by Ruth Sawyer
Chapter VIII
INTO HER OWN
The last big drive was on. Somewhere on the road between what had been theline of defense and what was the line of farthest advance rumbled ahospital camion with its nose to the war trail like an old dog on a freshscent. In the camion sat Sheila O'Leary, late of the old San and later yetof the American Military Hospital No. 10. She was in field uniform; a pairof the chief's own boots were strapped over two pairs of woolen stockings.She was contemplating those boots now with a smile of rare contentmentthat showed its inwardness even in the gray light of early morning.
"Never thought I should step into the shoes of a great surgeon. They oughtto pass me through to the front if everything else fails, don't youthink?"
The chief eyed her quizzically. "They'll carry you as far as you'll careto go and for as long as you'll stand. What's troubling me is what yourman will say when he knows?"
"Who--Peter?" Sheila's smile deepened. "He'll understand; he'll be glad.Something both of us will remember always, something big to share. Oh, Iknow it's going to be life and death, heaven and hell, rolled into aminute, but I wouldn't be missing this chance--" She broke off suddenly,and when she spoke again there was a great reverence in her voice. "I feelas the littlest angel might have felt if God had asked him to be at theCreation."
"Rather different, this." Griggs, the chief's assistant, spoke. There werejust the three of them in the ambulance.
"Not so very. It's another big primal happening, the hurling together ofelemental things and impulses and watching something more solid andlasting come out. A new heaven and a new earth."
"What we see coming out won't be so solid or so lasting. We may not beourselves." Griggs was a pessimist, a heroic one, with an eye ever keenfor the grimmest and most disappointing in life and a courage to meet itsquarely.
The chief's glance brushed him on its way to the nurse; Griggs's share ofit was plainly commiserating. "And I say, blessed be those who shallinherit it. But, girl, this doesn't settle the question of your man. I'vehad to duck orders a bit to bring you along. Women aren't wanted at thefront. He may hold it up stiff against me for it."
"But I can help. Any woman who can stand it will be needed. They shouldn'tbar us out. That's all Peter'll think about. Don't worry."
There was no question in the girl's mind as to the wisdom or right in hercoming--or Peter's verdict in the matter. He would not fuss over thisplunge into danger any more than he had misunderstood her giving away herwedding back at the old San and coming over at the eleventh hour. The lastwords Peter had said when he left her for the front came back withabsolute distinctness:
"Whatever happens, do what you think best, go where you feel you must go.Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own."
No, Peter Brooks would have been the last person to deny her this chance,and so all was well. She was wondering now if by some rare good luck shemight stumble on Peter at the front. She had not seen him since theyseparated the day after their arrival in France. A few penciledhieroglyphics had come from time to time telling her all was well withhim. She had written when she could and when she knew enough of an addressto risk a letter reaching him. But Peter, after the manner of allcorrespondents, was like Hamlet's ghost--here, there, and gone; and Sheilahad no way of knowing if her letters had ever reached him.
For weeks it had seemed to the girl that her love had lain dormant, hushedunder the pressure of work. So vital and eternal were both love andhappiness that in her zeal for perfect, impersonal service she had thrustthem both out of sight, as one might put seeds away in the dark to waituntil planting-time, assured of their fulfilment when the time came. Butnow in the lull between the work at the hospital and the work that wouldsoon claim her again she discovered that in some inexplicable manner lovewould no longer be shut out. She was sick for the man she loved.
A funny little wistful droop took Sheila's lips, and her chin quivered foran instant. It was so unlike the girl that the chief, seeing, reachedacross and laid a hand on her knee.
"What is it? Not sorry?"
"Never. But I was thinking how pleasantly easy it might have been to staybehind at the old San. Peter and I'd be climbing that mythical hilltop ofours, with a home of our own at the end of the climb--if we'd stayedbehind."
"Well, why didn't you?"
The nurse laughed softly. Griggs volunteered to answer for her.
"Because you were a fool, like a lot of the rest of us."
