Wanted, an English Girl

by Moore, Dorothea

  Gill could not feel her consolations very satisfactory, but she seemed to be of some little comfort, though Tienette was very white still, and her lips quivered.

  “Mademoiselle is right,” she said submissively, “and I am wicked. We must prepare for the soldiers—we must not make them angry.”

  Marie laid down the sleeping baby in her cradle.

  “Baby sleeps, and for that we may be thankful,” she said, in her cheery young voice. “Tienette, my sweet, the English Mademoiselle is very wise—of course Bèrnard will be the most sensible of young men. Do you think that I would have him for a brother-in-law else? I, who am sensible myself, am not I, Mademoiselle Gillian? See, my sister, thou and my father will make all ready here for the German soldiers—then shall their tempers be so sweet that Bèrnard has nothing to fear: in the meanwhile I take my market basket and go forth to buy them food.”

  “You must not go alone, my girl, with German soldiers in the town,” her father told her, with authority.

  He looked from one daughter to the other in obvious perplexity, not liking to leave Tienette unprotected any better than he liked allowing brave little Marie to venture forth into the crowded streets without him.

  “I will take care of Tienette. I am a son, though that nasty man thought that I was not,” Toté remarked grandly, but Gillian had sprung up from Tienette’s side.

  “I say, wouldn’t I do to go with Marie? I know I’m not the same as you are, Monsieur Werpen, but I’m very tall for my age, and two girls together are all right as a rule, aren’t they? And I’m not afraid of soldiers.”

  It never even entered Gill’s head as a possibility to go off to the Palace now, even though she knew that Carina had returned. That would come presently; time to think about herself and her own affairs. This little homely happy household had stood by her when she was in trouble: the least that she could do was to stand by them now with might and main.

  “Come on, it’s much the best plan, and we ought to go now, before it gets any later,” she urged, as Marie hesitated.

  “Mademoiselle, I think of Monsieur le Baron,” the girl said simply. “If the Germans are in possession of the town he is doubtless no more arrested, and should he see Mademoiselle …”

  “But he’s got his own disgusting way, worse luck! in spite of what I did,” Gill observed, “so I expect he has almost forgotten my existence by now. Come along, Marie, that objection is disposed of, and you can’t have another.”

  “Mademoiselle, he was very angry indeed that the Grand-Duchess went to St. Odelle and saw the papers that were at Estinotti’s,” Marie explained.

  “Daresay it did upset the precious plans a bit,” Gill thought to herself. Aloud she said, “Well, I’m not going to let you out alone, for all the German barons in the world. Of course I’ll stay and help Tienette and Toté to prepare for the soldiers instead, if your father thinks it better to go out with you, and Tienette doesn’t mind only having me.”

  It was settled in that way, Tienette declaring that she could do everything with Gillian’s help, and was safe at home, while she would not have an easy moment if Mademoiselle and Marie were alone and unprotected in the streets.

  She was in a fever of anxiety to get Marie and her father gone, Gillian could see, in the hope that they might meet Bèrnard somewhere outside. She even called them back, as they were starting, to impress upon them that Bèrnard must not be allowed to come to the house in the Rue des Carillons until he had gone first to register as commanded.

  “She’s horribly afraid for him, though she isn’t for herself,” Gill thought, as the door was shut at last behind Marie and the bell-ringer, and she and Tienette were left to the task of preparing for the reception of eight German soldiers.

  She could not think of anything very cheery to say to poor Tienette; she did not wonder that the girl felt desperately anxious for her lover.

  However, they had to be busy and that was probably a very good thing for them both. They forgot even to listen for sounds in the streets while they made up beds, using all the store of sheets and blankets, and improvised a dining-table of sufficient length, with the help of the ironing-board.

  Toté made himself very useful, running to and fro to fetch what the girls wanted, and it was fortunate that they had worked well, for sooner, a good deal sooner, than they had expected came the tramping of horses’ hoofs in the street and a banging on the door.

