Joy in the Morning Part 9

The colonel smiled and shook his head. "It is that which I cannot do--show you my Hirondelle. Not here, and not in France, by _malheur_.

For he ventured once too often and too far, as the captain prophesied, and he is dead. G.o.d rest the brave! Also a Croix de Guerre is indeed his, but no Hirondelle is there to claim it."

The silence of a moment was a salute to the soul of a warrior pa.s.sed to the happy hunting-grounds. And then I began on another story of my Rafael's adventures which something in the colonel's tale suggested.

The colonel, his winning face all a smile, interrupted. "Does one believe, then, in this Rafael of m'sieur who caps me each time my tales of my Huron Hirondelle? It appears to me that m'sieur has the brain, of a story-teller and hangs good stories on a figure which he has built and named so--Rafael. Me, I cannot believe there exists this Rafael. I believe there is only one such gallant d'Artagnan of the Hurons, and it is--it was--my Hirondelle. Show me your Rafael, then!" demanded the colonel.

At that challenge the scheme which had flashed into my mind an hour ago gathered shape and power. "I will show him to you, colonel," I took up the challenge, "if you will allow me." I turned to include the others.

"Isn't it possible for you all to call a truce and come up tomorrow to my club to be my guests for as long or as short a time as you will? I can't say how much pleasure it would give me, and I believe I could give you something also--great fis.h.i.+ng, shooting, a moose, likely, or at least a caribou--and Rafael. I promise Rafael. It's not unlikely, colonel, that he may have known the Hirondelle. The Hurons are few. Do come," I threw at them.

They took it after their kind. The Englishman stared and murmured: "Awfully kind, I'm sure, but quite impossible." The Canadian, our next of kin, smiled, shaking his head like a brother. Fitzhugh put his arm of brawn about me again till that glorious star gleamed almost on my own shoulder, and patted me lovingly as he said: "Old son, I'd give my eyes to go, if I wasn't up to my ears in job."

But the Frenchman's face shone, and he lifted a finger that was a sentence. It embodied reflection and eagerness and suspense. The rest of us gazed at that finger as if it were about to address us. And the colonel spoke. "I t'ink," brought out the colonel emphatically, "I t'ink I d.a.m.n go."

And I s.n.a.t.c.hed the finger and the hand of steel to which it grew, and wrung both. This was a delightful Frenchman. "Good!" I cried out.

"Glorious! I want you all, but I'm mightily pleased to get one. Colonel, you're a sport."

"But, yes," agreed the colonel happily, "I am sport. Why not? I haf four days to wait till my sheep sail. Why not kip--how you say?--kip in my hand for shooting--go kill moose? I may talk immensely of zat moose in France--hein? Much more _chic_ as to kill Germans, _n'est ce pas_?

Everybody kill Germans."

At one o'clock next day the out-of-breath little train which had gasped up mountains for five hours from Quebec uttered a relieved shriek and stopped at a doll-house club station sitting by itself in the wilderness. Four or five men in worn but clean clothes--they always start clean--waited on the platform, and there was a rapid fire of "_Bon jour_, m'sieur," as we alighted. Then ten quick eyes took in my colonel in his horizon-blue uniform. I was aware of a throb of interest. At once there was a scurry for luggage because the train must be held till it was off, and the guides ran forward to the baggage-car to help. I bundled the colonel down a sharp, short hill to the river, while smiling, observant Hurons, missing not a line of braid or a glitter of b.u.t.ton, pa.s.sed with bags and _pacquetons_ as we descended. The blue and black and gold was loaded into a canoe with an Indian at bow and stern for the three-mile paddle to the club-house. He was already a schoolboy on a holiday with unashamed enthusiasm.

"But it is fun--fun, zis," he shouted to me from his canoe. "And _lequel_, m'sieur, which is Rafael?"

Rafael, in the bow of my boat, missed a beat of his paddle. It seemed to me he looked older than two years back, when I last saw him. His shoulders were bent, and his merry and stately personality was less in evidence. He appeared subdued. He did not turn with a smile or a grave glance of inquiry at the question, as I had expected. I nodded toward him.

"_Mais oui_," cried out the colonel. "One has heard of you, _mon ami_.

One will talk to you later of shooting."

Rafael, not lifting his head, answered quietly, "_C'est bien, m'sieur._"

Just then the canoes slipped past a sandy bar decorated with a fresh moose track; the excitement of the colonel set us laughing. This man was certainly a joy! And with that, after a long paddle down the winding river and across two breezy lakes, we were at the club-house. We lunched, and in short order--for we wanted to make camp that night--I dug into my _pacquetons_ and transformed my officer into a sportsman, his huge delight in Abernethy & Flitch's creations being a part of the game. Then we were off.

One has small chance for a.s.sociating with guides while travelling in the woods. One sits in a canoe between two, but if there is a wind and the boat is _charge_ their hands are full with the small craft and its heavy load; when the landing is made and the "messieurs" are _debarques_, instantly the men are busy lifting canoes on their heads and packs on their backs in bizarre, piled-up ma.s.ses to be carried from a leather tump-line, a strap of two inches wide going around the forehead. The whole length of the spine helps in the carrying. My colonel watched Delphise, a husky specimen, load. With a grunt he swung up a canvas U.S.

mailbag stuffed with _butin_, which includes clothes and books and shoes and tobacco and cartridges and more. With a half-syllable Delphise indicated to Laurent a bag of potatoes weighing eighty pounds, a box of tinned biscuit, a wooden package of cans of condensed milk, a rod case, and a raincoat. These Laurent added to the spine of Delphise.

"How many pounds?" I asked, as the dark head bent forward to equalize the strain.

