Part 6

"Be patient then, men, and just grin when things go wrong. I would gladly have gone with you in the ranks, and there are lots of you chaps better able to lead than I, but a commission was given to me, and I'm out to do my best with the finest company of men in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. I'm learning all the time--as you are. You will have bad times, and so shall I; but let's help each other to laugh and make the best of it, for, after all, we're just great big children playing a mighty big game.... And when we reach France we'll show them all that the old Cobalt gang is afraid of nothing in this world or the next."

They cheered--and the man who shouted loudest was Jacque Des Rosiers.... And somewhere in the speech _esprit de corps_ had been born.

IV

Four winters passed by.

France lay in the warmth of a late spring evening, like a stricken deer that has thrown off its pursuers momentarily, but is bleeding from a hundred wounds. Month after month she had endured the invader, and the cycle of years, instead of freeing her had only deepened her agony. What had she left? The next attack would see Arras and her remaining coalfields gone, the Channel ports captured, and then ... Paris?... Paris?

Unperturbed, however, by any such thoughts, Petite Simunde--no one thought of her by any other name--was driving four cows home from pasture. The setting sun shed a kindly hue on her gingham garment that was neither a frock nor an apron, yet served as both. Nor was the mellowing sunlight unkind to her face, for the racial sallowness of her cheeks, accentuated by too constant exposure to the elements, was softened and shaded into a gentle brown. Her shoes, which were far too large, were in the final stages of disrepair. About the brow her hair was braided with a simplicity that was by no means devoid of charm. Her eyes--but there she was really French. Simunde had never been farther from the village of Le Curois than the neighboring town of Avesnes Le Comte (unless one counts the momentous occasion, a year after her birth, when she was taken to Arras for exhibition before an esteemed and wealthy relative, who was so little impressed that he bequeathed his entire estate, consisting of eight thousand francs, to a manufacturer of tombstones); but a French woman does not acquire coquetry--she is born with it. Even in church Simunde would cast such languishing yet mischievous eyes upon the curé himself, that the poor little man, who had never liked Latin at any time, used to stammer and mumble his orisons like an over-conscientious penitent at confessional.

When her two brothers went to war Simunde, who was then sixteen, assumed their tasks in addition to her own, in all of which she had the able direction of "madame" her mother. Between them they performed a day's work that would have exhausted two husky laborers. As is the custom in most of northern France, their home was not on the farm, but in the village, for one of the first essentials of existence to a Frenchman is companionship. On the outskirts of Le Curois, just on the hill, there was a great château, beautifully, gloomily aloof; but in the one street of the village itself, pigs, cows, hens and their offspring wallowed in mud and accumulated filth.

It is difficult to know which is the more striking: the French peasant's stoicism in the presence of war, or his indifference to dirt.

On this particular evening in May of 1918 Simunde was frankly regretting the absence of men. Not that she had ever been in love or known the rapture of wandering in the moonlight with a man (France is almost the only civilized country remaining that has not relegated chaperons to the realm of fiction); but she wanted to use her eyes on something more susceptible than a cow or a curé. It was spring, and she felt pretty, and when a woman is conscious of her own charm she seldom wishes to prove miserly with it.

She had just run across the road to convince a cow of its loss of the sense of direction when she heard the neighing of a horse. Glancing behind her, she looked directly into the eyes of a mounted British officer, whereupon that gentleman brought his steed to a standstill.

"_Bon soir, mademoiselle_," he said.

"_Bon soir, monsieur_," she answered demurely. Her eyes were lowered shyly, and her fingers played over the stick she was carrying, like a flute-player caressing his instrument. The officer bowed slightly and tried to recall his French vocabulary, though it must be admitted he was never loquacious in any tongue when conversing with a daughter of Eve. As for her, since it is a woman's _rôle_, she waited. Would he speak again or would he pass on, leaving the memory of yet one more meeting with a gentleman of adventure--one more roadside drama in which the dialogue consisted only of an exchange of salutations. Most men who have returned from France will recall for years to come how, a few kilometres back from Hell, they often caught a glimpse of two dark eyes and a tender smile. Just that and--

"_Bon soir, mademoiselle._"

"_Bon soir, monsieur._"

Commonplace, perhaps, in the telling, but in France it was the commonplace that became romance.