"Because--oh, because of that queer something inside us all that pries usaway from our determinations just to be contented and happy all our livesand hustles us somewhere to do something for somebody else. Remember inthe old fairy-tales they were always cleaning the world of dragons orgiants or chimeras before they married and lived happy ever after."
"Bosh! Remember that it's only in the fairy-tales that the giants or themonsters don't generally get you, and you get an epitaph instead of awedding. You romantic idealists make me sick," and Griggs snarled openly.
Their mobile unit was held up that day in a little ruined city. Only oneother dressing-station was there, and the wounded were passing through sofast and so wounded that many could not go on. So they set up anotherdressing-station and worked through the night until the stars went out andtheir orders came to hurry on. They caught two hours' sleep and by noon ofanother day they were as close to the front as a hospital unit could go.
A dugout had been portioned out to them, and while orderlies brought intheir equipment and the surgeons were coupling up lights and sterilizer,Sheila started to get a hot meal in two sterilizing basins. The nurse wasjust drawing in her first breath of real war. Before she had time toexhale it a despatch-bearer climbed down into the dugout and handed anorder to the chief. It was from headquarters, and brief. The division didnot intend to have any woman's name on its casualty list. Sheila was tobe returned at once. The bearer added the information that an ambulancewas returning with wounded; she could take it.
The chief had never seen the nurse turn so white. Her eyes spoke theappeal her lips refused to make. He tried to put something into words tomake it easier for her, but gave it up in final despair. What was there tosay? In silence the girl put on her trench coat, jammed on her hat, andwas gone. For the first kilometer her senses were too numbed to allow formuch thinking. Mechanically she passed her canteen to one of the wounded,readjusted a blanket over another. It was not until the division turnedloose its first barrage that day that she woke up to what was happening toher. She was going back; she was not going to have her chance.
The noise was terrific. It drowned everything but the mutinous hammeringsof her own heart. In the flash of an eye she changed from the SheilaO'Leary of civilized production to a savage, primitive woman. She had butone dominating instinct, to stand by the male of her tribe, to succorhim, fight with him, die with him. It seemed as futile a thing to try tostay this impulse as to try to put out the burning of a prairie when thewind blows.
The ambulance stopped with a jerk. Something was wrong with the engine.The driver climbed down and threw back the hood, and, unnoticed, the nurseslipped down and passed him. When he had finished his tinkering, Sheilawas fifty rods away across the meadow.
"Here, you, you come back!" shouted the driver.
For answer Sheila doubled her speed.
The driver watched her, uncertain what to do. A shell whizzed from beyondthe barrage and burst a hundred yards from the nurse. The shock threw her,but she was up in an instant, her course changed toward some desertedtrenches. The driver hesitated no longer. He climbed back and started theengine.
"No use tacklin' them kind," he remarked to the empty seat beside him."She'll get there or she won't--but she won't turn back."
It was nightfall when Sheila came up with what she had chosen to call "herdivision." She intended to possess it in spite of the commander. Anoutpost sentry challenged what he thought a wraith. His tongue fumbled thewords, "Oh, Gawd! it's a woman!"
"Yes. Will you
pass her? Lots to do."
He looked at the red cross on her arm and smiled foolishly. "You bet thereis! Sure I'll pass you."
She came up with the first battalion, bivouacked under a shell-rivenridge.
"A woman!" The first boy whispered it, and the exclamation rippled on tothe next and the next like wind in dry leaves. Remembering the exodus ofthe morning, the nurse knew if she was to stay she must prove her need andprove it quickly. Her voice was as business-like as in the old San days.
"Dressing-station? Company's surgeon? Wounded? Doesn't matter which, onlyget me some work."
A hand slipped out of the darkness and caught her elbow. "This way, lady,"and she was drawn along the protecting shelter of the ridge. After rods ofstumbling she stumbled down irrational stairs into the same dugout she hadleft that morning. She was almost as surprised as the two surgeons.
"You're a fool," muttered Griggs. "Wait till they order me back. I'll notbe crying for purgatory twice."