Delphise s.h.i.+fted weight with another grunt to gauge the pull. "About a hundred and eighty pounds, m'sieur--quite heavy--_a.s.sez pesant_." Off he trotted uphill, head bent forward.

The colonel was entranced. "Hardy fellows--the making of fine soldiers,"

he commented, tossing his cigarette away to stare.

That night after dinner--but it was called supper--the colonel and I went into the big, airy log kitchen with the lake looking in at three windows and the forest at two doors. We gunned over with the men plans for the next day, for the most must be made of every minute of this precious military holiday. I explained how precious it was, and then I spoke a few words about the honor of having as our guest a soldier who had come from the front, and who was going back to the front. For the life of me I could not resist a sentence more about the two crosses they had seen on his uniform that day. The Cross of War, the Legion of Honor! I could not let my men miss that! Rafael had been quiet and colorless, and I was disappointed in the show qualities of my show guide. But the colonel beamed with satisfaction, in everything and everybody, and received my small introduction with a bow and a flourish worthy of Carnegie Hall.

"I am happy to be in this so charming camp, in this forest magnificent, on these ancient mountains," orated the colonel floridly. "I am most pleased of all to have Huron Indians as my guides, because between Hurons and me there are memories." The men were listening spell-bound.

"But yes. I had Huron soldiers serving in my regiment, just now at the western front, of whom I thought highly. They were all that there is, those Hurons of mine, of most fearless, most skilful. One among them was pre-eminent. Some of you may have known him. I regret to say that I never knew his real name, but among his comrades he went by the name of l'Hirondelle. From that name one guesses his qualities--swift as a swallow, untamable, gay, brave to foolishness, moving in dashes not to be followed--such was my Hirondelle. And yet this swift bird was in the end shot down."

At this point in the colonel's speech. I happened to look at Rafael, back in the shadows of the half-lighted big room. His eyes glittered out of the dimness like disks of fire, his face was strained, and his figure bent forward. "He must have known this chap, the Swallow," I thought to myself. "Just possibly a son or brother or nephew of his." The colonel was going on, telling in fluent, beautiful French the story of how Hirondelle, wrapped in a sheet, had rescued him. The men drank it in.

"When those guides are old, old fellows, they'll talk about this night and the colonel's speech to their great-grandchildren," I considered, and again the colonel went on.

"Have I m'sieur's permission to _raconter_ a short story of the most amusing which was the last escapade of my Hirondelle before he was killed?"

M'sieur gave permission eagerly, and the low murmur of the voices of the hypnotized guides, standing in a group before the colonel, added to its force and set him smiling.

"It was like this," he stated. "My Hirondelle was out in No Man's Land of a night, strictly charged to behave in a manner _comme il faut_, for he was of a rashness, and we did not wish to lose him. He was valuable to us, and beyond that the regiment had an affection for him. For such reasons his captain tried--but, yes--to keep him within bounds. As I say, on this night he had received particular orders to be _sage_. So that the first thing the fellow does is to lose his comrades, for which he had a _penchant_, one knows. After that he crawls over that accursed country, in and out of sh.e.l.lholes, rifle in his teeth likely--the good G.o.d knows where else, for one need be all hands and feet for such crawling. He crawled in that fas.h.i.+on till at last he lost himself. And then he was concerned to find out where might be our lines till in time he heard a sound of snoring and was well content. Home at last. He tumbled into a dark trench, remarking only that it was filled with men since he left, and so tired he was with his adventure that he pushed away the man next, who was at the end, to gain s.p.a.ce, and he rolled over to sleep. But that troublesome man next took too much room. Our Hirondelle planted him a kick in the middle of the back. At which the man half waked and swore at him--in German. And dropped off to sleep again with his leg of a pig slung across Hirondelle's chest. At that second a star-sh.e.l.l lighted up the affair, and Hirondelle, staring with much interest, believe me, saw a trench filled with sleeping Boches. To get out of that as quietly as might be was the game--_n'est-ce-pas, mes amis_? But not for Hirondelle.

"'My colonel has a liking for prisoners,' he reported later. 'My captain's orders were to conduct oneself _tres comme il faut_. It is always _comme il faut_ to please the colonel. Therefore it seemed _en regle_ to take a prisoner. I took him. _Le v'la_.'

"What the fellow did was to wait till the Boche next door was well asleep, then slowly remove his rifle, then fasten on his throat with a grip which Hirondelle understood, and finally to overpower the Boche till he was ready enough to crawl out at the muzzle of Hirondelle's rifle."

There was a stir in the little group of guides, and from the shadows Rafael's voice spoke.

"Mon colonel--pardon!"

The colonel turned sharply. "Who is that?"

"There were two Germans," spoke the voice out of the shadows.

The colonel, too astonished to answer, stared. The voice, trembling, old, went on. "The second man waked and one was obliged to strangle him also. One brought the brace to the captain at the end of the carabine--rifle."

"In heaven's name who are you?" demanded the colonel.

From where old Rafael had been, bowed and limp in his humble, worn clothes, stepped at a stride a soldier, head up, shoulders squared, glittering eyes forward, and stood at attention. It was like magic. One hand snapped up in a smart salute.

"Who are you?" whispered the colonel.

"If the colonel pleases--l'Hirondelle."

I heard the colonel's breath come and go as he peered, leaning forward to the soldierly figure. "_Nom de Ciel_," he murmured, "I believe it is." Then in sharp sentences: "You were reported killed. Are you a deserter?"

The steady image of a soldier dropped back a step.

"My colonel--no."

"Explain this."

Rafael--l'Hirondelle--explained. He had not been killed, but captured and sent to a German prison-camp.

"You escaped?" the colonel threw in.

"But yes, my colonel."

The colonel laughed. "One would know it. The clumsy Boches could not hold the Swallow."

"But no, my colonel."

"Go on."