A smile crept into the officer's eyes, which were blue and kindly, though they had a glint in them--something like metal--a look that a mother always noticed first when her son returned from the line.

"_Où est le village?_" he ventured.

"Le Curois?"

"_Oui!_ Le Curois."

"_Mais, monsieur_"--her eyes widened and her hands indicated the village dwellings--"_c'est ici Le Curois_!"

He breathed deeply and ventured again.

"_Connaissez-vous un billet pour dix officiers?_"

He felt rather pleased with the sentence; it was true he had intended to get accommodation for eleven officers, but it was moderately accurate for a foreign tongue.

For answer Simunde led him, preceded by the four cows, to her domicile as "Madame," like all French housewives had received billeting instructions in the first year of the war. In conjunction with her neighbors on either side, she speedily arranged accommodation for eleven officers in their cottages, and for the officers' _domestiques_ in the barns.

One hour later the guests of war, their battalion having come out for a rest, were dining comfortably in the home of Petite Simunde, while a sow, attended by ten small pigs, snorted approvingly outside the door.

Less than an hour afterwards Private Des Rosiers, acting as temporary batman to Major Douglas Campbell, was sitting on a chair in the farm-yard, in the glittering moonlight, regaling Simunde and her mother with grossly exaggerated stories of the mining country of Cobalt. He told them of his misdeeds, not in humility, but with much _braggadocio_, and his auditors listened, lost in gesticulatory admiration. Simunde was thrilled from her ill-shod feet to her braided brow. Jacque Des Rosiers was the first really wicked man she had met, and, woman-like, she was fascinated; also he had nice teeth and flashing eyes.

The picture of a young officer on horseback whose brown hair was almost red and whose humorous blue eyes had a glint in them like metal, faded as completely from her mind as the memory of the sunset that had thrown its spell upon them.

Unromantic?... _Que voulez-vous? C'est la guerre!_

V

Two weeks passed, during which period the placid fields about Le Curois resounded to the shouts of Canadian troops rehearsing open warfare (for rumor had it that the hour was almost at hand when Foch was to release the forces of retribution). For pastime, the troops played baseball and held field-days of many and varied sports. Whatever they did, they shouted lustily and continuously while doing it, for they had mastered one elemental truth--that nothing can be accomplished without intensity.

Des Rosiers explained baseball to Simunde, who enjoyed the description without allowing it to interfere with her innumerable domestic and agricultural duties. It was quite true that Jacque Noir had never played the game or even mastered its rudiments, but he had the narrator's instinct that rises above mere accuracy of detail.

Every evening he accompanied Simunde to the pasture-land, and together they guided the patient cows homeward. When darkness set in and Simunde's tasks were finished for the day, he sat with her in the farm-yard and told lurid tales of northern Canada--to all of which "madame," whose tasks were never finished, lent a delighted and adjoining ear.

He pictured to Simunde the snow--how it filled the rivers till they ran no more; how it covered the great pine-trees until, as far as eye could see, there was nothing but white; and he told of the wind that was never still. And she listened, as only a Frenchwoman can listen, with every emotion he called forth registering in her face, as clouds racing across the sun will throw their shadows on the ground.

Just before the battalion was to return to the line, the second in command, Major Douglas Campbell, was called to Divisional Headquarters for a prolonged conference. As a result Des Rosiers was returned to his company for duty, though he contrived to spend every free hour with the little belle of Le Curois. As the time for parting approached with cruel celerity, he talked less and took to long spells of moody silence. His heart had been melted as completely as the snow in his Northland is thawed by the sun in spring. As for her, the little artifices of gesture and the ceaseless coquetry of the eyes became less noticeable. For the first time in her life she felt the anguish of a woman's tears; Petite Simunde's guileless and innocent heart had been won by Jacque Des Rosiers, the bad man of Northern Quebec.

In a tempest of passionate ardor, but with becoming deference, he addressed his suit to the mother, who promised consideration that night and her answer on the morrow.

