THE AMAZING INTERLUDE
By
Mary Roberts Rinehart
XII
That morning there was a conference in the little house - Colonel Lilias,
who had come in before for a mute but appreciative call on Sara Lee, and
for a cup of chocolate; Captain Tournay, Jean and Henri. It was held
round the little table in the salle a manger, after Marie had brought
coffee and gone out.
"They had information undoubtedly," said the colonel. "The same thing
happened at Pervyse when an ammunition train went through. They had the
place, and what is more they had the time. Of course there are the
airmen."
"It did not leave the main road until too late for observation from the
air," Henri put in shortly.
"Yet any one who saw it waiting at the crossroads might have learned its
destination. The drivers talk sometimes."
"But the word had to be carried across," said Captain Tournay. "That is
the point. My men report flashes of lights from the fields. We have
followed them up and found no houses, no anything. In this flat country
a small light travels far."
"I shall try to learn to-night," Henri said. "It is, of course,
possible that some one from over there -" He shrugged his shoulders.
"I think not." Colonel Lilias put a hand on Henri's shoulder
affectionately. "They have not your finesse, boy. And I doubt if, in
all their army, they have so brave a man."
Henri flushed.
"There is a courage under fire, with their fellows round - that is one
thing. And a courage of attack - that is even more simple. But the
bravest man is the one who works alone - the man to whom capture is death
without honor."
The meeting broke up. Jean and Henri went away in the car, and though
supplies came up regularly Sara Lee did not see the battered gray car
for four days. At the end of that time Henri came alone. Jean, he said
briefly, was laid up for a little while with a flesh wound in his
shoulder. He would be well very soon. In the meantime here at last was
mutton. It had come from England, and he, Henri, had found it lying
forgotten and lonely and very sad and had brought it along.
After that Henri disappeared on foot. It was midafternoon and a sunny
day. Sara Lee saw him walking briskly across the fields and watched him
out of sight. She spoke some French now, and she had gathered from Rene,
who had no scruples about listening at a door, that Henri was the bravest
man in the Belgian Army.
Until now Sara Lee had given small thought to Henri's occupation. She
knew nothing of war, and the fact that Henri, while wearing a uniform,
was unattached, had not greatly impressed her. Had she known the
constitution of a modern army she might have wondered over his freedom,
his powerful car, his passes and maps. But his detachment had not seemed
odd to her. Even his appearance during the bombardment in the uniform
of a German lieutenant had meant nothing to her. She had never seen a
German uniform.
That evening, however, when he returned she ventured a question. They
dined together, the two of them, for the first time at the little house
alone. Always before Jean had made the third. And it was a real meal,
for Sara Lee had sacrificed a bit of mutton from her soup, and Henri had
produced from his pocket a few small and withered oranges.
"A gift!" he said gayly, and piled them in a precarious heap in the
center of the table. On the exact top he placed a walnut.
"Now speak gently and walk softly," he said. "It is a work of art and
not to be lightly demolished."
He was alternately gay and silent during the meal, and more than once
Sara Lee found his eyes on her, with something new and different in them.
"Just you and I together!" he said once. "It is very wonderful."
And again: "When you go back to him, shall you tell him of your good
friend who has tried hard to serve you?"
"Of course I shall," said Sara Lee. "And he will write you, I know. He
will be very grateful."
But it was she who was silent after that, because somehow it would be
hard to make Harvey understand. And as for his being grateful -
"Mademoiselle," said Henri later on, "would you object if I make a
suggestion? You wear.a very valuable ring. I think it is entirely safe,
but - who can tell? And also it is not entirely kind to remind men who
are far from all they love that you -"
Sara Lee flushed and took off her ring.
"I am glad you told me," she said. And Henri did not explain that the
Belgian soldiers would not recognize the ring as either a diamond or a
symbol, but that to him it was close to torture.
It was when he insisted on carrying out the dishes, singing a little
French song as he did so, that Sara Lee decided to speak what was in her
mind. He was in high spirits then.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "shall I show you something that the eye of no
man has seen before, and that, when we have seen it, shall never be seen
again?"
