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: Trou 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."