The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne

JULIE LANNES

John Scott came slowly out of the darkness and hovered for a while between dusk and light.  It was not an unpleasant world in which he lingered.  It seemed full of rest and peace.  His mind and body were relaxed, and there was no urgent call for him to march and to fight.  The insistent drumming of the great guns which could play upon the nervous system until it was wholly out of tune was gone.  The only sound he heard was that of a voice, a fresh young voice, singing a French song in a tone low and soft.  He had always liked these little love songs of the kind that were sung in a subdued way.  They were pathetic and pure as a rose leaf.

He might have opened his eyes and looked for the singer, but he did not.  The twilight region between sleep and consciousness was too pleasant.  He had no responsibilities, nothing to do.  He had a dim memory that he had belonged to an army, that it was his business to try to kill some one, and to try to keep from getting killed, but all that was gone now.  He could lie there, without pain of body or anxiety of mind, and let vague but bright visions pass through his soul.

His eyes still closed, he listened to the voice.  It was very low, scarcely more than a murmur, yet it was thrillingly sweet.  It might not be a human voice, after all, just the distant note of a bird in the forest, or the murmur of a brave little stream, or a summer wind among green leaves.

He moved a little and became conscious that he was not going back into that winter region of dusk.  His soul instead was steadily moving toward the light.  The beat of his heart grew normal, and then memory in a full tide rushed upon him.  He saw the great cavalry battle with all its red turmoil, the savage swing of von Boehlen’s saber and himself drifting out into the darkness.

He opened his eyes, the battle vanished, and he saw himself lying upon a low, wooden platform.  His head rested upon a small pillow, a blanket was under him, and another above him.  Turning slowly he saw other men wrapped in blankets like himself on the platform in a row that stretched far to right and left.  Above was a low roof, but both sides of the structure were open.

He understood it all in a moment.  He had come back to a world of battle and wounds, and he was one of the wounded.  But he listened for the soft, musical note which he believed now, in his imaginative state, had drawn him from the mid-region between life and death.

The stalwart figure of a woman in a somber dress with a red cross sewed upon it passed between him and the light, but he knew that it was not she who had been singing.  He closed his eyes in disappointment, but reopened them.  A man wearing a white jacket and radiating an atmosphere of drugs now walked before him.  He must be a surgeon.  At home, surgeons wore white jackets.  Beyond doubt he was one and maybe he was going to stop at John’s cot to treat some terrible wound of which he was not yet conscious.  He shivered a little, but the man passed on, and his heart beat its relief.

Then a soldier took his place in the bar of light.  He was a short, thick man in a ridiculous, long blue coat, and equally ridiculous, baggy, red trousers.  An obscure cap was cocked in an obscure manner over his ears, and his face was covered with a beard, black, thick and untrimmed.  He carried a rifle over his shoulder and nobody could mistake him for anything but a Frenchman.  Then he was not a prisoner again, but was in French hands.  That, at least, was a consolation.

It was amusing to lie there and see the people, one by one, pass between him and the light.  He could easily imagine that he was an inspection officer and that they walked by under orders from him.  Two more women in those somber dresses with the red crosses embroidered upon them, were silhouetted for a moment against the glow and then were gone.  Then a man with his arm in a sling and his face very pale walked slowly by.  A wounded soldier!  There must be many, very many of them!

The musical murmur ceased and he was growing weary.  He closed his eyes and then he opened them again because he felt for a moment on his face a fragrant breath, fleeting and very light.  He looked up into the eyes of Julie Lannes.  They were blue, very blue, but with infinite wistful depths in them, and he noticed that her golden hair had faint touches of the sun in it.  It was a crown of glory.  He remembered that he had seen something like it in the best pictures of the old masters.

“Mademoiselle Julie!” he said.

“You have come back,” she said gently.  “We have been anxious about you.  Philip has been to see you three times.”

He noticed that she, too, wore the somber dress with the red cross, and he began to comprehend.

“A nurse,” he said.  “Why, you are too young for such work!”

“But I am strong, and the wounded are so many, hundreds of thousands, they say.  Is it not a time for the women of France to help as much as they can?”

