The officer shot him instantly in the chest. He fell and lay still and
the officer bent over him. In that moment Henri stabbed him with a
knife in his left hand. Men were coming from every direction, but he
got away--he did not clearly remember how. And at dawn he fell into
the Belgian farmhouse, apparently dying.
Jean's story, on the other hand, was given early and with no hesitation.
He had crossed the border at Holland in civilian clothes, by the simple
expedient of bribing a sentry. He had got, with little difficulty, to
the farmhouse, and found Henri, now recovering but very weak; he was
lying hidden in a garret, and he was suffering from hunger and lack of
medical attention. In a wagon full of market stuff, Henri hidden in the
bed of it, they had got to the border again. And there Jean had, it
seemed, stabbed the sentry he had bribed before and driven on to neutral
soil.
Not an unusual story, that of Henri and Jean. The journey across
Belgium in the springless farm wagon was the worst. They had had to
take roundabout lanes, avoiding the main highways. Fortunately, always
at night there were friendly houses, kind hands to lift Henri into warm
fire-lighted interiors. Many messages they had brought back, some of
cheer, but too often of tragedy, from the small farmsteads of Belgium.
Then finally had been Holland, and the chartering of a boat--and at
last--"Here we are, and here we are, and here we are again," sang Henri,
chopping at his cotton and making a great show of cheerfulness before
Sara Lee.
But with Jean sometimes he showed the black depression beneath. He
would never be a man again. He was done for. He gained strength so
slowly that he believed he was not gaining at all. He was not happy,
and the unhappy mend slowly.
After the time he had asked Jean to take away Harvey's photograph he did
not recur to the subject, but he did not need to. Jean knew, perhaps
even better than Henri himself, that the boy was recklessly, hopelessly,
not quite rationally in love with the American girl.
Also Henri was fretting about his work. Sometimes at night, following
Henri's instructions, Jean wandered quietly along roads and paths that
paralleled the Front. At such times his eyes were turned, not toward
the trenches, but toward that flat country which lay behind, still dotted
at that time with groves of trees, with canals overhung with pollard
willows, and with here and there a farmhouse that at night took on in
the starlight the appearance of being whole again.