The chief smiled. "I reckon you got that S O S call I've been sending outall day. We need help like sixty. Bichloride's under that basin. We'll beready for you when you've washed up. Night ahead--" His words trailed offinto an incoherent chuckling. He was wondering how the girl had managedit. He was wondering more what the command would do when it found out. Inthe mean time he was glorying in her courage; he would see she got fullmeasure of the work that had claimed her in spite of orders, while hesilently thanked a merciful God for providing her.
No one questioned her right to be there that night. Wounded poured in,flooded the dugout to capacity, were cared for, carried away, and moreflooded again. It was daybreak before a lull came, and then there wereorders to be ready to follow the battalion in an hour. So they ate asnatch, packed, and rolled on in the wake of the Allies' conquest.
Again it was nightfall before they caught up with their regiment. Even toeyes as inexperienced as theirs it was easy to see it had been factoredand factored again, and not the half of it was standing. They found acouple of regimental surgeons floundering through a sea of wounded. Thenurse had to bite her lips to keep back the cry of horror over theapparent hopelessness of the task that lay before them. So many--and sofew hands to do it all!
A shout went up from the men who had come through whole, when they sawher. They were wet, covered with mud, aching in every joint and sinew, butthey forgot it all in their joyful pride over the fact that the nurse wasstanding by.
"Gosh durn it, it's our girl!"
"Stuck fast to the old bat. Whoopee!"
"At-a-boy! Three cheers for the pluckiest girl on the front--our girl!"and a young giant led the cheering that sprang as one yell from thosehusky throats.
"She's all right--our girl's all right--'rah-'rah-'rah!"
Sheila's own voice was too husky to more than whisper, as she slippedbehind the giant, "Tell them my thanks and--good luck."
"You bet I will."
From that instant there was no more helplessness in the feelings of SheilaO'Leary. She felt empowered to move mountains, to make new a mangled heapof boys. As she joined the chief she stopped to see how it was with him.His eyes met hers, and in the flash she read there the same fighting faiththat was in her own heart. He patted her shoulder.
"Didn't think you'd funk. Nothing like team-work when you're up againstit. Keeps you believing in the divinity of man, eh?"
And who can tell if at times like these the power of the Nazarene does notpass on to those who go fearlessly forth to minister in the face of death!It would not be so strange if he had passed over innumerable battle-fieldsand so anointed those who had come to succor that their task was madeeasier and their burden at least bearable.
There was no shelter for any of them that night. They worked in the open,and volunteers came from the ranks to do what they could. The surgeonswould have scorned them, but the nurse mustered in a score or more to keepthe fires under the kettles burning, to hold supplies and lanterns, tomake coffee when the sterilizing basins could be surrendered for thepurpose; and she showed those with pocket-knives how to cut away theblood-soaked clothing. Caked with mud herself and desperately hungry, shedressed and comforted as she went. The scene was ghastly--Verestchaginmight have painted it--but Sheila saw none of it. It was for her a timeexalted, even for those she helped to die. There was no sting in thisdeath. As she passed on and on in the darkness the space about her seemedfilled with the shadowy forms of those whom God was mustering out,peacefully, gloriously waiting His command to march into a land of fullpromise. So acutely did she feel this that a prayer rose to her lips andstayed there, mute, half through the night, that some time she might begiven the chance to make this clear for those who mourned at home, to makethem feel that death, here, held no sting.
In the midst of it Sheila felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and turned tolook into the face of the commander.
"Are you the nurse I ordered back two days ago?"
"I believe so."
"Who ordered you back again?"
"No one."
"How did you come?"
The girl laughed softly. She could not resist the memory of that flight."Engine went wrong and I--beat it. Don't blame the driver; he did his bestto obey orders. I joined the division last night and came on with mychief."
"So there's no use in ordering you back?"
"None in the least--that is, not so long as the boys are coming in likethis."
"How long can you stand it?"
