by Ruth Sawyer
Chapter VI
MONSIEUR SATAN
There had been nothing, perhaps, more radically changed by the rigors ofwar than Atlantic transportation. The thrills of pleasure and romance thatattended the tourist in the days before the war had deepened to thrills ofanother timbre, while romance had become more epic than idyllic. The happyphrase of "going abroad" had given place to "going over" or "goingacross"; such a trifling difference in words, but the accompaniment comesin quite another key. It was no longer shouted in a care-free,happy-go-lucky fashion; it may have had a ring of suppressed exultation;but it was sure to be whispered with a quick intake of breath, and sooften it came through teeth that were clenched.
The piers had changed their gala attire. The departure from this countryfor another was no longer a matter of mere rejoicing and congratulatoryleave-taking. The gangways no longer swarmed with friends shouting, "Bonvoyage!" There was no free voicing of anticipation, no effervescing ofgood humor. The Spirit of Adventure was there, but he had changed hiscostume and his make-up. So had the good ships. Their black paint andwhite trimmings were gone; gone were the gay red funnels; and in theirstead were massed the grays and blues, the greens and blacks ofcamouflage. The piers were deserted. A thin stream of travelers sifted in;there were a few officials and deckhands; and far outside, beyond hail ofship or sea or traveler, in a barbed-wire inclosure, guarded by militarypolice, stood a few scattered, silent figures. They were the remnants warhad left of the once-upon-a-time jocose band of waving, shouting friends.
All this Sheila O'Leary felt as she stood on the upper deck of a Frenchliner with Peter Brooks and watched their fellow-passengers board theship. She was tingling from head to foot with almost as many emotions asthere are ganglia in the nervous system. It was as if she had suddenlyclaimed the world for a patient and had laid fingers to its pulse for thefirst time. Eagerly, impatiently, she was waiting to count each successivebeat until she should be able to read into the throbbing rhythm of it alla meaning for herself.
As Sheila thought in terms of her work, so Peter thought in terms of his.It was all copy to him. Each group that followed another up the gangwaycarried the promise of a story to Peter. There were Red Cross nurses,canteen workers, a college unit for reconstruction work, a hospital unit,scores of detached American officers going over for the first time, scoresof French and British returning, a few foreigners getting back to theirrespective countries, and hosts of non-descripts whose civilian clothesgave no hint of their missions. Last of all came a sudden, swift influx ofcelestial blue.
Peter smiled at them with anticipation, "Look, Leerie, the Blue Devils ofFrance! There ought to be the making of a good yarn."
But Sheila barely heard. The mass had captured her imagination on theinstant with a dramatic intensity too overpowering to be denied.Unconsciously she smiled. They were going back to fight again--to bewounded. Who knew--in a month she might be nursing some of them. The BlueDevils had reached the gangway; they were just below them when one lookedup. Black eyes as unfathomable as forest pools looked into Sheila's quietgray ones. For a moment there was almost a greeting flashed between them;as if they recognized something common to them both that lay in the pastor the future. It was one of those gossamer threads of fate that a fewglimpse rarely in their lives.
Peter saw, and was on the point of giving tongue to his astonishment whena voice from behind interrupted them: "The ship sails at ten; it lacksthirty seconds of that. There is the typical instance of the way theseDevils obey their orders. Is it not so?"
The voice savored of France. Sheila and Peter turned together to find alittle man, with a small, pleasant face, topped with shaggy brown hair,and dabs of mustache and beard placed like a colon under his nose. Hisshrug was the conclusive evidence of his nationality.
"Well, thirty seconds is enough," laughed Sheila. "Time is as precious asfood, gold, or gunpowder these days. Why waste it?"
"And men," supplemented the little man. "Perhaps, mad'moiselle alreadyknows Bertrand Fauchet, the young captain who passed below?"
Sheila shook her head.
The little man rubbed his hands together in keen enjoyment. "Ah, there isa man; but they are all men. The Boches have named them well. They fightlike demons, then they rest and play like children until their turn comesto fight again. And Fauchet--he is a devil of a devil, possessed of athousand lives. Mad'moiselle would adore him."
Sheila's demure chin tilted mutinously, "But I don't like devils, evenblue ones."
"Ah, you do not understand. C'est la guerre. We must lock away in ourhearts all the pity, all the tenderness, as we hide our jewels and ourtreasures and mask our cathedrals. If we did not they would all bedestroyed and we would go quite mad." He smiled whimsically at Sheila, asone smiles at a child who fails to comprehend. "Wait--wait tillmad'moiselle sees France. Then--" He finished with a shrug and left them.