It was hardly twilight when he wandered back along the main road towards the fields where his battalion was bivouacked. Full of the picture of the little woman who had bewitched him, he failed to notice the approach of an exceedingly smart young staff-officer, ablaze in a glory of red and brass. With unseeing eyes, Des Rosiers looked directly at the young gentleman, but failed to make any sign. The officer, fresh from a staff course in England, stopped him with a sharp command.

"Just a moment, my man. Don't you know enough to salute?"

Des Rosiers awoke from his dream, came to attention, and saluted very badly.

"I no see you, sair," he said.

"Don't lie to me," snapped Brass Hat (who wasn't a bad chap on the whole); "of course you saw me. Damn it, you looked right at me. It's fellows like you who give the corps a bad name."

He was wrong there. It was the presence of several thousand men like Des Rosiers that had given the Canadian Corps a wonderful name--but let that pass, as Jack Point would have said.

The element of tragedy seldom enters the lists of life with a fanfare of trumpets. It steals in unobtrusively, like a poor relation. It comes in the garb of the commonplace, or masked in triviality or gaiety. One is unaware of its presence until it throws off concealment and points its yellow fingers at the throat of its victims. What dramatist would have read tragedy into the absurd tableau presented by a slouchy French-Canadian soldier and a youthful staff-officer? Yet, as inexorable as Fate, it was approaching Jacque Des Rosiers, and only a few yards away, hiding its skeleton's grin behind the mundane countenance of Sergeant Smith, returning to the battalion after a day's work in the orderly room.

The officer, who had just made a move to resume his walk, noticed the sergeant, and called him over.

"You are from the same battalion as this chap?"

"Yes, sir."

"Report him to his company commander for failing to salute an officer. Impress upon him that I would not have made this complaint, but your man looked directly at me, and--well, discipline must be maintained, especially out here."

Whereupon, feeling that he had rendered unto Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, the youthful captain sauntered on to the château, occupied by Divisional Headquarters, and dined with extra zest. And if it be thought that this narrative treats him unkindly, let it be written that, three months later, he was badly wounded while performing a very gallant action. He was a professional soldier, somewhat lacking in psychology; that was all.

A little later Private Des Rosiers was arraigned before his company commander, a gentleman who was neither a soldier nor a psychologist. The heinous crime of passing an officer without acknowledgment was laid to the charge of the battle-worn and love-lorn villain from Quebec.

"What have you got to say for yourself?"

Des Rosiers said it. The officer shook his head.

"It's not good enough," he said. "You French-Canadians seem to think there's one law for yourselves and another for everybody else. You throw all your comrades down by deliberately insulting an officer--a staff-officer, who reports it to the G.O.C., and there you are. We're known as a bad battalion just because of a few slackers like you. Put him on the horse line picket for two nights, and confine him to camp during the day."

The prisoner started. "Sair," he said, "I can no be here to-morrow night. _C'est impossible._"

"Oh, is it emposeeble?" answered the officer, who prided himself on a gift of neat retort. Des Rosiers's eyes protruded to their utmost.

"By Gar!" he cried, "and nex' morning we go back to the line _encore_, yes?"

"Well? Have you any objections? If so, I am sure the divisional commander would appreciate hearing them."

"Ah, but _monsieur l'officier_"--his hands were stretched forth in an agony of appeal--"Petite Simunde, she wait for me. I promise to come--I no come--it is terrible!"

The judge in khaki laughed.

"I am fed up with the stories of you French-Canadians and your village sweethearts--and, confound it, stop waving your hands about!"

"Standt'attenshun!" bellowed the sergeant-major.

"Consider yourself lucky to get off so lightly, my man.--That will do, sergeant-major."

"Escor' a'prisoner--ri tuh--qui' mawch.--Lef' ri', lef' ri', lef' ri--Pawty, ha't.--Report to horse line N.C.O. right away.--Escor', dees-mi!"

Rather late for mess, by reason of holding orderly room at an unusual hour, the company commander sat down to dinner with a glow of virtue in his bosom. He had been a lawyer-politician in a small Ontario town, and it pleased him to find that he had not lost the art of Buzfuzian browbeating.