  “Good gracious! there they are, I believe, and your father not in,” Gill exclaimed, a little aghast. “Never mind if they do give themselves airs—that won’t hurt us,” she went on at once, reassuringly, as she noticed how white Tienette had turned. “Shall I open the door?”

  “I will, Mademoiselle.”

  Outwardly brave though inwardly shrinking all to nothingness, Gill was sure, Tienette went to the heavy door and opened it.

  Six soldiers burst into the kitchen all at once, two remaining outside to hold the horses. Gill thought, however, that the six who did come made noise enough for twice their number.

  They swung across the room laughing and talking all at once, demanding drink, demanding stabling for their horses, demanding Jean des Carillons. To add to everything the baby woke and shrieked.

  Gill had been prepared for a noise, but she was absolutely dazed and deafened, and almost all her German fled from her in this hour of need.

  To her surprise, however, Tienette, who seemed so timid, kept her self-possession to a marvellous extent. In halting German she made one of the men understand that her father would be in immediately and would then conduct them to the nearest stables, that supper would be prepared as soon as possible, and in the meantime she would bring them beer.

  There was a great cask of beer in a sort of little cellar-place to which Gill had already been introduced in the course of the preparations for billeting.

  “I’ll get them a mug of beer all round,” she whispered to Tienette, glad to see something she could do to help. “Then you can see to the baby. Won’t she scream herself into a fit or something, if she goes on like that?”

  Gill had seen Tienette’s anxious glance towards the cradle, where the poor baby was testifying her disapproval of the invasion at the full pitch of her lungs. But before she could be taken up the soldiers had surrounded both girls, clamouring wildly for “Bock! Bock!”—hustling them, breathing hotly into their faces, shouting till they were almost deafened.

  Gill had always thought that she would not mind mere noise: she was to learn better now. She knew suddenly that the men were brutish and there was nothing to restrain them from doing anything they chose in the Rue des Carillons. If only Tienette’s father would come back, or Bèrnard! But neither came, and the girls must do their weak best to restrain the men and keep them in a good temper.

  It was no good thinking of the poor baby; Tienette made an imperative sign to the round-eyed Toté to rock the cradle, and caught up two jugs from the top of the big clothes-press.

  “Oui, oui, messieurs—ah, would Mademoiselle speak it; I have so little German.”

  “It’s all right, we’re getting you your beer as fast as we can,” Gillian explained, with all the confidence that she could muster; and somehow she and Tienette broke away from them and got down into the little cellar.

  “Look here, as soon as we’ve given them their beer, hadn’t we better take the children and go outside till your father comes back?” she suggested.

  Tienette’s breath came in little scared sobs, as she answered, “The streets will be as bad, I fear, Mademoiselle. We must pray to the good God.”

  They filled the great blue jugs and carried them up to the kitchen, and they repeated the process again almost immediately. Then the soldiers found the cask for themselves.

  Gillian had never seen anybody drink like those soldiers of the Kaiser. The whole air reeked of beer; they spilt it on the cellar steps and kitchen floor—they splashed it on the walls, and all the time they drank continually.

  The girls took re
fuge with the children in one of the two bedrooms, but they could hear and smell, though they could not see. They crouched under the narrow latticed window to get what fresh air they could; Tienette rocking the poor frightened baby to and fro mechanically in her arms, and Gill with Toté gathered close to her, his face hidden in her skirt.

  One of the men began to sing “Deutschland über alles” in a throaty bellow, and another interrupted him with cat-calls. It seemed that he resented the interruption, for there was a trampling sound and then a crash, as of something falling heavily to the floor.

  Toté shivered convulsively, and the baby, who had been quieter, broke afresh into terrified screaming.

  “They are fighting among themselves—one has fallen over something—a chair perhaps,” whispered Tienette, “There! hush! hush! my little angel—Tienette has thee, nobody shall harm thee.”

  Gill thought of Marie’s lullaby; how far—how very far away it seemed now!

  A little after that there was a tremendous banging and kicking at the door between the bedroom and the kitchen, and an order to the girls to “Come out, or they should be fetched!”