They were in midstream when they saw the little man again. He camehurrying toward them with both hands outstretched to Peter. "It is Mr.Brooks. I did not know when I was speaking with you and mad'moisellebefore. They told me at the office of your paper that you would be sailingto-day. May I present Jacques Marchand of the _Figaro_, afellow-journalist?" and he made a profound bow which included Sheila.
Peter introduced the girl beside him and the little man looked at her withwhetted interest and a twinkle of suppressed humor. "You women of America,you come like battalions of good angels to nurse our devils. Eh bien,before the sun goes down you shall meet your first one. Au 'voir tillthen."
They were in the stern, watching the last of the sun in their wake as itturned myriads of whirring wings to iridescent gold, when the little manfound them again. This time he was not alone. Close upon his heels camethe captain of the Blue Devils; and again the black eyes met Sheila's whenthey were still a man's length apart.
"Mad'moiselle," said Jacques Marchand, "I have brought, as Ipromised--Monsieur Satan--Mad'moiselle O'Leary. Look him well over; youwill see he has not the horns or cloven feet, nevertheless--mais, voila."
The captain was blushing like a very bashful little boy; he was smiling asnaively as an infant. Sheila guessed at his age and placed it not far fromtwenty. Who had ever conceived of a boy-Mephistopheles? It was absurd. Agenuine diabolical personage had no right to a pre-middle age; for him allyears prior to forty should not exist. And here was undeniably a boy,whose very bashfulness and naivete bore witness that he had not entirelygrown up. So Sheila smiled back upon him with the frankness and abandonone feels so safe in bestowing upon youth.
"This paper-man, he likes to be what you call funny. It pays him well, andhe must keep, what you say, his feet in. But I do not like always hislittle jokes. I will make a new introduce so. Bertrand Fauchet, capitaineChasseurs Alpins, very much at your service, ma'am'selle." The soldierbowed with solemnity. It was evident he felt his dignity had beentrampled on and resented it.
The little man of the _Figaro_ wagged a forefinger at him. "Ah, tata,garcon. Remember, I am your godfather in the battalion. It is I that giveyou the name. Three years ago in the Cafe des Alcazar I call you MonsieurSatan, and it stick. You cannot rub it off; you cannot make France forgetit; and when you come back so fierce--so terrific from the fighting atTroyes where you get the Croix de Guerre it is not for Capitaine Fauchetthe men shout--non. It is for Monsieur Satan they shout, for the devil ofa Blue Devil. Eh, mon ami?" And he laid a loving arm across the other'sshoulder.
During the crossing the four met often; the journalist always kindly andloquacious, Monsieur Satan always shy. Sometimes he joined Sheila alonefor an after-dinner promenade. It was always at that hour when the day wasfading into a luminous twilight that told of stars to come, and theytramped the decks in a strange, companionable silence. It was plain thatMonsieur Satan did not wish to talk, and Sheila gave him freely thesilence he craved. Once he stopped and looked over the railing, hard atthe sea horizon.
"Did you ever think, ma'am'selle," he said, softly, "how the great oceanshows nothing of the war?
The underneath may be choked with sunken ships,the murdered ships, but the ocean has no scars. It is not like oursorrowful France--all scars. So--I find it good to look at this andforget. Perhaps, some day, a peace like this will come to the heart ofBertrand Fauchet. Qui savez?"
And another time, when he was wishing her good night, he added: "Dormezbien--sans songes, ma'am'selle. The dreams, they are bad."
But generally he left her with just a pressure of the hand and an "_Au'voir_." And yet there was always in his voice a suppressed gratitude asfor a gift.
When Peter was alone with him he tried to draw him out and got nothing forhis pains. The story he had scented on their day of embarkation hadundoubtedly left no trail. When he aired his disappointment good-naturedlyto Sheila she only laughed at him.
"If you want a story go to some of the other devils; we'll never know moreof Monsieur Satan till Fate turns interlocutor."
"Well, he's certainly the most slumbering devil I ever saw. If that's theworst French soil can propagate, it's hard to believe the Germans theytackle get much of an inferno."
In spite of his skepticism, however, Peter had an unexpected glimpse intothat inferno the day before they landed. For thirty-six hours they hadbeen running through the danger zone with life-boats loose on theirdavits, life-belts ready for adjustment, and nerves tense. Then thetension had suddenly relaxed, everybody talked with everybody else,displaying a lack of restraint that bordered on intimacy. Peter and Sheilawere strolling an almost deserted deck toward a group amidships. As theyneared it they saw it was dominated by two principal figures--one aprofessional philanthropist with more sentiment than judgment, and theother Monsieur Satan. The philanthropist was talking in what Peter termedan "open-throttle voice."
"But you don't mean you would ever harm a defenseless prisoner, CaptainFauchet? Of course you would never allow your men to kill a fallen enemyor one supplicating mercy."
