From this he turned to the others about him, and with a new vision saw them in the places they had occupied at home: father, husband, brother, son! His mind leapt the span of miles and looked in upon the anxious faces--hopeful, perhaps--of mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, who waited; and a new kinship sprang up within him for those stricken families of France!
"Oh, the crucifixion of waiting!" he murmured, his eyes again caressing the prostrate forms. For he seemed to be living among men, not dead but yet unborn; helpless, silent, sleeping things whose souls alone were quick--alive somewhere in a wonderful twilight land of peace! Why pity these deserted temples of spirit-heroes! "And to think," he whispered softly, "that you fellows have learned to die! How did it feel? A little gasp?--some dizziness?--surprise, perhaps?--and then G.o.d"s great entwining arms?"
But the dead eyes staring at him seemed to answer:
"Not until you face it like a soldier of Humanity! Not until you strike a manly blow for the little nations which were ravaged; the women, children, helpless men, ground in the mailed fist of a lying tyrant! G.o.d entwines those within His arms who fight for right, not run from it!"
Jeb sprang up, alive to action. Death, then, was but an ephemeral part of this big game; he was fighting not only for today, but for the future; fighting for the peace and righteousness of years to come, long, long after he, in any case, would have been dead! He turned impulsively to the staring eyes, and whispered: "Thanks, old fellow!"--then started toward the new French lines.
Night had fallen, and the world about him was dark except when bathed with the light of star sh.e.l.ls, intermittently fired from the opposing armies. Yet he realized that these b.a.l.l.s of blinding whiteness must be quite a distance away, since their calcium glare but vaguely penetrated the canopy of smoke, touching the wreckage and the dead with ghost-like iridescence and making them appear almost as unreal as real. He could not even tell from what point these sh.e.l.ls were fired, as no spot-lights showed--merely their effect which diffused the smoke alike on all sides.
Suddenly, somewhere behind him, came a sharp rattle of machine-gun fire.
He dropped to the ground, listening; wondering in a panic how this fight could have started so far back when he had not even come in touch with the rear French lines. In five minutes all was still again. Either the scrimmage hinged on a false alarm, or a rush had been made for the possession of some slight point, or--but why guess! Anyhow, it had been short; but, as a barking dog when the night is still will awaken other dogs far across the country-side, so did this brief fusillade draw intermittent firing from many points in more distant places.
Instead of helping Jeb determine his position, these but added to his confusion. Directions of the compa.s.s might be anywhere; he was unquestionably lost, with the best of chances for walking into an enemy outpost and being taken prisoner--and he had heard enough of Germany"s treatment of prisoners to prefer death rather than capture.
Several star sh.e.l.ls must now have been fired from flare pistols somewhere, because objects about him took shape, and he dropped flat, simulating death, not knowing how many eyes were on the watch for movements. When darkness came again his sense of location had not been helped.
Crouching, sometimes crawling on his stomach, but going forward ever more cautiously, he was driven cold with terror when, within thirty feet of him, out of the very air about him, came low, guttural sounds of talking. The words were German.
His first impulse was to dash wildly through the smoke and escape, but even as his muscles grew taut to make the spring a voice commanded him to halt. It was not an outside voice this time, but one within; and, although trembling, he froze closer to the ground, obeying instantly.
Then the sound of a spade thrust into soil, raised and emptied, told of digging. Digging what? Graves? No, the German army, that great Imperial Machine, was being pounded too hard to bother with its dead! The German G.o.d could look after them--or the Allies!
Not knowing how to cope with this new situation he began cautiously to crawl away, feeling for a corpse to hide behind should another lot of stars go up and expose him there; yet when his fingers touched a cold, bearded face he nearly cried aloud. A sudden loathing for this inanimate thing almost sent him running;--the next second, answering a silent command, he stretched beside it as though he and it were bunkies in a cantonment. But his heart was beating unmercifully, confusing his ears which strained for every sound. Regularly the spades and picks continued their work; minute dragged into minute, till another iridescence pierced the smoke. He then peeped out. To his surprise there was but one man in sight; a solitary sentinel standing above an excavation--Jeb could not tell how deep.
When darkness again fell he was more than ever confused. Whether these men were inside their own lines laying mines for an expected advance, or by some cunning had got behind the Allies for a devilish purpose, taxed his ingenuity to decide. At any rate, this was no place for him; no ingenuity was required to determine that. He felt that somewhere to the right the French must be, but it was a guess based largely upon hope.