“I suppose so.  I’ve heard that in our civil war the women passed over the battle fields, seeking the wounded and nursed them afterward.  But you didn’t come here alone, did you, Mademoiselle Julie?”

“Antoine Picard—­you remember him—­and his daughter Suzanne, are with me.  My mother would have come too, but she is ill.  She will come later.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days.”

John thought a little.  Many and mighty events had happened in four days before he was wounded and many and mighty events may have occurred since.

“Would you mind telling me where we are, Mademoiselle Julie?” he asked.

“I do not know exactly myself, but we are somewhere near the river, Aisne.  The German army has turned and is fortifying against us.  When the wind blows this way you can hear the rumble of the guns.  Ah, there it is now, Mr. Scott!”

John distinctly heard that low, sinister menace, coming from the east, and he knew what it was.  Why should he not?  He had listened to it for days and days.  It was easy enough now to tell the thunder of the artillery from real thunder.  He was quite sure that it had never ceased while he was unconscious.  It had been going on so long now, as steady as the flowing of a river.

“I’ve been asking you a lot of questions, Mademoiselle Julie, but I want to ask you one more.”

“What is it, Mr. Scott?”

“What happened to me?”

“They say that you were knocked down by a horse, and that when you were falling his knee struck your head.  There was a concussion but the surgeon says that when you come out of it you will recover very fast.”

“Is the man who says it a good surgeon, one upon whom a fellow can rely, one of the very best surgeons that ever worked on a hurt head?”

“Yes, Mr. Scott.  But why do you ask such a question?  Is it your odd American way?”

“Not at all.  Mademoiselle Julie.  I merely wanted to satisfy myself.  He knows that I’m not likely to be insane or weak-minded or anything of the kind, because I got in the way of that horse’s knee?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Scott, there is not the least danger in the world.  Your mind will be as sound as your body.  Don’t trouble yourself.”

She laughed and now John knew that it was she whom he had heard singing the chansonette in that low murmuring tone.  What was that little song?  Well, it did not matter about the words.  The music was that of a soft breeze from the south blowing among roses.  John’s imaginings were growing poetical.  Perhaps there were yet some lingering effects from the concussion.

“Here is the surgeon now,” said Mademoiselle Julie.  “He will take a look at you and he will be glad to find that what he has predicted has come true.”

It was the man in the white jacket, and with that wonderful tangle of black whiskers, like a patch cut out of a scrub forest.

“Well, my young Yankee,” he said, “I see that you’ve come around.  You’ve raised an interesting question in my mind.  Since a cavalry horse wasn’t able to break it, is the American skull thicker than the skulls of other people?”

“A lot of you Europeans don’t seem to think we’re civilized.”

“But when you fight for us we do.  Isn’t that so, Mademoiselle Lannes?”

“I think it is.”

“War is a curious thing.  While it drives people apart it also brings them together.  We learn in battle, and its aftermath, that we’re very much alike.  And now, my young Yankee, I’ll be here again in two hours to change that bandage for the last time.  I’ll be through with you then, and in another day you can go forward to meet the German shells.”

“I prefer to run against a horse’s knee,” said John with spirit.

Surgeon Lucien Delorme laughed heartily.

“I’m confirmed in my opinion that you won’t need me after another change of bandages,” he said.  “We’ve a couple of hundred thousand cases much worse than yours to tend, and Mademoiselle Lannes will look after you today.  She has watched over you, I understand, because you’re a friend of her brother, the great flying man, Philip Lannes.”

“Yes,” said John, “that’s it, of course.”

Julie herself said nothing.

Surgeon Delorme passed through the bar of brilliant light and disappeared, his place being taken by a gigantic figure with grizzled hair, and the stern face of the thoughtful peasant, the same Antoine Picard who had been left as a guardian over the little house beyond the Seine.  John closed his eyes, that is nearly, and caught the glance that the big man gave to Julie.  It was protecting and fatherly, and he knew that Antoine would answer for her at any time with his life.  It was one remnant of feudalism to which he did not object.  He opened his eyes wide and said: 

“Well, my good Picard, perhaps you thought you were going to look at a dead American, but you are not.  Behold me!”

He sat up and doubled up his arm to show his muscle and power.  Picard smiled and offered to shake hands in the American fashion.  He seemed genuinely glad that John had returned to the real world, and John ascribed it to Picard’s knowledge that he was Lannes’ friend.