On her interested consent he called in Marie and Rene, making a great
ceremony of the matter, and sending Marie into hysterical giggling.
"Now see!" he said earnestly. "No eye before has ever seen or will again.
Will you guess, mademoiselle? Or you, Marie? Rene?"
"A tear?" ventured Sara Lee.
"But - do I look like weeping?"
He did not, indeed. He stood, tall and young and smiling before them,
and produced from his pocket the walnut.
"Perceive!" he said, breaking it open and showing the kernel. "Has human
eye ever before seen it?" He thrust it into Marie's open mouth. "And
it is gone! Voila tout!"
It was that evening, while Sara Lee cut bandages and Henri rolled them,
that she asked him what his work was. He looked rather surprised, and
rolled for a moment without replying. Then: "I am a man of all work,"
he said. "What you call odd jobs."
"Then you don't do any fighting?"
"In the trenches - no. But now and then I have a little skirmish."
A sort of fear had been formulating itself in Sara Lee's mind. The
trenches she could understand or was beginning to understand. But this
alternately joyous and silent idler, this soldier of no regiment and no
detail - was he playing a man's part in the war?
"Why don't you go into the trenches?" she asked with her usual directness.
"You say there are too few men. Yet - I can understand Monsieur Jean,
because he has only one eye. But you!"
"I do something," he said, avoiding her eyes. "It is not a great deal.
It is the thing I can do best. That is all."
He went away some time after that, leaving the littie house full and busy
justifying its existence. The miller's son, who came daily to chat with
Marie, was helping in the kitchen. By the warm stove, and only kept from
standing over it by Marie's sharp orders, were as many men as could get
near. Each held a bowl of hot soup, and - that being a good day - a
piece of bread. Tall soldiers and little ones, all dirty, all weary,
almost all smiling, they peered over each other's shoulders, to catch,
if might be, a glimpse of Marie's face.
When they came too close she poked an elbow into some hulking fellow and
sent him back.
"Elbow-room, in the name of God," she would beg.
Over all the room hung the warm steam from the kettles, and a delicious
odor, and peace.
Sara Lee had never heard of the word morale. She would have been
astonished to have been told that she was helping the morale of an army.
But she gave each night in that little house of mercy something that
nothing else could give - warmth and welcome, but above all a touch of
home.
That night Henri did not come back. She stood by her table bandaging,
washing small wounds, talking her bits of French, until one o'clock.
Then, the last dressing done, she went to the kitchen. Marie was there,
with Maurice, the miller's son.
"Has the captain returned?" she asked.
"Not yet, mademoiselle."
"Leave a warm fire," Sara Lee said. "He will probably come in later."
Maurice went away, with a civil good night. Sara Lee stood in the
doorway after he had gone, looking out. Farther along the line there
was a bombardment going on. She knew now what a bombardment meant and
her brows contracted. Somewhere there in the trenches men were enduring
that, while Henri -
She said a little additional prayer that night, which was that she
should have courage to say to him what she felt - that there were big
things to do, and that it should not all be left to these smiling,
ill-clad peasant soldiers.
At that moment Henri, in his gray-green uniform, was cutting wire before
a German trench, one of a party of German soldiers, who could not know
in the darkness that there had been a strange addition to their group.
Cutting wire and learning many things which it was well that he should
know.
Now and then, in perfect German, he whispered a question. Always he
received a reply. And stowed it away in his tenacious memory for those
it most concerned.
At daylight he was asleep by Sara Lee's kitchen fire. And at daylight
Sara Lee was awakened by much firing, and putting on a dressing gown she
went out to see what was happening. Rene was in the street looking
toward the poplar trees.
"An attack," he said briefly.
"You mean - the Germans?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
She went back into the little ruined house, heavy-hearted. She knew now
what it meant, an attack. That night there would be ambulances in the
street, and word would come up that certain men were gone - would never
seek warmth and shelter in her kitchen or beg like children for a second
bowl of soup.
On the kitchen floor by the dying fire Henri lay asleep.
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