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RED CROSS AND IRON CROSS
The ^Author's profits on the sale of this
will he handed r rcer to the French Red
RED CROSS & IRON CROSS
BY A DOCTOR IN FRANCE
TORONTO :
S. B. GUNDY
1916
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
THE day of reckoning will come. The day
when the civilized world sets to work to
pick out the criminals from the barbarians,
the criminals responsible for the atrocities
and infamies committed by the savage foe.
The documents for the accusation furnished
by the accused themselves a most valuable
contribution to the sombre study of German
criminology establish beyond doubt that
it is on the leaders and not on the men that
the heaviest responsibility will fall. The
hanging evidence against several of the
commanding German Generals in Belgium
is overwhelming their proclamations to
their victims and their orders to their troops
contain damning proofs that they are morally
and legally responsible for the slaughter of
hundreds of helpless civilians, men, women
and children. Accusations of instigation to
murder, even of the wounded, are brought
against officers of all ranks by their men in
their note-books now in the hands of the
Belgian, French and English authorities.
As to the men themselves, the writers of
these precious human documents, most of
viii FOREWORD
them have already gone to their doom, and
all we know of them are the horrors they have
witnessed and the atrocities they have com-
mitted. Many are still alive and prisoners
of war. Others have died in our ambulances
side by side with their former foes, now their
comrades in suffering and as often as not
almost their friends. I have had some deal-
ings with several of these men. I have read
their note-books, I have heard from their
own lips their gruesome tales of recorded and
unrecorded horror. Those dying men told
no lies. Man speaks the truth when he is
aware that Death is listening to what he says.
Suffering has no nationality and Death
wears no uniform. There are neither friends
nor foes on " no-man's- land," on all men's
land, on the borderland between life and
death, dreaded by all. Men die as best they
can. Most men fear death, all men fear
dying. All men are more or less alike when
they are about to die. What they did with
their life whilst it belonged to them may
concern the priest if he is at hand, but Death
does not care, he welcomes them all in his
own rough way, good men and bad men are
all the same to him. So they are to the
doctor. Now and then I tried to say to
myself that I disliked these dying Boches,
but I cannot honestly say I did; in fact, I
FOREWORD ix
rather liked them. These were all so forlorn,
so patient, so humble, so grateful for the
little one was able to do for them. They
were all delighted to come across a man who
knew their language those who could smile
grinned all over with joyous surprise, those
who could not, greeted the familiar sound
with a friendly look or a tear in their tired
eyes. Those who could speak, or nearly
all of them, spoke with humiliation and
shame of what they had witnessed and what
they had done. They certainly did not
spare themselves; on the contrary, they
seemed to like to talk of their evil deeds as
if it gave them some relief in fact, they did
not want to talk of anything else. I saw
several of these men die. They died as
brave men die.
No one accustomed to the cheerful,
affectionate way the French and English
soldiers are wont to speak of their leaders,
could avoid being struck by the way these
German soldiers talked of their officers. They
all spoke of them with fear and bitterness
and often with hatred. Even as they lay
there safe in one of our ambulances they
seemed to be afraid of lying next to their
own officers. Luckily this did not happen
often and never for long, for the German
officers always protested furiously against
x FOREWORD
being placed with their own men. Besides,
it mattered little where they were placed,
they were invariably dissatisfied anyhow.
Those I saw were sullen, arrogant and often
insolent ; displeased with everything and
everybody and most difficult to deal with.
They always spoke of their rank and their
Iron Cross unavoidable it seemed to me, as
I never came across an officer without it
as if entitling them to privileges shared by
no one else. They were well pleased with
themselves and their doings, frightfulness
and all, and never did I hear from any of
them a word which sounded like disapproval
of the atrocities they had witnessed. Per-
sonally I only know of one German officer who
disapproves this frightfulness, and his mother
was a Russian. On the contrary, I heard a
captain say that the Belgians had been
treated much too leniently, and that all the
civil population ought to have been driven
out of their country and those who resisted
shot on the spot. This officer was a Prussian.
The marked difference between Prussians
and South Germans, well known to those
who have visited Germany in times of peace,
has been amply illustrated by the conduct
of the different units in this war.
" The Prussian is cruel by birth, civiliza-
tion will make him ferocious," said Goethe,
FOREWORD xi
who knew his country well. It is true that
the French soldier always singles out the
Bavarians as particularly brutal and violent
'and especially fond of looting ; but I wonder
if this evil reputation of theirs is not to a
certain extent founded upon vague reminis-
cences from the war of '70. It must be
admitted though that their record at Nome'ly,
Blamont and several other places is a terrible
one. But I do not forget that the unnamed
hero of this little book was a Bavarian
soldier.
It matters little that I could not identify
the band of barbarians who had established
themselves in the chateau mentioned in
this book similar scenes have occurred
everywhere ever since the war began, and
hundreds of chateaux in Belgium and
France, have had a much worse fate. I admit
though that when I wrote down the descrip-
tion of the devastated nursery I believed
that this particularly revolting deed was
unique of its kind. Not at all ; I was mis-
taken. I have read since then from the
pen of a distinguished English surgeon in
Belgium a description of a similar act of
incredible barbarism. But I am very sorry
I do not know more of the German officer who
after a prolonged contemplation in front of
the Venetian mirror smashed it with a knock
xii FOREWORD
of his sword-hilt the old caretaker just
entered the drawing-room in time to witness
this performance.
I am glad at least to be able to hail his
comrade-in-arms, the Adalbert of this book,
by his well-fitting Christian name ; his
family name was too long to remember, I
have had to shorten it here for convenience
sake. I know well he is a rather unusual
type of German officer, but since I had the
good luck to have half an hour's conversation
with this phenomenon I do not see why I
should not let the reader share the pleasure
of his acquaintance. Moreover, I was told
by Dr. Martin, who knew the Germans far
better than I do, that after all Adalbert was
not such an uncommon type of German
officer as I seemed to think I was delighted
to hear it, so much the better for us. He
wanted to know if I was a nobleman :
sind sie Add ? He seemed to have his
doubts about it. It would amply satisfy
all my literary ambitions were I able to
present him with this photograph of himself,
slightly retouched by a lenient hand, but
very like him. I wish I knew where he was,
he ought not to be difficult to trace. Maybe
" Potsdam " would find him . . .
But the others, the dear old village doctor,
the white-haired Cure, Sreur Marthe and
FOREWORD xiii
Sceur Philippine, and Josephine with her
kind brown eyes, where shall I find them?
Their village is a heap of blackened ruins,
four naked walls are all that remains of
their church, and God knows where they
are ! God knows where they are. They
are all over France, in every hamlet, every
village and every town, soothing the suffer-
ings of the wounded and sharing their bread
with the homeless. Dr. Martin is dead. He
was first reported missing and it was thought
he had fallen into the hands of the Boches.
He was soon afterwards found dead, with
Josephine's medal round his neck. Better
so for him. I am sure he would have pre-
ferred the second alternative had he had the
choice.
But I am equally sure that Adalbert is
not dead. I am sure he is still as fit and
alert as when I saw him, safe under the
protection of the law of irony maybe I
would have spared him had I doubted his
invulnerability. Even so, as I read through
this manuscript, my literary instinct, rudi-
mentary though it may be, tells me that this
Adalbert does not fit in very well in the
" composition," if a layman may use such
an expression. I am sure it would have
been wiser to keep him to myself for fear
that his harsh giggle might jar on the reader
xiv FOREWORD
of this tale of suffering and woe. But life
is made up of such contrasts and so is death.
No, I know well he does not fit in the compo-
sition. Anyhow I shall leave him in the
place where I found him, like the bell-
capped buffoon strutting about amongst
the swordsmen and arquebusiers on an old
Flemish tapestry, or like the grinning monkey
crouching in the corner of a primitive old
painting of martyrs and saints. Yes, mar-
tyrs and saints they are indeed, the other
figures I have tried to paint with loving
hands on the remaining pages of this little
book ! Martyrs giving their lives for a
sacred cause and saints bending over bleeding
wounds and gently closing the eyes of the
dead with prayers on their lips. The back-
ground of the picture is the fair land of
France with its devastated plains and its
ruined homes, and far away against the
reddening sky Rheims Cathedral in flames !
Brave and chivalrous France, so calm in her
hour of danger, so dignified in her sorrow,
so strong in the consciousness of her uncon-
querable soul.
I just caught a glimpse of a handful of
Tommies as they flung themselves into the
FOREWORD xv
midst of the fray to fight the Hun by the
side of their dauntless ally. I heard them
singing and laughing in their water-logged
trenches in Flanders, and I saw them, agile
as leopards, leap from their parapets and,
led by a boy officer swinging his cane, spring
forward to meet death half-way as joyously
as though to welcome a friend.
I know that Tommy will play the game,
it is the game he has played so often and
played so well, it is the old game between
Right and Wrong !
I know what stuff he is made of, that
mighty fighter; I know that his heart is
sound and that his arm is strong. Strike
hard, Tommy, strike your hardest ! It is
the salvation of the world you are fighting
for ! I have known all along that you were
coming. I have known it ever since I was
a boy and began to read the History of
England ! I have known it all along, but
God bless you all the same, Tommy, for
coming ! And God be thanked that you
came !
RED CROSS AND IRON
CROSS
THE stranger walked slowly down the narrow
main street stretching from one end of the
village to the other. Some of the houses were
all in ruins, and in others the roof or a portion
of the wall had fallen in. The road was
covered with debris of bricks and plaster
and strewn with broken glass. In the Square
some children crawled out from under a
broken-down transport wagon to gaze at the
stranger as he passed, and further down the
street two boys sat riding astride a gun-
carriage with smashed wheels.
A glance at the inn took away his last hope
of breakfast ; a huge hole in the wall just
over the porch showed only too clearly that
the shell had done its work well, and that the
whole fabric was on the point of tumbling to
pieces at any moment. Here and there the
anxious face of a woman looked out from a
half-closed doorway, but otherwise all seemed
deserted.
4 RED CROSS AND
At the other end of the street stood the
church on rising ground, and further on, as
far as the eye could see, the usual poplar-
lined French chaussee stretched away in one
straight line towards the distant Eastern hills.
The church looked undamaged, and so did
the adjoining Presbytery in its little grove of
elm-trees.
Outside the portal of the church stood the
old cure", and at his side another old man who
proved to be the mayor and the village doc-
tor in one person, eyeing with uncomfortable
curiosity the approaching stranger. The
sight of the red ribbon on his dilapidated
tunic removed their uneasiness at once, and
when the stranger told them that he was a
doctor and belonged to the British Red Cross
they received him with open arms.
" It is God Himself who has sent you here,
Dr. Martin/' said the Cure" in his kind voice.
The doctor did not look quite so sure of
that, but was evidently pleased to be spared
any explanation as to what had landed him
there, with all his kit lost and nothing but a
morphia syringe in his pocket and a packet
of cigarettes and a little tea in his haversack.
" We are badly in need of help, mon cher
confrere," said the old village doctor as they
went in.
IRON CROSS 5
A heart-rending subdued moan filled the
church with awe. On the straw-covered floor
lay, side by side, over a hundred grievously
wounded soldiers. They were all dying men,
with blood-stained, mud-covered, greatcoats
hiding ghastly wounds and torn limbs. Here
and there the very straw was red, and stream-
lets of blood trickled slowly down the slippery
marble floor. Here and there well-meaning
but inexperienced hands had tried to stem
the haemorrhage or to cover a gaping wound
with some improvised sort of bandage made
out of a towel or a torn sheet. Most of the
men, however, lay there as they had been
picked up by the villagers in the abandoned
trenches or under the hedges along the muddy
river bank. The two doctors had not half
finished their round before the new-comer
had taken out of his pocket his morphia
syringe, once again to prove itself more
valuable than all surgical instruments put
together. The village doctor raised his hands
to heaven in a gesture of despair. He took
his colleague into the sacristy, and opening a
cupboard in the wall he pointed to a row
of old-fashioned faience jars, labelled with
names in Latin of a dozen useless drugs and
ointments. No morphia, no chloroform, no
ether, no anaesthetics whatsoever ; no iodine,
no disinfectants, no dressing material of any
6 RED CROSS AND
kind ! The cupboard contained all that had
been saved, said the Mayor, from the wreck-
age of the chemist's shop struck by the very
first shell that had fallen on the village,
killing the chemist outright, and destroying
all its scanty supplies.
" I am not a surgeon," said the old village
Doctor humbly. " I have never been a
surgeon ; all our surgical cases were sent to
St. , and my other colleague here was
mobilized as soon as the war broke out. I
have no instruments, not even an artery
forceps, and I should not know how to use
them if I had any. Do you hear their groans ?
For three days and nights this terrible sound
has not been out of my ears ! It may be
easier to bear for a young man like you
I am sure you are not half my age but I feel
I can stand it no longer, it is killing me. I
am sixty-five, but I had hardly a grey hair
three days ago. Look at me now ; my wife
says I am all white ! "
The young doctor looked at the kind face
of his old colleague, wondering to himself
whether he would not rather have been one
of the men on the straw-covered floor than
to have had to live through these three nights
and days as their doctor, powerless to help his
patients to live, powerless to help them to die.
And no morphia, priceless and mysterious
IRON CROSS 7
gift from benevolent Mother Earth, giving
power to the physician to bring relief to those
the surgeon cannot help, to those who lie
waiting for the other, the Great Physician
who goes from bed to bed with his one
remedy, his everlasting sleeping-draught !
" Listen to them," said the old Doctor, as
if reading his colleague's thoughts, " and not
even to be able to give them an injection of
morphia ! "
The other sat silent for awhile. " I am,
alas ! not more of a surgeon than you are,"
said he at last, " but we both know that
surgery can do nothing for these dying men."
A hunchback, with quick restless eyes in
an astute face ravaged by smallpox, entered
the sacristy.
" Pierre started before daybreak, Monsieur
le Maire," said he, " his mother sewed your
letter in his waistcoat-lining, and I made him
repeat all your instructions twice over. He
is as clever as he can be, and I am sure if he
does not succeed nobody else will. He was
to keep away from the high road and ford the
river below the mill."
" Well done, Anatole," said the Mayor,
" and may God help him to return safe. He
is quick of foot, and he ought to be back to-
morrow morning if all goes well. This is the
third messenger I have sent to St. ,"
8 RED CROSS AND
he said, turning to his colleague, " to get
assistance for the wounded, and to tell them
of our terrible plight. We are almost without
food, all eatables were requisitioned for the
retreating troops, and every cart and horse
was taken from us for the evacuation of the
wounded. Thousands of them passed through
our village. Those you saw in there had been
left as dead. Once the Germans had succeeded
in blowing up the bridge there would besides
have been no possibility of getting them away.
There were many more here three days ago,
and in a day or two there will be none left.
They are dying one after another and I can
do nothing for them ! "
A handsome middle-aged woman with a
small black shawl over her shoulders stood
at the door.
" There is not a drop more milk in the
whole village," said she despairingly, point-
ing to the pitcher she was holding in her hand.
" Be sure at least to give what there is to
our men and not to that young Boche," said
Anatole fiercely. " The Boches feed on blood
and not on milk, and, believe me, he won't
die, your young Boche, no more than will
the big Uhlan next to him, who looks at one
as if he wanted to eat one alive ! And that
brute of an officer with his Iron Cross, who
has been yelling for another blanket the whole
IRON CROSS 9
morning, and who cursed the Sister when she
told him that the one he had was taken from
Monsieur le Cure's own bed he won't die
either ! Do you know that he ordered the
German soldier next to him to give him his
greatcoat and actually crawled out of his bed
and took it from him ! Believe my word,
they won't die, the Boches ! It is only our
soldiers who are dying one after another ;
and the Boches will all get well and come back
and murder our wives and children ! "
"Shame, Anatole," said Josephine;
" Boche or no Boche, they are all the same
to me, these poor dying men. None of
them will ever harm you or anybody else,
and you need have no fear that even a
Boche would like to eat you," she added
hotly, as she went back into the church.
" Be quiet, Anatole," said the Mayor
severely, " I have told you over and over
again to leave those poor wretches alone ;
they could not help being born Boches.
Anatole is our village barber," said the
Mayor turning to the new-comer ; " he is
not as hard-hearted as he tries to make out.
He has been most useful to us during these
terrible days. He is as strong as a horse
though he does not look it, and he has carried
down more wounded than any of us."
" And if you had not ordered me to carry
io RED CROSS AND
down that young Boche instead of . . ."
The Mayor stopped him short with an un-
easy glance at the door.
" I told you to be quiet, and if you go on
like that I shall get downright angry with
you. You know I am very sorry for you ;
but Josephine is even worse off than you try
not to forget it. Her husband was killed at
Charleroi," said the Mayor to the Doctor ;
" her only son passed with his battalion
through our village last Sunday, and she had
just time to say ' God bless you ' to him as
he marched past her in the street. His
battalion held the ridge up there for the whole
day under a terrible shell-fire. In the night
the Germans charged with the bayonet.
Nearly the whole battalion was annihilated ;
but she does not know it. She stood the
whole day and night in the porch of the
church, anxiously looking in the faces of the
wounded as they were brought in. She has
now made up her mind that her boy was
amongst those few who got away. Since
then she has never left the church, and I do
not know what we would have done without
her. It is besides the best thing for her to
keep working. Neither the Cure nor I have
had the heart to tell her yet "
" Won't you come and look at him,
Monsieur le Maire," pleaded Josephine at the
IRON CROSS ii
door ; " he is so pale, and his hands are so
cold."
They all went back into the church.
The Cure" was giving the last Sacrament to
an officer who lay there motionless and
silent, with half-closed eyes.
" He has never moved or spoken since he
was brought here," said the nun, " but a
moment ago as I wiped the perspiration off
his face he said ' Thank you/ and turned his
head towards the high-altar."
' Yes," said the other nun softly, " one can
see by the way they are lying if they are
conscious or not. All those who are conscious
have their faces turned towards Our Lord."
" Water ! Water ! " murmured a soldier
close by, who, as he lay there, with his face
turned away, seemed to belie the nun's gentle
observation. The soldier took the cup out
of the nun's hand, and as he tried to put it
to his lips it all dripped down his beard.