Julie said some words to Picard, and with a little au revoir to John, went away.  John watched her until she was out of sight.  He realized again that young French girls were kept secluded from the world, immured almost.  But the world had changed.  Since a few men met around a table six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had come.  Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might be going faster.  War, the leveler, was prodigiously at work.

These were tremendous things, but he had himself to think about too, and personality can often outweigh the universe.  Julie was gone, taking a lot of the light with her, but Picard was still there, and while he was grizzled and stern he was a friend.

John sat up quite straight and Picard did not try to keep him from it.

“Picard,” he said, “you see me, don’t you?”

“I do, sir, with these two good eyes of mine, as good as those in the head of any young man, and fifty is behind me.”

“That’s because you’re not intellectual, Picard, but we’ll return to our lamb chops.  I am here, I, a soldier of France, though an American—­for which I am grateful—­laid four days upon my back by a wound.  And was that wound inflicted by a shell, shrapnel, bomb, lance, saber, bullet or any of the other noble weapons of warfare?  No, sir, it was done by a horse, and not by a kick, either, he jostled me with his knee when he wasn’t looking.  Would you call that an honorable wound?”

“All wounds received in the service of one’s country or adopted country are honorable, sir.”

“You give me comfort, Picard.  But spread the story that I was not hit by a horse’s knee but by a piece of shell, a very large and wicked piece of shell.  I want it to get into the histories that way.  The greatest of Frenchmen, though he was an Italian, said that history was a fable agreed upon, and you and I want to make an agreement about myself and a shell.”

“I don’t understand you at all, sir.”

“Well, never mind.  Tell me how long Mademoiselle Julie is going to stay here.  I’m a great friend of her brother, Lieutenant Philip Lannes.  Oh, we’re such wonderful friends!  And we’ve been through such terrible dangers together!”

“Then, perhaps it’s Lieutenant Lannes and not his sister, Mademoiselle Julie, that you wish to inquire about.”

“Don’t be ironical, Picard.  I was merely digressing, which I admit is wrong, as you’re apt to distract the attention of your hearer from the real subject.  We’ll return to Mademoiselle Julie.  Do you think she’s going to remain here long?”

“I would tell you if I could, sir, but no one knows.  I think it depends upon many circumstances.  The young lady is most brave, as becomes one of her blood, and the changes in France are great.  All of us who may not fight can serve otherwise.”

“Why is it that you’re not fighting, Picard?”

The great peasant flung up his arms angrily.

“Because I am beyond the age.  Because I am too old, they said.  Think of it!  I, Antoine Picard, could take two of these little officers and crush them to death at once in my arms!  There is not in all this army a man who could walk farther than I can!  There is not one who could lift the wheel of a cannon out of the mud more quickly than I can, and they would not take me!  What do a few years mean?”

“Nothing in your case, Antoine, but they’ll take you, later on.  Never fear.  Before this war is over every country in it will need all the men it can get, whether old or young.”

“I fear that it is so,” said the gigantic peasant, a shadow crossing his stern face, “but, sir, one thing is decided.  France, the France of the Revolution, the France that belongs to its people, will not fall.”

John looked at him with a new interest.  Here was a peasant, but a thinking peasant, and there were millions like him in France.  They were not really peasants in the old sense of the word, but workingmen with a stake in the country, and the mind and courage to defend it.  It might be possible to beat the army of a nation, but not a nation in arms.

“No, Picard,” said John, “France will not fall.”

“And that being settled, sir,” said Picard, with grim humor, “I think you’d better lie down again.  You’ve talked a lot for a man who has been unconscious four days.”

“You’re right, my good Picard, as I’ve no doubt you usually are.  Was I troublesome, much, when I was out in the dark?”

“But little, sir.  I’ve lifted much heavier men, and that Dr. Delorme is strong himself, not afraid, either, to use the knife.  Ah, sir, you should have seen how beautifully he worked right under the fire of the German guns!  Psst! if need be he’d have taken a leg off you in five minutes, as neatly as if he had been in a hospital in Paris!”

John felt apprehensively for his legs.  Both were there, and in good condition.