"Supplicating mercy--bah!" The mouth that could smile so boyishly had adiabolical twist, the eyes blazed like hell-fires, as Peter saidafterward. "There is only the one Boche that is safe, madame--the deadBoche. When we find them wriggling I teach my men to make themsafe--quickly!" The lips smiled sardonically. Monsieur Satan was a boy nolonger; in some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession ofthat Mephistophelian middle-age.
But the lady philanthropist had neither the eyes to see nor theintelligence to understand. Instead she clumsily parried with invisibleforces. "Of course you don't mean that, Captain Fauchet. You are justmaking believe you are a wicked man. I believe you are trying to stuff me,as our American slang puts it. Now if a wounded German came running towardyou crying Kamerad--"
"Sacrebleu! Oui, madame, once I listen to that Kamerad. But now--jamais!When they call it with their lying tongues I shout them back 'Kamerad tohell!' and I zigeuille." The right hand made a swift, subtle twist with adeep thrust. It took little imagination to guess what it was supposed tobe holding. For a second Monsieur Satan's eyes still continued to blaze atthe woman before him; then he tossed back his head, plunged through thecrowd, and was gone.
"A devil of a Blue Devil," quoted Peter under his breath. "Our friend,Monsieur Marchand, was not indulging in hyperbole after all."
Sheila watched him go and said nothing.
That twilight, when Monsieur Satan joined her, he looked as harmless asever, only a trifle more bashful. "Perhaps ma'am'selle will care no longerto promenade with the wicked man. N'est ce pas?"
"A brave man," corrected Sheila, and she looked straight into the blackeyes. "A brave man who has given himself body and soul to France."
"Body and soul. Oui, ma'am'selle. But listen--there is something--" Hisface changed in a breath, the eyes were blazing again, the mouth hadturned as sinister as his _nom de guerre_ signified. But something inSheila's eyes checked him. He put out a hand unconsciously and laid it onher as though to steady himself. "Non, ma'am'selle. One need not telleverything. You will see enough--enough."
When they landed, his good-bys to her were curiously brief. He held herhand a second as if he would have said a great deal; then with a quick"_Au 'voir_" he flung it from him and was down the gangway. But with Peterit was different. He found him alone and vouchsafed him for the first timewhat might have been called conversation.
"I do not know until yesterday that you were betrothed to Ma'am'selleO'Leary. That is so?"
Peter nodded.
"You have been generous, monsieur. I wish to thank you."
Peter held out his hand. "Oh, that's all right. American men aren't givento being jealous, as a rule. Besides, Miss O'Leary is the sort one has noright to be selfish with. I guess you understand?"
"Oui, monsieur. She belongs a little to every one, man or child, who needsthe sympathy, the kind word, the loving heart. Moi, I comprehend. Sometime, perhaps, I render back the service. Then you can trust me; the honorof Bertrand Fauchet can be trusted with women. Adieu, monsieur."
By dawn the next day the passengers of the liner were scattering to thefar corners of the fighting-front. Jacques Marchand had gone, _via_ theoffice of the _Figaro_, to Flanders. Monsieur Satan had been despatched torelieve another captain of the Chasseurs Alpins with French outposts alongthe Oise. Peter had received his war permits to join the A. E. F. inaction and Sheila had received her appointment to an evacuation hospitalnear the front. Her parting with Peter was over before either of them hadtime to realize it. Her train left the Gare du Nord before his. They hadvery little to say, these two who had claimed each other out of all theworld and now were putting aside their personal happiness that they mightgive their service where it was so really needed. There were nowhimperings of heart, no conscious self-righteousness; only a greatgladness that hard work lay before them and that they understood eachother.
"Good-by, man o' mine. Whatever happens, remember I am yours for always,and death doesn't count," and Sheila laid her lips to Peter's in finalpledge.
"I know," said Peter. "That's what makes all this so absurdly easy. And,sweetheart, you are to remember this, never put any thought of me beforewhat you feel you have got to do. Don't bungle your instincts. I'd swearby them next to God's own."
And so they went their separate ways.
There was no apprenticeship for Sheila in the hospital whither she wassent. The chief of the surgical staff gave a cursory glance over theletter she had brought from the San, signed by the three leading surgeonsin that state; then he looked hard at her.
"Hm ... m! And strong into the bargain. You're a godsend, Miss O'Leary."