"He always wants to hold the cup h imself , ' '
said she ; "he does not seem to know that
he is quite blind."
" I am sure he is conscious and hears all
we say," said the Mayor, stopping before
another soldier. " Of course you may stay
with him, but you must promise to sit quite
12 RED CROSS AND
still and not to talk to him, and above all
you must not try to make him speak or he
might spit blood again. And be sure the
child does not disturb him," he added,
pointing to the little girl sitting on the straw
mattress at her father's feet. " I think you
had better put her on the floor."
The little girl sat quite still, playing with a
doll Josephine had just made for her out of a
towel and some straw.
" Do let her stay," pleaded the wife, " she
never leaves her father's side when he is at
home, and I am sure he likes to have her on
his bed. She is only four, but she under-
stands everything, and she knows quite
well she must not speak or make any noise.
She has not uttered a sound since she crept
on to his bed."
" Papa is asleep, you must sit quite still
and not speak ! " whispered the child to her
doll, putting her little fingers to her lips as
she had seen her mother do.
" Perhaps you could persuade him to
drink a little milk," said Josephine, as they
bent over the soldier; " he has only had a
drop of water since yesterday. And look ! "
said she, gently lifting a corner of the great-
coat, " we have changed his straw twice
since yesterday and now there is no more
straw left in the whole village."
IRON CROSS 13
The unbuttoned tunic was soaked with
fresh blood oozing from a terrible shrapnel
wound in the chest.
" The gentleman is a doctor," said Jose-
phine, covering the wound with a clean towel
which slowly turned red as she spoke.
" Monsieur le Docteur, shall I soon get
well ? " murmured the soldier.
The Doctor watched his heaving chest
and his superficial, irregular breathing, and
said :
" Yes, soon."
" He is only twenty-five," said Josephine,
"he is a luthier."
" A luthier ! A violin-maker ! "
" I never thought he would live through
the night," said the Mayor in a low voice to
his colleague. " But I must say that if
anything his pulse seems to me a little
better this morning, and I do think he is
losing less blood. If only his heart can hold
out."
" She is the image of her father," said
Josephine, gently stroking the little girl's
fair hair.
" Do you think so, Josephine ? " said the
wife. " I think the boy is much more like
his father," she said, tenderly resting her
tear-filled eyes on the rosy baby asleep on
her lap. " If you knew what a wonderful
i 4 RED CROSS AND
child he is, Josephine I He never frets or
cries, and nothing seems to upset him. I
thought I was going crazy with the terrible
roaring of the guns which has never ceased
round our village for days and nights, but
he did not mind it in the least. And did
you ever see such a big boy, and so fat and
firm 1 I am sure he will be as tall as his
father. You know he was born only the
day after the mobilization and his father
has not seen him till now. I wish the doctor
had let me put him on the bed for his father
to have a real look at him, but the doctor
said I was not to do it. I am sure he would
not have cried; he never cries, and I am quite
certain he knows it is his father, for he kept
looking at him off and on before he went to
sleep. I thought his father smiled at him
a moment ago, but I am not quite sure. He
looks at us the whole time, but now and then
it seems as if he could not see us," she said,
trying to keep back her sobs.
" I am sure he has seen the boy," said
Josephine; " it is only that he is too tired
to speak."
" Yes, I know," said the wife, " but if
I only could be sure that he had seen the
boy ! "
" He must have lost an enormous quantity
of blood," said the Doctor to his colleague,
IRON CROSS 15
" his pulse is so very thin. I wish we could
try to improvise some sort of transfusion
apparatus to inject a warm saline solution
into his veins. Do put another hot water
bottle to his feet, Josephine ; they are quite
cold."
" Don't you think he is breathing a little
better?" said the Mayor in a low voice.
" Perhaps he is going to sleep."
" Perhaps," said the other.
The two doctors stood watching the soldier
for awhile in silence.
Suddenly the little girl dropped her doll
and looked up with terror-stricken eyes, her
whole body trembling with fear and her face
twitching with the effort not to cry.
"What is it?" said Josephine, looking
uneasily at the little girl, " her face is quite
white ! Something has frightened the child 1 "
At the same instant the baby on his
mother's knee started in his sleep with a
sharp cry of distress.
The mother looked anxiously at her son
and began to rock him to and fro in her
strong arms.
" Something has frightened the boy . . ."
said she.
The little girl flung herself from her
father's bed and sprang to hide her face in
her mother's lap.
16 RED CROSS AND
" What is it ? " said the old Doctor.
" I don't know," said Josephine, quite
pale in the face, " I don't understand.
Something has frightened the children ! "
The soldier lay there just as before, his
wide-open eyes looking towards his wife and
child. The Doctor bent rapidly over him to
listen to the heart, and made a sign to his
colleague as he lifted his head.
" I would never have believed it," said the
village Doctor, " it is hardly a minute since
he spoke ! I was looking at him the whole
time and I did not notice anything."
" Neither did I," said the other. " It is
very strange, but I have seen it once before.
Small children know."
Josephine lifted the little girl in her arms,
gently stroking her hair.
" Papa is asleep," whispered the little girl,
putting her fingers to her lips and stretching
out her other hand for the doll.
The soldier's wife opened her blouse and
the boy began eagerly to drink life in deep
draughts at his mother's breast.
"Who is that? " exclaimed the Doctor.
The soldier was lying with his face towards
the wall, and the broad collar of his khaki-
IRON CROSS 17
coloured greatcoat turned up over his ears.
" I am so sorry," said the Mayor, " I
quite forgot to tell you about him. He is an
Englishman. We found him down by the
river half buried under the wreckage of the
blown-up bridge. The poor fellow was
quite stunned. He has two of his fingers
blown away, and he has a bullet wound in
the back."
" Rather an unusual place for an English-
man to be hit in," said the Doctor.
" I have not been able to examine the
wound very well, he is so very sensitive,
and he begins to groan as soon as one touches
him. He has had no internal haemorrhage,
and to-day his temperature is normal. His
appetite is very good, he sleeps a lot, and I
think he is doing very well considering."
" It takes a lot to kill an Englishman,"
said the Doctor.
" He does not speak French and none of
us here understand his English, but we are
trying to look after him as well as we can.
You know we all like the English here," said
the Mayor. " He will be very glad to see
you."
" Hallo ! " said the Doctor in English.
" How are you getting on, Tommy Atkins ? "
The man did not move.
"I think he is sound asleep," said the Mayor.
i8
RED CROSS AND
" His breathing is perfect, I do not think
we need have any great anxiety about him,"
said the Doctor smilingly. " It does one's
ears good to hear that snoring. I think the
best thing we can do is to let him have his
nap. I will come back to him by and by."
" He has a marvellous appetite," said the
Mayor, " and is always ready for a glass of
wine, and has no objection to a drop of
brandy either."
" I quite believe you," said the Doctor,
" but the fine thing about Tommy is that
he is just as cheerful when he doesn't get it."
" He has just eaten a whole pot of marma-
lade," said the nun.
" I wonder how he came here," said the
Doctor; "it is nearly thirty kilometres as
the crow flies to the English line, but there
are stragglers about everywhere."
" As far as I could gather," said the Mayor,
" from something he muttered in, if you
allow me to say so, most shocking French,
he had been taken prisoner by the Boches
and had managed to escape."
" Well done, and good luck for him that
he fell in with your troops. Tell me when
he wakes up," said the Doctor to the nun.
IRON CROSS 19
They bent over another who looked at
them with the terror of death in his deep-
sunk eyes.
" Do you think she will come to-day ? "
he whispered to Josephine.
" It is his wife he is waiting for," said she
softly ; "he knows quite well he is dying, he
has dictated two telegrams to her to come,
and nobody has had the heart to tell him
that all the wires are cut and no message
can be sent anywhere with the Germans
swarming all round us. I am sure she will
come," said she, gently stroking his hand.
"Have you been a nurse before? " said
the Doctor, " you are so patient and helpful
to these poor men."
" No," said she simply, " but you see,
Monsieur le Docteur, my boy is at the Front
and I try to say to myself that if I am patient
and kind to these poor fellows somebody
else will be kind to him if he gets wounded.
Ah! le sang, le sang I Que Dieu punisse
celui qui fait couler tant de sang ! " she sud-
denly cried out in terror pointing to a
pool of blood on the floor. "It is not an
hour since I washed it and there is the blood
again ! " She rushed to fetch a pail of
water and began to wipe the marble floor.
The Cure* looked at her with pitiful eyes.
20 RED CROSS AND
" Her son is dead," he whispered to the
Doctor ; " we found his body up in the wood,
and he was buried there with all the others.
She does not know it yet."
They passed a long line of silent men with
still white faces and half -closed eyes. They
stopped before a big soldier with a rough
bandage round his head and the blue cloak
of the Saxon thrown over him.
" He has had no more convulsions," said
the nun, " but he has never ceased to talk
like this since this morning."
" He has a big hole in his skull from the
splintei of a shell and has Jacksonian
epilepsy," explained the old Doctor, " it
is a marvel he is still alive. I am sure he
ought to be trepanned, but how can we do
it !"
The man's voice was still quite strong and
he was talking with vertiginous rapidity.
Dr. Martin bent over the Saxon, listening
attentively to his incoherent flow of words;
he put his hand firmly on the man's forehead
and said, very slowly and distinctly, some
words in German. The effect of the sound
of his voice was instantaneous. The flow of
words ceased at once and the man lay there
motionless and silent as if listening to a
voice from afar. After a moment he began
talking again, and again he stopped as soon
IRON CROSS 21
as the sound of words in his own language
caught his ear. The Doctor sat quite still
with his hand on his forehead, slowly and
distinctly repeating the same words of
greeting from the land of his birth. The
intervals of listening silence grew longer
and longer. His wild eyes gradually became
steadier and his whole face twitched under a
tremendous effort to regain consciousness.
After a while he lay there quite still, looking
fixedly at the stranger at his side.
" Where am I ? " he murmured at last.
" With friends," answered the Doctor,
fearless of his lie.
"Fritz? " said the Saxon hesitatingly.
' You are wounded, but you are with
friends and you will soon get well and return
home if you lie quite still and try to sleep."
' Yes," said he, and closed his eyes.
"Is he asleep ? " said Josephine softly
after awhile.
" No," said the Doctor, lifting his hand
from the Saxon's forehead. " He is dead."
"I am afraid he is very bad," said Jose-
phine. " Monsieur le Maire says he is cmite
unconscious, he is bleeding internally and
he has both his hands shot away by a shell.
22 RED CROSS AND
He has never opened his eyes and never
uttered a word since he came. He belongs
to the same battalion as my son and they are
great friends. Jean always goes to see him
when he has any time to spare ; their farm
is only an hour from here. I always want
Jean to be with him, he is such a nice quiet
fellow ; and he is such a wonderful gardener.
He is their only son," said she, pointing
to the two old peasant-folk sitting beside
him. " I sent word to them that he was
here and they came yesterday. They have
been sitting here ever since. They do not
seem to understand how bad he is. I have
tried to make them see it and Monsieur le
Maire has told them that he is very dan-
gerously wounded, but it is quite useless,
they don't seem to understand. Perhaps
you could tell them ; maybe it will have more
effect if you say it."
" Yes," said the Doctor, looking atten-
tively at the soldier, " they had better be
told, it is high time. I have, alas I had to tell
the same thing so often, and, if you cannot,
I shall have to tell it again to these two."
The old farmer in his long blouse, his big
horny hands leaning on his stick, sat looking
with dim eyes at his son. The old woman
in her neat white coiffe sat with her hands
crossed over the basket on her lap.
IRON CROSS 23
" Monsieur is the new doctor," said
Josephine.
The mother stood up and curtsied and the
father raised his hand towards his head as
if to take off his beret.
" I am so sorry for you," began the
Doctor . . .
" Thank you, Monsieur le Docteur," said
the old mother, " he has been asleep ever
since we came, and I know well that is the
very best thing he can do. He was always
such a delicate child ; I nursed him through
all sorts of illnesses and I always knew that
once he had gone to sleep he would wake up
much the better for it. And don't you
remember, pere, when he fell down from
the pear-tree and the doctor thought he had
broken his skull, how he went straight off to
sleep, and when he woke up he was out of
danger ? We do not mind sitting here the
whole day ; I have so often been sitting watch-
ing him sleep for hours and hours when he
was a boy, and I say to his father to doze a
little and that I will tell him as soon as the
boy wakes up."
The old man blinked with his dim eyes
approvingly, and leaned his chin against
the stick.
" I wish he would just wake up for a
moment to see that we are here, and then go
24 RED CROSS AND
off to sleep again. I am sure he wants to
know all about the farm, and the vines, and
the orchard, and his flowers. You know,
Monsieur le Docteur, he was born on the
farm and so was his father, and he has never
left it. There is nobody like him for train-
ing vines, and whatever he plants grows like
a miracle. It is only two years ago he made
the new orchard, and the trees are already
bearing I have just brought this pear to
show him. Look what a pear ! " said she,
producing a big Duchess pear out of her basket.
" I am sure he will like to have a slice of it
when he wakes up. And if you knew what
a hand he is with flowers ! There is not a
farm anywhere like ours for flowers; even
Madame la Comtesse when she drove past
the other day said that in the Chateau itself
there was not such a show of roses as we have.
He has learnt it all by himself ; he knows the
names of all sorts of flowers, and those he
does not know he himself gives names to.
We did not mind the orchard, but we were
a little against his turning the cabbage-
land into flower-beds. We just want to
tell him that we don't mind it any more,
not even if he turns the whole kitchen-
garden into flower-beds. We do not mind
what he does, he is such a good andobedient
son; the only disappointment he has ever
IRON CROSS 25
given us was that he did not want to marry
when his father wanted him to ; he said
there was not one girl in the whole country
as pretty as his flowers, and that he liked
better to keep company with them. The only
quarrel he ever had with his father was when
he wanted to go to work for a whole year
under the head-gardener at the Chateau
and become a real gardener himself. But
how could we spare him on the farm, his
father is getting so old ! And now we
want to tell him that he can become
a real gardener if he wants. We will sell
the cow and give him all the money he
needs."
The old man scratched his head medita-
tively : " It is a very good cow, and don't
you think we could see first what we could
get for that old clock Madame la Comtesse
always wants to buy ? "
" He did not want to go to the war," the
old mother went on, " but he said he must
go. The last evening he took me out to his
flowers and made me promise to look after
them just as he had done, and he spoke about
them as if they were alive. He always used
to say that the flowers knew him and he
never wanted to pick them, not even for the
flower-show."
" Josephine, I think you had better tell
26 RED CROSS AND
them," said the Doctor. " I don't know why,
but I can't do it."
" Mere Christine," said Josephine, with
her kind voice, " don't you understand
that he is so dangerously wounded and
has lost so much blood that he may never
come back to you any more. He is so
weak . . ."
" That is just what we have been talking
about, le pere and I," said the mother.
" You know the Government has taken our
horse, but we have thought that we would
fetch him in the ox-cart, all filled with hay
so as not to shake him. I know, Josephine,
how good you have been to him, but don't
you yourself think he would be better at
home where he can lie out on sunny days in
the garden amongst his flowers. It is so
dark here," said she, looking round with awe.
" His father was wounded in '70 and never
got well in the hospital, but as soon as they
took him home he began to get all right
again. If only he wasn't so weak," said she,
with an anxious look at her son, " but how
can he be otherwise with not a morsel of
food nor drink since he was shot, and all
that blood ! If he only would wake up for a
moment and eat something ! I just made
this cheese for him before we left home,"
said the mother, taking a little cream cheese
IRON CROSS 27
from her basket, " and I am sure he would
like the pear ..."
" Josephine," said the Doctor, "he is
just dying."
" Open the blinds, open the blinds !
Why don't you open the blinds ? " called
out the soldier next to him. " Won't it be
daylight soon ? What o'clock is it ? The
night has been so long ; won't you open the
blinds? "
" These are the only words he says ; he
repeats them the whole time ever since he
came," said Josephine.
" He has both his eyes blown in by a shell
and both his legs torn away above the knee,"
explained the old Doctor.
" We also had a young officer here with
his eyes blown in. We found him in a ditch
beside the road ; he looked quite dead, and
it was only by his breathing that we under-
stood he was alive. He remained quite
dazed the first day, but yesterday morning
he became conscious, and almost the first
thing he did was to ask for a candle. It
was broad daylight, so I knew he was
blind. You could see nothing wrong with
his eyes except that they were a little
28 RED CROSS AND
bloodshot. I put a bandage over them at
once and told him they were inflamed, and
that he must keep the bandage on for a day
or two. He had at first some difficulty in
articulating the words, but soon he began to
speak quite well. He had not a scratch on
his whole body, and only complained of a
sharp pain in his head. He told me he was
standing in the middle of the road when the
shell passed close by him. He said the blast
of air was as terrific as if an express train
had dashed past him at arm's length, but
a hundred times more so. He felt he was
lifted from his feet and the tremendous dis-
placement of air flung him in the ditch where
we found him. He seemed to be doing so
well that I really thought he was the only
one here that was going to live. He asked
several times to have the bandage taken away,
as he couldn't stand the darkness. I said he
must keep it on till to-morrow, to gain time
to prepare him. We had so many to look
after that it was impossible to watch him
the whole time. A moment later Josephine
came to tell me that he had torn off his
bandage. After that he never uttered a
word and he lay there quite still. When I
came to look at him in the night I found
he w r as dead . . . maybe better so for
him !"
IRON CROSS 29
' Yes, better so for him ! " said the other.
Better so for him ! "
' The Englishman is awake," reported
the nun.
As the Doctor came up to him the man
turned his head to the wall for another nap.
" Hallo, Tommy ! How are you getting
on?"
" Thank you, sir, very indifferently,"
said the soldier, without moving his head.
" Can I do anything for you ? "
" No, thank you, I just want to sleep, that
is all."
" I hope you don't suffer ? "
" Awfully," said the soldier with a loud
groan.
' You bear up well though; it is indeed
lucky it doesn't affect your sleep. It did
me good to hear you snore awhile ago. I
am equally glad to know your appetite also
remains satisfactory," said the Doctor, look-
ing at the empty marmalade pot. "Don't
you think we had better have a look at the
wound in your back while you are awake,
and try to cleanse it out for you. My
colleague says it needs it badly."
