“And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after village that has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The people go mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like souls turned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma’am’selle! Be thankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of America thrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the faces of the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like when the tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind it wreckage and slime. Only here it was human wreckage.
“At last the night came when we lay outside Tourteron. Bertrand called for me and we bivouacked together. We were to attack some time before dawn, after the moon had set. We could not trust our tongues—at such times things are better left unsaid; so we lay and smoked and prayed against what we feared. Only once Bertrand spoke—‘François, to-morrow will see me always a devil or a saint, le bon Dieu knows which.'
“The moon shone bright till after midnight. We lay under cover of thin weeds, and beyond lay the meadow and stream and then the town. About twelve we heard the crisp bark of a sniper—two, three shots; then everything was still as death again. We were watching the shadows play across the meadow and timing the minutes before the moon would sink, when out of one of those shadows she came—straight across the meadow and the moonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She had a way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she the sniper had been after. One side of her face was crimson, the other side white and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look I had told me she had gone quite mad.
“I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reach out for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call. He dared not call out loud—he dared not move to give our troops away! It was to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and call softly as to a little child, ‘Nanette chérie, allons, allons!’
“There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given way and the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I think Nanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolen out to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadow herself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang the foolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We could hear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words. Ma’am’selle knows them, perhaps?
“‘Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi—
Hélas, mon maître, je n’ai pas de quoi,
La dans ma bergeri-e
J’ai cent moutons; ça s’ra pour faire les noces de papillon.’”
“The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad”
The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell of the story he was telling. Then he went on. “She sang it through each time, patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still wore them, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn away with the little shake of the head, so triste, ma’am’selle. And all the time the man beside me calling out his heart in a whisper—‘Nanette—Nanette—allons, chérie!’
“She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reaching out to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went down like a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there, waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. We swept Tourteron clean of the Boches; and we take no prisoners! For that night every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and they see what he has seen. But before the day is gone we are sane men again, all but our captain. The shell that takes my leg takes what pity, what softness he has left, and leaves him with just the frenzy to kill. And it is not for me to wonder—moi—for I know all.”