Before the day had gone she was in charge of one of the operating-rooms;by midnight they had fifty-three major operations. And the days thatfollowed were much the same; they passed more like dreams than realities.There were a few sane, clear moments when Sheila realized that the sky wasvery blue or leaden gray; that the sun shone or did not shine, that thewards were cheery places and that all about her were faces consecrated tounselfish work or to patient suffering. These were the times when shecould stop for a chat with the boys or write letters home for them. Butfor the most part she was being hurled through a maelstrom of operationsand dressings with just enough time between to snatch her share of foodand sleep. Her enthusiasm was unbounded for the marvelous efficiency of itall. She could never have believed that so many delicate operations couldhave been done in so few hours, that wounds could heal with such rapidity,that nerves could rebound and hearts come sturdily through to go abouttheir business of keeping their owners alive. And every boy brought to herroom was a fighting chance; but the fight was up to her and the surgeons,and they fought as archangels might to restore a new heaven on a befouledearth. Life had always seemed full and worth while to her. Now it seemed asuper-life, shorn of everything petty and futile.
"War may be hell; very likely it is for those who make it; but for us whodo the patching afterward it's like the Day of Creation. I feel as if I'dput new souls into mended bodies." And the gruff, overtired chief whoheard her smiled and mumbled to himself, "Those o
f us who survive will allhave new souls; old ones have atrophied and dropped off."
Fall was slow in coming. Instead of settling down to trench hibernating ashad been the custom for three years, the Entente kept to its periodicattacks, pushing the enemy back farther and still a little farther, sothat trenches were no longer the permanent abiding-places they had been inthe past. Just as every one was prophesying the numbing of hostilitiesuntil spring, the rumor spread of Foch's final drive. On the heels of therumor came the drive itself. Hospitals were taxed to their utmost;surgeons and nurses worked for days with a maximum of four hours' sleep anight. In Sheila's hospital Anzacs, Territorials, poilus, Americans,Tommies, and Zouaves poured in indiscriminately. Mattresses covered everysquare inch on the floor and canvas was stretched in the yard over manymore. The number of operating-tables gave out at the beginning and theyused stretchers, boards--anything that could hold a wounded man.
"It's our last pull," said the doctors. "If we can keep going three--fourmore days, we'll have as many months to get back some of our wind."
"Of course we'll keep going," said the nurses. And they slept in theirclothes for those days and did dressings in their sleep.
When it was over and they had settled down to what was near-routine againthey began to sort out the minor cases and pass on the convalescents.Sheila, who had slept on the threshold of her room for weeks, was draggedforth by the chief to make the rounds with him and dispose of thenegligible cases. It was in the last ward that she came upon MonsieurSatan.
From across the room she was conscious of the change in him. He was notmuch hurt--an exploding shell had damaged one foot and his heart had beenstrained. It was a mental change that caught Sheila's attention. The eyeshad grown abnormally alert and cunning; there was nothing boyish or naiveleft to the mouth; it was sinister, vengeful, unrelenting. He was in awheel-chair between two husky giants of Australians who kept wary eyesupon him. As the surgeon and the nurse reached them, Monsieur Satantossed his head back with a sudden recognition, and Sheila held out afriendly hand.
"I am glad to see you again, Captain Fauchet; not much of a scratch, Ihope."
The eyes held their cunning, the sinister droop to the lips intensified asthey curved mockingly to greet her: "Bon! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary. Thescratch it is nothing. Bertrand Fauchet has still the two good hands tokill with." He curled them as if over the hilts of invisible weapons, andwith lightning thrusts attacked the air about him. "Une, deux, trois,quatre, cinq--Ha-ha!" and the appalling pantomime ended with a diabolicallaugh.
In some inexplicable fashion he had come into full possession of his _nomde guerre_. Sheila had thought her nerves steel, her control unshakable;but she was shuddering when they reached the corridor. There she brokethrough the orthodox repression of her calling and quizzed the chief.
"What's happened? He wasn't like that when I knew him. If it waswitch-times we'd say he'd been caught by the evil eye."
"Same thing, brought up to date. It's shell shock. Memory all right,nerves and brain speeded up like a maniac; he's come back obsessed withthe idea he must kill. First night he was brought in, before we knew whatthe matter was, he knifed the two Germans in his ward. Since then we'vekept him safe between these two Australians, but he has their nervesalmost shattered." The chief smiled grimly.
To Sheila it seemed diabolically logical. What was more natural in thisbusiness of war than that when one's reason went over the top it shouldgrip the mad desire to kill? But the horror of it! She turned back to theday's work white and sick at heart. For twenty-four hours she accepted itas inevitable. At the end of that time her memory was harkening back tothe bashful boy of the French liner, the boy who could smile like a lostcherub, who looked at her with the fineness of soul that made hercompanionship a willing gift. Had that fine, simple part of him been blownto eternity and could eternity alone bring it back? And what of the yearsbefore him, the years such a physique was bound to claim? Did it mean amad-cell with a keeper?