" I am so weak," said Tommy, " and it
30 RED CROSS AND
hurt me so much the last time that I don't
think I can stand having it touched again."
" Suppose you have a drink first," sug-
gested the Doctor.
" A drink? " said the soldier turning his
head a little.
" I have still some whisky left in my flask,
and you are very welcome to a drop of it."
The soldier stretched out his hand for the
flask, his head still turned towards the wall.
" I am glad to see there is nothing wrong
with your swallowing," said the Doctor,
putting the flask back in his pocket. " Now
tell me a little about yourself ! What are
you ? I can't see anything of you but your
greatcoat."
" Rifle Brigade," said the soldier.
" How on earth did you land here amongst
the French ? Where do you come from ? "
" I don't remember the name of the place,
I get so mixed up with the names."
" Menonville ? " suggested the Doctor.
" That's the place," said the soldier.
"I have just come from there myself;
rather a hot place, not very ' healthy/ as
you Tommies call it. You will be glad to
hear for your comrades' sake that they are
soon going to clear out from there. I just
happen to know that the whole Brigade is
to take up another position."
IRON CROSS 31
" Where ? " asked the soldier, with un-
expected eagerness. "And the guns?"
" I do not remember, I get so mixed up
with the names," said the Doctor. " I
understand you were taken prisoner. How
did that happen? "
" I was left alone in a trench with ten
other men. We fought to the last, all the
others were killed, and they took me prisoner,
but I shot seven Boches first."
" Well done. Did you say seven? '
' Yes, seven."
" How did you escape ? "
" I am so tired," complained the soldier,
getting very feeble in the voice.
" Have a smoke," said the Doctor, taking
a cigarette from his pocket. " It is true we are
in a church, but smoking has now once for
all been accepted in all ambulances, and I
take the responsibility of letting you have
a puff at a cigarette."
" No, thank you."
" Can't a Woodbine tempt you? "
" What ? " asked the soldier.
" A Woodbine. You don't mean to say
you don't know what a Woodbine is ? If so
you are the only man in His Majesty's Ex-
peditionary Force who doesn't know it."
" I do not smoke," said the man.
" Don't you? " said the Doctor, his eyes
32 RED CROSS AND
on the big burnt hole in the man's coat
sleeve.
" What part of England do you come
from?"
" I am a Canadian."
" Ah ! that is where you get that slight
American twang from. You were indeed
lucky not to fall in with any Uhlans. They
would have shot a khaki man at sight.
There are lots of Uhlans about here. I had
a hell of a time myself to get across from
Menonville. Where did you meet the
French?"
He did not answer.
" You are not very communicative; have
another drink."
The Doctor bent over his face as he emptied
the flask. " You need a shave badly," said
he; "that hunchback standing over there
is an excellent barber, and if you like I will
tell him to give you a shave and a brush-up.
You need it indeed. Your face is so covered
with dirt and powder one can hardly see
what you look like ; one might take you for a
minstrel on the beach at Margate. I know
what you men like best, as soon as you are
out of the fray and even while you are in it.
And won't you be glad if I can manage to
get you a cup of tea ? I still have a small
packet in my haversack."
IRON CROSS 33
" No thank you. I just want to sleep."
" All right. I see it is no good tempting
you with anything ; you want to be left in
peace. You have deserved well of your
country, and do have another nap, as that
is what you want."
" Won't you come and look at him,
Monsieur le Docteur ? " said Josephine ; "he
is so pale, and his hands are so cold."
They knelt down on each side of a young
German soldier. His eyes were soft and light
blue ; his hair was curly and very blond,
and the delicate moulding of his pale cheek
was almost girlish. He looked barely
eighteen.
" I am sure he is the same age as Jean,"
said Josephine. ' ' I didn't know the Germans
could look like this ; he doesn't look as if he
could do harm to anybody. I tried to give
him a little milk, but I fear he cannot swal-
low, "said she. " Do speak to him in German.
I am sure he is conscious ; he tried to say
something, but alas ! I can't understand his
language."
A faint flush came to the boy's white cheek
as he heard the first word in his own tongue
whispered in his ear.
D
34 RED CROSS AND
" Listen to me, but do not try to speak or
you might spit blood again," said the Doctor.
" We want to help you to get well and strong,
and you will then return home again."
" Home? " whispered the boy.
"Yes, home to your own home. Wouldn't
you like to write home as soon as you are a
little stronger ? You will tell me what to say
and I will write the letter for you and
send it off. Perhaps we can write it to-
morrow."
There came almost a smile on the lips of
the boy.
" Now," he whispered.
" No, I think we had better wait till to-
morrow."
" Now," he whispered again.
The doctor looked at him attentively and
saw he was right. Josephine rushed to fetch
a pen and paper in the sacristy, and in an
almost inaudible whisper the boy began :
" Meine Hebe Mutter . . . / "
Josephine's big shining mother's eyes filled
with tears, for they had understood what her
ears did not.
" Meine . . . Hebe . . . Mutter . . . / " whis-
pered the boy once again with still fainter
voice. A slight shiver passed over him.
His head turned towards Josephine, and it
was all over.
IRON CROSS 35
" I wish I knew his Christian name ! " said
Josephine, wiping her eyes.
Two big bloodshot eyes had never left off
watching the Doctor while he was busy with
the dying boy. The eyes were all one could
see of the man lying next to the boy ; his
whole head was a big bundle of blood-stained
towels and rough bandages, and his gigantic
body was covered by the long cloak of a
Bavarian soldier. The nun brought the
Doctor some linen, torn off a sheet to replace
the bandage dripping with blood. He almost
wished he had not attempted it. The whole
face and throat was one enormous wound :
the jaw had been shot away and the tongue
was torn. A sinister rattle accompanied his
short and irregular breathing. All their
efforts to give him some food or drink had
failed, said the nun, and not even a drop of
water had they succeeded in making him
swallow. They cleansed his frightful wound as
well as they could ; tried to remove the clots
of blood obstructing the air passages, and
raised his head to make him breathe a little
more easily. With infinite trouble they
succeeded, with the help of the village Doctor,
in improvising a sort of tube through which
36 RED CROSS AND
they gave him a little wine and water. He
was quite conscious, and maybe had been so
ever since he was struck by the shrapnel.
His eyes implored help. The Doctor sat at
his side, feeling as though he almost wanted
to beg his pardon for being so helpless. And
he did it. He spoke slowly and as distinctly
as he could, and he saw that the eyes under-
stood his words. He said that they would
soon get him a better bandage and a proper
tube to feed him with. He told him he would
then feel much better, and he promised to
help him to get some sleep. He would soon
feel stronger and breathe more easily, and he
would soon begin to get well again. He spoke
to the giant almost as one would speak to a
child, slowly repeating the same words again
and again :
' You will soon feel better, much better,
you are so tired ; you will soon feel better,
your eyes are so tired, tired, your eyelids are
feeling so heavy, so heavy, you are so sleepy,
your eyes are closing, closing . . .
" Close your eyes ! " said the Doctor,
touching the eyes with his fingers. " Close
your eyes ! "
The unequal struggle between the strong,
sound will and the exhausted brain tortured
by pain lasted only a minute or two. The
eyelids remained closed, the breathing
IRON CROSS 37
became gradually deeper and more regular,
and the restless hands lay there quite still.
The nun looked on in silent wonder.
" It is the first sleep he has had since he
came," said she.
The Doctor sat at his side for a long while,
not daring to move lest he should wake him.
Josephine had come back, and he sat there
watching her busy at work with the dead boy.
She washed his body clean from blood and
mud and put a clean sheet under him. She
dressed him in one of her own son's shirts she
had evidently gone home to fetch ; put a
crucifix in his joined hands ; lit a candle at
the foot of his bed and laid a little bunch of
flowers at his head.
" I am sure his mother would like me to do
it," explained Josephine.
II
*' I WISH you had been here the first day to
help us with the German major," said the
Mayor. " You evidently know how to handle
the Boches better than we do ; it seems as if
you could do whatever you liked with them.
I fear though that even you would have had
some difficulty in tackling him. I ought not
to say anything against him ; he is a dying
man if he is not already dead, but I must say
he was rather troublesome. He was shot
through the shoulder, and I fear he was in
great pain ; but he certainly was one of the
least badly wounded here. He did not speak
French very fluently, but he could quite well
say anything he wanted. He was first lying
next to the blind French soldier you have just
seen ; but he complained that he disturbed
him, and it is true that the poor man never
ceases night or day calling to have the blinds
opened. So we moved the major to the
corner over there next to his own men. An
hour later Sceur Marthe came to say that he
was very angry and excited, and that he
wanted to speak to me. I knew he was in
pain, and I told him I was very sorry I could
3*
IRON CROSS 39
not do more for him ; and I begged him not
to think it was because he was a German he
was left in that state, but that, alas ! all the
wounded were in the same terrible plight.
Pointing to his Iron Cross he said it was an
outrageous shame to neglect an officer like
that, and that he must have an injection of
morphia at once. I told hini again that we
had no morphia and that I had sent a mess-
enger to St. for medicine and dressing-
material, and I hoped surely to have some
morphia for to-night, but that he must try
to be patient till then. Sceur Marthe brought
him a tisane of camomile it was the only
thing we had but he threw it on the floor
and said he must have morphia at once, and
began to abuse us all first in French and then,
as he grew more and more excited, in what
sounded the vilest German. I might have
told him that after all it was a German shell
that had wrecked the chemist's shop ; but I
said nothing. I did not know what more to
say, so I left him, and told the nun to try
again by and by with the tisane. So far he
was in the right in a certain measure ; we all
knew he was in pain and nobody minded his
abusing us. But you could never guess the
reason why he sent for me again in less than
half an hour. When Sceur Marthe told it me
I said she had misunderstood what he meant,
40 RED CROSS AND
and I had to hear it with my own ears before
I could believe it. Do you know what he
shouted as soon as I came up to him ? He
said he was a superior officer and that he
must have a room to himself, and could not
lie mixed up with his own men. His voice
trembled with rage, and he worked himself
into such a state of fury that he could no
longer find words in French. Pointing
to the German soldiers next to him he
shouted the whole time a word in German
which I did not understand ; but I fear it
was not complimentary, for I noticed that
the soldier next to him looked at him angrily.
This man is not mortally wounded either and
is quite conscious, and speaks good French.
He has an intelligent and rather refined face,
and is, I believe, an educated man. He told
me he was from Southern Germany, and that
he was a Socialist and hated the war. Con-
sidering the state of excitement in which I
had left the major, I was not very much
surprised when Soeur Marthe came to report
a little later that he had convulsions, and I
admit I thought at first that his rage had
ended in a sort of crise de nerfs. It was only
in the afternoon that I began to suspect,
from the stiffness of the throat, the fixedness
of the jaws, and the increasing difficulty in
swallowing, that the poor man had tetanus.
IRON CROSS 41
I have never seen a case of lock-jaw before,
but I knew of course that he had to be
isolated, and as we had nowhere else to put
him we had to carry him into the charnel
house. He indeed had tetanus, and tetanus
in its most acute and violent form. In the
evening he began having the most terrific
attacks of tonic spasms, and the attacks have
been increasing in intensity ever since. I
need not tell you I have no serum, and even
if I had I am sure it would be too late in his
case. If I only had some chloroform, or ether,
or morphia to help him a little in his worst
attacks ! All I could do was to darken the
room and put straw on the floor to deaden
the sound of our steps, as I have read that
even a light or a sudden sound can, by reflex
action, bring on an attack.
Early yesterday morning the South Ger-
man trooper next to him began to show the
same signs that had aroused my suspicions
with the major, and we had to carry him also
to the charnel house. The trooper, however,
has so far only had some localized cramps in
the jaw, and I have the impression that his
case is much less severe. Nobody here has,
of course, ever seen a case of this fearful
illness, and it is difficult to make any-
body stay with them. Sceur Marthe is there
now and I have promised to relieve her at
42 RED CROSS AND
Ave Maria. The bells will ring in a few
minutes and I must go there.
" What a frightful disease ! " he went on,
as they walked across the cemetery ; " and
that they generally remain conscious to the
very end makes it even more terrible to
witness."
The place was quite dark but for the dim
little oil lamp on the floor behind the heads
of the two men who lay on each side of the
room. The nun stood as near the door as
she could.
" I am so afraid in this darkness," she
whispered. " They are both quite still now ;
I had not heard the officer breathe for awhile,"
said she, " and I thought he must be dead.
I read two Pater Nosters and it gave me
strength to take the lamp and go up to him
to put the crucifix in his hands. As I bent
over him I looked at his face, and ..." she
burst into tears and put her hands before her
eyes, " look at him ! " she whispered with
awe, " look at him ! "
The Mayor took the lamp, and as the light
fell on the dead officer's face he drew back in
terror. The head was bent backwards in a
last violent spasm, and the rigid muscles of
the face stood still in a hideous laugh.
" Risus sardonicus ! " said the Doctor.
" I have read about it in books, but I have
IRON CROSS 43
never seen it before, and I hope I shall never
see it again ! " said the Mayor, wiping the
cold perspiration from his forehead.
" Is he dead ? " asked the soldier from the
other side of the room.
' Yes, I am afraid he is dead," said the
Mayor, endeavouring to steady his voice.
" It is no good trying to hide it from you.
We had no hope about him from the begin-
ning ; but your case is quite different, and
you will get all right if only you try to be
calm, lie still, and do not speak."
" I am glad he is dead," said the soldier.
" He commanded my squadron ; I have lived
in fear of him night and day for these two
months. He has kicked me many times, and
the last time he struck me with his whip
across the face was the day before I was
wounded. I am glad he is dead ; it is no
fault of his if there are still any of his men
left alive, but if there are any I should like
to live to be able to tell it them ! "
' You must not speak," said the Doctor ;
" it is necessary that you should lie quite still
and silent if you are to get well."
" You say it does me harm to speak ; I say
it does me good. I am going to have my say
this time, they cannot stifle my voice any
longer ; I am a free man at last. You had
better listen ; it is the last speech of a German
44 RED CROSS AND
Socialist that you are going to hear. My com-
panions are silent, so far, but the day will
come when they also will speak out, and with
a far stronger voice than mine. I thank you
for what you have done for me ; it is not
much, but I suppose it is all you could do.
I heard you say to him that we wounded
were better off on our side. Maybe it is so
once we are in the ambulances, but before we
are there we are worse off than on your side,
for with us they pick up the officers first and
leave us to the last. Did you hear what he
called us when he told you he would not lie
next to his own men ? He could not find the
right word in French in the fury he was in,
but he found it all right in his own language.
He called us Schweine, swine that is how a
Prussian officer speaks to his men ! We obey
them, cowards as we are, because we fear
them ; but we hate them as much as we fear
them. Yes, he called us swine, and he was
quite right, and we ought to be grateful that
he did not call us worse names. He might
have called us thieves and murderers, and he
would still have been right. Two months ago
I was an honest man ; I had not willingly
offended either the laws of God or man, and
I could look my wife straight in the eyes
without fear or shame. Now I am a thief,
a murderer, and a villain. I know I am
IRON CROSS 45
damned, I know where I am going to, and I
know who has led the way. It was he who
led us through the burning streets of Lou vain
and through the smoking ruins of what was
once called Aerschot ; it was a peaceful town
when we entered it and it was a blazing
furnace when we left it. It was he who made
us shoot the women and children at Dinant,
and sprinkle their houses with petroleum and
light them with our torches. It was he who
made us loot and plunder Termonde and,
drunk with wine and blood and lust, break
into their houses and outrage their women.
I rolled off. to sleep that night with a bottle of
champagne in my hand on the steps of the
high-altar in one of their churches ... so
you had better spare your priest coining to
see me through ! Do not trouble about me,
you Red Cress people, for I have shot lots of
your wounded at famines ! Don't read any
Pater Nosters for me you, Sister, for I raped
one of the nuns of the Sacre Cceur, whose
prayers did not help her more than your
prayers can help me. Well may you lie there
and laugh at me, Major von Deck en, for
having been such a cowardly fool as to obey
you so long. You were no coward you I
You were as brave as a man can be, but you
were as cruel as a man can be : cruel to
us, cruel to your enemies, cruel like the
46 RED CROSS AND
man-eating tiger ! They say you can harm no
more. I am not so sure of that ; you had
better not go too near him lest he might
strike again . I have seen him laugh like that
before. I know what that laugh means. It
means that somebody is going to die."
The man's whole body stiffened in a
frightful spasm, but his eyes remained lucid
and calm, and the attack was soon over.
" Well, maybe it is only I who am going
to die this time," he went on in a fearful
voice. " Your impassible eyes will have to
witness for once the death of a guilty man."
He lay silent for awhile, looking straight
at his officer.
" But maybe it was not you alone who
led us on ; maybe you, too, brave as you
were, lived in fear of somebody, somebody
more strong, more cruel even than you !
Maybe you were only the tool in a stronger
hand than yours, as we were the blood-
dripping tools in your hands. Whose hand
was it ? Colonels, Generals, Field-Marshals,
Princes, Kings, and You ! Emperor ! To
hell with you all for what you have made
us do 1 You are sendiug me there now I
know it well as you have sent thousands of
your men there before. I die without fear,
for death can have no new terror to spring
upon me that life has not revealed to me
IRON CROSS 47
during these last months. I am not afraid
of hell, for no tortures the devil ever
inflicted upon the damned can be more
terrible than the torments you, with the
name of God on your lips, made us inflict
upon righteous men and harmless women and
children in fact you have added to the list ;
you have proved a first-rate expert in invent-
ing instruments of torture the devil will
have a lot to learn from you !
" You willed the war, sinister Emperor !
You wanted to become the world's greatest
ruler ; you have become its greatest criminal.
The sun is setting blood-red and menacing
over the tottering walls of your world-power ;
your short day of triumph is drawing to its
close, your long night of expiation is about
to begin. I have seen your restless eye the
fear of death is already there. But better no
gallows for you ! Better to suffer you to live
on with that fear in your eye ! Better to let
you die in your bed assisted by your acqui-
escent Court-Chaplains trying in vain to
silence your cry of anguish with their lita-
nies, and surrounded by your bowing Court
doctors working their hardest for you to hold
on a few hours longer to your dishonoured
crown and to rouse you from the invading
torpor that you may hear to your very last
breath the maledictions of your victims.