"As long as they can, sir." And then without rhyme or reason tears spranginto the nurse's eyes, to her great mortification and terror. That wouldprobably finish her; a woman who cried had no place at the front, and thegeneral would dismiss her promptly and with scorn.
But he did not. The hand that had touched her arm reached out and grippedher hand. She caught a whimsical smile brushing his lips in the dark.
"Good night. When you want your discharge, I'll sign it."
He went as swiftly and silently as he had come. The nurse turned back toher work with a sigh of relief. The regiment was hers officially now.
The next day they made another little town. So quickly and unexpectedlyhad the enemy been forced to evacuate it that there had been no time todestroy or pillage, and the shells had somehow passed it by. The town wasfull of liberated French--the young and very old--who crowded the streetsand shouted their welcome as the troops passed through. The chapel wasflung open to receive the wounded, and the hospital unit was installedtherein.
As Sheila O'Leary crossed the threshold of the little church a strangefeeling sprang at her, so that her throat went dry and her heart almoststopped beating. It was as if something apart from her and yet not aparthad spoken and said: "Here is where the big moment of your life will bestaged. Whatever matters for all time will happen here, and what has gonebefore--the San, the hospital, everything you have felt, striven for,believed in, and trusted--all that is but a prologue. The real part ofyour life is just beginning--or--"
Griggs broke the terror that was clutching at her. "What's the matter?Don't you know there's a war going on and about a million wounded comingin? There are a few hundred of them up there, lying round under the imagesof the saints. The saints may bless 'em, but they won't dress 'em. Thechief's growling for you. Come along!"
For once she was grateful to the pessimist. She tried to brush thestrangeness away as she hurried down the aisle, but it clung in spite ofher. And at the altar more strangeness confronted her. A slightly woundedlad suddenly reached out a hand holding a crumpled paper.
"Guess you're Miss O'Leary, ain't you? He said there wasn't much of achance, but what you don't expect over here is what you get. You know?"
The incoherency was lost on Sheila. She took the crumpled paperwonderingly 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 c
omes, 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 handthat had brought it to her, and passed up the steps to the work that waswaiting for her. The first day passed like a dream. Guns boomed, shellsscreeched their way overhead and landed somewhere. Wounded came and went.Many died, and a white-haired, tottering old sexton helped to carry themaway. The old palsied _abbe_ came and chanted prayers for the dying, andsome one played a "_Dies Irae_" on the little organ. Old French mothersstole in timorously and offered their services, the service of their handsand emptied hearts. When they found they might help they were patheticallygrateful, fluttering down between the aisles of wounded like souls with aday's reprieve from purgatory. They were finding panacea for theirbereavement in this care of the sons of other mothers. And as they passedSheila, in broken sentences, almost inarticulate, they told their sorrow:
"Six--all gone, ma'm'selle."
"Jean, Francois, Paul, and Victor--Victor the last--he fell two monthsago."
"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 allnow."
So they mourned as they went their way of tender service, the wordsdropping unconsciously from their quivering old lips. A few there were whostood apart, the envied mothers with hope. Sheila learned who they werealmost from the beginning. Each had a son somewhere not reported. OldMadame d'Arcy whispered about it as she bathed the face of the boy wholooked so much like her own.
"Of course, ma'm'selle, my Lucien may be--I have not heard from him inmany 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."
And Madame Simone, who brought fresh black coffee and little cakes forthose who could eat them, trembled with the gladness of ministering to theboys who were fighting with hers for France. "I had almost ceased to praywhen the Americans came, but now--ah, ma'm'selle, now there is hope againin this withered breast. I even dream now of mon p'tit--the youngest ofthem all. I feel the good God is sparing him for me."
And old Isabelle, who came to scrub the floor and clean, muttered, as shebent her willing back to the labor: "Moi, that is what I say, too. TheLord will send my Jacques home to comfort my old age."
