"Pass, mademoiselle."
She went on, the rumbling of her little cart deadened by the Belgian
guns.
Through the near-by trenches that night went the word that near the
Repose of the Angels--which was but a hole in the ground and scarcely
reposeful--there was to be had hot soup and chocolate and cigarettes.
A dozen or so at a time, the men were allowed to come. Officers brought
their great capes to keep the girl dry. Boards appeared as if by magic
for her to stand on. The rain and the bombardment had both ceased, and
a full moon made the lagoon across the embankment into a silver lake.
When the last soup had been dipped from the tall boiler, when the final
drops of chocolate had oozed from the faucet, Sara Lee turned and went
back to the little house again. But before she went she stood a moment
staring across toward that land of the shadow on the other side, where
Henri had gone and had not returned.
Once, when the King had decorated her, she had wished that, wherever
Uncle James might be, on the other side, he could see what was happening.
And now she wondered if Henri could know that she had come back, and was
again looking after his men while she waited for that reunion he had so
firmly believed in.
Then she led the little horse back along the road.
At the poplar trees she turned and looked behind, toward the trenches.
The grove was but a skeleton now, a strange and jagged thing of twisted
branches, as though it had died in agony. She stood there while the
pony nuzzled her gently. If she called, would he come? But, then, all
of life was one call now, for her. She went on slowly.
After that it was not unusual for her to go to the trenches, on such
nights as no men could come to the little house. Always she was joyously
welcomed, and always on her way back she turned to send from the poplar
trees that inarticulate aching call that she had come somehow to
believe in.
January, wet and raw, went by; February, colder, with snow, was half
over. The men had ceased to watch for Henri over the parapet, and his
brave deeds had become fireside tales, to be told at home, if ever
there were to be homes again for them.
Then one night Henri came back--came as he had gone, out of the shadows
that had swallowed him up; came without so much as the sound of a
sniper's rifle to herald him. A strange, thin Henri, close to
starvation, dripping water over everything from a German uniform, and
very close indeed to death before he called out.