48 RED CROSS
" You are fond of travelling in pomp.
Better to let you start in state for your last
show, your last journey, to the sound of
merry chimes from all the ruined belfries of
Flanders and the bells of Rheims calling
France to Mass to offer thanks to God !
Better to let you go to hell with all the
honours due to your rank as the greatest
slayer of life, the greatest destroyer of happi-
ness the world has ever known !
" We who are going before you to our
doom we shall all be there to welcome you,
to close round you as your bodyguard, ready
to die for our Emperor once more if ever
heaven would dare to storm hell to try to
reconquer your soul !
" Do you hear the clatter of their horses'
hoofs ? Do you see their lance- tips glistening
in the dark ? They are coming, they are
coming ! Hurrah ! It is my squadron it
is the Death's Head Hussars ! It is all my
dead comrades riding to hell ! Help me to
the saddle ! "
The bells began to ring Ave Maria. As the
sound struck his ears his hands instinctively
made the sign of the Cross. His jaw closed,
his whole body grew rigid with a terrific
spasm, and the heart stood still.
Ill
" THIS beats anything I have ever seen or
heard," said the old village Doctor as they
walked across the churchyard. " And this
last rigid spasm of the muscles of laughter,
this hideous risus sardonicus, do you mean
to say it often occurs in tetanus ? "
" Often enough," said the other, " I have
seen it several times. There have been, as
you know, an appalling number of cases of
tetanus, both with the English and the
French. I am sorry that this man is dead, I
wish he had been spared to his country, a
dozen Socialists as far gone as he are worth
a whole brigade for breaking down the
stronghold of Prussian militarism. Did you
see the glare in his eye when he started
cursing the War Lord ? If, as he said, they
are to meet in another world, no doubt he
will see to it that the Kaiser gets a warm
reception on his arrival in that place. I
wonder who he was ; for all we know he may
have been one of the leaders of his party ;
his flowery and rather theatrical way of
speaking points to his being accustomed to
address a larger audience thanhe had to-day."
49
50 RED CROSS AND
" I shall never go back to that charnel-
house again," said the old Doctor, " not even
Balzac could have conjured up a more
ghastly scene."
" It makes me think of Dostoievsky," said
the other. " It is just what he would have
liked. But fiction is indeed a tame business
compared to reality, and Life is, after all, the
most daring and the most original writer of
startling tales the world has ever produced.
Your Balzac was a great reader of medical
handbooks, and so was Dostoievsky, and no
doubt they could have described such a death
scene risus sardonicus and all accurately
enough. But would either of these great
masters have dared to put in the mouth of
their dying German soldier that long haran-
gue about the Emperor ? I doubt it. They
would have thought it far too melodramatic
to be true to life. Why is it that people in a
semi-delirious state not infrequently speak
with a wealth of ideas and an exuberance
of imagery which often makes them quite
eloquent ? Mad people are often most
brilliant and witty in their conversation,
and as to their power of argument . . ."
" The sharpest lawyer I ever heard of was
a lunatic, and nobody thought anything of
him as long as his mind was sound," said the
old Doctor.
IRON CROSS 51
' The Englishman is awake," reported
Soeur Philippine at the door of the church.
" I am delighted to hear it," said Doctor
Martin. " We are both in need of a little
diversion, my dear colleague ; I want to
have another talk with that Englishman of
yours, and I would like you to be present at
our conversation."
" He knows no more French than I do
English," said the Mayor, " so I shouldn't
understand a word."
" I think you will understand this time."
" I hope he did not complain and that you
told him how sorry we are not to have been
able to do more for him. We all like the
English so much. We had lots of them
billeted in our village last month when the
English were holding the line here. They used
to give the children chocolates and jam, and
carry them on their shoulders and play all
sorts of games with them, whenever they
were not drinking tea or washing themselves
under the pump, which they did most of the
day. They paid almost double its value for
everything they took, and always thought
first of the welfare and comfort of their horses
and then of their own. All our women-folk
were crazy about them, and no wonder, for
a smarter-looking set of men I never saw, all
tall, clean-looking chaps, and so merry. They
52 RED CROSS AND
were always laughing, several of them were
wounded, and not slightly, but they hobbled
about laughing just the same. They didn't
speak a word of French, no more than this
one dbes in the church, but it was extra-
ordinary to see how they got on with the
children ; they understood each other quite
well. Anatole also says he understood them,
but I am not so sure about that. He says he
had never had such a time in his life they
always wanted shaving. They were here
over a Sunday, and lots of them came to
church, and the Cure" delivered a special
sermon for them, and he said he had never
had a more sympathetic or responsive con-
gregation, although they evidently did not
understand a word he said. The others held
divine service on the Green; one of their
officers read a short sermon and all the men
sang a hymn and knelt for their prayers, and
I must say it was most impressive."
" Did you look at this one's face ? " asked
the Doctor.
" Yes, yes ... we all like the English over
here."
As they came up to the Englishman
Anatole was just helping him to a glass of
wine, with some friendly remarks in an un-
known tongue constructed out of his previous
dealings with his friends les Anglais.
IRON CROSS 53
" I love the English," said Anatole, " but
somehow I do not get on as well with this
one as I did with the others ; they spoke
better French than he does."
" I am not so sure of that," said the Doctor,
" I think it is only that he is rather shy.
Don't be so shy, Tommy," he continued in
French, turning to the soldier. " Surely you
don't want to disappoint your kind friends
here by forcing me to carry on our little con-
versation in a language they don't under-
stand. We know you were somewhat
stunned when the bridge was blown up;
maybe it is that which made you forget your
French. Now that your head is quite clear
again you will see it will all come back to you
quite nicely. But do pull down that collar
of your greatcoat, so that we may look at
your face while we talk ; we all like the look
of an Englishman who has killed seven
Boches. Now tell me a little more of your
glorious past ; I don't expect you to tell the
truth, but you might try. We will talk about
the future by and by. Where did you pick up
that excellent French of yours ? ' ' The man's
eyes wandered restlessly round the church.
" He doesn't speak a word of French,"
explained Anatole.
" Answer ! " said the Doctor, his dark eyes
rivetted upon the soldier.
54 RED CROSS AND
The man looked uneasily from one to the
other of those around him, till at last, with a
quivering of his eyelids, he faced the doctor :
" It is all up," said he in perfect French.
" Answer ! " said the Doctor.
"I have been in Belgium these last two
years."
" What became of you when the war broke
out?"
" I became dispatch-rider to the General
Staff, but had to give it up on account of my
weak heart."
" How long were you with the English ? "
" Since after Mons."
" In what capacity ? "
" I served first in the Transport service,
and then as chauffeur with a Red Cross motor
ambulance."
" You were then a Belgian refugee, I
suppose? "
" Yes."
" And you were an English straggler when
you were with the French ? You did good
work ? "
" I think so, for I was promoted."
" Who had you to report to? "
" To my nearest superior, who was inter-
preter to the General Headquarters."
" You had no difficulties ? "
" No, it is easy with the English."
IRON CROSS 55
" More difficult with the French? "
" Yes, by far."
" I daresay your khaki uniform was very
useful to you."
" Yes, rather."
" I have just been admiring your greatcoat,
it almost looks like an officer's ; you are a
great swell ! Did you kill your man, or did
you rob the dead hyena fashion? "
" All our khaki uniforms are made inDiis-
seldorf," said the man with a certain pride.
" Now my dear Fuchs, or Katz, or what-
ever may be your name shall we call you
Fuchs, it fits you nicely. Now my dear
Fuchs, let us come to the little accident in
your career which gave us the pleasure of
your acquaintance."
The man groaned loudly.
" No, Fuchs, I wouldn't try that groan
again if I were yov ; it brought you such bad
luck last time you tried it. When a clever
man like you, Fox, gets himself up as a
Tommy he ought to know that an English-
man does not groan when the doctor dresses
his wound ; he never utters a sound, he
clenches his teeth if it comes to the worst but
that is all. Nor would any self-respecting
Tommy ever dream of growing that duty red
beard of yours ; he would have had it shaved
off, and had a wash long before he ate that
56 RED CROSS AND
pot of marmalade. You were quite right
about that marmalade though, and you were
also quite welcome to the drink considering
the circumstances ; but be careful, Fuchs,
don't overdo it ! You made an awful mess
of it when you did not stretch out your dirty
fingers for that Woodbine I offered you, and
that you did not feel like a cup of tea was an
equally bad shot, my poor Fuchs. I have
yet to live to learn that there exists a Tommy
who resists a Woodbine or a cup of tea. Your
greatcoat was all right, but, my dear Fuchs,
it was your head which got you into trouble,
and you were quite right to duck it under
your collar. Look, Anatole, at your friend
Fuchs, you who know les Anglais, did you
ever see an Englishman walk about with such
a head ? "
Anatole's eyes had become quite small,
and crouching like a big cat ready to spring,
he drew nearer and nearer to the spy.
" No, Anatole, not yet," said the Doctor.
" We know, my dear Fox, that you are storing
a French bullet somewhere in your anatomy
which might have killed an honest man, but
by some oversight of the devil did you but
little harm. I have an uncomfortable sensa-
tion that you intended to take up your pro-
fession again in a very short time, and that
you would in all probability have succeeded
IRON CROSS 57
had I not had the advantage of meeting you
here. Had the soldier who sent that bullet
into your back discovered one minute before
that there was a traitor among them, there
would be no wounded in this church to-day.
You had just time to light the fuse which
blew up the bridge and your two fingers as
well. You knew that it meant the lives of all
those men whose bread you had shared and
who no doubt had offered you their last
cigarette, and whatever little comfort they
may have had, as homage to the uniform you
wore you say it is all right so ; it is what
you call war, isn't it so, Fox ? "
" It hurt my feelings to do it, but I had to
cany out my instructions, and it nearly cost
me my life."
" Did you say nearly ? "
The man's face grew ashy grey under its
layer of dirt.
" No, Fuchs, you needn't worry. We do
not kill wounded men in an Ambulance, not
even a wounded spy. I am sure you will be
given ample time to collect your varied im-
pressions of these last months. You have
indeed shown yourself worthy of your pro-
motion."
" If you spare my life I will give informa-
tion to your authorities for which your
Secret Service would pay a fortune."
58 RED CROSS AND
" I am glad you told me this, Judas Fuchs ;
it was nice of you, it facilitates matters for
me personally a lot. I have, like you, a senti-
mental nature ; it hurts my feelings to cause
a man to be shot and I was almost beginning
to feel sorry for you, my dear Fuchs."
The spy succeeded in getting his eyes away
from the Doctor's, and he cast a rapid glance
at the door.
" Yes, you are quite right, Fox, the doors
are left open the whole night ; but you are
wrong in thinking that you might wriggle out
like a venomous reptile in the dark. Listen
well to what I now tell you ! You will never
come out alive from this church. If man
does not kill you, God will."
Fear shone in the eyes of the spy and his
whole body began to shiver.
" Are you certain he won't escape ? " said
the Mayor as they turned away. " I have
heard of a man with a bullet through his body
being able to walk in less than a week's time.
It may besides be true what Sceur Philippine
told me, that she thought she saw a shadow
moving last night towards the door. Who
else could it have been but he ? I dare not
rely on anybody to watch him during the
night. We are all worn out ; we must keep
the doors open, the stench is too terrible, and
we have besides all the dead to carry out
IRON CROSS 59
during the night. Who can guarantee that
he does not crawl out through the window ? "
" Why not put him in the charnel-house ? "
said Anatole. " It's the very place for him."
"No," said the Mayor, " I think we will
not put him there ; we will like it better so
when our heads are cool."
" Quite so," said the Doctor, " and I take
the responsibility before you, Monsieur le
Maire, that he shall not escape. He is wel-
come to try ; I know he cannot do it. I know
I can hold him ; he is not only a spy but he
is also a coward, which is, I believe, a rare
combination in his dangerous profession. I
saw a spy shot a week ago, and I could not
help admiring his courage to the very end.
This scoundrel, who wanted to betray his
own country after having already betrayed
three other countries, is quite harmless now ;
he is shaking all over with terror, and he will
die of fear if of nothing else.
"He is not fit to lie here amongst these
brave men," said the Doctor as they walked
down the nave. " I have felt ever since I
entered your church as if service were going
on the whole time, and there is something
blasphemous in his being here. But I have
a feeling that it won't be for long."
60 RED CROSS AND
" Did I show you the big Uhlan over there,
mon cher confrere," said the old village
Doctor pointing down the side aisle. " He
was shot through the spine and I fear he
suffers terribly. Luckily for him I believe
the end is near ; it looks to me as though
he would not be here to-morrow."
" Yes, I know him well," answered his
colleague, " he is the only Boche here who is
able to speak ; I had a long talk with him
this morning ; we are great friends. I do not
know if he is a Uhlan or not ; he is so covered
with blood and mud that it is impossible to
make out what his uniform is. All I know of
him is that he took part in the massacres of
Dinant."
" He looks like it," said the old Doctor.
" We found him down on the river bank under
some willows ; he was almost lying in the
water. He is the biggest man I ever set eyes
on ; Anatole says it was quite a job to lift
him. He had a collapse when we took him
from the stretcher and put him on the straw ;
in fact, I thought he was gone. As I bent over
his face to see if he was dead he opened his
eyes, and he startled us all with such a terrible
scream that one could hear it all over the
church. He screams whenever one comes
near him. I never saw such a wild-looking
man. They are all rather afraid of him here.
IRON CROSS 61
Anatole thought he was going to strike him
when he wanted to lift him ; he has the fists
of a giant. Did you ever see such a ferocious
face? "
" II n'est pas mechant," said Josephine,
who was standing behind the Uhlan so that
he could not see her, " but he does not want
anybody to look at him. I believe he is
afraid of somebody."
' You are as clever as you are good,
Josephine," said Doctor Martin ; " you are
quite right, he is afraid of somebody. It
is nobody here."
" He has been following you with his eyes
the whole time," said she. " Do talk to him ; I
am sure he is longing to speak to you."
" Thank God you have come back," said
the Uhlan, as soon as he heard the Doctor's
voice. " Did you see anybody as you came ?"
he added in a hurned whisper.
" No."
" Are you sure? "
"Quite sure."
" She always goes away when you come,"
he murmured.
"Who?"
He closed his eyes. " The old woman,"
he said with a shudder. " I was afraid you
were not coming back."
" I promised you I would come back."
62 RED CROSS AND
" Yes, but since I told you this morning
about the old ..." He closed his eyes
again.
" I have forgotten all about her," said the
Doctor.
" I want to tell you," the soldier went on
with an unsteady voice. " As I bent over
her face to see if she was dead ..."
" I do not want to hear anything more
about her," said the Doctor sternly; "you
may tell me anything you like, but I do
not want to hear anything more about the
old woman."
He looked quite disappointed. " But
you said you had forgotten. As I bent over
her face to see if for God's sake let me
tell you," he pleaded eagerly, as the
Doctor tried to stop him again, " for God
sake let me tell you ! I cannot bear it
alone any longer, I feel as if you might help
me if you knew all about her. I am sure
you can help me ; she went away when you
spoke to me this morning; it is the only
time she has left me since I came here.
As I bent over her face to see if she was
dead," he went on with unmistakable
relief . . .
The Doctor saw he was powerless to spare
the man his self-inflicted torture. Helpless
and 4 silent he sat by the soldier's side listening
IRON CROSS 63
once more to the gruesome tale of the massacre
of the eight hundred civilians at Dinant. He
knew the terrible story through the deposi-
tions of the few survivors ; he heard it now
from the trembling lips of one of the execu-
tioners.
It was all carried out with order and pre-
cision ; the officers were there to see that the
work was properly done, and that it all went
off without a hitch the men were rather
more drunk than was good for them. One
of his comrades was shot dead by an officer
as he threw down his rifle when orders were
given to fire on the defenceless crowd.
They slaughtered the men first, several
hundreds of them, mostly old men, but many
mere boys. Then the women by hundreds,
mothers and wives, daughters and sisters,
young and old. How many he had shot he
did not know, he did not remember, nor did
he seem to worry much about it. It was all
about the old woman. He saw her running
down the street, but she could not run very
fast, she was a very old woman " Eine
sehr alie Frau," said he. He stabbed her
as she was entering a house ; she fell on the
threshold. As he bent over her face to see
if she was dead, she opened her eyes and
looked at him with the same eyes as his
grandmother had looked at him the day he
64 RED CROSS AND
started for the war and bid her farewell in
their village church the same sad, humble
eyes. The old woman was holding her
prayer-book and her spectacle case in her
hand, just as his grandmother was holding
her prayer-book and her spectacle case in her
old hands. She was quite dead, but she
kept on looking at him.
He ran to join his comrades and they all
sat down round the bonfire in the midst of
the square to a hearty meal with an extra
ration of sausage and potatoes, and many
good things they had looted from the shops,
and as much wine as they could drink, and
all the dead bodies lying round them as they
had fallen. The officers dined outside the
cafe close by, and the tables were laden with
champagne bottles it was all very jolly,
" Sehr lustig " he called it. The men sang
" Deutschland ubcr Alles," and at the end,
"Nun danket alle Gott." He got quite drunk
again and felt very happy. Just as he was
dropping off to sleep that night the old
woman came and bent over him and looked
at him with the same eyes as his grandmother.
Since that day she came regularly every
night as he was going off to sleep and bent
over him and looked at him, just as his
grandmother used to come and look at him
when he was a boy for he had never known
IRON CROSS 65
his mother. He stood it for a week, but
then he got so exhausted from want of sleep
that he could hardly walk, and he was
reported to the doctor. The doctor gave
him a pill which made the old woman come
a little later at night and also in the day as
soon as he was alone. Then he was put
under arrest for something he had done he
did not remember, and for two days and
nights the old woman never left his side and
kept looking at him the whole time. He
then thought he would speak to the army
chaplain. He was a very good chaplain
a God-fearing man much liked by all the men.