“If that man ever comes near me with the intention of cutting off one of my legs I’ll shoot him, good fellow and good doctor though he may be,” he said.  “Help me up a little higher, will you, Picard?  I want to see what kind of a place we’re in.”

Picard built up a little pyramid of saddles and knapsacks behind him and John drew himself up with his back against them.  The rows and rows of wounded stretched as far as he could see, and there was a powerful odor of drugs.  Around him was a forest, of the kind with which he had become familiar in Europe, that is, of small trees, free from underbrush.  He saw some distance away soldiers walking up and down and beyond them the vague outline of an earthwork.

“What place is this, anyway, Picard?” he asked.

“It has no name, sir.  It’s a hospital.  It was built in the forest in a day.  More than five thousand wounded lie here.  The army itself is further on.  You were found and brought in by some young officers of that most singular company composed of Americans and English who are always quarreling among one another, but who unite and fight like demons against anybody else.”

“A dollar to a cent it was Wharton and Carstairs who brought me here,” said John, smiling to himself.

“What does Monsieur say?”

“Merely commenting on some absent friends of mine.  But this isn’t a bad place, Picard.”

The shed was of immense length and breadth and just beyond it were some small buildings, evidently of hasty construction.  John inferred that they were for the nurses and doctors, and he wondered which one sheltered Julie Lannes.  The forest seemed to be largely of young pines, and the breeze that blew through it was fresh and wholesome.  As he breathed it young Scott felt that he was inhaling new life and strength.  But the wind also brought upon its edge that far faint murmur which he knew was the throbbing of the great guns, miles and miles away.

“Perhaps, Monsieur had better lie down again now and sleep awhile,” said Picard insinuatingly.

“Sleep!  I need sleep!  Why, Picard, by your own account I’ve just awakened from a sleep four days and four nights long.”

“But, sir, that was not sleep.  It was the stupor of unconsciousness.  Now your sleep will be easy and natural.”

“Very well,” said John, who had really begun to feel a little weary, “I’ll go to sleep, since, in a way, you order it, but if Mademoiselle Julie Lannes should happen to pass my cot again, will you kindly wake me up?”

“If possible, sir,” said Picard, the faintest smile passing over his iron features, and forced to be content with that reply, John soon slept again.  Julie passed by him twice, but Picard did not awaken him, nor try.  The first time she was alone.  Trained and educated like most young French girls, she had seen little of the world until she was projected into the very heart of it by an immense and appalling war.  But its effect upon her had been like that upon John.  Old manners and customs crumbled away, an era vanished, and a new one with new ideas came to take its place.  She shuddered often at what she had seen in this great hospital in the woods, but she was glad that she had come.  French courage was as strong in the hearts of women as in the hearts of men, and the brusque but good Dr. Delorme had said that she learned fast.  She had more courage, yes, and more skill, than many nurses older and stronger than she, and there was the stalwart Suzanne, who worked with her.

She was alone the first time and she stopped by John’s cot, where he slept so peacefully.  He was undeniably handsome, this young American who had come to their house in Paris with Philip.  And her brother, that wonderful man of the air, who was almost a demi-god to her, had spoken so well of him, had praised so much his skill, his courage, and his honesty.  And he had received his wound fighting so gallantly for France, her country.  Her beautiful color deepened a little as she walked away.

John awoke again in the afternoon, and the first sound he heard was that same far rumble of the guns, now apparently a part of nature, but he did not linger in any twilight land between dark and light.  All the mists of sleep cleared away at once and he sat up, healthy, strong and hungry.  Demanding food from an orderly he received it, and when he had eaten it he asked for Surgeon Delorme.

The surgeon did not come for a half hour and then he demanded brusquely what John wanted.

“None of your drugs,” replied happy young Scott, “but my uniform and my arms.  I don’t know your procedure here, but I want you to certify to the whole world that I’m entirely well and ready to return to the ranks.”

Surgeon Delorme critically examined the bandage which he had changed that morning, and then felt of John’s head at various points.

“A fine strong skull,” he said, smiling, “and quite undamaged.  When this war is over I shall go to America and make an exhaustive study of the Yankee skull.  Has bone, through the influence of climate or of more plentiful food, acquired a more tenacious quality there than it has here?  It is a most interesting and complicated question.”