  “Is the lock strong, Tienette?” Gill asked, and Tienette nodded. Indeed everything about the old house was strong, but even so it seemed as though it must give before the furious onslaught of the drunken men. Horrible threats—vile abuse—was yelled through at the girls, but at least the door held.

  Tienette was shivering and her delicate face was as white as death, but she did her best to speak hopefully, between the gusts of banging and shouting.

  “If they drink a great deal more they will be too drunk to harm us, Mademoiselle; and the cask is large.”

  “And we only have to stick it till your father and Bèrnard come back,” Gill added, trying to emulate her courage. “They won’t dare to go on like this when there are men about the place.”

  “Mademoiselle, I pray that Bèrnard may not come,” Tienette said. “He would be angry, and I can bear all easily if he is safe.”

  They were silent after that, for Gill could not think of anything else to say that could be considered cheering.

  But if they were quiet, the soldiers certainly were not. When they were not banging on the door, and bawling at the girls to come out they were stamping about the kitchen doing violence to the furniture, as far as could be judged by the sounds.

  “What are they about? I wish to goodness one of their officers would come along and interfere,” Gill said, breaking the silence in the inner room at last.

  It seemed almost as though the Fates had heard her, for a voice that was familiar spoke outside.

  “What, in the devil’s name, is this infernal din?”

  There was a partial lull; even the most drunken of the soldiers appeared to recognise the tone of authority. Somebody attempted to hiccough out an explanation. Gill, listening anxiously, was horrified to hear a mention in it of herself and Tienette next door.

  “Gone to ground, have they? Ah!” inquired the officer.

  His steps, with their jangle of spurs, came across the stone floor of the kitchen; the door was shaken.

  “Open at once, girls!”

  “We can’t, while your men are so horribly drunk,” Gill told him firmly.

  “Stand back from the door, then,” shouted the officer, and a revolver-shot rang out, sounding tremendous there among the echoes. The door flew open, and the girls could see into the kitchen which Tienette had kept so spotless.

  It was different, horribly different now. Brown splashes of beer seemed to be everywhere. One of the soldiers was lying face downwards on the floor, lapping up like a dog an extra large spill, which had made quite a puddle in one of the depressions there.

  The men had plainly been foraging for food as well as drink, for all the cupboards were wide open, and the food left over from the midday meal, together with the family’s small store, had been discovered, and set all anyhow upon the table, excepting what had been dropped on the floor.

  Toté’s toy-cupboard had not escaped search; the door swung forlornly on a broken hinge, while some of the little wooden animals had been swept to the floor and trodden on.

  One side of the baby’s cradle was stove in, as though from a kick; it was wonderful how much damage those few men had managed to achieve in so short a time.

  Gill saw all this in the moment before the German officer spoke.

  “Come along, my dears, there’s no need to be shy, when I’ve paid you the compliment of coming back on purpose to have another look at you.”

  Gill felt herself grow scarlet.

  “Let’s seem as though we didn’t hear the cad,” she whispered to Tienette, who had grown even whiter than before.

  The officer lounged to the bedroom door and stared at the two through his gold-rimmed eye-glass in a cool up-raising way.

  “You’re a well-grown girl, if you weren’t so skinny,” he observed to Gillian; “but I prefer the little pink and white piece of goods on the whole.”

  He took Tienette’s chin in his flat-topped, scented fingers and turned her shrinking face towards him.

  “They grow ’em pretty as pinks in Insterburg. I’m not so sure that I won’t billet myself here as well, eh, my dear!”

  Tienette trembled violently. The Prussian officer laughed. “Modest, by Jove! We’ll cure that.”

  He flung both arms round the girl, crushing her violently to him. Tienette struggled and fought with all her small strength.

  Gill tugged furiously at the brute’s arm without making the smallest impression on him, except that he cursed her for a meddling little fool. His cruel sensual face was close to Tienette’s white, terrified one.