The chaplain cured him on the spot. The
chaplain said it all came from the stomach,
that he had nothing to worry about, that
he was defending the Fatherland, and that
the old woman would probably have gouged
out the eyes of one of his comrades had she
lived if she had not already done it. The kind
chaplain managed to get him out of prison
and the next day he was quite fit again,
and never once did the old woman come back
to look at him during tkeir whole advance
through Belgium and France. The night
he was wounded she came back again and
looked at him with his grandmother's eyes.
He tried to crawl away from her and hide
under some willows, but she followed him
F
66 RED CROSS AND
there and for the whole day and night she
kept on looking at him. He begged her
for God's mercy to fetch him a drop of water
from the river, but she never moved and
never took her eyes off him. He did not
know how many days ^.nd nights they
remained there, but he remembered quite
well that one of the men who came to carry
him away on the stretcher was a hunchback.
The night was dark, but he could see the old
woman distinctly as she walked at the side
of the stretcher, her white hair flowing in
the wind and her clothes dripping with blood.
As they carried him up the church steps the
bells in the old village church began to chime
their well-known chime, and at the door
stood Hans, the old beadle, who used to
chase him and the other boys away when
they were too noisy during Mass ; and Hans
nodded to him as he passed. He saw his
grandmother in her white cap and her black
shawl kneeling on her old knees in her usual
place by the side altar. He was not very
surprised to see her there, for he knew she
would come every evening to pray for him.
He wanted to go up to her, but he thought
he had better wait till she had finished her
prayer. The old woman from Dinant was
gone. He looked at his grandmother ; he
knew he was safe, he knew he was released,
IRON CROSS 67
and he would have thanked God had he
dared. As they lifted him out of the stretcher
all the lights in the church went out, and it
became dark as death around him. He had
ceased to suffer, so he thought he had ceased
to live. And again he wanted to thank God
had he dared. A wild cry of distress woke him
from death. It sounded far, far away, but
he thought it was almost like his own voice.
He opened his eyes and he saw moving
lights around him. He looked for his grand-
mother, but she was gone. He was lying on
the straw-covered floor of another church,
and around him were groans and shrieks
and blood and dying men. He closed his
eyes again. A shadow fell over him. The
old woman from Dinant stood bending over
him and looking at him. Since that day
she had never left him ; night and day she
was there at his side.
" Did you see anybody as you came ? "
he whispered with a shudder. " For God's
sake stay with me ; she will come back if you
go away. Don't go away ; for God's sake
stay with me ! "
He lay there timidly fumbling about with
his hand in search of the Doctor's, as if
afraid he might not be allowed to hold on to
his hand. He was sinking rapidly. His
eyes were growing dim.
68 RED CROSS AND
" Look !" said the Doctor, pointing down the
side aisle towards the altar. " Look ! your
grandmother has come back ! Look ! she is
there in her white cap and her black shawl
kneeling on her old knees in her usual place ! "
He raised his head eagerly and stared
with his dim eyes towards the altar.
"It is getting so dark," said he, "I
cannot see ! "
" Look ! she is lighting a candle to show
you the way ! Now she is kneeling again,
don't call her ! She is praying for you !
Can't you see her now? "
He tried to raise his head once more.
" The candle, the candle, yes, I see the
candle, the . . . Grannie ! Grannie ! " he
called almost with the voice of a child.
" Grannie ! " he whispered again quite
gently, so as not to disturb her whilst she
was praying.
He lay there silent for awhile, looking
steadfastly at his grandmother. His wild
features grew soft and still, and big tears
rolled down his cheek.
He had not suffered enough. Once more
the horror of the past gripped at his weary
brain, once more he turned with fear-filled
eyes towards the Doctor.
" Do you think I am going to hell ? "
he whispered with awe.
IRON CROSS 69
"No," said the other. " I believe God
is listening to your grandmother's prayers
and that He will have mercy on you and let
you go to heaven."
He looked at his grandmother again. A
few moments later the terror went out of his
eye and such a peace fell over his anguished
face that the Doctor believed he was right.
IV
THE old village Doctor, worn out by his long
watch, had consented to let his young col-
league take his place for the night, and
Josephine had also been persuaded to go
home for a little rest. The two nuns
sat already huddled together in their usual
place fingering their rosaries, and Anatole
was to share the night watch with the Doctor
and call the Cure in case of need. The
Doctor had noticed that a mattress had been
brought over from the Presbytery and placed
in a corner of the sacristy, and he had seen
Anne, the Cure's old cook, come and put
bread, cheese, and grapes, and a flask of wine
on the table under the ominous cupboard.
The nuns lit the candles on the altar and
a couple of oil lamps in the side aisles.
Kneeling before the Madonna's shrine Soeur
Philippine read out the prayer for the night :
Priez pour nous pauvres pecheurs main-
tenant et a I'heure de noire mort !
It grew darker and darker in the church.
With a small oil lamp in his hand the
Doctor went his round. Now and then a
shrill shriek of pain or a deep sigh pierced
70
IRON CROSS 71
the gloom, and terror spoke to him out of
wide-open eyes, and the desperate grasp
of a hand implored him for help.
Night came at last with its blessed hush
of silence.
He bent over the white faces on the floor,
and as often as not he did not know where
this silence meant sleep and where it meant
death.
Some of them looked as if they did not
know it themselves, as if unaware that their
sleep was the sleep of eternity. The luthier
lay there with the crucifix in his hands, calm
and serene as if listening to the vibrating
voice of the beloved violin his long, delicate
fingers had just moulded out of some piece
of dumb wood. The other, who had been
lying there for three days and nights staring
out of his darkness for the sun to rise at
last, now looked as if he could see better than
anybody else, as if he saw straight into
heaven. Close by lay Josephine's boy hero
on his white sheet, immaculate from pollu-
tion and blood, immune from bullets and
wounds, beautiful and flower-crowned like
a young god !
" Where is the German officer who stole
the greatcoat from the soldier next to him ? "
said the Doctor to the hunchback.
" I have not heard his cursed voice for
72 RED CROSS AND
awhile," said Anatole, taking the oil lamp
in his hand and leading the way to the side
aisle. He lay there the last in the row close
to the side entrance. His marble- white
forehead was high and clear, his strong
features were manly and bold, and his wide-
open, still eyes looked straight and fearless
at his accuser.
" I do not believe that story about the
greatcoat," said the Doctor to Anatole.
The two bloodshot eyes under the bundle
of bandages opened as the Doctor bent over
the Bavarian giant.
" Thank God you have had a. little sleep !
Now we are just going to cleanse your mouth
and syringe your throat from all that na c ty
stuff which is choking you. If you lie very
still whilst I do that you are going to have a
drop of wine and water like last time or
would you rather have some milk ? "
The nun wiiispered that there was none,
but luckily the Bavarian had already chosen
the wine and water, according to how the
Doctor read his eyes.
" Wasn't I right that you preferred wine
and water ? There, you see that I can
understand by your eyes what you want to
IRON CROSS 73
say, so it is quite useless for you to try to
speak, which is very bad for you. I under-
stand you and ypu understand me, and that
is all we want isn't that so? "
The giant nodded, and his eyes twitched
with the pain as he did so.
" Don't nod, I know you just wanted to
say you are pleased you have found a man
you can talk to like this, and if you are very
patient and still while I put that tube down
your throat, I will tell you what you and I
are going to do to-morrow morning after
you have had another snatch of sleep."
The eyes signalled that they wanted to
know at once.
So the Doctor told him that they were
going to help each other to write a letter
home to tell his wife he was getting on quite
well and would soon be home again. The
giant nodded so that the whole bundle of
bandages shook, and the eyes half closed
with pain.
" I told you not to nod," said the Doctor as
severely as he could, and the eyes begged
pardon at once.
" Won't he suffer too much to have that
hard tube down his throat again ? " said the
nun timidly.
" No, he will stand it much better this
time, and he longs besides for a little water
74 RED CROSS AND
down his burning throat, and he badly
needs a few drops of wine too. Try to get
us some milk for to-morrow if you possibly
can. That he is still alive means that he
intends to make a hard fight, and he will
let us do with him anything we want. He is
as docile as a lamb, and he will go off to
sleep again as soon as we have cleansed his
throat and fed him a little."
" How can you make him go to sleep so
peacefully ? " said the wondering nun.
" I know no more than you how I can
make him sleep, Sister, but I know that I can
do it," said the Doctor gravely.
He had finished his round closely followed
by the hunchback, who did not seem to want
to leave his side for a minute. Overpowered
by fatigue and almost faint from the terrible
stench which rose like a deadly mist from
the floor, the Doctor sat down on the bench
near the entrance door looking into the
starlit night for the dawn which seemed
never to want to come.
" It does my eyes good to look at the
stars," said he.
" Will this night never come to an end ! "
groaned the hunchback.
" What's the matter with you, Anatole ?
IRON CROSS 75
You look quite ill, and you are shaking all
over."
" Did you see how he stared at me ? I
can't get over those dead eyes ! " said the
hunchback, his voice trembling with fear.
" Why don't you go home for a couple of
hours' sleep ? There will be plenty to do
for us all to-morrow, and I can manage
quite well here with the two nuns."
" I dare not go out in that black night,"
said Anatole; "for God's sake let me stay
with you till it gets light, if it ever will. I
have, besides, nowhere to go to. Don't you
know that my shop was knocked down by a
shell, and my wife was killed on the spot ? "
" No, my poor Anatole, I did not know,
or I would not have told you to go home.
Of course you stay with me ; I am very glad
to have you here. I don't feel, either, as if I
wanted to be here alone."
In order to distract Anatole from his
gloomy thoughts, the Doctor then began
to ask about the last days' fighting around
the village. Anatole told him how the
battle had been raging all around them for
several days, how during a whole afternoon
shells had been falling over the village, how
though outnumbered by five to one a
battalion of their men had held the bridge-
head for the whole day.
76 RED CROSS AND
" When orders were given to retreat, the
Boches had already succeeded in blowing
up the bridge, and the whole battalion was
massacred. Our troops made a last stand
on the ridge of scattered pines up there over-
looking the village; you can see there are
hardly any trees left now, and the whole
slope was thickly covered with wood before.
At daybreak the Boches made a furious
bayonet charge and there was a desperate
hand to hand fight, but they were repulsed.
At noon they began to shell the hill again
until there was hardly one of our men left
alive. Nobody in the village went to bed
that night. We expected the Boches to come
at any moment ; but they never did, or I
should not be here to tell the tale. They kill
everything, women, children, and cripples.
The next morning a wood-cutter came down
and told us that the whole wood was full of
dead lying in heaps one upon another, and
that he had found a soldier still alive outside
his hut. He had crawled there during the
night, and he said he was sure there were
others still living among the dead. We im-
provised some sort of stretchers, and I went
up there at once with the Cure and the Doctor
and the few old men still remaining in the vil-
lage. During that day and the following night
we carried down, I think, nearly two hundred
IRON CROSS 77
men who the Doctor said were still alive,
although most of them looked quite dead,
and many were actually dead when we got
them down here, and many have died since.
I don't think there are more than about half
of them here now. We also found several
Boches alive. We wanted to carry down our
men first, but both the Cure" and the Mayor
said we must take them in turn as we iuiuul
them. I wish we had not done as we were
told ; if it had not been for that, poor Jean
would not have been lying there now amongst
all the dead Boches. I shall never dare to
tell the truth to Josephine, for she will never
forgive me. Jean's body was one of the
iast we found. It was I who found him with
a bayonet thrust clean through his chest.
When I came back to fetch his body the others
had already buried him by mistake. The
Mayor had said that all the dead must be
buried the same night, and they had all been
heaped together in the big abandoned
trenches and earth shovelled over them.
I shall never dare to tell Josephine the truth,
for she will never forgive me. Maybe it is
not so in your country, but with us our women
folk want to know the spot where their sons
are lying and want to put a cross and some
flowers on their graves. And poor Josephine
will never know where to put her flowers and
78 RED CROSS AND
where to pray, for the whole wood is full of
dead, and there are all those Boches amongst
them, and nobody knows where Jean lies.
He was everything to her and he was so good
to her. And if you knew what a fine lad he
was, tall and strong like his father and with
his mother's big brown eyes. She will
never forgive me, I know she won't."
He sat silent awhile. His restless eyes
kept wandering round the dark church and
suddenly stood still, staring fixedly towards
the corner where Josephine's candle was
burning.
" Do you see that candle ? Do you know
who killed Jean ? " he whispered suddenly.
" No," said the Doctor with unsteady
voice.
" It was that young Boche she has been
nursing night and day who killed her son,"
said he fiercely. " Jean was lying under a
tree a little way from the others. The
bayonet had entered his left side near the
heart, and the point was sticking out under
his right arm-pit. The Doctor said he must
have been killed instantaneously. The
Boche lay beside him in a pool of blood with
both his hands still on the butt-end of his
rifle. The Doctor said I must pull out the
bayonet, but my hands shook so that I could
not do it. The Doctor said he could not
IRON CROSS 79
do it either, so I had to do it. As I took
hold of the rifle the Boche grabbed at it, and
we saw he was still alive. He had been
shot through the chest the same instant
he thrust his bayonet through poor Jean.
The Doctor said the bullet had pierced both
his lungs near the heart, and that he had lost
so much blood that it was a marvel he was
still alive. Both the Cur6 and the Doctor
said it was not right or Christian to leave him
there, so we were made to carry him down first,
and when Pierre and I came back for Jean
they had already buried him. I shall never
dare to tell Josephine the truth, for she will
never forgive me."
" Listen, Anatole," said the Doctor. " I
see you are all right again and don't mind
sitting alone for a few minutes. I just want
to go outside the porch for a moment and
smoke a cigarette. You remain sitting
where you are and call me at once if some-
body wants me."
He went out of the church and stood for a
long while in the middle of the chaussee.
He felt as if he could not understand, would
not understand, and as if he wanted to ask
for an explanation. He looked up to the
stars that had explained to him so many
riddles, but their cold glitter flashed no
80 RED CROSS AND
message to his dark thought. He looked
towards the Eastern hills for some light to
come to his anguished soul, but there was
no sign of any dawn. Were they, then, all
blind, those shining eyes overhead, or how
could they look so indifferently on all the
wounds, all the tears, and all the horror of
the night ? Was there, then, no pity in the
sun that was soon again to purple yonder
hills with blood, soon again to light the track
for Death to stalk his victims from valley to
valley, from cliff to cliff? What had this
fair world done to be thus torn asunder by
the sinister birds of prey of evil, what had
these poor men done to be driven to murder
those they were meant to love !
A sound of unspeakable terror came
hissing through the poplars along the
chaussee, splitting the darkness with light-
ning speed as it flew past him. A terrific
blast of air lifted him off his feet and hurled
him senseless against the wall.
The sharp pain in his head roused him at
last. He got on his feet and tried to walk,
but his knees shook so that he had to lean
against the wall to avoid falling. Holding
on with both hands to the wall he dragged
himself to the porch.
IRON CROSS 81
Stumbling over heaps of brick and plaster
and broken glass he staggered into the
church.
The nave was dark, but early dawn lit up
the choir. On the steps which had led to
the high-altar, stood the priest in his
chasuble celebrating morning Mass in his
ruined sanctuary. Tall and erect his figure
stood out against the reddening sky. ' ' Gloria
in excelsis Deo ! " came from his lips amidst
the moan from the straw-covered floor.
Gloria in excelsis Deo !
As he lifted the chalice over his head the
sun rose through the broken vault of the apse
to reveal to the day the dark deed of the
night.
II
THEY came. Preceded by a couple of
dusty motor-cyclists with carbines slung
upon their backs hunter- fashion, they entered
the village at an easy trot, tall and strong
on their magnificent horses, their pennons
floating in the breeze and the sunlight
gleaming on their lance-tips.
The Mayor in his tricolour scarf, with the
Cur6 at his side, stood in front of the church,
but no notice seemed to be taken of them
as the Uhlans rode past. Five officers, all
wearing the Iron Cross, followed in the rear,
and dismounting, one of them saluted stiffly
and informed the Mayor in quite good French
that he and his officers were to be billeted
in the Presbytery and that the Mayor was
to provide within two hours food for the
men and forage for the horses. The Mayor
answered that all eatables and forage had
been requisitioned for the retreating French
troops, that there was hardly any food left
for the few old men, women, and children
remaining in the village, and that all the
85
86 RED CROSS AND
hay had been used to lay under the wounded
in the church.
" I give you six hours," said the officer.
" How many wounded have you got in
there, and are there any officers amongst
them ? " asked another. " I will come and
inspect them in half an hour; see that the
doctor in charge is there to receive me."
They saluted and all five leisurely entered
the Presbytery.
Punctually half an hour later two officers
followed by an orderly came to the church.
" Are you in charge of the ambulance? "
said one of them to Doctor Martin, noticing
the brassard round his arm.
Before the Doctor had time to explain
their terrible situation to his colleague for
he had by now realized that he had a German
army-surgeon before him the two officers
had already begun their inspection.
" Show me the officers first," said the
surgeon.
He pulled off their blankets, giving them
each a rapid glance, and then passed along
the row of soldiers, shrugging his shoulders
significantly as he looked at each of them.
" Nothing for you, my dear Adalbert,"
said he in German, turning to the officer
at his side.
" Where is the General ? " he asked
IRON CROSS 87
abruptly. He was told there was no
General amongst the wounded.
" I know your commanding General was
badly wounded up in that wood. Where has
he been taken to ? Where is your nearest
clearing hospital ? "
He got no answer.
" You won't say ? " insisted the German
" No."
" I fear you will go away from this place
with an empty bag, my dear Adalbert,"
said the surgeon to his comrade. " Not
one of these people is worth your trouble,
not one of them would reach the frontier
alive, they are all as good as gone. As for
the village, there are only some old women
and children left as far as I could see unless
you want to bag that hunchback who was
hanging about outside the church," he added
laughingly.
" How much chloroform have you got ? "
asked the surgeon.
" None, and no medicine, no disinfec-
tants, and, as you can see for yourself, no
dressing-material either."
" What a show 1 And what a stench, eh !"
" Kolossal ! " replied Adalbert, holding
tightly to the handkerchief over his nose.
