Joy in the Morning Part 17

Philippe rippled more laughter--of pure joy--of satisfaction. "But, yes, M'sieur le Docteur, that leg _meme_. Itself. In a battle, M'sieur le Docteur gave me the good leg for a long enough time to serve France. It was all that there was of necessary. As for now I may not fight again, but I can walk and portage _comme il faut_. I am _capable_ as a guide.

Is it not, Josef?" He appealed, and the men crowded around to back him up with deep, serious voices.

"Ah, yes, M'sieur."

"_B'en capable!_"

"He can walk like us others--the same!" they a.s.sured me impressively.

Philippe was my guide this year. It was the morning after we reached camp. "Would M'sieur le Docteur be too busy to look at something?"

I was not. Philippe stood in the camp doorway in the patch of sunlight where he had sat two years before when I looked over his leg. He sat down again, in the s.h.i.+fting suns.h.i.+ne, the wooden leg sticking out straight and pathetic, and began to take the covers off a package. There were many covers; the package was apparently valuable. As he worked at it the odors of hemlock and balsam, distilled by hot sunlight, rose sweet and strong, and the lake splashed on pebbles, and peace that pa.s.ses understanding was about us.

"It was in a bad battle in Lorraine," spoke Philippe into the suns.h.i.+ny peace, "that I lost M'sieur le Docteur's leg. One was in the front trench and there was word pa.s.sed to have the wire cutters ready, and also bayonets, for we were to charge across the open towards the trenches of the Germans--perhaps one hundred and fifty yards, eight _arpents_--acres--as we say in Canada. Our big guns back did the preparation, making what M'sieur le Docteur well knows is called a _rideau_--a fire curtain. We climbed out of our trench with a shout and followed the fire curtain; so closely we followed that it seemed we should be killed by our own guns. And then it stopped--too soon, M'sieur le Docteur. Very many Boches were left alive in that trench in front, and they fired as we came, so that some of us were hit, and so terrible was the fire that the rest were forced back to our own trench which we had left. It is so sometimes in a fight, M'sieur le Docteur. The big guns make a little mistake, and many men have to die. Yet it is for France. And as I ran with the others for the shelter of the trench, and as the Boches streamed out of their trench to make a counter attack with hand-grenades I tripped on something. It was little Rene Dumont, whom M'sieur le Docteur remembers. He guided for our camp when Josef was ill in the hand two years ago. In any case he lay there, and I could not let him lie to be shot to pieces. So I caught up the child and ran with him across my shoulders and threw him in the trench, and as he went in there was a cry behind me, 'Philippe!'

"I turned, and one waved arms at me--a comrade whom I did not know very well--but he lay in the open and cried for help. So I thought of Jeanne d'Arc, and how she had no fear, and was kind, and with that, back I trotted to get the comrade. But at that second--pouf!--a big noise, and I fell down and could not get up. It was the good new leg of M'sieur le Docteur which those _sacres_ Boches had blown off with a hand-grenade.

So that I lay dead enough. And when I came alive it was dark, and also the leg hurt--but yes! I was annoyed to have ruined that leg which you gave me--M'sieur le Docteur."

I grinned, and something ached inside of me.

Philippe went on. "It was then, when I was without much hope and weak and in pain and also thirsty, that a thing happened. It is a business without pleasure, M'sieur le Docteur, that--to lie on a battle-field with a leg shot off, and around one men dead, piled up--yes, and some not dead yet, which is worse. They groan. One feels unable to bear it.

It grows cold also, and the searchlights of the Boches play so as to prevent rescue by comrades. They seem quite horrible, those lights. One lives, but one wishes much to die. So it happened that, as I lay there, I heard a step coming, not crawling along as the rescuers crawl and stopping when the lights flare, but a steady step coming freely. And with that I was lifted and carried quickly into a wood. There was a hole in the ground there, torn by a sh.e.l.l deeply, and the friend laid me there and put a flask to my lips, and I was warm and comforted. I looked up and I saw a figure in soldier's clothing of an old time, such as one sees in books--armor of white. And the face smiled down at me. 'You will be saved,' a voice said; and the words sounded homely, almost like the words of my grandfather who keeps the grocery shop. 'You will be saved.'

It seemed to me that the voice was young and gentle and like a woman's.

"'Who are you?' I asked, and I had a strange feeling, afraid a little M'sieur, yet glad to a marvel. I got no answer to my question, but I felt something pressed into my hand, and then I spoke, but I suppose I was a little delirious, M'sieur, for I heard myself say a thing I had not been thinking. 'A Martel must return to France to find the silver stirrup'--I said that, M'sieur. Why I do not know. They were the words I had heard my grandfather speak. Perhaps the hard feeling in my hand--but I cannot explain, M'sieur le Docteur. In any case, there was all at once a great thrill through my body, such as I have never known. I sat up quickly and stared at the figure. It stood there. M'sieur will probably not believe me--the figure stood there in white armor, with a sword--and I knew it for Jeanne--the Maid. With that I knew no more. When I woke it was day. I was still lying in the crater of the sh.e.l.l which had torn up the earth of a very old battle-field, but in my hand I held tight--this."