“But it’s solution will have to be deferred, my good Monsieur Delorme, and so you’d better quit thumping my head so hard.  Give me that certificate, because if you don’t I’ll get up and go without it.  Don’t you hear those guns out there, doctor?  Why, they’re calling to me all the time.  They tell me, strong and well, again, to come at once and join my comrades of the Strangers, who are fighting the enemy.”

“You shall go in the morning,” said Surgeon Delorme, putting his broad hand upon young Scott’s head.  “The effects of the concussion will have vanished then.”

“But I want to get up now and put on my uniform; can’t I?”

“I know no reason why you shouldn’t.  There’s a huge fellow named Picard around here who has been watching over you, and who has your uniform.  I’ll call him.”

When John was dressed he walked with Picard into the edge of the forest.  His first steps were wavering, and his head swam a little, but in a few minutes the dizziness disappeared and his walk became steady and elastic.  He was his old self again, strong in every fiber.  He would certainly be with the Strangers the next morning.

Many more of the wounded, thousands of them, were lying or sitting on the short grass in the forest.  They were the less seriously hurt, and they were cheerful.  Some of them sang.

“They’ll be going back to the army fast,” said Picard.  “Unless they’re torn by shrapnel nearly all the wounded get well again and quickly.  The bullet with the great power is merciful.  It goes through so fast that it does not tear either flesh or bone.  If you’re healthy, if your blood is good, psst! you’re well again in a week.”

“Do you know if Lieutenant Lannes is expected here?” asked John.

“I heard from Mademoiselle Julie that he would come at set of sun.  He has been on another perilous errand.  Ah, his is a strange and terrible life, sir.  Up there in the sky, a half mile, maybe a mile, above the earth.  All the dangers of the earth and those, too, of the air to fight!  Nothing above you and nothing below you.  It’s a new world in which Monsieur Philip Lannes moves, but I would not go in it with him, not for all the treasures of the Louvre!”

He looked up at the calm and benevolent blue sky and shuddered.

John laughed.

“Some of us feel that way,” he said.  “Many men as brave as any that ever lived can’t bear to look down from a height.  But sunset is approaching, my gallant Picard, and Lannes should soon be here.”

The rays of the sun fell in showers of red gold where they stood, but a narrow band of gray under the eastern horizon showed that twilight was not far away.  The two stood side by side staring up at the heavens, where they felt with absolute certainty the black dot would appear at the appointed time.  It was a singular tribute to the courage and character of Lannes that all who knew him had implicit faith in his promises, not alone in his honesty of purpose, but in his ability to carry it out in the face of difficulty and danger.  The band of gray in the east broadened, but they still watched with the utmost faith.

“I see something to the eastward,” said John, “or is it merely a shadow in the sky?”

“I don’t think it’s a shadow.  It must be one of those terrible machines, and perhaps it’s that of our brave Monsieur Philip.”

“You’re right, Picard, it’s no shadow, nor is it a bit of black cloud.  It’s an aeroplane, flying very fast.  The skies over Europe hold many aeroplanes these days, but I know all the tricks of the Arrow, all its pretty little ways, its manner of curving, looping and dropping, and I should say that the Arrow, Philip Lannes aboard, is coming.”

“I pray, sir, that you are right.  I always hold my breath until he is on the ground again.”

“Then you’ll have to make a record in holding breath, my brave Picard.  He is still far, very far, from us, and it will be a good ten minutes before he arrives.”

But John knew beyond a doubt, after a little more watching, that it was really the Arrow, and with eager eyes he watched the gallant little machine as it descended in many a graceful loop and spiral to the earth.  They hurried forward to meet it, and Lannes, bright-eyed and trim, sprang out, greeting John with a welcome cry.

“Up again,” he exclaimed, “and, as I see with these two eyes of mine, as well as ever!  And you too, my brave Picard, here to meet me!”

He hastened away with a report, but came back to them in a few minutes.

“Now,” he said, “We’ll go and see my sister.”

John was not at all unwilling.

They found her in one of the new houses of pine boards, and the faithful and stalwart Suzanne was with her.  It was the plainest of plain places, inhabited by at least twenty other Red Cross nurses, and John stood on one side until the first greeting of brother and sister was over.  Then Lannes, by a word and a gesture, included him in what was practically a family group, although he was conscious that the stalwart Suzanne was watching him with a wary eye.