  “Toté, run out! Call for help!” Gill cried out desperately, getting a grip of the German’s tunic at the back and tugging so that it choked his throat and forced him to release his hold of Tienette for the moment.

  The little boy was through the door in a second, but the officer had Gillian by the hair and was dragging her away from Tienette into the outer room.

  “Out you go, you little she-devil!”

  Gill resisted with all her might, but that did not amount to much just then. She was sick with fear for Tienette; there was a taste of blood in her mouth and red before her eyes. She felt that she could willingly have killed that Prussian officer if she had the power.

  She was flung violently against someone whose hot breath reeked of beer and seemed to wrap her round disgustingly, but Toté’s little shrill voice was ringing through the mist of horror—Toté’s voice with a sound of triumph in it.

  “Bèrnard! I have brought Bèrnard.”

  A strong arm flung back the soldier who had hold of her. Sick, shaken though she was, and, worse, with a horrible sense of pollution from the touch of these unclean brutes, Gill had no thought to spare for herself just then.

  “Tienette! Quick! Save her. Never mind me,” she threw at Bèrnard.

  She saw him burst through the door of the inner room; she saw his kind eyes literally blaze as he flung himself upon the Prussian officer, bringing him down backwards on the stone floor with a dull crash, that sent those of the soldiers who were still sober enough to find the door hurrying to the rescue.

  Gill followed them.

  She saw Tienette fall helplessly into Bèrnard’s arms, that caught her just in time. He gathered her up and laid her down upon the bed where Gillian had rested so peacefully; then stood beside her with folded arms and something of the look of an avenging angel on the face which had been just an ordinary honest young man’s face when she saw it first.

  The corporal bent over the still figure on the floor. The pupils of the eyes had gone to a pin-point fineness; the face twitched a little, though without twitching out the grin which had frozen, as it were, on the pale lips. In about a minute the twitchings ceased.

  “He’s dead. You’ve killed him, you murderous young devil,” the corporal said, rising to his feet, suddenly sobered. “You’ll have to answer for this. We sh
all take you to the Commandant.”

  Two of the men laid rough hold on Bèrnard. He said nothing, only kept his eyes on Tienette’s white unconscious face, as though he meant to learn it by heart.

  Gill heard her own voice, a voice that sounded thin and unnatural to her own ears.

  “He only struck in defence of the girl he is engaged to. You can’t punish him for that. You can’t. You have no right!”

  The stolid soldiers took no more notice than if she had been a fly. Two of them picked up the body of the officer and lurched a trifle unsteadily with it into the other bedroom, where they laid it on the bed of old Jean Werpen. A couple more, with bayonets fixed, marched Bèrnard off between them to the street, the corporal going in front. Bèrnard gave one look back at Tienette as he was hustled through the door, and then walked on steadily between his guards.

  Gill, standing beside Tienette, watched the retreating figures for a moment, and then ran after them. Bèrnard, Tienette’s Bèrnard, he must be saved for her!

  “Corporal, you will permit that I go too? I can explain …” she was beginning breathlessly, when someone who was coming, with two others, down the narrow thread of street, sprang forward.

  “Miss Courtney—thank heavens!”

  Gillian did not wait to wonder how Dick Cheshire came into the company of Marie and her father.

  “Mr. Cheshire, you can do something, can’t you? Make them listen to me. Bèrnard only knocked the officer down because … because of Tienette, and I must go and tell the Commandant that, because the fall killed the brute, you see.

  “Killed him? ” Three people echoed the words, Marie, her father, and Dick. But old Werpen went on, his eyebrows drawing down over his wonderful eyes, and his voice low, “And my daughter?”

  “It is only a faint, I think. Toté is with her. I had to come—for Bèrnard.”

  The young man’s face relaxed a little then. “Mademoiselle must not trouble for me. Father! Marie! return to Tienette—Mademoiselle too,” he urged, as he was hurried on.

  “I’m going to tell the Commandant what happened,” Gill said stubbornly. Martial law and a German officer killed. The fate of Bèrnard Séderon was sealed unless there was at least one honest witness in his defence.