Coming Home

“Damn what happened elsewhere! I don’t yet know what happened here.”

I put a hand on his arm. Mlle. Malo was looking hard at me, but I wouldn’t let her see I knew it. “I’m going to leave you to hear the whole story now,” I said to Rechamp.

“But there isn’t any story for him to hear!” she broke in. She pointed at the serene front of the chateau, looking out across its gardens to the unscarred fields. “We’re safe; the place is untouched. Why brood on other horrors— horrors we were powerless to help?”

Rechamp held his ground doggedly. “But the man’s name is a curse and an abomination. Wherever he went he spread ruin.”

“So they say. Mayn’t there be a mistake? Legends grow up so quickly in these dreadful times. Here—” she looked about her again at the peaceful scene—“here he behaved as you see. For heaven’s sake be content with that!”

“Content?” He passed his hand across his forehead. “I’m blind with joy…or should be, if only…”

She looked at me entreatingly, almost desperately, and I took hold of Rechamp’s arm with a warning pressure.

“My dear fellow, don’t you see that Mlle. Malo has been under a great strain? La joie fait peur—that’s the trouble with both of you!”

He lowered his head. “Yes, I suppose it is.” He took her hand And kissed it. “I beg your pardon. Greer’s right: we’re both on edge.”

“Yes: I’ll leave you for a little while, if you and Mr Greer will excuse me.” She included us both in a quiet look that seemed to me extremely noble, and walked lowly away toward the chateau. Rechamp stood gazing after her for a moment; then he dropped down on one of benches at the edge of the path. He covered his face with his hands. “Scharlach—Scharlach!” I heard him say.

We sat there side by side for ten minutes or more without speaking. Finally I said: “Look here, Rechamp—she’s right and you’re wrong. I shall be sorry I brought you here if you don’t see it before it’s too late.”

His face was still hidden; but presently he dropped his hands and answered me. “I do see. She’s saved everything for me—my, people and my house, and the ground we’re standing on. And I worship it because she walks on it!”

“And so do your people: the war’s done that for you, anyhow,” I reminded him.

VII

The morning after we were off before dawn. Our time allowance was up, and it was thought advisable, on account of our wounded, to slip across the exposed bit of road in the dark.

Mlle. Malo was downstairs when we started, pale in her white dress, but calm and active. We had borrowed a farmer’s cart in which our two men could be laid on a mattress, and she had stocked our trap with food and remedies. Nothing seemed to have been forgotten. While I was settling the men I suppose Rechamp turned back into the hall to bid her good-bye; anyhow, when she followed him out a moment later he looked quieter and less strained. He had taken leave of his parents and his sister upstairs, and Yvonne Malo stood alone in the dark driveway, watching us as we drove away.

There was not much talk between us during our slow drive back to the lines. We had to go it a snail’s pace, for the roads were rough; and there was time for meditation. I knew well enough what my companion was thinking about and my own thoughts ran on the same lines. Though the story of the German occupation of Rechamp had been retold to us a dozen times the main facts did not vary. There were little discrepancies of detail, and gaps in the narrative here and there; but all the household, from the astute ancestress to the last bewildered pantry-boy, were at one in saying that Mlle. Malo’s coolness and courage had saved the chateau and the village. The officer in command had arrived full of threats and insolence: Mlle. Malo had placated and disarmed him, turned his suspicions to ridicule, entertained him and his comrades at dinner, and contrived during that time—or rather while they were making music afterward (which they did for half the night, it seemed)—that Monsieur de Rechamp and Alain should slip out of the cellar in which they had been hidden, gain the end of the gardens through an old hidden passage, and get off in the darkness. Meanwhile Simone had been safe upstairs with her mother and grandmother, and none of the officers lodged in the chateau had—after a first hasty inspection—set foot in any part of the house but the wing assigned to them. On the third morning they had left, and Scharlach, before going, had put in Mlle. Malo’s hands a letter requesting whatever officer should follow him to show every consideration to the family of the Comte de Rechamp, and if possible—owing to the grave illness of the Countess—avoid taking up quarters in the chateau: a request which had been scrupulously observed.

Such were the amazing but undisputed facts over which Rechamp and I, in our different ways, were now pondering. He hardly spoke, and when he did it was only to make some casual reference to the road or to our wounded soldiers; but all the while I sat at his side I kept hearing the echo of the question he was inwardly asking himself, and hoping to God he wouldn’t put it to me….

It was nearly noon when we finally reached the lines, and the men had to have a rest before we could start again; but a couple of hours later we landed them safely at the base hospital. From there we had intended to go back to Paris; but as we were starting there came an unexpected summons to another point of the front, where there had been a successful night-attack, and a lot of Germans taken in a blown-up trench. The place was fifty miles away, and off my beat, but the number of wounded on both sides was exceptionally heavy, and all the available ambulances had already started. An urgent call had come for more, and there was nothing for it but to go; so we went.

We found things in a bad mess at the second line shanty-hospital where they were dumping the wounded as fast as they could bring them in. At first we were told that none were fit to be carried farther that night; and after we had done what we could we went off to hunt up a shake-down in the village. But a few minutes later an orderly overtook us with a message from the surgeon. There was a German with an abdominal wound who was in a bad way, but might be saved by an operation if he could be got back to the base before midnight.

Would we take him at once and then come back for others?

There is only one answer to such requests, and a few minutes later we were back at the hospital, and the wounded man was being carried out on a stretcher. In the shaky lantern gleam I caught a glimpse of a livid face and a torn uniform, and saw that he was an officer, and nearly done for. Rechamp had climbed to the box, and seemed not to be noticing what was going on at the back of the motor. I understood that he loathed the job, and wanted not to see the face of the man we were carrying; so when we had got him settled I jumped into the ambulance beside him and called out to Bechamp that we were ready. A second later an