Right or wrong, an effort must be made at once to report this digging party, and slowly he crept off; p.r.o.ne at first, then arising to his hands and knees.
In this way he must have gone a thousand yards when the terrain began sharply to ascend, and more than ever puzzled he stopped again, listening. Only the far off, spasmodic growling of the "heavies" told that fifteen miles away someone was being unmercifully plastered; but the nearer artillery slept. With eyes and ears straining to their utmost, with muscles held ready to relax and let him flatten out at the first sign of enemies, he continued up this new and very dangerous slope, possessing no idea where it would lead, knowing only that he must reach his own lines before dawn. And now he realized that the air was becoming more pure.
Frequently after sundown in this part of France a light mist rises in the lowlands. To-night there had been no mist, but the terrain had lent itself to cup the hovering battle smoke, holding it in depressions as lakes of vapor, while the higher points stood clear. Jeb was now creeping up one of these higher points; and within half an hour his eyes looked at the stars, his grateful nostrils breathed a pure, untainted atmosphere. Like a snake he slid head-first into the nearest sh.e.l.l hole, climbed warily back to its edge, and watched.
The sky was so bejewelled, the Milky Way so white, that a luminosity bathed the earth about him which, in contrast to the smoky lowland, seemed almost bright. Before him lay what had once been the little hamlet on the scarp--he recognized it, remembering how the French _barrage_ had in mercy been lifted over it. But it had not escaped a severe pounding. A few sections of torn walls, a few chimneys, here and there a gable still supporting one end of a caved-in roof, made a skyline that was saggy, unreal and awe-inspiring. No life was anywhere apparent. Crumbled on its solitary hill, overlooking a white-and-brown streaked sea of smoke that lapped its feet, it typified the most acute expression of desolation.
Having taken his bearings on the North Star and become a.s.sured of which way lay the French and British rear, he was leaving the crater when a sound made him draw back again in haste, a m.u.f.fled sound of iron striking stone.
The old fear bit into him with all its terrors. He was getting weak from hunger, anyway, and his nerves had been through more than ordinary nerves could stand; yet, since the sounds came from somewhere in the ruins they might well mean a villager trying to dig himself out. "Twas a heartening thought, and Jeb was on the point of creeping forward when a sentry appeared around a pyramid of fallen stones--a tremendous fellow, wearing the Boche uniform. A moment later eight Germans came toward him, picking their way over piles of rubble and carrying spidery things he recognized as machine-guns. Crouching low beneath the crater"s side he waited breathlessly, while they pa.s.sed so near that he could smell their sweaty clothing. After several minutes he peeped out; the sentry and they had disappeared. Without doubt this was a night party fortifying the ruined hamlet on the scarp; but, if that were so, where in the name of G.o.d, he asked himself, could the Allied army be!
Objects were now growing more distinct, and for an instant he was driven cold with terror believing this to be the sign of dawn; but a silvery glow in the eastern sky proclaimed a rising moon. In imminent danger of discovery when this should become still brighter he dared not remain in the sh.e.l.l hole. On the other hand, fear had him pinioned with such long claws that he hardly dared to move at all; and had one German, wounded and defenseless, come upon him then demanding his surrender he could not have raised a finger in defense. He merely wanted safety now; a place to hide--he cared not for how long. His ears had closed to the stern demands of will power; the words of Mr. Strong, and Bonsecours, and even Marian, had lost their potency. An appeal more powerful than all of these was needed to raise him to the place of man!
Ahead, almost at his hands, were scattered bricks and clay chunks of blasted buildings; but twenty feet beyond stood a section of upright wall, supported beneath by twisted doorway timbers and propped by the wreckage of a roof which, at one side, reached the ground. It was a forbidding place, seeming on the point of tottering over, although this very danger might grant it immunity from German searchers.
Making himself as flat as possible he wriggled forward, listened a moment at the threshold, then crept inside and crawled to the farthest, darkest corner. The next instant his blood was congealed by a piercing scream not three feet from his face.
CHAPTER XIV
Out of the darkness, right into his face, this scream came, ending in a weak, despairing, but above all else heartrending, moan; then everything grew still. Jeb could have neither moved nor uttered a cry; he had recoiled in terror, crouching as a part of the fallen masonry that littered the floor.
Almost at once quick steps resounded through the ruined streets, scrambling over heaps of wreckage and coming nearer until they pa.s.sed with a kind of ruthless determination just outside the tottering wall.
