoherency was lost on Sheila. She took the crumpled paper wonderingly and found it covered with Peter’s scribbled hieroglyphics:
Beloved:
The boys have been telling me about you—to think you’re really with us and standing by! It may bring its dole of horror—bound to—we all have our turn at it. If it comes, hold to your courage and take deep hold of that wonder-soul of yours; that will steady you. And remember, there is peace coming, and home—yours and mine. Close your eyes when the sights get too bad, and you’ll see that blessed house of ours on the hilltop you’ve chosen; you’ll see the little lamp shining us good cheer. Think of that. I’m with the other wing now, but any day I may be shifted to yours. Until then,
Yours,
“P. B.”
The nurse thrust the paper into the front of her uniform, shook the hand that had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that was waiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shells screeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went. Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry them away. The old palsied abbé came and chanted prayers for the dying, and some one played a “Dies Iræ” on the little organ. Old French mothers stole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their hands and emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were pathetically grateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with a day’s reprieve from purgatory. They were finding panacea for their bereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passed Sheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow:
“Six—all gone, ma’m’selle.”
“Jean, François, Paul, and Victor—Victor the last—he fell two months ago.”
“Four sons and four daughters—a rich legacy from my dead husband, ma’m’selle. And I have paid it back—soul by soul—all—he has them all now.”
So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the words dropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were who stood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they were almost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. Old Madame d’Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy who looked so much like her own.
“Of course, ma’m’selle, my Lucien may be—I have not heard from him in many months. It is not for me to hope too much. But I think—yes, I think, ma’m’selle, he will come home to me when the war is over.”