As Sheila listened, it epitomized for her the tragedy of the mothers ofFrance, this antiphonal chorus of the mothers who had lost all and thosewho had yet one son left. To the girl's mind there came in almost cruelcontrast that chorus of Maeterlinck's mothers raised in rapturousexpectancy to the unborn; she knew she was hearing now the agonizedantithesis of it. Throughout the first day it rang incessantly, until shecould have hummed the haunting melody of it. Then night came. The patchesof reds and greens and blues that had sifted through the stained-glasswindow in the chancel and played all day in grotesque patches on the whitecheeks of the wounded faded alike to gray, and the nurse lit the tall waxcandles on the altar that the work might go on without stopping.
The next day--and the next--passed much the same. There was no end to thewounded. Griggs fainted twice the second day, and the chief and Sheilacarried the work alone for a few hours. Each of them was acutely consciousof the strain on the other and did what he and she could to ease thetension. For the girl her greatest comfort was in the scrap of papercrumpled over her breast. It told her Peter was near, coming to her soon.It seemed to transmit some of his strength and optimism. There weremoments when, but for his reassurance, the girl would have doubted everynormal, happy phase of life and acknowledged only the unending torture andrenunciation. Sometimes the horror seemed to wrap them in like animpenetrable fog. As for the chief, it took every ounce of will and sanityto keep him going, and he wondered how the girl beside him could brave itthrough without a whimper.
Always about them roared the great guns like the last booming of ajudgment day, and under that noise the moaning chorus of the Frenchmothers. When the strain reached the breaking-point Sheila closed her eyesand looked for the light on the hilltop that Peter had promised would bethere--and there it always was. Moreover, she could feel Peter's vitalpresence and the marvelous reality of his love reaching nearer and nearerto her through the darkness. So she kept her head clear and her handssteady and forced a smile whenever the chief eyed her anxiously. She neverfailed a boy "going west." To the last breath she let him see theradiating faith of her own soul that believed in the ultimate Love aboveeverything else. Those old illuminating smiles that had won for her hernickname of Leerie never had to be forced, and they lighted the way outfor many a groping soul in that little church. And the old Frenchwomen,watching above their prayers for the return of Louis or Charles orJacques, said:
"See, for all she's so young, she knows what the mother-heart is. That iswhy she feels for us. She knows how our hearts have bled."
On the 9th of November they were still there. The division had continuedits drive, but slowly, and no orders had come for the mobile unit to goforward. And then came one of those lulls and flush-backs which for themoment made one almost believe that the tide of battle had turnedagain--and for the enemy. With the coming of the first wounded that daycame orders to evacuate the town at once.
At first the townsfolk would not believe, but as the muddy columns of thefirst company could be seen on the outskirts, doubt gave place tocertainty, and without moan they gathered up what few belongings theycould and set their faces toward what they prayed would hold French soil.Before the refugees had cleared the town, the shelling began, giving thelast impelling haste to their exodus. The hospital unit stayed in thechurch. They got the wounded ready to be moved and waited for furtherorders. They came in another ten minutes; everybody was to clear out.Three ambulances from the east and a half-dozen from the west gathered upthe stretcher cases, while the others piled into the supply-trucks--thatis, all but the chief and Sheila. They stood in the church door withminds for anything but going. It came to them both that, as the battalionsfell back, each would be bringing its wounded as far as it could. If therewas a place to drop them--and care waiting until a few more ambulancescould push through--many lives might be saved, and much suffering.
The chief looked down at the girl and saw what was in her mind. Linkinghis arm in hers, he muttered under his breath, "Still game, bless you!"And then aloud: "Miss O'Leary and I have a liking for this place. We'llstay until the next orders."
Griggs had climbed to the footboard of an ambulance, and he faced themwith contempt. "We didn't volunteer to sit 'round and be blown to bits.Don't be fools, you two. Come on while you've got a chance." And then,when he saw how futile were his words: "If you haven't had enoughslaughter for one while, I have. Good-by."