At the end of a third day the old Leerie of the San was walking throughthe wards of the hospital with her lamp trimmed and burning, casting sucha radiance on that eager face that the men turned in their cots to catchthe last look of her as she passed; and after she had gone blinked acrossat one another as if to say: "Did you see it? Did you feel it? And whatwas it, anyway?"
She was looking for some one; and she found him with a leg shot off,playing a mouth-organ in the farthest corner of one ward. He was aChasseur Alpin; he had been wounded in the same charge as Monsieur Satan.Sheila was searching for cause and effect and she prayed this man mighthelp her find them. As she sat down on the edge of the cot she thanked herparticular star for a speaking knowledge of French. "Bon jour, mon ami. Ihave come for your help. C'est pour Capitaine Fauchet."
The mouth-organ dropped to the floor. The eyes that had been merelypleasantly retrospective gathered gloom. "Mais, que voulez-vous? All theothers say it is hopeless. Tell me, ma'am'selle, what can I do?"
"I don't know--I hardly know what any of us can do. But we must trysomething. We know so little about shell shock, so often the impossiblehappens. Tell me, were you with him?"
The soldier hitched himself forward and leaned over on one elbow."Toujours, ma'am'selle, always I am with him. Listen. I can tell you. Iwas born in the little town of Tourteron where Bertrand Fauchet wasborn--and where Nanette came to live with her brother Paul and theiruncle, the good abbe. I was not of their class; but we all played togetheras children and even then Bertrand loved Nanette. The year war came theywere betrothed. I am not tiring ma'am'selle?"
"No. Go on."
"We both enlisted in the Chasseurs Alpins. They made Bertrand alieutenant, then a captain--he was a man to lead. And how kind, how goodto his men! That was before he had won his nom de guerre--before theycalled him Monsieur Satan. If there was a danger he would see it first andrace for it, to get ahead of his men. He would give them no orders that hewould not fill with them; and always so pitying for the prisoners. 'Treatthem kindly, mes garcons,' he would cry; and what mercy he would show! MonDieu! I have seen him, when his mouth was cracking with the thirst, pourthe last drop from his canteen down the throat of a dying Boche, or sharethe last bread in his baluchon with a wounded prisoner. And the many timeshe has crept into No Man's Land to bring in a blesse we could hear moaningin the dark; and when it turned out a Boche, as so often it did, he wouldcarry him with the same tenderness. That was Bertrand Fauchet when warbegan. Once I ask him, 'Why are you so careful with the Boches?' and hesmiled that little-boy smile of his and say: 'Why not? We are stillgentlemen if we are at war. And listen, Francois--some day our littleTourteron may fall into Boche hands. I would have them know manykindnesses from us before that happens.'
"Eh bien, Tourteron did fall into their hands, ma'am'selle, and there ithas been until a fortnight ago. The German ranks swept it like a sea andmade it their own, as they made the houses, the cattle, the orchards, themaids, quite their own. You comprehend? After that Bertrand fight likethe devil and pray like the saint. Then one day a Boche stabsPaul--Nanette's brother Paul--as he stoops to succor him. Fauchet sees;and he hears the tales that come across the trenches to us. The abbe iscrucified to the chapel door because he gives sanctuary to the younggirls; Pere Fauchet is shot in the Square with other anciens for example.After that Capitaine Fauchet gives us the order 'no mercy,' and we kill inbattle and out. Ma'am'selle shudders--mais, que voulez-vous? He isMonsieur Satan now; but I still think he prays.
"And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after villagethat has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The peoplego mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like soulsturned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma'am'selle! Bethankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of Americathrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the facesof the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like whenthe tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind it wreckage and slime.Only here i
t was human wreckage.
"At last the night came when we lay outside Tourteron. Bertrand called forme and we bivouacked together. We were to attack some time before dawn,after the moon had set. We could not trust our tongues--at such timesthings are better left unsaid; so we lay and smoked and prayed againstwhat we feared. Only once Bertrand spoke--'Francois, to-morrow will see mealways a devil or a saint, le bon Dieu knows which.'
"The moon shone bright till after midnight. We lay under cover of thinweeds, and beyond lay the meadow and stream and then the town. Abouttwelve we heard the crisp bark of a sniper--two, three shots; theneverything was still as death again. We were watching the shadows playacross the meadow and timing the minutes before the moon would sink, whenout of one of those shadows she came--straight across the meadow and themoonlight. It was Nanette, ma'am'selle. We knew it on the instant. She hada way of carrying the head and a step one could not forget. It was she thesniper had been after. One side of her face was crimson, the other sidewhite and beautiful. But she did not seem to know, and the first look Ihad told me she had gone quite mad.
