Still the girl made no move. Her eyes were turned away. In her ears was ringing the chorus of the mothers, those waiting for Louis or Jacques or Lucien to come home. Dear God, what was she to do?
The chief pulled her sleeve. “Wake up, girl. There’s a chance for your man, I tell you, only in Heaven’s name don’t waste it! Come.”
She tried to take her eyes away from the boy, tried to shut her ears to the cry that was ringing in them. She wanted to look at Peter and say the word that would start the bearers carrying him to that little zone of light about the altar where they had saved so many during those days. But her eyes clung, in spite of her, to the white boy-face and the faded blue uniform below it. Peter had no mother, no one but herself to face the grief and mourn the loss of him, and the hearts of French mothers had been drained—bled almost to the last drop? Wouldn’t Peter say to save that drop? Had she the right to shed it and spare her own heart’s bleeding? The questions filtered through her mind with the inevitableness of sands in an hour-glass. With a cry of agony she wrenched her eyes away at last and faced the chief.
“We’ll let Peter—wait. We’ll take the boy—first.”
Dumfounded, the chief stared for the fraction of a moment; then he shook her. “For God’s sake, wake up, Leerie! You’ve gone through so much, your thinking isn’t just clear. Get rational, girl. You’d be deliberately killing your man, to leave him now. You don’t realize his condition, or you wouldn’t be wasting time this way. By the time we finish with the first there’ll be no chance for the second; they’re both bleeding in a dozen places. Here, boys! Help me over with Mr. Brooks.”
But Sheila put out a quick hand and held them back. “And if I put Peter first I shall be deliberately killing the other. Don’t you see? I can’t do it—Peter wouldn’t wish it—it would mean—Boys, carry over the other. The chief’s going to save a lad for France.”
There was no denying her. She stood guard over Peter’s stretcher until the other had been lifted and carried away. Grimly the surgeon followed, and Sheila turned to the two who were still holding the stretcher.
“Would you mind putting him down there? Now, will you leave us just a minute?” She spoke to the American, but the German must have understood, for he led the way to the church door and stood with his back to her.
Even the comfort of staying with Peter to the last was denied her. The chief had said it must be team-work, the best. She mustn’t waste many seconds. She thought of the many she had helped to die, the courage a warm grip of the hand had given, the healing strength in a smile, and her heart cringed before this last sacrifice of giving Peter over to a desolate, prayerless death. Hardly breathing, she slipped down and laid her cheek to his bearded one. She could offer one prayer, that he need never wake to know. Kneeling there, his last words came back to her almost in mockery:
“Don’t bungle your instincts. I’d trust them next to God’s own.”