“Julie and Suzanne,” said Lannes, “are going tomorrow with other nurses to the little town of Ménouville, where also many wounded lie.  They are less well supplied with doctors and nurses than we are here.  Dr. Delorme goes also with a small detachment as escort.  I have asked that you, Monsieur Jean the Scott, be sent with them.  Our brave Picard goes too.  Ménouville is about eight miles from here, and it’s not much out of the way to the front.  So you will not be kept long from your Strangers, John.”

“I go willingly,” said John, “and I’m glad, Philip, that you’ve seen fit to consider me worth while as a part of the escort.”

He spoke quietly, but his glance wandered to Julie Lannes.  It may have been a chance, but hers turned toward him at the same time, and the eyes, the blue and the gray, met.  Again the girl’s brilliant color deepened a little, and she looked quickly away.  Only the watchful and grim Suzanne saw.

“Do you have to go away at once, Philip?” asked Julie.

“In one hour, my sister.  There is not much rest for the Arrow and me these days, but they are such days as happen perhaps only once in a thousand years, and one must do his best to be worthy.  I’m not preaching, little sister, don’t think that, but I must answer to every call.”

The twilight had spread from east to west.  The heavy shadows in the east promised a dark night, but out of the shadows, as always, came that sullen mutter of the ruthless guns.  Julie shivered a little, and glanced at the dim sky.

“Must you go up there in the cold dark?” she said.  “It’s like leaving the world.  It’s dangerous enough in the day, but you have a bright sky then.  In the night it’s terrible!”

“Don’t you fear for me, little sister,” said Lannes.  “Why, I like the night for some reasons.  You can slip by your enemies in the dark, and if you’re flying low the cannon don’t have half the chance at you.  Besides, I’ve the air over these regions all mapped and graded now.  I know all the roads and paths, the meeting places of the clouds, points suitable for ambush, aerial fields, meadows and forests.  Oh, it’s home up there!  Don’t you worry, and do you write, too, to Madame, my mother, in Paris, that I’m perfectly safe.”

Lannes kissed her and went away abruptly.  John was sure that an attempt to hide emotion caused his brusque departure.

“Believe everything he tells you, Mademoiselle Julie,” he said.  “I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing can ever trap your brother.  Besides courage and skill he has luck.  The stars always shine for him.”

“They’re not shining tonight,” said Picard, looking up at the dusky sky.

“But I believe, Mr. Scott, that you are right,” said Julie.

“He’ll certainly come to us at Ménouville tomorrow night,” said John, speaking in English—­all the conversation hitherto had been in French, “and I think we’ll have a pleasant ride through the forest in the morning, Miss Lannes.  You’ll let me call you Miss Lannes, once or twice, in my language, won’t you?  I like to hear the sound of it.”

“I’ve no objection, Mr. Scott,” she replied also in English.  She did not blush, but looked directly at him with bright eyes.  John was conscious of something cool and strong.  She was very young, she was French, and she had lived a sheltered life, but he realized once more that human beings are the same everywhere and that war, the leveler, had broken down all barriers.

“I’ve not heard who is to be our commander, Miss Lannes,” he continued in English, “but I’ll be here early in the morning.  May I wish you happy dreams and a pleasant awakening, as they say at home?”

“But you have two homes now, France and America.”

“That’s so, and I’m beginning to love one as much as the other.  Any way, to the re-seeing, Miss Lannes, which I believe is equivalent to au revoir.”

He made a very fine bow, one that would have done credit to a trained old courtier, and withdrew.  The fierce and watchful eyes of Suzanne followed him.

John was up at dawn, as strong and well as he had ever been in his life.  As he was putting on his uniform an orderly arrived with a note from Lieutenant Hector Legaré, telling him to report at once for duty with a party that was going to Ménouville.

The start was made quickly.  John found that the women with surgical supplies were traveling in carts.  The soldiers, about twenty in number, walked.  John and the doctor walked with them.  All the automobiles were in use carrying troops to the front, but the carts were strong and comfortable and John did not mind.  It ought to be a pleasant trip.