" Indeed they have had a narrow escape,"
said the surgeon, looking towards the
88 RED CROSS AND
choir. " Had the shell struck the church
only a few yards higher up the main vault
would have fallen in and the whole fabric
would have crumbled like a pack of cards
and buried them all."
" Or one of those big wooden rafters might
have caught fire and burnt them alive,"
suggested Adalbert. " Anyhow it is not
bad as it is at ten miles range," said he,
examining the broken vault through his
monocle. " I am sure those old walls are
over two metres thick. They talk the whole
time at the top of their voices of their famous
'75 's, but they are nothing but toy pistols
compared to our long range guns ! When
I was at Potsdam ..." He stopped
short as he noticed the Doctor's eye upon
him.
In a futile attempt to be polite he continued
in French, turning to the Doctor :
" I was just saying to my comrade how
lucky it was that the shell struck so low.
Reading about it in a newspaper nobody
would believe in such luck a twelve-inch
shell making a hole as big as a transport
waggon, smashing the high-altar and pass-
ing clean through the nave out of the rose
window over the porch, without doing any
damage. It is very interesting. When I
was at Potsdam .
IRON CROSS 89
" Were you in the church when the shell
struck ? " asked the surgeon.
" No, I was standing outside in the middle
of the chausse"e, and the shell must have
passed only a few metres over my head,
judging from the height it struck the
wall."
' You must be born under a lucky star,"
complimented Adalbert, " and not even your
eyes blown in. It is most interesting."
" Was anybody killed in the church ? "
asked the surgeon.
" No, they were all covered by falling
plaster and broken glass you can see there
is not a single pane left in the windows
but none of our men were killed. They
are evidently all born under the same lucky
star as I."
"It is to be hoped that in the state of
collapse they all are in they did not even
realize their danger," said the surgeon.
" Quite so, they have nothing more to
fear from life, they are safe under the pro-
tection of approaching death."
" I am very glad to hear it," said Adalbert
politely. " It was one of those unfortunate
accidents unavoidable in war. It must
have been a stray shot whilst our battery
was getting the range I suppose you know
that Fort Vendome was bombarded just
90 RED CROSS AND
before daybreak. I hope you understand
that we don't bombard churches."
" I thought you did," said the Doctor.
" I was at Rheims."
The surgeon bit his lip.
" I wish you could help us to get a proper
bandage and a drainage-tube for the Bavarian
soldier over there," said Doctor Martin, with
a superhuman effort to keep his nerves in
hand.
" Why didn't you tell us you had a German
here ? "
" You have not given me time to tell you
anything," answered Doctor Martin.
The surgeon looked unmoved at the
terrible wound, and sent the orderly to fetch
his instrument case and necessary dressing
material, talking the while on indifferent
matters with his comrade without saying
a single word to the wounded man.
" Potzdonnerwetter ! There he brings me the
wrong scissors again ! " shouted the surgeon,
as the orderly with a stiff salute handed him
the instrument case. " And what the devil
am I to do with these two small rolls of
bandages for a man who has his whole head
almost blown off ! And do you call this
a drainage-tube ! You d d fool ! "
" Damn you ! " said Adalbert.
"It is no good wasting our time with
IRON CROSS 91
this confounded ass," said the surgeon,
throwing the rolls of bandages at the
orderly's head. " I shall have to go myself
to fetch what I want or I shall never get it !
I shall be back in a minute. Promise, my
dear Adalbert, not to talk any nonsense,"
he added in a low voice in German as he
walked out of the church, followed by the
orderly, who looked quite placid and un-
concerned.
" So you were at Rheims ! " said Adalbert
to the Doctor. " I must say I envy you
having been there. It must have been a
wonderful sight to see the huge cathedral
in flames, one of those sights one can never
forget."
" Never ! " said the Doctor.
" Pray pardon me," said Adalbert, looking
at the other through his monocle, " may I ask
what that red ribbon is on your tunic ? I am
very much interested in decorations. Surely
it is not, it cannot be, the Legion of Honour? "
" I daresay the name sounds unfamiliar
to your ears, but that is what it is called."
" Really ! I did not know it was so easy
to get the Legion of Honour," explained
Adalbert. " I thought it had been invented
as a sort of equivalent, I mean substitute,
for our famous Iron Cross ; but with us, of
course, this glorious decoration is only
92 RED CROSS AND
awarded on rare occasions for high personal
valour in serving the Fatherland or for
conspicuous gallantry or both," he added,
nonchalantly toying with his Iron Cross.
" Isn't that rather a good picture ? " said
Adalbert, staring through his monocle at an
old Madonna over the side altar. " I am
sure it is German; it looks like a Diirer."
" Flemish late seventeenth century, I
should say," rejoined the Doctor.
" Why play with words," laughed Adal-
bert. " Flemish or German is all the same
now. You must have very good eyes to
see the date it was painted in this dim light,"
he added wittily.
" Yes, I have very good eyes ; they are
the best thing I have."
" I am sure it is a valuable picture ;
pity it is so large ! " said Adalbert medi-
tatively. " We are very fond of old pictures
in Germany. When I was at Potsdam ..."
He suddenly grew very pale and put his
handkerchief to his mouth. " I think I
must have some fresh air," he said, apolo-
getically. " I am not feeling very well.
Let us continue our conversation outside
the porch till my comrade comes back, if you
do not mind. I like to talk to you."
The Doctor, who had by now classified
his man as a rare and precious specimen well
IRON CROSS 93
worthy of further study, followed the Ger-
man with a twinkle in his eye. Leaning
against the door Adalbert breathed the fresh
air with evident delight.
" I am all right again," said he.
" So glad," said the Doctor, seating him-
self on the bench.
" I suppose you know who I am," said
Adalbert, placing himself before the Doctor.
" I have no idea."
" I am Graf Adalbert von und zu Schoenbein
und Rumpdmayer ," announced the German.
" Pray be seated," he added, with a benevo-
lent wave of the hand " My name must be
known to you."
" Would you mind saying it again and
a little slower," begged the Doctor, light-
ing his cigarette. " Ah 1 yes, of course,
Rumpelmayer. I have often had tea at
Rumpelmayer's, both in London and in
Paris, such good tea and such excellent cakes !
A very good business, I am sure ! Any
relation of yours? "
Adalbert blushed terribly
" Our family name is closely connected
with modern German history," announced
Adalbert solemnly. " My father, His Ex-
cellency Graf Huldimg Adalbert von und
zu Schoenbein, was Obcrkuchenmcister to his
Imperial Majesty William I."
94 RED CROSS AND
" My name is Doctor Martin," said the
Doctor, "my father . . ."
" Ah ! Now I understand the feeling of
sympathy I felt for you from the first, and
that vague air of distinction I did not fail to
notice in your appearance ; of course you are
of German origin, your name is pure German,
and what is more you are the bearer of an old
name, my dear Doctor von Martin. You bear
the illustrious name of one of the Generals
of Frederick the Great, and there is also
amongst the civilians our famous Martin
Luther . . ."
" Sorry to have to correct you, Graf
Rumpelmayer " Adalbert frowned a little
" but I have never heard of any German
ancestry of mine, and there is no handle to
my name ; it is plain and simple Martin.
My father ..."
" I beg your pardon," said Adalbert; " it
is of course force of habit that makes me add
that so significant little prefix to the names I
generally mention, all my friends being
noblemen."
" My father was a blacksmith," said the
Doctor.
Adalbert looked round, horrified lest the
sentry should hear them.
" Never mind, Martin, who your father
was," he said bravely. " I am glad to see
IRON CROSS 95
that his son has nevertheless succeeded in
making himself an honourable position in
life of course, you could never have become
a German officer. To go back to what we
were saying," he went on, "I am glad you
mentioned Rheims. Here we have again an
example of what I so appropriately called an
unavoidable accident of war. I am aware
that a great deal of fuss has been made about
this accident by the hostile press, and I have
thought a good deal about it. Luckily for us
we are as innocent with regard to the bom-
bardment of the cathedral of Rheims as we
are with regard to the disturbance we un-
happily caused you and your wounded last
night in this little church. Our conscience is
quite clear. Civilians cannot understand
that the position of a battery is perforce
determined by the formation of the sur-
rounding country. The unfortunate situa-
tion of the cathedral in the very firing line
of our heavy guns made it unavoidable that
the old building should receive a scratch or
two from the claws of the German eagle a
rather striking metaphor, if you allow me to
say so. Besides, Gothic architecture has had
its day, and, as the Frankfurter Zeitung so
cleverly pointed out, the disappearance of
these old monuments will only hasten the
birth of new and astounding creations of
96 RED CROSS AND
German genius and Kultur far outdistancing
these well-meaning efforts of bygone times.
" Wait till you see our new cathedral in
Berlin," Adalbert went on enthusiastically.
" I shall never forget the majestic impression
it made upon me when I saw it the day of
its consecration. It was consecrated by
the All-Highest, who made a stupendous
speech ..."
" What ! " exclaimed the Doctor.
" I say it was consecrated by the All-
Highest, and never has his Imperial voice
sounded more omnipotent and sublime than
that day."
" Well I never ..." said the Doctor.
" I must say I like to talk to you, Martin,"
said Adalbert. " I was reading the other
day in Bernhardi ..."
" You read a lot ? "
" I am always reading."
" Doesn't too much reading interfere
somehow with your thinking ? "
" Thinking ! " exclaimed Adalbert. " A
German officer has to act and not to think ;
our thinking is done by our General Staff,
which has been called so aptly the brain of
the army."
" And what about your feeling ? "
" We don't feel anything. Clausewitz says
that it deteriorates the discipline of an army,
IRON CROSS 97
and besides it sets a bad example to the men."
" How is it that you do not belong to the
General Staff ? "
" That is a question I have often asked
myself ; but I hope I shall one day."
" So do I," said the Doctor fervently.
" What a lovely idyllic country this is,"
said Adalbert, looking out over the smashed
house-tops of the little village at his feet
towards the devastated ridge of scattered
pines, down to the river with its blown-up
bridge and a black cloud of smoke slowly
drifting across the valley from Fort Vendome
in flames. "What a charming landscape;
there is something truly German about it.
I have had the good fortune to explore this
part of France under the most favourable
conditions," Adalbert went on. " You know
there is nothing like visiting a new country
on horseback. I must say I do not wonder
the French like their country. So do we.
Good food, excellent wine, and these stately
chateaux so conveniently scattered about
for our billets, so home-like and comfort-
able, so abundantly and thoughtfully pro-
vided with all that makes life worth living.
Yes, indeed, life would be ideal here were it
not^for one single drawback we all feel very
keenly, though I hope it is only a temporary
9 8 RED CROSS AND
evil. You know the people here do not like
us ; it is useless to try to shut one's eyes to
this regrettable fact. We Germans do not
dislike the French, in fact we rather like
them. My detachment has just been on a
punitive expedition to several small places
round here, and I must say that everywhere
I was painfully impressed by the sullenness
of the inhabitants. Our attitude towards the
French has invariably been correct. Look
at me, for instance. I think I may say, with-
out boasting, that you can look upon me as a
typical German officer ..."
" I wish to goodness you were ! "exclaimed
the Doctor, completely oft his guard. " I
wish to goodness you were, for if so the war
would be over in a month."
" I thank you sincerely, Martin, for these
words," said Adalbert solemnly ; "it does
one good to be appreciated by a loyal adver-
sary. I was saying look at me and answer
me this question : Have I not treated you,
who after all I must look upon as an enemy,
with unfailing tact and forbearance ; have
I not carefully avoided touching on any of the
topics which might hurt your feelings ; have
I not shown you my sympathetic interest in
the inconvenience we unfortunately caused
you last night in this little church ; have I
not, in one word, behaved towards you in the
IRON CROSS 99
manner you would expect of a Prussian
officer and a German gentleman? "
" You have indeed," said the Doctor.
" I thank you, Martin ; I thank you. I
must say I like talking with you. Well,
Martin, I have behaved in exactly the same
way to everybody I came across since I
entered France to those few of my own
class as well as to those of yours. And what
have I gained by my urbanity ? You must
realize my feelings of bitterness, not to say
painful resentment, when I tell you that so
far you are the only person who has under-
stood my true nature ; who has listened to
me without malice and has been impressed
by my arguments. That is why I like to talk
to you, Martin ; I tell it you frankly. Why
do they all dislike us ? We were told that
French women were rather coquettish, and
not at all disinclined to a little flirtation as a
pastime. I cannot say that I find them so,"
said Adalbert gloomily. "It is quite true
they are pretty, and that there is a certain
coquettish air about them, but it is not to be
depended upon ; they are not at all respon-
sive. The other day I saw a rather attractive
girl standing in her doorway. As I went up
to give her a kiss, she snatched, with in-
credible rapidity, her sabot from her foot and
hurled it at my face ! Luckily for her it did
ioo RED CROSS AND
not hit me you know what the punishment
is for striking a German officer ! Well, nine
men out of ten would have had this girl shot.
I did nothing of the sort I forgave her. All
I did was to have her house put on the list of
those to be burned down, and as we left I
even gave her a pleasant smile as I rode past
her in the street."
"Did she smile at you?" asked the
Doctor.
" Not at all," said Adalbert indignantly,
" she shouted a word at me I have never
heard before, and which I cannot for the life
of me remember."
" I wonder what it can have been," said
the Doctor, looking attentively at Adalbert.
" They tell me the women of the upper
classes are more amiable," Adalbert went on,
" but, alas ! I never see any ; they are all
gone away. I assure you, Martin, it makes
one almost sad to wander about alone in those
magnificent chateaux, to lounge in their
luxurious drawing-rooms, to sleep in their
soft beds, to sort all their innumerable little
trinkets and souvenirs, to explore their ward-
robes and drawers and handle their lovely
dresses and all the dainty secrets of an ele-
gant Frenchwoman's toilette. As one sits
there alone packing some lovely lingerie all
covered with real lace, a yearning comes over
IRON CROSS 101
one too strong for words : one feels that one
was made for love as well as for war, and that
one could forgive the fair owner everything
were she only to come back ! Why did she
ever go away ? She does not know what she
has lost by her absence ! "
" She will know it when she comes back ! "
said the Doctor.
" Alas ! it will be too late too late ! I
shall already be gone. I shall be in Paris ! "
Overflowing with tenderness Adalbert sat
silent, stroking his little porcupine mous-
tache.
" Why do you look at me like that ? " he
exclaimed, waking from his dreams.
" I was thinking about that word the girl
with the sabot said to you. It suddenly struck
me ... wasn't it crapaud that she said? "
" Yes, that's the word ; how clever of you.
What on earth does it mean ? "
" It means a Toad," said the Doctor, rising
from his seat.
But nothing happened.
" The vulgar insults of a peasant girl can-
not reach Count von Schoenbein," said
Adalbert loftily. " I have forgiven her once
and I forgive her again. Paris ! Paris ! " he
went on in rapture. " What a fascination
in the very name ! Paris with its gay boule-
vards, its theatres, its cafes-chantants, its
102 RED CROSS AND
Maxim, its Moulin Rouge what a place for
a garrison ! Do you know Paris well ? "
' Yes, fairly well. I lived there for over
ten years."
" I have decided to give you my card,"
announced Adalbert, handing with an inde-
scribable air of protection his card adorned
by an enormous crown. " You will find it
both useful and agreeable to know a German
officer during your stay in Paris, and I shall
be very pleased if I can do anything for you."
" I understand there has been a certain
delay ..." said the Doctor.
' Yes, our solemn entry into Paris has
been somewhat delayed," admitted Adalbert,
" and we know that it is the English that we
have to thank for this. I told you that we
liked the French, but we have always hated
the English, and they have always hated us.
To-day we hate them more than ever for
having dared to interfere with our deter-
mination to crush France.
" Ah 1 perfidious Albion ! " he burst
forth with unexpected pathos, " how haven't
you cheated us ; how haven't you deceived
us I You made us believe that you were fast
asleep and would not hear the thunder of our
guns across the Channel, and behold the mere
sound of tearing a scrap of paper made you
spring to your feet ! You made us believe
IRON CROSS 103
you had no men fit to fight anything but
niggers, and at your bidding forth comes a
whole army of polo players, clerks, and school-
boys, smilingly playing the game of life and
death on the fields of Belgium and France as
coolly as though playing a game of football or
a cricket match on the lawns of their club at
home ! But, mark my words, it is their last
game they are playing, these smiling young-
sters in their ugly, dirty-brown khaki, who
have the impudence to go on smiling even
when face to face with the veterans of the
Prussian Guard. Yes, it is brown now, their
famous khaki, but we will see to it that it
will be dyed red before long !
" Listen to the voice of the poet ! Listen
to our great Lissauer, whose Hymn of Hate
is sung in thousands of homes in the Father-
land to-day, and is recited in the schools by
our children ! "
" Fine ! " said the Doctor, " I like it very
much. I know it well ; I have often heard
it sung in the London music halls.
" I have listened to your eloquent speech
with great interest, Count Rumpelmayer,"
the Doctor went on. "I take for granted
that you know Germany well, and that it is
the true feeling of your country you have
laid before me. But when you speak of
England's feeling towards Germany, I believe
104 RED CROSS AND
you are on less safe ground. You have told
me that the English hate the Germans ; but
I venture to tell you that I do not believe
they do."
" Do you really believe they like us ? "
said Adalbert, his face lit up by an unex-
pected hope.
" No, they do not like you ; but they do
not hate you. They loathe you."
The surgeon was coming up the steps lead-
ing to the church, with the orderly at his heels.
" Sorry I have been so long ; I was
delayed by the Major," said he with an
uneasy glance at the two men.
" You were quite mistaken about him,"
said Adalbert in a low voice in German to his
comrade as they walked into the church.
" He is, of course, rather common, as I saw
at once by his looks, and he is rather dense,
but there is no harm in him. You are quite
right that he showed some inclination to be
insolent when we spoke to him at first ; but
he climbed down at once when I got hold of
him. He soon found that he was no match
for me. He was immensely flattered by my
talking to him, and you would have been
surprised to hear how he agreed to almost
everything I said. I am sure that as a matter
of fact he likes us."
IRON CROSS 105
" My dear Adalbert," said the surgeon
quite unceremoniously as they walked up to
the Bavarian's bed, " I have a strong sus-
picion that you have again been making an
ass of yourself."