In another moment they had turned an angle and the sentry, silhouetted against the lighter sky, stood peering through the doorway. He barked something in German that had an ominous sound, and the nearby voice began an hysterical whimpering, interspersed with pleading in rapidly spoken French which Jeb partially understood. At least, he realized a girl was in this dark place with him, and that she was promising to make no further outcry. Weak and thin her voice seemed, though rasping in a kind of frenzy, as she attempted to excuse a former disobedience by trying to explain how someone had come and frightened her. Luckily for Jeb the man gruffly interrupted with another flow of German, or his fate might then and there have been sealed.
"Please--please," the girl moaned, "oh, please don"t come in! I won"t cry again!"
He hesitated, as if considering; then growled a threat and turned back.
Waiting until he had quite gone and the last sound of his boots upon the rubble had died away, Jeb summoned his French and cautiously whispered:
"I"m your friend--don"t make a noise!"
A slight movement in the corner first answered him, then a wee voice asked:
"Is Monsieur English?"
"No, American."
The sound which followed this lingered in his ears long afterward. It was scarcely a gasp, nor moan, nor groan, but an inarticulate animal sound expressive of what the body feels when s.n.a.t.c.hed in the nick of time from destruction. A moment later she had crawled through the darkness; her hands pa.s.sed quickly over his sleeve, his shoulder, then found his neck and clasped it pa.s.sionately.
Drawing her gently to his lap he realized that she was merely a child who had come to him--a skeleton child, of perhaps eight or nine years old, seeming to be little more than bones dressed in scanty clothing.
Touching his lips to her cheeks he whispered encouragement, promising prodigious things without regard to their possible accomplishment, until her body ceased to quiver. Then she whispered tremulously:
"Are you the American who fed us?"
"No, little one, I haven"t fed you." He, too, spoke in the merest whisper.
"But yes, Monsieur, indeed you did! _Le bon cure_ said the American gave us food for many, many months. Oh, I wish I had some now!"
"He meant the American Relief, little one. Haven"t you any food now?"
"Not since two days, Monsieur. The Boche," he felt her quiver again as she p.r.o.nounced this name, "used to take our American food and give us their own black kind; but the cure told us to submit gracefully, as those who had tried to object were killed. But two days ago a German, a Kommandantur, they called him, Monsieur, said that he felt so very, very sorry for us he thought we had better starve; and since then we have had nothing."
"Where is the cure now?" he asked, feeling himself grow hot with rage.
"Dead, Monsieur. They killed him for trying to defend his bell."
"Defend his bell?"
"Quite so, Monsieur." She snuggled into a more comfortable position, as though the presence of this American removed all dangers; she found it good, furthermore, to talk to someone, even in whispers, and amidst ruins, and about the horrors buried there. "Before blowing up the Marie they lowered the bell--for everything iron in the village they said must be sent into Germany. But the cure loved his bell--so did we all, Monsieur--and he threw his arms about it, pleading. But this made the soldiers laugh very much." She waited an instant, as though listening, then continued: "So they got a blanket, Monsieur, and tossed him into the air, but always let him fall upon the stones. He was very old, was _le bon cure_,--but so good! Then officers came up, and they carried open bottles of wine, and around their necks were strung on cords many women"s finger rings and bracelets. My mother uttered a prayer, because she thought they would help _le bon cure_, but when they were told he had tried to protect his bell, they jumped over and over him, Monsieur, pretending to prance like horses, and kept sticking him with their spurs until his poor face was cut and swollen. We cried out for shame, but he held up the Crucifix toward us and gently shook his head--so we turned away weeping. But they let us bury him, Monsieur," she added, tenderly.
"Where are your parents?" Jeb asked, shuddering not alone at the tale of barbarity, but because this young child had become so inured to these sights that she could pa.s.sively recite them.
"Dead, Monsieur," she answered, in a tone that might itself have been dead. "Quite dead," she added, dispiritedly. "My father was summoned with many others to Avricourt. When they came back the Germans marched him past our house tied to the tail of one of their horses, but would not let us speak to him; yet he turned his face so we could see a blue cross marked upon his cheek, and then my mother fainted--she was not well, Monsieur. That night they shot him."
Her poor little body was beginning to shake, but he drew her closer with soothing words, while his heart was wrung by pity. For the moment he forgot what had been uppermost in his mind: to discover through her if this place lay within the German lines and how far were the Allies. She took courage from his endearments and continued, although in the same lifeless whisper:
"The next day they marched my mother and other women away, Monsieur. I ran after her but was thrust back; yet she called telling me to hide the children in the cellar."