As they waved them off, the muddy column of the first company swung downthe street. It was even as they had thought--wounded were with them, andthe nurse and surgeon hurried inside to make ready. The day wound itselfout in an almost ludicrous repetition of events. Straggling companies fellback, dropped their wounded, and went on; a few ambulances made the town,gathered up the worst cases, and went back. Desultory shells picked offtheir belfry, smashed a group of monuments in the cemetery, and wiped outa street of houses not far away. And every half-hour or so came the ordersto evacuate at once. Regiment after regiment fell back through the city;the rest of the division must have passed to north and south of it. Bynightfall nearly all had passed and the town was left like a delta betweentwo dividing currents.
"They'll begin shelling in earnest by midnight. We'll get barrages fromboth sides. We won't know it, but this town's going to be wiped off themap to-night."
The chief said it in his most matter-of-fact voice, but hisface showed gray.
The girl hushed him. "The boys might hear, and they've been through somuch. There's no harm in letting them hope." She turned back to theemergency kettle she was stirring. They were making cocoa and feeding theboys out of the chalice-cups from the altar. To the nurse it seemed likepassing the last communion, and though her hands kept steady, her heartseemed drained.
Out of the noise and the gathering gloom outside came two morestretcher-loads. The bearers whistled when they saw the red cross on thedoor. They whistled harder when they pushed it open and looked inside."Gee! we thought all you outfits had been ordered back!" The bearers laiddown their burden on a pew, and the fore one groaned out the words.
"We were," the chief spoke. "Sorry we didn't go?"
"Dunno. Bet these chaps wouldn't be, though--if they knew. Don't knowwhether it's any use trying; they're all but gone, Doc." The speakerjerked his head over his shoulder and thumbed a command to the otherbearers. "Here you, Jake! You and Fritzie hustle along with yours."
As the surgeon bent over to examine, the nurse stopped an instant tolisten, then went on feeding her boys.
"This one's French." The chief was looking over the first stretcher. "Howdid you pick him up?"
"Got mixed up with a company of _poilus_ in the last scrap. We fought alltogether."
"Hmmmm! He'll need speed or he'll make it. Give me a hand with him, boys,over to the table there."
"Wait, Doc. There's another just as bad. He's--the other's a Yank."
The spokesman again jerked his comrades into further evidence. One of thebearers was an American, the other a captured German, slightly wounded.Between them lay a figure in the gray uniform of a correspondent. A heavygrowth of beard made the man almost unrecognizable, but something tuggedat the chief's memory and set him speculating. He cast a furtive glanceover his shoulder toward the nurse, then lowered his voice.
"You haven't any idea who it is, have you?"
"Sure. He's the A. P. man that's been with our division from the first.His name's Brooks."
The chalice fell through Sheila's fingers and struck the altar steps witha sharp, metallic ring. The next instant she was beside the chief, lookingdown with wide, unbelieving eyes at the stretcher which held nothingfamiliar but the gray uniform--and there were many men wearing the same.It could not be. This was not the way Peter was coming back to her. In allthe days of horror, of caring for the hundreds of wounded, it had neverentered her mind that war might claim the man she loved. Her love, and thefulfilment thereof, had stood out as the one absolute reality of life, thething that could not fail. This simply could not be; Peter was still faraway, but coming, supreme in his strength, invulnerable in his love andpromise to her.
"You--don't know him?" The chief asked it hopefully.
The girl shook her head. "He can't be--The beard--Wait." Her hand slippedthrough the opening in his uniform to an inside pocket. She drew out aflat bundle of papers, and the first glance told her all she needed toknow. There was Peter's unmistakable scribbling on the uppermost, and fromunder it showed the corner of one of her letters to him.
The chief's hand steadied her. "No time to lose, girl, but we'll pull himthrough. We've got to fight for it, but we'll do it. Easy there, boys.Take him over to the table, there, under the light."
But Sheila O'Leary put out a detaining hand. Her eyes were no longer onPeter; she was looking at the figure on the other stretcher. "What did yousay about that French boy?"
"He'll have to go, poor chap! There isn't time for both. Listen, Leerie,"as a flash of pain swept the girl's face, "it's a toss-up between themwho's worse, and it's down now to a matter of minutes. It means the bestteam-work we've done yet to save just your man."