And through it all the Fates had woven a thread of tragedy about the life of Jacque Noir, using in their scheme of things a non-psychological staff-officer, a non-military and non-psychological company commander, and a sergeant whose name was Smith.

"There is humor in all things," said Jack Point. Gilbert would have been equally correct if he had substituted the word "tragedy."

Before sundown of the next day the prisoner was reported absent, and when the battalion marched away for the line Jacque Des Rosiers was not with it.

VI

Four days had passed before the second-in-command rejoined his unit in the trenches. Campbell had been held at Divisional Headquarters, and now for the first time learned of Des Rosiers's desertion. With a stiffening of the jaw and an ugly contraction of his shoulders, he quickly interrogated tragedy's mummers--a sergeant named Smith and a politician-lawyer company commander. To the former he said nothing; the man had done his obvious duty. To the company commander he gave a careful hearing; then, in short staccato sentences that had an odd resemblance to a machine-gun in action, subjected him to brief questioning.

"What is Des Rosiers's conduct-sheet like?"

"Pretty bad, sir."

"What were his crimes?"

"Oh, the usual things--dirty on C.O.'s inspection, equipment missing, late for parades, and generally slovenly. If he hadn't had such a poor sheet, he would have been decorated."

"In other words, his crimes are rest-billet ones. Is that correct?"

"Well--yes, sir."

"But in the line he earned a decoration?"

"Yes--at Vimy, he----"

"Have you known him to lie?"

"Well, you know what these French-Canadians are like."

"You understand what I mean. Have you ever known him to lie when put on his honor?"

"Er--no."

"When he told you that he had to see this girl, did you find out if he was speaking the truth?"

"No, sir, I----"

"Did you look for him at this girl's place when you were coming away?"

"I sent a picket through the village."

The blue in Campbell's eyes became unpleasantly light. "I had Des Rosiers in my company at Ypres when the Hun sent over his first gas--you were addressing meetings in Canada at the time--and I know him for a brave chap, as faithful as a dog. It's men like you with a sense of vision no better than a mud-puddle that are making the French-Canadian question another Irish one. They are like children, easily swayed and true as steel to those they trust; but as long as you and your kind make a political cat's-paw out of them, alternately yelling 'Kamerad' and 'Traitor,' according to the political exigencies of the moment, so long will Canada be without the sympathy and the enriching of a wonderfully virile race."

The junior officer's face flushed. "I acted according to the evidence," he persisted hotly.

"Damn the evidence!" said Campbell furiously. "Play the man, not the charge-sheet. Does Des Rosiers strike you as a chap who would deliberately insult a staff-officer? When he is caught he will be shot. It can't be helped--discipline must be maintained; but I tell you, when, every few days I read in the adjutant-general's orders that Private So-and-So, charged with desertion in the presence of the enemy, was apprehended in a certain village, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot, sentence duly carried out at 4:15 A.M. on such and such a date--you know the ghastly rhythm of the thing as well as I do--I never read one of these announcements without having a bad ten minutes afterwards. I don't question the decision of the court--a deserter must pay the penalty--but, mark my words, behind every one of these offences there is the unseen part played by some officer or N.C.O. who punished at the wrong time or failed to punish at the right. There are far too many machine-made routine-fed chaps in the army, with stars on their cuffs, who don't know that there are times when the grip of a hand on a Tommy's shoulder, and a few words as man to man, free of any cursed condescension, are worth all the conduct-sheets in existence."

"You are making a mountain out of a mole-hill, sir. I consider you are very unfair to me."

"You do, eh?... What about your unfairness to Des Rosiers and his little French girl, when he faces a firing-squad in the early morning?"

With an angry gesture, Campbell left the dugout and hurried to Battalion Headquarters. For twenty minutes he and the colonel, a gentleman and a soldier, quietly but firmly discussed the case of desertion.

"I agree with everything you say, Campbell," said the older man, "and I will strongly recommend mercy to the court; but I am commanding a unit made up of many personalities, and must think of the example to all."