Philippe drew off the last cover with a dramatic flourish and opened the box which had been wrapped so carefully. I bent over him. In the box, before my eyes, lay an ancient worn and battered silver stirrup. There were no words to say. I stared at the boy. And with that suddenly he had slewed around clumsily--because of his poor wooden leg--and was on his knees at my feet. He held out the stirrup.

"M'sieur le Docteur, you gave me a man's chance and honor, and the joy of fighting for France. I can never tell my thanks. I have nothing to give you--but this. Take it, M'sieur le Docteur. It is not much, yet to me the earth holds nothing so valuable. It is the silver stirrup of Jeanne d'Arc. It is yours."

In a gla.s.s case on the wall of my library hangs an antique bit of harness which is my most precious piece of property. How its story came about I do not even try to guess. As Philippe said the action of that day took place on a very old battle-field. The sh.e.l.l which made the sheltering crater doubtless dug up earth untouched for hundreds of years. That it should have dug up the very object which was a tradition in the Martel family and should have laid it in the grasp of a Martel fighting for France with that tradition at the bottom of his mind seems incredible. The story of the apparition of the Maid is incredible to laughter, or tears. No farther light is to be got from the boy, because he believes his story. I do not try to explain, I place the episode in my mind alongside other things incredible, things lovely and spiritual, and, to our viewpoint of five years ago, things mad. Many such have risen luminous, undesirable, unexplained, out of these last horrible years, and wait human thought, it may be human development, to be cla.s.sified. I accept and treasure the silver stirrup as a pledge of beautiful human grat.i.tude. I hold it as a visible sign that French blood keeps a loyalty to France which ages and oceans may not weaken.

THE RUSSIAN

The little dinner-party of grizzled men strayed from the dining-room and across the hall into the vast library, arguing mightily.

"The great war didn't do it. World democracy was on the way. The war held it back."

It was the United States Senator, garrulous and incisive, who issued that statement. The Judge, the host, wasted not a moment in contradicting. "You're mad, Joe," he threw at him with a hand on the shoulder of the man who was still to him that promising youngster, little Joe Burden of The School. "Held back democracy! The war! Quite mad, my son."

The guest of the evening, a Russian General who had just finished five strenuous years in the Cabinet of the Slav Republic, dropped back a step to watch, with amused eyes, strolling through the doorway, the two splendid old boys, the Judge's arm around the Senator's shoulders, fighting, sputtering, arguing with each other as they had fought and argued forty odd years up to date.

Two minutes more and the party of six had settled into deep chairs, into a mammoth davenport, before a blazing fire of spruce and birch. Cigars, liqueurs, coffee, the things men love after dinner, were there; one had the vaguest impression of two vanis.h.i.+ng j.a.panese persons who might or might not have brought trays and touched the fire and placed tiny tables at each right hand; an atmosphere of completeness was present, one did not notice how. One settled with a sigh of satisfaction into comfort, and chose a cigar. One laughed to hear the Judge pound away at the Senator.

"It's all a game." Dr. Rutherford turned to the Russian. "They're devoted old friends, not violent enemies, General. The Senator stirs up the Judge by taking impossible positions and defending them savagely.

The Judge invariably falls into the trap. Then a battle. Their battles are the joy of the Century Club. The Senator doesn't believe for an instant that the war held back democracy."

At that the Senator whirled. "I don't? But I do.--Don't _smoke_ that cigar, Rutherford, on your life. Peter will have these atrocities.

Here--Kaki, bring the doctor the other box.--That's better.--I don't believe what I said? Now listen. How could the fact that the world was turned into a military camp, officers commanding, privates obeying, rank, rank, rank everywhere throughout mankind, how could that fail to hinder democracy, which is in its essence the leveling of ranks? Tell me that!"

The doctor grinned at the Russian. "What about it, General? What do you think?"

The General answered slowly, with a small accent but in the wonderfully good English of an educated Russian. "I do not agree with the Sena-torr," he stated, and five heads turned to listen. There was a quality of large personality in the burr of the voice, in the poise and soldierly bearing, in the very silence of the man, which made his slow words of importance. "I believe indeed that the Sena-torr is partly--shall I say speaking for argument?"

The Senator laughed.

"The great war, in which all of us here had the honor to bear arms--that death grapple of tyranny against freedom--it did not hold back the cause of humanity, of democracy, that war. Else thousands upon thousands of good lives were given in vain."

There was a hushed moment. Each of the men, men now from fifty to sixty years old, had been a young soldier in that Homeric struggle. Each was caught back at the words of the Russian to a vision of terrible places, of thundering of great guns, of young, generous blood flowing like water. The deep, a.s.sured tones of the Russian spoke into the solemn pause.

"There is an episode of the war which I remember. It goes to show, so far as one incident may, where every hour was crowded with drama, how forces worked together for democracy. It is the story of a common man of my country who was a private in the army of your country, and who was lifted by an American gentleman to hope and opportunity, and, as G.o.d willed it, to honor. My old friend the Judge can tell that episode better than I. My active part in it was small. If you like"--the dark foreign eyes flashed about the group--"if you like I should much enjoy hearing my old friend review that little story of democracy."