"I could feel Bertrand Fauchet stiffen by my side; I could feel him reachout for my Rosalie and grip it fast. Then he began a low or crooning call.He dared not call out loud--he dared not move to give our troops away! Itwas to be a surprise attack. So all he could do was to wait and callsoftly as to a little child, 'Nanette cherie, allons, allons!'
"There had been a skirmish in the meadow two days before; we had given wayand the handful of dead we had left behind were still unburied. I thinkNanette had heard that the Chasseurs Alpins had come and she had stolenout to find her lover. She came slowly, so slowly, and frail as a shadowherself. As she passed each corpse she knelt beside it and sang thefoolish little berceuse that Poitou mothers sing to their babies. We couldhear the humming far away, and as she came nearer we could hear the words.Ma'am'selle knows them, perhaps?
"'Ah! Ah! papillon, marie-toi-- Helas, mon maitre, je n'ai pas de quoi, La dans ma bergeri-e J'ai cent moutons; ca s'ra pour faire les noces de papillon.'"
"The first look I had told me she had gone quite mad"]
The soldier crooned the song through to himself as if under the spell ofthe story he was telling. Then he went on. "She sang it through each time,patting the blue coats, pushing back the caps of those who still worethem, looking hard into each dead face. But she would always turn awaywith the little shake of the head, so triste, ma'am'selle. And all thetime the man beside me calling out his heart in a whisper--'Nanette--Nanette--allons, cherie!'
"She was not twenty yards away, the arms of Bertrand Fauchet were reachingout to take her, when, pouf! the sniper barked again and Nanette went downlike a pale cornflower before the reaper. And all the time we laid there,waiting for the moon to set. When we charge we charge like devils. Weswept Tourteron clean of the Boches; _and we take no prisoners!_ For thatnight every man remember the one thing, they love their captain and theysee what he has seen. But before the day is gone we are sane men again,all but our captain. The shell that takes my leg takes what pity, whatsoftness he has left, and leaves him with just the frenzy to kill. And itis not for me to wonder--moi--for I know all."
The story haunted Sheila for days; always when she closed her eyes shecould see the girl Nanette coming across the meadow in the moonlight. Shenever failed to open them before she saw too far. The plaintive melody ofthe berceuse rang in her ears on duty and off, till at last she couldstand it no longer. It was the old dominant Leerie who hunted up thechief.
"Colonel Sparks, I want you to put me on Captain Fauchet's case. The workis lighter now; you can do with one less operating-room. I know it's badform to interfere, but I want my chance on that case."
The chief looked his surprise. "I've heard of your fondness for breakingrules--wondered when you were going to begin. I don't mind giving you up,but that case is hopeless. I'm sure of it. Listen--and this isn't forpublication--Fauchet got out of his ward again, hid in the corridors untilthe nurse was gone, and killed another German last night. That man isincurably insane and we can't keep him here any longer."
"Please!" There was a look about Leerie that could not be denied, acompelling prayer for the right to save another human being. "You couldkeep him a little longer; I'll promise there'll be no more dead Germans.Give me my chance."
"What's your idea?"
The girl raised a deprecating hand. "Something so crazy that you'd laughat it. Let me keep it to myself--and give me Captain Fauchet."
In the end Leerie had her wish. The little room at the end of a ward, usedheretofore for supplies, was turned into a private room, and MonsieurSatan was moved in, with Sheila O'Leary as guardian. It was very evidentthat the patient approved. Once the door was closed behind them, hebeckoned the nurse to him with malignant joy.
"They are all Germans out there--I've just discovered it. Sooner or laterthey will all have to be destroyed. You are an American. I can swear tothat, for I saw you on a liner coming from America and your French is sobad, pardonnez-moi, it could not be anything but American. That is why Itrust you. You are with me against the Boches, n'est-ce pas?"
Sheila solemnly agreed.
"Eh bien, listen. The world is slowly turning Boche. You pour a littlePinard into water and what do you get? Crimson! Well, you scatter a fewBoches over the earth and what have you? A German world colored Prussianblue. Come closer, ma'am'selle." He put out nervous hands and drew herdown so he could whisper his words. "And the cure, ma'am'selle, the cure?Ah, moi, Monsieur Satan, knows it."
They spent the rest of the day in discussing the killing qualities ofshells, grenades, bombs; the stabbing qualities of bayonets, daggers,swords; the exploding properties of dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, andothers. As they talked Monsieur Satan sucked in his breath exultantly andhissed between his teeth, "_Zigouille, toujours zigouille!_" while hishand stabbed and twisted into the air.