Still the girl made no move. Her eyes were turned away. In her ears wasringing the chorus of the mothers, those waiting for Louis or Jacques orLucien to come home. Dear God, what was she to do?
The chief pulled her sleeve. "Wake up, girl. There's a chance for yourman, 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 tothe cry that was ringing in them. She wanted to look at Peter and say theword that would start the bearers carrying him to that little zone oflight about the altar where they had saved so many during those days. Buther eyes clung, in spite of her, to the white boy-face and the faded blueuniform below it. Peter had no mother, no one but herself to face thegrief and mourn the loss of him, and the hearts of French mothers had beendrained--bled almost to the last drop? Wouldn't Peter say to save thatdrop? Had she the right to shed it and spare her own heart's bleeding? Thequestions filtered through her mind with the inevitableness of sands in anhour-glass. With a cry of agony she wrenched her eyes away at last andfaced 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 shookher. "For God's sake, wake up, Leerie! You've gone through so much, yourthinking isn't just clear. Get rational, girl. You'd be deliberatelykilling your man, to leave him now. You don't realize his condition, oryou wouldn't be wasting time this way. By the time we finish with thefirst there'll be no chance for the second; they're both bleeding in adozen places. Here, boys! Help me over with Mr. Brooks."
But Sheila put out a quick hand and held them back. "And if I put Peterfirst I shall be deliberately killing the other. Don't you see? I can't doit--Peter wouldn't wish it--it would mean--Boys, carry over the other. Thechief's going to save a lad for France."
There was no denying her. She stood guard over Peter's stretcher until theother had been lifted and carried away. Grimly the surgeon followed, andSheila turned to the two who were still holding the stretcher.
"Would you mind putting him down there? Now, will you leave us just aminute?" 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. Thechief had said it must be team-work, the best. She mustn't waste manyseconds. She thought of the many she had helped to die, the courage a warmgrip of the hand had given, the healing strength in a smile, and herheart cringed before this last sacrifice of giving Peter over to adesolate, prayerless death. Hardly breathing, she slipped down and laidher cheek to his bearded one. She could offer one prayer, that he neednever wake to know. Kneeling there, his last words came back to her almostin mockery:
"Don't bungle your instincts. I'd trust them next to God's own."
Dear God, if she only could bungle them! If only they had not wrenchedfrom her this torturing, ghastly choice! She knew the meaning now of thestrangeness that had met her as she first crossed the threshold of thelittle church. She knew why the chorus of mothers had been sung so deepinto her heart. The greatest moment of her life had come--a terrible,soul-rending moment. And beyond it lay nothing. She choked out anincoherent, futile prayer into the dulled ears--and left him. This--thiswas her farewell to Peter Brooks--her man--her man for all time.
The American orderly had disappeared. Sheila stumbled over to the door andgripped the sleeve of the German.
"If he opens his eyes"--she opened and shut her own eyes inpantomime--"come for me, quick. Verstehen?"
The German nodded.
For the next half-hour, with nerves keyed to their utmost and handsworking with the greatest speed and skill they were capable of, SheilaO'Leary's soul went down into purgatory and stayed there. Not once did shelook beyond the boy she was helping to save; not once did she let herselfthink what might be happening beyond the circle of light that hemmed themin. With all the woman courage she could muster, she was stifling everybreath of love or longing--or self-pity. If she could have killed her bodyand known that when that night's work was done she would be laid in thecemetery outside with Peter, she would have been almost satisfied.
Suddenly she realized they had finished. The chief was r
epeating somethingover and over again.
"The boy is safe. You'd better lie down."
The bearers were moving the boy back to the pews and the chief was leadingher down the steps of the chancel. But it was Sheila who guided theirsteps at the bottom. She led the way toward the German and the thing hehad been asked to watch. Terror shook her. It seemed as if she could neverlook at what she knew would be waiting for her, and yet no power on earthcould have held her back.
