Lorraine, A Romance

The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.

Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before, although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about, gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary observation of the Château.

Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the cover of the woods.

Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi, grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue overcoats.

The line of battle stretched from the Château Morteyn, parallel with the river and the park wall, to the Château de Nesville; and along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks with earth, while in the Château itself preparations were in progress for the fighting of fire.

The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the ground for a head-stone.

Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse. Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds. Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns; and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the thorn-covered blossoms.