第74章

There was wild excitement indeed.Bearded private soldiers, forgetting that name and rank of his which must not be told, patted his thin shoulders.Officers who had lived through such horrors as also may not be told, crowded about him and shook hands with him, and with each other.

It was as though from the graveyard back in the fields had come, alive and smiling, some dearly beloved friend.

He would have told the story, but he was wet and weary.

"That can wait," they said, and led him, a motley band of officers and men intermixed, for once forgetting all decorum, toward the village.They overtook the lines of men who had left the trenches and were moving with their slow and weary gait up the road.The news spread through the column.There were muffled cheers.Figures stepped out of the darkness with hands out.Henri clasped as many as he could.

When with his escort he had passed the men they fell, almost without orders, into columns of four, and swung in behind him.There was no band, but from a thousand throats, yet cautiously until they passed the poplar trees, there gradually swelled and grew a marching song.

Behind Henri a strange guard of honor - muddy, tired, torn, even wounded - they marched and sang:

Thou la la, ca ne va guere;Trou la la, ce ne va pas.

Sara Lee, listening for that first shuffle of many feet that sounded so like the wind in the trees or water over the pebbles of a brook, paused in her work and lifted her head.The rhythm of marching feet came through the wooden shutters.The very building seemed to vibrate with it.And there was a growling sound with it that soon she knew to be the deep voices of singing men.

She went to the door and stood there, looking down the street.Behind her was the warm glow of the lamp, all the snug invitation of the little house.

A group of soldiers had paused in front of the doorway, and from them one emerged - tall, white, infinitely weary - and looked up at her with unbelieving eyes.

After all, there are no words for such meetings.Henri took her hand, still with that sense of unreality, and bent over it.And Sara Lee touched his head as he stooped, because she had called for so long, and only now he had come.

"So you have come back!" she said in what she hoped was a composed tone - because a great many people were listening.He raised his head and looked at her.

"It is you who have come back, mademoiselle."There was gayety in the little house that night.Every candle was lighted.They were stuck in rows on mantel-shelves.They blazed - and melted into strange arcs - above the kitchen stove.There were cigarettes for everybody, and food; and a dry uniform, rather small, for Henri.Marie wept over her soup, and ran every few moments to the door to see if he was still there.She had kissed him on both cheeks when he came in, and showed signs, every now and then, of doing it again.

Sara Lee did her bandaging as usual, but with shining eyes.And soon after Henri's arrival a dispatch rider set off post haste with certain papers and maps, hurriedly written and drawn.Henri had not only returned, he had brought back information of great value to all the Allied armies.