The surgeon cleansed and disinfected the
soldier's wound with experienced hands, and
with extraordinary rapidity and skill he
applied a proper dressing, whilst Adalbert
climbed on to the side altar to take careful
measurements of the Madonna.
" Don't move, and don't try to speak,"
said the surgeon as he was leaving the
Bavarian, " for if you do you will bleed to
death."
" Poor woman ! " said the surgeon, with a
softness in his voice which his colleague
would not have thought natural to its
register. " Is it her son ? "
" No, it is one of your men who died last
night ; but she could not have nursed him
more tenderly had he been her own son."
Poor Josephine stood beside the dead boy
whose face she had covered with a handker-
chief to protect him against their evil eyes,
as she explained afterwards. Adalbert
started as he bent over the boy's delicate
106 RED CROSS AND
features, eagerly examined the buttons of
his tunic, and tearing open the coarse shirt
searched for the identity disc round his neck.
Holding up between his fingers a black silk
ribbon with a little image of the Madonna
attached to it, he exclaimed in an angry
voice :
" Who has taken away his identity disc
and put this ribbon on him instead ? "
Josephine, very white in the face, said it
was she who had put the medallion round his
neck ; but that she had taken nothing from
him.
" You have," roared the officer ; " you
are a thief. You have stolen his identity
disc with its chain, which you thought was of
silver, as it very possibly was, and very
likely he may have worn something else of
value as well."
" I give you my word of honour that he
had nothing round his neck. I noticed it
myself," said the Doctor sharply.
" Search her 1 " said the officer in German,
turning to the soldier behind him.
The Doctor put himself before Josephine.
" I forbid you to touch this woman," said
he also in German to the advancing soldier.
" You have no orders to give here,"
shouted Adalbert, crimson in the face.
" And I have none to receive either," said
IRON CROSS 107
the Doctor, rapidly losing control over
himself.
" That is what we are going to see," re-
torted the officer, putting a whistle to his lips.
The surgeon took him by the arm, and
turning their backs on the others they spoke
together in a low voice for a minute or two
at the foot of the Bavarian's bed.
" I give you till to-morrow morning to find
the identity disc," said the officer with a
haughty look at Josephine, and putting his
arm under the surgeon's they walked towards
the door. He turned round once more, and
looking sharply at the Doctor, said :
" Why didn't you tell us you spoke Ger-
man ? Have you already been in Germany ? ' '
" Since you were kind enough to inquire a
moment ago," said the Doctor, addressing
himself to the German surgeon, " if anybody
had been killed by your bomb, I think I had
better tell you before you go that as a matter
of fact one man was killed here. Unlike your
comrade, I have so far failed to discover any-
thing interesting in the wreckage of this
church, but I admit that this particular case
is rather interesting. I have not been able to
make a regular post-mortem examination,
but what I have seen confirms me in the
opinion both my colleague and I had formed
about him before. He cannot have died
io8 RED CROSS AND
from his wound, which was, comparatively
speaking, slight. Nothing but plaster and
some broken glass struck him. I should be
glad to have your opinion about this case,"
said he to the surgeon ; "I wish you would
have a look at him. According to my opinion
the man simply died of fright."
" An Englishman ! " exclaimed the sur-
geon, looking with surprise at the khaki-clad
soldier, who lay there with his collar still
turned up over his ears.
" An Englishman I " chuckled Adalbert.
" No, I do not think there is any need for a
consultation about the cause of this man's
death. We quite believe you have had ample
opportunity to study these sort of cases, and
we accept your diagnosis as the right one.
This is not the first Englishman who died of
fright when a German shell passed over him ;
nor will it be the last, I am sure. You are
quite right : it is indeed a very interesting
case ! " he added with a fresh giggle, screwing
in his monocle to have a look at the hated
foe, hated unto death.
" The colour and the material are well
copied," said Doctor Martin, pointing to the
khaki greatcoat, " but the cut is deplorable.
When the war is over you will have to send
your Diisseldorf tailors back to London to
improve their style. You are quite welcome
IRON CROSS 109
to secure this man for your ' bag ' ; he is not
fit to be here, either dead or alive.
' You had better have a look at him," he
added, pulling down the collar which hid the
face of the spy ; ' ' maybe he is an acquaintance
of yours."
" Fuchs ! " murmured Adalbert, and his
jaw dropped.
VI
WORN out by anxiety and fatigue, the Doctor
sank down on the bench in the sacristy. The
long effort to keep himself in hand had taken
away his last strength, and the words of the
German officer burnt like fire in his weary
brain.
He wondered how the surgeon had suc-
ceeded in bringing his irascible comrade to
his senses, and he tried to feel grateful to his
colleague for his intervention. He almost
smiled as he remembered the only word he
had managed to overhear in their conversa-
tion at the foot of the Bavarian's bed. Little
did this odious German know, thought he,
that by calling Josephine's defender der
Engldndcr, he had paid him what he con-
sidered the greatest compliment of his life.
He began to wonder how the poor Mayor
and the Cure" were getting on, and was just
on the point of despatching Josephine for
news when the nun came and reported that
the Bavarian was very restless and agitated.
The Doctor found him quite altered. The
expression in his eyes was altogether different
and he no longer seemed to understand what
no
IRON CROSS in
the Doctor said to him. His pulse was
extraordinarily rapid, and it was clear that
the poor fellow was in a state of great excite-
ment . He put his trembling hands repeatedly
to his mouth as if he wanted to speak, and
then pointed to the door. There was a fixed,
determined intensity in his eyes, and it was
evident that those eyes had something to say.
The Doctor tried to concentrate all his
thoughts upon reading their mute message.
His own brain was too tired, and notwith-
standing all his former boasting to the nun,
he had to tell her that he knew no more than
she did what the man meant.
" He has been like that ever since the
Germans left," said Sister Philippine.
In vain the Doctor touched his eyelids, tell-
ing him he was getting so tired and his eyelids
were getting so heavy, heavy, and that he
was soon going to fall asleep. In vain did he
order him with firm voice to close his eyes.
The eyes continued to stare wide open and
wild at him with the same intense fixity. In
vain did he, as a last resort, remind him that
the German surgeon had said he must remain
very still and quiet this last argument
seemed to excite him still more, and a half-
suffocated groan issued from his lacerated
throat. After a while the Doctor reluctantly
came to the conclusion that his presence
H2 RED CROSS AND
seemed rather to agitate his poor friend than
to soothe him, and he thought it wiser to
leave him alone, hoping he would calm down
from sheer exhaustion.
He had hardly had time to sink down again
on the bench in the sacristy when Anatole
rushed in wild with excitement.
" Ah ! les assassins ! Us assassins ! "
cried he, " they have murdered Pierre. He
was brought in by a patrol an hour ago ; they
found, sewn in the lining of his waistcoat, a
letter to the Commandant of the Fort, and
they said he was a spy communicating with
the enemy, and they shot him in the Square
in front of his mother's house. Ah ! les
assassins, les assassins / Now they are going
round searching every house for food. Their
Commandant says that if they don't get
what they want the Mayor will have to pay
a ransom of five thousand francs to-morrow
morning. They have found a cask of wine
in the cellar of the inn and they are all
getting drunk. The Mayor asked me to tell
you he dared not go away and begged you
to speak to the German surgeon for him."
" Come quick ! " called the nun from the
door.
The Bavarian had torn away his bandage
and blood was streaming from his frightful
wound. The Doctor bent over him, trying
IRON CROSS 113
in vain to compress the artery with his
fingers.
" Save yourself ! They are sending you
prisoner to Germany to-morrow ! " he hissed
out in a fearful effort to clear his throat from
the invading blood.
" Run for the German surgeon ! " cried
the doctor to Josephine. " No, don't ! " he
called again before she had reached the door,
as a torrent of scarlet blood burst forth from
the lacerated carotid artery.
" Thank you," said the Doctor, stroking
him gently over the eyes. The soldier looked
steadfastly at him. They understood each
other again, these two. There was not even
a struggle. The Bavarian closed his eyes.
"Ah! le sang, le sang ! Que Dieupunisse
celui qui fait couler tant de sang ! " cried
Josephine.
VII
ANATOLE had been despatched to ask the
Mayor and the Cur6 to come as quickly as
they could to talk matters over, and the
Doctor had thrown himself on the mattress
in the sacristy whilst waiting for them. His
head was weary and he felt as though he
could neither think nor act. What was he
to do?
The afternoon sun shone in through the
little window, and the glare on the white wall
made him close his tired eyes for a moment.
" Have you already been in Ger-
many ?" He started violently as he heard
the voice, and opened his eyes.
The room was quite dark, but for the little
oil-lamp on the table, and on the bench sat
the Mayor and the Cure" talking in a low voice.
" I did not hear you come," said the
Doctor, springing to his feet.
" We did not want to wake you," said the
Cure", " you looked so tired. You have slept
like a child for a good half-hour, but I am
afraid you were awakened by a nightmare."
" You have a long night's walk before you,
and you were well in need of the little sleep
"4
IRON CROSS 115
you got," said the Mayor with his kind voice.
They said they were very sorry he was
leaving, but would not hear of any other
course. Everything was already arranged
for his start : provisions had been put in his
haversack and a boy was to take him a short
cut across the hills. They were to leave as
soon as it was still in the Presbytery, and he
ought to reach St. - , still believed to
be held by the French, early next morning.
He said he felt almost ashamed to leave his
two kind friends and those poor wounded in
the church.
" You know well that in s day or two there
will not be one of them left there," said the
Mayor, " and as to us two old men, they
won't do any harm to us."
" We are in God's hands," said the Cure".
" And Josephine ? " asked the Doctor.
" I have already sent word to my wife
she is to sleep in our house, and stay with us
as long as they are here."
Seeing his hesitation, the Mayor took out
of his pocket a sealed envelope and said in a
low voice :
" It is of the utmost importance that this
letter from the Commandant of Fort Ven-
dome, which was brought to me an hour ago
by an old woman, should be delivered as soon
as possible to the General in command. I
n6 RED CROSS AND
have nobody to send ; you know what has
happened to poor Pierre, and God knows
what has become of the two messengers I
sent before. Will you undertake to deliver
the letter ? "
This settled the question, and the Mayor
called out for Armand. A bright-eyed,
charming-looking boy appeared at the door.
After having ascertained that he was quite
familiar with the road, the Mayor told him
to go down to old Anne to get a good supper
and wait in the kitchen till he was sent for
without saying a word to anybody.
" Have you got a revolver ? " asked the
Mayor.
" No, and I don't want one," said the
Doctor. " I have seen so much blood this
last week, and so many wounds, and so many
deaths, that I do not think I would feel like
using it even if it came to the worst. Besides,
as long as I wear this " pointing to his
Red Cross brassard " I prefer not to carry
arms. If I have to choose between the two
I believe I am safer with the brassard than
with the revolver. As for the boy, he is too
small to carry a weapon and I believe that
he also is safer unarmed."
" You are right as far as the boy is con-
cerned, but you are wrong with regard to
yourself," said the Mayor. " You know as
IRON CROSS 117
well as I do that the Germans do not respect
the Red Cross either on the arm of a doctor
or when flying over an ambulance. The
proofs against them now are too numerous
to leave any doubt as to their wanton viola-
tion of the Geneva Convention. I saw with
my own eyes up in the wood a Red Cross
doctor lying dead with a bayonet through
his chest by the side of a soldier he was
evidently just attending to he was still
holding a roll of bandages in his hand. As
to the Red Cross flag, it is not many days
since they shelled the ambulance in Rheims,
killing seventeen wounded and three nurses.
The building stands all by itself and was most
easily distinguishable with its big Red Cross
flag from Nogent de L'Abbesse, where their
battery was placed. We all know that
in modern artillery it is easy with map and
compass to bombard a town quite systematic-
ally and drop the shell exactly where you
want it. It was the same with our village ;
there were no troops here and only women
and children left. They dropped the shells
on us just the same for mere lust of murder
and destruction. That the church escaped
is no merit of theirs, for one of their shells
dug a hole four metres deep in the cemetery,
and short of hands as we were we had to use
it as a grave for burying our first dead.
n8 RED CROSS AND
" You heard how I scolded Anatole for
abusing the Boches, but I can tell you that
I could have shot one of them myself, and I
am not a bloodthirsty man. Did Anatole
tell you ? Well, I am glad he has kept his
word. I asked him not to tell it, as it would
only embitter our people still more. I have
read in the papers stories like this, but I
have tried not to believe them. I think I
had better tell it you, so that you may know
what the Boches are, or at least some of them.
" We found him lying under the willows
at the edge of the river; he had crawled
there to get water, I suppose. He was so
covered with blood and mud that it was
impossible to see anything of his uniform,
but he wore the Red Cross brassard on his
arm. I told Anatole he might be a doctor,
but I must say for the honour of our profes-
sion that as I bent over his face I said to
myself that he was probably nothing of the
sort, not even an orderly, but that it might
be one of their usual devilish tricks to
deceive us. He was big and heavy of build,
with a round, close-cropped head; his face
was black with smoke, powder, and dirt ;
he had very pale blue, almost white, angry
eyes, large ears, a thin, treacherous lip and
an enormous jaw in fact, he looked the
brute he was. I admit that, helpless as he
IRON CROSS 119
lay there, he gave me a sensation of fear
from the moment I saw him. He had been
shot through the thigh and was bleeding
a lot, and the fingers of his right hand
were also shot away, luckily for us.
Anatole gave me his leather belt and
I wound it tightly round his leg to com-
press the artery whilst we were waiting for
the stretcher to bring him down. He was
quite conscious, but did not seem to under-
stand our French. He muttered something
in German which we could not make out,
but we thought he wanted us to raise his
head, so we lifted him up and leaned his
back against a stone. It was evidently
what he wanted, for he nodded and grinned
as we did so. I noticed that he was fumbling
about with his left hand as if in search of
something, but I could not make out what
he wanted. I was kneeling with my back
towards him, and Anatole was holding his
leg whilst I was putting on the bandage.
" The bullet passed just over my head.
He was still pointing the revolver at us when
Anatole snatched it from him. I have never
been so near death, and I must say that it
fairly took the wind out of me. I had
hardly time to realize what had happened
when another shot rang out and Anatole
let fall the smoking revolver from his hand.
120 RED CROSS AND
" He had shot the Uhlan clean through
the head and the brain was all over his face.
Of course, Anatole was wrong to take the
law into his own hands, but surely the man
deserved his fate. I suppose he knew
that he was liable to be shot before any
court-martial for having been caught with
the Red Cross on his arm and a revolver in
his pocket, and that he thought that he
might just as well have a go at us before."
" Are you certain he was not delirious ? "
asked Dr. Martin.
" I wish I could believe that he was, but
I am sure he was as clear in his head as you
or I. He knew his business quite well ; he
wanted us to raise him up in order to get
better aim at us."
" It is an ugly story," said the Doctor.
" I almost wish you had not told it to me."
" The sooner you know the truth the
better for you," said the Mayor. " The
truth is that these people are not the same
as we are ; they are nothing but Huns and
barbarians."
" I now know," said the Doctor, " they are
not the same as we are. It has been more
difficult for me than for you to learn this
bitter lesson of the war; for me who have
lived in their country amongst righteous
men and kind-hearted women; who have
IRON CROSS 121
drunk their wine and sung their songs. I
know now that you are right, that they are
not the same as we. I have done with the
Germany of to-day, but not with the Germany
of the past, nor, I hope, with the Germany
of the future which will rise one day purified
and softened from its Gotterddmmerung.
" The country I was born in says it can
maintain its peace without the loss of its
honour, and be it so. But I am at war ; for
the individual there is no neutrality between
right and wrong. Yes, I know now what
they are. I have read it in letters of flame
and blood in the proclamations of their
Generals on the blackened walls of your
peaceful villages. I have heard it cried out
in prayers and curses from the lips of their
victims. I have seen it in the burnt faces
of a little row of angels' heads amongst the
debris of the high-altar of the Cathednl of
Rheims.
" You call them Huns and barbarians, I
call them cool-headed, scientific criminals,
guilty of horrors which have not as yet got
a name in our language.
" Listen to what I saw not many days ago
in a house they had just hurriedly left.
Let me tell it you as I saw it, as I felt it,
with its small details and its great horror.
Maybe you will say I am sentimental, and
122 RED CROSS AND
maybe you are right ; I suppose I was made
so and it is now too late to mend.
" A broken-down motor-car of theirs
still stood before the garden gate. In the
hall stood two packing-cases ready for the
pictures already detached from the walls.
In the drawing-room the big Venetian mirror
was smashed to pieces, and there was not
one single chair that had not its legs broken,
its brocade ripped open. In the dining-
room the big table was loaded with empty
champagne bottles, and the floor was strewn
with broken glass and china and playing-
cards. In the bedroom of the mistress of
the house all the wardrobes and drawers stood
wide open, with all their contents flung in
heaps on the floor, dresses and cloaks of
muslin, silk and velvet, all torn to rags as if
some sort of savage satisfaction had been
derived from the harsh sound of the very
tearing. Two carefully sorted piles of
lingerie lying on the table revealed the pre-
sence of an officer as usual the temptation
to secure fine underlinen had proved irre-
sistible to the head of the band.
" ' La chambre des enf ants' said the old
caretaker as she opened the door to the
children's nursery on the top floor. The
room was large and airy, the walls were
white, and the setting sun shone in through
IRON CROSS 123
the big window facing the garden. Near
the door stood a rocking-horse on three legs
stripped of its saddle, its mane and tail
torn off, its back and flanks hacked by deep,
angry cuts from some sharp instrument.
In the corner of the room stood a large doll's
house with its red-tiled roof smashed in,
and half buried amongst the wreckage lay
its tiny inhabitants amidst all sorts of broken
toy furniture, diminutive chairs, sofas and
cupboards, lilliputian kitchen utensils and
crockery. On a low table under the window
stood a musical box all knocked to pieces.