Another day and he had taken Sheila entirely into his confidence. "I havemy mind made. You shall hear the cure, ma'am'selle, for you and I will bepartners. A Boche world can be cured but the one way--destroyed,completely destroyed," and he laughed uproariously. Then his eyesnarrowed; he was all cunning and intensity, a beast of prey crouched forthe spring. "Ah, but we must whisper; there are spies everywhere. The menin the wards are all spies pretending they are French wounded; and thedoctors are spies. Oh, the Boches are damnably clever, but we will be moredamnable--we will outwit them. We will blow them into a million atoms.They will make good fertilizer for French vineyards in a hundred years. Ehbien?"
So Sheila became partner in evolving the most colossal crime the world hadever known. Everything played into her hands and gave credence to herdeceptions. The great cases that came by night packed with dressings wereto Monsieur Satan air-bombs with propellers. They were to be set loose onthe day appointed in such millions that the air would be charged withthem, the sun blotted out; and they would drop in exploding masses overthe earth, exterminating humanity.
"They shall be like the hordes of locusts that nearly destroyedEgypt--only these shall destroy. And how every one shall run in terror!You will see, ma'am'selle. It will be a good sight." And Monsieur Satanrubbed his hands in keen anticipation.
The tanks of oxygen placed on motor-trucks, the gasoline-tanks, werenothing else than a deadly gas. The partners had concocted it out of thestrangest compounds, unshed-tears, heart-agony, fear-in-the-night,snipers' barks, and moonshine. Monsieur Satan chuckled over the formulaand said he would swear not a living soul could withstand a single whiffof it. It was agreed that the makers of the gas--mythological beingsSheila had created--should be killed at once so that their secret shouldnever be discovered; and Sheila herself was despatched to compass thedeed. Before she returned the bell in the church near by was tolling fortheir parting souls; and Monsieur Satan chuckled as he cast admiringglances at this prompt executioner.
"You are a good pupil, ma'am'selle; you learn quickly. Now the maps." Andthey fell to diagraming where the piping for
this deadly gas should belaid.
Not an inch of the old world was to be left peopled; from east to west andnorth to south everything was to be destroyed. No, not everything. Even asMonsieur Satan decreed it he hesitated. "There are the children, Ithink--yes, I think they shall live. Their hearts are pure; the Bochescannot contaminate them. They shall live after us with no memory of evil,so they can build again the beautiful world." He stopped and looked acrossat the nurse with a haunting, wistful stare. "Tell me, ma'am'selle, wasthe world ever beautiful?"
"Very beautiful, capitaine."
He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes. "I seem to remember that itwas; but now I see it always running with red blood boiling from hell."
After that the children were always in his mind; as he planned thedestruction of the rest of the world he planned their re-creation.Thereupon Sheila saw to it that the war orphans from the _creche_ came toplay in the hospital gardens--under the window of the little room. Soon itbecame a custom for Monsieur Satan to look for them, to ask their names,and wave gaily to them. And they waved back. And the chief of the surgicalstaff began to marvel that Monsieur Satan should give no more trouble.
Among them was a little girl, a wan, ethereal little creature who satapart from the other children and watched their play with far-away,haunting eyes, as if she wondered what in the world they were doing.Sheila had found toys for her--a ball, a doll, a jumping-jack--and triedto coax her to play. But she only clung to them for their rare value aspossessions; as a means to enjoyment they were quite meaningless. From oneof the older children Sheila got her story. Her father had been killed,her mother was with the Boches; there was no one else. With an achingheart the nurse wondered how many thousand Madelines France held.
One day she brought the child in to Monsieur Satan and repeated her story.He listened wisely, patting her on the head, and then whispered to Sheila:"Ah, what did I say! These Boches--they get everything--the mothers, thesweethearts." Then to Madeline: "Listen, ma pauvre; you shall have thesadness no longer. Monsieur Satan will promise you happiness, ah, suchhappiness in the new beautiful world he is preparing for you. Now go. But'sh ... sh! You must say nothing."
From this moment Sheila became senior partner. It was she who suggestedall the extraordinary horrors Monsieur Satan had overlooked. It was shewho speeded up time and plans. "I have the hospitals and streets all minedin case the flying bombs should not come thick enough; and I have thewells poisoned. Isn't that a clever idea?"
The man looked disturbed. "That's as clever as the Boches. But thechildren--where will they drink? You must take care of the children."
Then Sheila played her trump card and said the thing she had been waitingso long to say. Like Monsieur Satan she hissed the words between herteeth, while her face took on all the diabolical cunning it could muster."The children--bah! What do they matter, after all? I have decided--thechildren shall be destroyed."
Monsieur Satan sprang from his chair. He pinioned her arms behind her,forcing her back so he could look deep into her eyes with all the hateand mercilessness his soul harbored. "Touch Madeline--the children, never!Let so much as one little hair of their heads be harmed and I--MonsieurSatan--will kill you!"