"Very good, sir. By the way, colonel, I know where Des Rosiers is."

"You do? Then send word to the A.P.M."

"Excuse me, sir; may I go and bring him myself? I ask this as a very great favor."

The colonel pondered for a moment. "When will you be back?" he said.

"Before 'Stand to' in the morning."

"Right--but, Campbell, my boy."

"Sir."

"Whatever you have in mind, remember that your duty and mine is to think of the example to the battalion."

The blue in Campbell's eyes deepened; then, with an imperious gesture of the head, like that of a horse that hears the sound of galloping hoofs a mile away, he saluted.

"I shall not forget what you say, sir."

"Thank you, Douglas."

With a restless impatience for delay, Campbell left the dug-out and climbed from the trench to open land. Heedless of a machine-gun that spat at him from the enemy lines, he hurried on until he reached the brigade transport lines, where he secured a motor-car.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.

"Le Curois," said the major; "and drop me just before you come to the village."

VII

In the scorching heat of a summer afternoon, Petite Simunde was washing some linen outside her cottage home. The silence, like the heat, was oppressive, and seemed more so by contrast with the noise of the troops who had been there a week before. An apple falling from a tree to the ground; the restless pounding of a horse's hoof in its stall; the distant hum of an aeroplane; the rumble of guns, faint but ominous--these and the sighs of the little woman at her task, were the only sounds that broke the stillness of the air.

She heard footsteps, and her heart, more than her eyes, told her that the man she dreaded had come. Her face blanched, and she caught her breath with a spasm of pain.

"Simunde"--Campbell's voice was gentle but firm--"where is Jacque?"

She continued her work without looking up.

"Simunde"--again the quiet monotone--"where is Jacque?"

She shook her head. "No compree" she faltered, falling into the jargon of war.

"Simunde!" There was an inflection in his voice, an almost imperceptible note of severity, that set her heart throbbing with fear. This was a new person to her, this calm, stern, blue-eyed man who showed no excitement, no anger, only a quiet, kindly severity that gave her no chance for subterfuge. She hated him for his calmness--because he was English--because he was unfair. If he had only shouted or gesticulated--but this brown-haired giant! To oppose him was like trying to stem the incoming tide.

She looked up suddenly, and her dripping hands were clenched in a fever of supplication. Madly she pleaded for her lover, as a woman will plead only for the man she loves or for her child. Tears ran down her cheeks, and her voice was choked with sobs.

Patiently he listened, gathering from the anguish more than from her words the story he had already guessed. In a climax of grief, she groped for him with her hands and would have cried on his breast. But he made no move; only his eyes were very grave and tender.

"Simunde," he reiterated in English, "where is Jacque?"

With a shrill cry of rage, she stamped her foot on the ground. This great iceberg of a man was a devil! He had come for her lover. He would take Jacque away to be shot. With an involuntary instinct of dismay, she glanced at the barn some little distance away; then, fearful that he had read her meaning, she forced a smile with her lips.

Without a word, he put her gently aside and started for the barn. He had gone ten steps before she moved, when he heard her hurried breathing and her hands were on his arm.

"_Monsieur_" she cried--"_monsieur le major_--Jacque--Jacque _keel_ you!" She spoke in broken English, remembering one of Des Rosiers's stories of his misdeeds. Releasing her fingers, he reached the barn in a few short paces. Opening the door, he cautiously entered and tried to accustom himself to the semi-darkness--and saw the barrel of a rifle in the loft slowly aligning itself in his direction.

"Des Rosiers!" His voice rang out like a pistol-shot. "It is I--your officer!"

There was no sound for almost a full minute, then the rifle was withdrawn, and the unshaved, disheveled French-Canadian stood before him.

"Why you come?" he said brokenly. "I can no shoot my officier. Why you come, eh?"

"Because you will go back with me, Des Rosiers."

The deserter's eyes filled with tears. "By Gar!" he said, "it is not, what you say, play fair. I say I shoot who come, and Jacque Des Rosiers, he is no afraid. But you--my boss--_mais non_! Maybe I go back with you and maybe they shoot me, yes?"