In a child's swing sat a huge felt monkey
with outstretched arms, stunned by a violent
blow that had almost severed the head from
the body. The polished floor was strewn
with lacerated sheets of children's picture
books and dolls and toys of every descrip-
tion, tin soldiers, rnousquetaires, harlequins,
elephants, sheep, dogs, cats and rabbits,
motor-cars, aeroplanes, and captive balloons,
all smashed to atoms. The gaily coloured
prints on the white walls were splashed with
ink. Leaning against the pillows of a little
settee sat a big teddy bear with his stomach
ripped open. In a dainty brass bed with
blue curtains, well tucked up under her
embroidered counterpane lay a smart Paris
doll with her own baby doll clasped in her
124 RED CROSS AND
arms, murdered in her sleep by a well-
directed blow which had battered in her face.
At the foot of the bed lay a gallant little
Chasseur d'Afrique in his wide red trousers
and gold-braided tunic with both his arms
torn out of their sockets.
" Over the settee where the dead teddy
bear sat was a large picture of three lovely
children with long curls and delicate, refined
faces. Holding each other by the hand they
smiled happily upon their fairy world. On
the pale blue rug before the settee was the
big, dirty mark of an enormous foot.
" There is a name for the treacherous
invasion and the merciless pillage of a peace-
loving land, and thousands of arms are
raising the gallows where some day the guilty
shall swing. But what is the name for the
hatred that stole into this nursery, what is
the expiation that awaits the unclean
monster who came here to crush the laughter
of these three little children under his cloven
foot ? How am I to classify the murderer
of a doll ? What unknown power of darkness
led him here to this white room? Animal
instinct ? Certainly not, for not even the
infuriated ape, sinister forerunner of primi-
tive man, would have simulated murder in
carrying out his work of wanton destruction !
Human instinct ? Certainly not, for not
IRON CROSS 125
even the Hun would have destroyed the
little belongings of these fugitive children,
left by them in trust, in trust to what is
sacred to every living man.
" ' Were they drunk ? ' I asked the old
caretaker.
" ' No, I cannot say they were, at least
not the men. They all drank a lot, as you
may judge from the empty bottles all over
the house, but I cannot say they were
actually drunk. They did no harm to the
house until an hour before they left, when
they began to smash everything; there is
hardly a single chair left unbroken.'
" ' Did they steal anything ? '
" ' The two miniatures of the great-grand-
parents of Monsieur le Comte, said to be
very valuable, are missing.'
" ' Where is the Count ? '
' He was dangerously wounded at Rethel
and Madame la Comtesse is with him. I am
her old nurse,' said she.
" ' And these children? ' I asked, pointing
to the picture.
" ' They were taken out of their beds just
after midnight when the shell struck the
pavilion, and dressed hurriedly by me and the
English nurse. A second shell burst with a
horrible glare in the stable yard just as we
put them in the pony trap. They were not
126 RED CROSS AND
at all afraid; they thought it was fireworks,
and they were quite happy because they
thought they were going to their mother.
They absolutely wanted to bring their
teddy bears, but there was no time. The
Countess had given orders to the nurse
that the children were to be taken to the
nuns at Ste Genevive in case of any danger,
but nobody dreamt then that the Germans
would come here. I didn't want them to go,
but the nurse said she must obey the
orders of Madame la Comtesse. It is a
good hour's drive from the village to the
Convent. I was so anxious, and I came up
here and sat in the nursery, where I felt as
if they were nearer to me. I sat looking
at their picture, when suddenly I thought I
saw a red glare on the wall. I rushed to the
window and my knees bent under me as I saw
the whole village in flames, and further down
the valley big fiery shells bursting over the
bridge and all along the road. I stayed
there till daybreak, praying God on my knees
to have mercy on my little children. In the
morning the son of our gardener came up
from the village and said everyone had fled
during the night and that hundreds had been
killed on the road by the falling shells. He
started at once on his bicycle for Ste
Genevieve, but came back an hour later ; the
IRON CROSS 127
Boches were holding the bridge and they
had shot at him as he tried to pass. He said
the whole sky was black with smoke in the
direction of Ste Genevieve, and he had-heard
that the town had been set on fire in the
night. In the afternoon the Boches came
here and took possession of the house ; four
officers, all wearing the Iron Cross, and lots
of soldiers. I asked an officer for God's
sake to send somebody to inquire if the
children were safe with the nuns. He did
send somebody, and I could see he was
ashamed when he told me next morning
that Ste GenevieAre was in ruins and the
Convent had been destroyed by fire. I
begged him to help me to send a telegram
to Madame la Comtesse, but he said all the
wires were cut. He said it was a folly to
send the children away that night and that
no harm would have come to them
here.
" ' Since then everybody in the Chateau
has been out in search of them, but nobody
has seen or heard anything of them, nobody
knows if they are dead or alive.'
" The sun had gone down and twilight was
falling over the nursery. I looked at the
three children on the white wall. A weird
sensation came over me that I knew these
three children, that I had seen them
128 RED CROSS
somewhere before. Where had I seen these
faces with their long curls ?
' Where are you, my poor children ? '
cried the old nurse, bursting into tears.
" ' I shall never see my darlings any more,
my angels, my angels ! '
" I looked at them again as she spoke.
" Suddenly I recognized them, as I heard
them called by their name. The same long
curls encircled their brows, but their faces
had become so white and grave in the fading
light of the day. It was the little row of
angels' heads from the Cathedral of Rheims
that looked at me from the wall of the
nursery."
VIII
THE Mayor opened the drawer in the table
and took out a five-chambered Browning
revolver. " The country swarms with Ger-
mans, one never knows what may happen,
and if your hand is as steady as your head
is cool it will always help you to account for
five of them if it comes to the worst."
Yielding to the insistence of the Mayor the
Doctor reluctantly took the revolver and put
it in his hip-pocket.
The old Doctor had just begun to explain on
the map the road his colleague was to take
when Anatole came to say that a soldier was
at the door with a message that the Mayor
was wanted by the Commandant. He took
a hearty farewell of Dr. Martin, wishing him
God-speed in case he should not be able to
return before the start.
The May or having left, the Doctor took the
Cure" aside and told him that he would
rather have Anatole than the boy as his
guide.
' You do not like Anatole ? " said the Cure".
" Not particularly."
" That is why you prefer to take him ? "
129
K
130 RED CROSS AND
" Yes."
" Anatole is better than you think," said
the Cure", " but maybe you are right."
Anatole was delighted, and having success-
fully passed a rapid examination as to his
knowledge of the road, he was sent down to
the kitchen to get something to eat and to
tell the boy he was not needed.
The Doctor went into the church for his
last round.
The lugubrious work, delayed by all that
had happened, had been going on while he
was asleep in the sacristy, and the death-
harvest for the night and the day had been
gathered. The luthier, the blind soldier,
Josephine's boy, the gardener who was such
a hand at flowers, the Bavarian giant who
had given his life in exchange for a kind
word they were all gone, these and many
others who had surrendered at last to the
Invincible Foe.
" Good-bye Josephine ! I have only
known you for thirty-six hours, but I shall
never forget you ! I feel as if I wanted to
give you something, Josephine, but I have
got nothing to give. This is no longer of
any use to me," said he, taking the brassard
IRON CROSS 131
from his arm and handing it to her. " If
ever anybody had the right to wear the Red
Cross it is you, Josephine ; you have in any
case infinitely more right to wear it than I
have. I have learnt a lot from you, Josephine,
and I thank you for it ! "
" How could you learn anything from me,"
said she, " I know so little, I can barely
read and write, and you know so much, you
know everything. Sister Philippine says
that you even know what one thinks."
" Yes, Josephine, now and then I do know
what one thinks," said the Doctor with a
smile. " I am not a soldier, and in no need
of an identity disc round my neck, but I am
badly in need of your prayers, so why don't
you give me that little image the German
threw back at you, and which you are now
holding between your fingers."
Josephine got quite red in the face.
" How did you know, how could you know ?
I wanted so much to give it you, but I had
not the courage to tell you. How could you
know ? "
" I did not know that I knew," said the
Doctor simply.
132 RED CROSS AND
Sceur Marthe sat fingering her rosary at
the little shrine near the door, lit up by a
solitary candle.
"Who is that candle for ? " asked the Doctor.
" For the greatest sinner here," said the
nun. " He stands now before his Judge. His
heart was full of hatred, his hands were
stained with innocent blood; he needs our
prayers more than anybody else if God is
ever to forgive him his terrible sin."
' Yes, Soeur Marthe, he needs your prayers,
but whether he needs them more than any-
body else in order to be forgiven, is not known
to us. God judges not in the same way as
we do. He alone knows who is the greatest
sinner."
" He died with the name of the Evil One
upon his lips," said the nun.
" There is, I believe, a far greater sin than
that : to live and sin with the name of
God upon your lips. That is, I believe, the
only sin which cannot be forgiven. This
man dared not speak to God ; he knew that
he had abandoned his God, and he believed
that God had abandoned him. It is this
fearful thought, the thought that God
has abandoned us, that we call Hell. There
is no other hell.
" All the rest is God's beautiful earth,
and the whole earth is all filled with His
IRON CROSS 133
presence. Under the earth sleeps the
spring amidst the seeds of the flowers to come,
and deeper down, under the roots of the
friendly trees, under the beds of the mighty
rivers and in the hollows of the cloud-capped
mountains, are nature's vast factories and
storehouses, where thousands of humble
lives are toiling night and day for the glory
of God. Over the earth are the stars, and
over the stars are still other stars, and over
them is Heaven. There is no room for hell
anywhere. It is in our darkest thoughts only
that the devil has his realm. No, Sceur
Marthe, this man won't go to hell ; he has
already been there, and God in His mercy
has taken him out of it. He did not die;
it was the devil in him we watched dying
in that charnel-house."
" I do not understand," said Sceur Marthe
timidly. " I have never heard anybody
speak like that ; I do not know if I ought to
listen to you. How can you not believe in
hell ! Don't you know that even Our Lord
descended into hell to save us from our sins.
Are you . . . are you ... a Protestant ? "
said she, drawing back a little.
" Dear Sister, I do not know what I am,"
said he, "I only know that I believe in the
same God as you, and that I love your
Madonna."
134 RED CROSS AND
" Don't you pray ? "
" Alas ! not so often, and not so well as
you, kind Sister. I used not to believe in
any other God than the God of Mercy. How
could I believe in the God of Wrath I,
who have been forgiven so much and so
often ? Now I have lived to learn to believe
that there is and must be a God of Vengeance
as well. I feel as if I could not live on if
I were to lose my faith in Him. Soeur
Marthe, if I were to pray to-day it is to Him
I would pray :
" Stern God of Israel, whose voice amongst
the thunders and lightnings upon the Mount
made all the people that was in the camp
tremble ! Why do you tarry ? There is not
one of Your Commandments they have not
trodden under their feet, there is not one of the
gentle messages of pity Your Son gave to the
world that they have not scorned. Is there
not enough broken faith in their torn pledges
to You and to Man, is there not enough blood
on their hands ? Are there not enough home-
less children calling out to their fathers, are
there not enough tears in the women's eyes ?
You used to strike hard in the days of old,
avenging God of Judah, at the false prophets
who said their words were Your words !
Why do You remain silent now while they are
calling out that they are the Chosen People of
IRON CROSS 135
the Lord, while they are bringing down Your
temples in the name of their God who is not our
God, while they are wrecking Your altars with
the name of another Messiah on their lips,
a Messiah who cannot be Your Son who taught
us to love and to forgive I
" King of Kings / Why do not You let
the thunder of Your voice be heard once more !
Why do not You send down once more upon
our bleeding earth that Angel of Yours ' who
went out at night and smote in the camp of the
Assyrians an hundred four score and five
thousand, and when they arose early in the
morning behold they were all dead corpses ' ? "
" God chooses His time," said the nun.
The Doctor went back into the sacristy
and sat down on the bench beside the Curl,
waiting for the hour to start. All was still,
and the silence was only broken by the never-
ceasing moan from the church.
" I feel as if I ought not to leave these poor
dying men," he said.
A roar of laughter rang through the night.
" Do you hear them ? " whispered Anatole
under the window. " They are having their
supper in your dining-room. They are all
136 RED CROSS AND
five sitting round the table in the midst of the
room ; their faces are as red as turkey-cocks,
and they never cease to laugh except when
they empty their glasses at one gulp and put
them down on the table with a bang. They
all talk at the top of their voices and don't
hear anything. I crept up close under the
window ; I was as near them as I am to you,
and could have heard every word they said
had I understood the Boche language.
" Do you want to see them ? " said the hunch-
back in an uncanny whisper, as a fresh roar
of laughter struck the Doctor's ears like the
cut of a whip across the face.
They walked cautiously over the grass,
and as they entered the garden gate he heard
his own voice say :
" Five, they are five."
" Hush ! " whispered the hunchback.
They crept alongside the hedge and stood
still under a tree in front of the window.
The room was strongly lit up by half a dozen
candles on the table, laden with bottles and
the Curb's Christmas turkey in its midst.
Round the table sat the five officers, all young
and strong, their faces flushed with wine.
The last story must have been a good one,
for a terrific outburst of laughter shook the
window-panes. One of the officers stood up,
bowing with grotesque gravity as though
IRON CROSS 137
before an invisible large audience, and the
voice that had called Josephine a thief
began:
" When I was at Potsdam ..."
Yells of Hoch I and Prosit ! curtailed the
peroration, and the speaker sat down amidst
a fearful banging of instantaneously emptied
glasses.
Then another rose with a stiff bow and
with equal gravity the voice, that maybe an
hour before had ordered Pierre to be shot,
began :
" Gott strafe England ! "
The Doctor looked on fascinated. Com-
pelled by an invisible force he drew nearer
and nearer till at last he stood motionless,
leaning against the window-sill. His eyes
stared wide open and still on the five men.
He heard their words as clearly as if he had
been in the room, but he no longer understood
their meaning.
One two three four five yes, they
were five, just five. The candles on the table
were also five why five ? The buttons on
the surgeon's tunic were also five. Why just
five ? The swords standing there in the
corner, were they four or five ? Why didn't
they wear their swords ? Why didn't they
have their revolvers in their leather belts ?
Why didn't somebody come and tell them
138 RED CROSS AND
quick to get hold of their revolvers ? Why
didn't Anatole go and tell them ?
" Why do you want them to fetch their
revolvers ? " he heard a voice, his own voice,
say. " Do you think that Pierre had a
revolver to defend himself when they came
to kill him ? "
Something sinister and evil flashed sud-
denly through his unconscious brain like the
big shell that had passed him in the darkness
hurling death through the night. He felt
the same grip of unspeakable fear round his
throat, and with a violent effort he drew his
clenched hand from his pocket and sprang
out of the garden. As he opened the gate
the window was flung open and a rich and
melodious voice sang in the night Schubert's
immortal serenade :
Leise flehen meine Lieder
Durch die Nacht zu dir,
In den stillen Hain hernieder,
Liebchen komm zu mir.
Flusternd schlanke Wipfel rauschen
In des Mondes Licht, in des Mondes Licht,
" Where have you been ? " asked Josephine
in the porch, anxiously scrutinizing his face.
" You are so pale."
" Where have I been ? " said he,
IRON CROSS 139
slowly repeating her words as if trying to
understand their meaning.
" Josephine, I have been in hell ! " said
he, staggering into the church.
The Cure* and the Doctor sat silent on the
bench in the sacristy. The priest's head was
bent, and his eyes were fixed on the floor
where the nuns had reverently deposited the
broken limbs of the crucifix.
" They have killed your Christ," said the
Doctor bitterly. " Is God also dead ? "
" How dare you speak thus," said the
Cure", lifting his head with shining eyes.
' Yes, Christ was put to death by the evil in
man, and His side was pierced by the soldier's
lance ; but He has risen again to save the
world. God lives forever : His life has no
beginning and no ending. He is Eternity.
He is Life Itself. You and I will die, maybe
to-day, maybe to-morrow ; but Life cannot
die God cannot die. He is watching over
us as long as we live, and when we are dead
He is watching over us still. He is with us
now ; it was He who stayed your hand ..."
The other shuddered from head to foot.
" How did you know ? " said he, wiping
140 RED CROSS AND
the cold perspiration from his forehead. " I
did not know you were there."
" I stood by your side at the window."
" Did you . . . ? "
The two men looked at each other. The
priest's face was livid. He bent his head
again towards the crucifix on the floor.
n Did you . . . ? "
" Yes may God forgive me," said the
priest.
" The wind is rising," said the Cure", looking
out through the open window ; " the stars
are coming out ; the night will be cold and
clear."
" I am glad the stars are coming out, I
shall feel less lonely on the road," said the
Doctor.
" Listen to the wind sweeping down from
the hills and rushing through the poplars
along the chaussee ! It sounds like the voice
of a mighty river rolling on towards us."
" Are you sure it is the wind ? It sounds
like ..."
They heard rapid footsteps on the grass, and
Anne's voice called out under the window :
" They are off ! The Boches are off ! "
They rushed out and reached the porch in
IRON CROSS 141
time to see the five officers spring to their
saddles and gallop down the village street.
They stood still and listened.
The storm came thundering along, nearer
and nearer, gradually growing into a rhythmic
roar like angry waves breaking against the
rocks. Suddenly the night resounded with
the furious beating of thousands of horses'
hoofs against the hard pavement of the
chausse"e I
" Cavalry I Cavalry ! " cried the Cure",
lifting his hands to heaven.
The Mayor in his tricolour scarf, with the
Cur6 at his side, stood in front of the church.
" Vive la France / " he called out, as line
after line of stalwart cuirassiers galloped
past venire a terre, their steel breastplates
glistening in the dark and their black
crinieres floating In the wind.
" Vive la France ! " the men joyously called
back, leaning forward on their foaming
horses.
" Yes ! Vive la France I "
The Doctor went back into the church.
" No, nobody has stirred," said the nun,
they are all just the same ; they don't seem
142 RED CROSS
to mind anything. The trooper over there,
whom you said would not live through the
day, just opened his eyes as the bugle sounded,
but he closed them again. The lance-
corporal is spitting blood, a whole pailful,
and it is all over his bed. Josephine is sitting
with him."
" Ah ! le sang, le sang ! Que Dieu
punisse celui quifait couler tant de sang I "
GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITBD, PRINTERS, LBTCHWORTH