She left him with a non-committal shrug, left him panting and swearingsoftly under his breath.
From that moment he watched Sheila suspiciously and followed the childrenwith jealous eyes. For Madeline he called constantly; and she sat on hisknee by the hour while he danced the jumping-jack outrageously and taughther to sing to the doll a certain foolish berceuse that Poitou motherssing to their babies.
Sheila had planned to stage their day of destruction with the craft of amaster manager. She had had to take certain officials into her confidenceand get the chief to sign such orders as had never been issued in ahospital before. But in the end Fate staged it, and did it infinitelybetter than the nurse had even conceived it. The hour of doom struck afull half-day too soon--the children were playing in the gardens, underMonsieur Satan's window instead of being in the cellar of the _creche_ ashe had decreed; and Sheila was helping another head nurse do dressings inthe ward outside.
There were only a few minutes after the siren blew before the first of thegreat Fokkers appeared over the city. Monsieur Satan's mind went strangelyblank; the children stopped their play and gaped stupidly into the sky;Sheila did nothing but listen. Then the bombs began to rain down on thecity. The noise was terrific. The children ran aimlessly about, shriekingpitifully. It was this that set Monsieur Satan's mind to working again. Hebroke out of the little room like the madman he was. He might have beenLucifer himself as he stumbled along on his bandaged foot, his hair erect,his eyes blazing a thousand inextinguishable fires. In the corridor hecame upon Sheila, with other nurses and doctors, hurrying to gather in theout-of-door patients. As he overtook them a bomb struck the hospital.
"Sacrebleu!" he shouted. "You bungler! you fool of a destroyer! It was notthe hour--and the children--First I go to save them. Afterward I come tokill you, ma'am'selle."
He was out before them all, through the entrance and down the steps, whenanother bomb struck. The doorway and the pillars were crushed to graveland Monsieur Satan was hurled headlong across the gardens. In an instanthe was up, stumbling frantically toward the children, his armsoutstretched in appealing vindication to those small, quivering facesturned to him in their hour of annihilation. "Mes enfants, have no fear. Icome--I come."
A third bomb fell. The children were tumbled in a heap like a pile ofjackstraws. Monsieur Satan had time enough to see them go down before afourth followed with the quick precision of an automatic. Yes, he saw; andin that horror-smiting moment believed it all a part of his great schemeof destruction; then the universe went to pieces about him and somethingcrumbled inside his brain. He stood transfixed to the earth, staringhelplessly in front of him, as immovable as a graven image.
It is one of the anomalies of war that the things that apparently destroysometimes re-create. The gigantic impact of exploding masses may destroy aman's hearing, his sight, his memory, or his mercy, and leave him thusmaimed for all time. But it happens, sometimes, that the first shock isfollowed by another which restores with the suddenness of a miracle andmakes the man whole again. That delicate bit of human mechanism which hasbeen battered out of place is battered in, by the merest chance.
So it was with Monsieur Satan; and when Sheila and the chief found him hewas rubbing his eyes as children will who wake and find themselves instrange places. He saw only the chief at first and tried to pull himselftogether.
"Ah, monsieur, I think some things have happened--but I cannot as yet makethe full report. I am Bertrand Fauchet, Chasseur Alpin," and he tried toclick his bandaged heel against his shoe. Then he looked beyond and sawSheila. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time since they hadseparated at the French quay. "Bon Dieu! It is Ma'am'selle O'Leary." Heheld out a shaking hand. "We meet in the thick of war--is it not so?"
His eyes left Sheila and traveled apprehensively to the children. Theywere wriggling themselves free of one another; frightened and bruised,but not hurt, barring one. The smallest of them all lay on the outskirtsof the heap, quite motionless.
"If you will permit," Monsieur Satan stumbled on and gently picked upMadeline. He looked all compassion and bewilderment. "I do not altogetherunderstand, ma'am'selle. But this little girl, I should like to carry herto some hospital and see that all is well with her. I seem to rememberthat she belongs to me." He smiled apologetically at the two watching him,then stumbled ahead with his burden.
At the base hospital they gave Sheila O'Leary full credit for the curingof Bertrand Fauchet, which, of course, she flatly denied. She laid itentirely to the interference of Fate and a child. But the important thingis that Bertrand Fauchet left the hospital a sound man--and that Madelinewent with him, each holding fast to the hand of the other.
"She is mine now," he said, as he took leave of Sheila. "Le bon Dieu sawfit to send me in the place of that other papa.
Eh, p'tite?" He strokedthe hair back from the little face that looked worshipfully up at him."It is for us who remember to make these little ones forget. N'est-ce pas,ma'am'selle? And we are going back to the world together, to findsomewhere the happiness and the great love for Madeline. Adieu."