There was a murmur of approval. One man spoke, a fighting parson he had been. "It argues democracy in itself, General, that a Russian aristocrat, the brother of a Duke, should remember so well the adventures of a common soldier."

The smouldering eyes of the Slav turned to the speaker and regarded him gravely. "I remember those adventures well," he answered.

The Judge, flung back in a corner of the davenport, his knees crossed and rings from his cigar ascending, stared at the ceiling, "Come along, Peter. You're due to entertain us," the Senator adjured him, and the Judge, staring upwards, began.

"This is the year 1947. It was in 1917 that the United States went into war--thirty years ago. The fifth of June, 1917, was set, as you remember, for the registration of all men in the country over twenty-one and under thirty-one for the draft. I was twenty-three, living in this house with my father and mother, both dead before the war ended. Being outside of the city, the polling place where I was due to register was three miles off, at Hiawatha. I registered in the morning; the polls were open from seven A.M. to nine P.M. My mother drove me over, and the road was being mended, and, as happened in those days in the country, half a mile of it was almost impa.s.sable. There were no adjustable lift-roads invented then. We got through the ruts and stonework, but it was hard going, and we came home by a detour through the city rather than pa.s.s again that beastly half mile. That night was dark and stormy, with rain at intervals, and as we sat in this room, reading, the three of us--" The Judge paused and gazed a moment at the faces in the lamplight, at the chairs where his guests sat. It was as if he called back to their old environment for a moment the two familiar figures which had belonged here, which had gone out of his life. "We sat in this room, the three of us," he repeated, "and the butler came in.

"'If you please, sir, there's a young man here who wants to register,'

he said.

"'Wants to register!' my father threw at him. 'What do you mean?'

"We all went outside, and there we found not one, but five boys, Russians. There was a munitions plant a mile back of us and the lads worked there, and had wakened to the necessity of registering at the last moment, being new in the country and with little English. They had directions to go to the same polling place as mint, Hiawatha, but had gotten lost, and, seeing our lights, brought up here. Hiawatha, as I said, is three miles away. It was eight-thirty and the polls closed at nine. We brought the youngsters inside, and I dashed to the garage for the car and piled the delighted lads into it and drove them across.

"At least I tried to. But when we came to the bad half mile the car rebelled at going the bit twice in a day, and the motor stalled. There we were--eight-forty-five P.M.--polls due to close at nine--a year's imprisonment for five well-meaning boys for neglecting to register. I was in despair. Then suddenly one of the boys saw a small red light ahead, the tail light of an automobile. We ran along and found a big car standing in front of a house. As we got there, out from the car stepped a woman with a lantern, and as the light swung upward I saw that she was tall and fair and young and very lovely. She stopped as the six of us loomed out of the darkness. I knew that a professor from the University in town had taken this house for the summer, but I don't know the people or their name. It was no time to be shy. I gave my name and stated the case.

"The girl looked at me. 'I've seen you,' she said. 'I know you are Mr.

McLane. I'll drive you across. One moment, till I tell my mother.'

"She was in the house and out again without wasting a second, and as she flashed into the car I heard a gasp, and I turned and saw in the glare of the headlights as they sprang on one of my Russians, a gigantic youngster of six feet four or so, standing with his cap off and his head bent, as he might have stood before a shrine, staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared into the car. Then the engine purred and my squad tumbled in.

"We made the polls on the tap of nine. Afterwards we drove back to my car and among us, with the lantern, we got the motor running again, the girl helping efficiently. The big fellow, when we told her good-night, astonished me by dropping on his knees and kissing the edge of her skirt. But I put it down to Slavic temperament and took it casually.

I've learned since what Russian depth of feeling means--and tenacity of purpose. There was one more incident. When I finally drove the lads up to their village the big chap, who spoke rather good English when he spoke at all, which was seldom, invited me to have some beer. I was tired and wanted to get home, so I didn't. Then the young giant excavated in his pocket and brought out a dollar bill.

"'You get beer tomorrow.' And when I laughed and shoved it back he flushed. 'Excuse--Mr. Sir,' he said. 'I make mistake.' Suddenly he drew himself up--about to the treetops, it looked, for he was a huge, a magnificent lad. He tossed out his arm to me. 'Some day,' he stated dramatically, 'I do two things. Some day I give Mr. Sir somethings more than dollar--and he will take. And--some day I marry--Miss Angel!'

"You may believe I was staggered. But I simply stuck out my fist and shook his and said: 'Good. No reason on earth why a fellow with the right stuff shouldn't get anywhere. It's a free country.' And the giant drew his black brows together and remarked slowly: 'All countries--world--is to be free. War will sweep up kings--and other--rubbish. I--shall be--a man.'

"Besides his impressive build, the boy had--had--" the Judge glanced at the Russian General, whose eyes glowed at the fire. "The boy had a remarkable face. It was cut like a granite hill, in sweeping ma.s.ses. All strength. His eyes were coals. I went home thoughtful, and the Russian boy's intense face was in my mind for days, and I told myself many times that he not only would be, but already was, a man.