As she reached the prisoner she saw in bewilderment a strange scatteringof things on the floor about him--forceps, some knives, a roll of gauze,and a syringe. There was an odor of a strange antiseptic which made herfaint. She tottered and would have fallen had the German not helped thechief to steady her.
"He has not gained consciousness, madam. He has lost too much blood forthat." The German spoke in English. He also spread his hands in muteapology for what he had done. "I have stanched his wounds with what poorsupplies I had with me. It has merely kept him alive. He will require morecare, better dressing."
No one answered. Words seemed the most impossible and absurd means ofexpression just then.
The German smiled at the look Sheila gave him, and the smile was arrogant."You Americans have always made such a fuss over what you have beenpleased to call our brutalities. What is war if it isn't a consistenteffort to exterminate the enemy? The women are the wives of the enemy andthe breeders of more; the wounded are still the enemy--if they recover,they fight again. But a German knows how to honor a brave act. And whenyou go back, madam, you can tell how Carl Tiefmann, a German surgeon,wounded and taken prisoner, so far forgot his Prussian creed as to sparean enemy for a brave woman."
He bowed and went back to the church doors. Sheila watched him go througha trailing of mist; then she dropped through the chief's arms,unconscious, on the floor beside Peter's stretcher.
The Germans never reached the little town, and by some merciful stroke ofluck neither did any more of the shells. So it came to pass that on the11th of November a very white nurse, holding fast to the hand of a manunconscious on a stretcher, followed Peace across the threshold of theAmerican Military Hospital No. 10. It was days before Sheila spoke above ahusky whisper or smiled, for it was days before Peter was out ofdanger, but there came a morning at last when a shaven and shorn Peter,looking oddly familiar, opened clear, sane eyes and saw the woman he lovedbending close above him.
"He will require more care, better dressing"]
He gave the same old cry that he had given ages before when he had comeout of another nightmare of unconsciousness and fear, "It's Leerie--why,it's Leerie!"
And Sheila smiled down at him again with the old luminous smile.
When he was sufficiently mended to look about him and take reckoning ofwhat had happened, he asked first for the ring that he had bought for thatlong-before wedding and that he had carried ever since with him. And heasked, second, for the chaplain.
Sheila drew the gold chain from about her neck and dangled the ring infront of his nose. "I took it when we cut off your coat that night, andI've kept it handy ever since. The chaplain's handy, too. He'spromised--any hour of the day or night. Shall we send for him--now?"
Peter nodded.
The nurse turned to go, hesitated, and then came back to the cot. Peterthought he had never seen her eyes so full of wonder.
"Man o' mine, maybe you won't want me when you know I almost let you go,that I intended to let you die to save first a French lad that came inwith you."
Peter grinned. "Same old Leerie! Well, we're quits, sweetheart, and I'mglad to have it off my conscience. Sort of did the same thing myself.Rushed off in the shelling to bring in that same poor chap--he'd got abullet in his leg--and all the time I knew I ought to be thinking of youfirst and hanging on to safety. Funny, isn't it, how something queer getsyou in the midst of it all and you do the last thing in the world you wantto do? A year or two and the whole thing will be unexplainable."
Sheila bent over and laid her lips to Peter's. She knew that in a year--ina century--they would still understand why they had done these things, andshe was glad they had both paid their utmost for the love and happinessthat she knew was theirs now for all time.
Peter broke on her reverie with a chuckle. "Remember old Hennessy sayingonce that he believed you would give me away with everything else--if youthought anybody else needed me more? He'd certainly wash his hands of thepair of us."
"Hennessy's an old dear. I'll get the chaplain, and afterward let's sendHennessy the first--and the best--cable he's ever had. Sort of owe it tohim, don't we?"
Without any of the original splendor of decorations, collation, andattire, with no one but the chaplain to marry them and the chief to blessthem, Sheila O'Leary came into her own at last. As for Peter--he looked asHennessy described him on the day the Brookses came home--"wi' one eye onthe thruest lass God ever made an' the other on Paradise."
