When he heard steps inside Henri went back to the ambulance. He got in
and drove it, lights and all, down the street.
Trou là là, ça ne va guère;
Trou là là, ça ne va pas.
Somewhere down the road beyond the poplar trees he abandoned the ambulance.
They found it there the next morning, or rather what was left of it.
Evidently its two unwinking eyes had got on the Germans' nerves.
* * * * *
Early the next morning a Saxon regiment, standing on the firing step
ready for what the dawn might bring forth, watched the mist rise from
the water in front of them. It shone on a body in a Belgian uniform,
lying across their wire, and very close indeed.
Now the Saxons are not Prussians, so no one for sport fired at the body.
Which was rather a good thing, because it moved slightly and stirred.
And then in a loud voice, which is an unusual thing for bodies to
possess, it began to sing:
Trou là là, ça ne va guère;
Trou là là, ça ne va pas.
XXVIII
Late in August Sara Lee broke her engagement with Harvey. She had been
away, at Cousin Jennie's, for a month, and for the first time since her
return she had had time to think. In the little suburban town there
were long hours of quiet when Cousin Jennie mended on the porch and Aunt
Harriet, enjoying a sort of reflected glory from Sara Lee, presided
at Red Cross meetings.
Sara Lee decided to send for Harvey, and he came for a week-end, arriving
pathetically eager, but with a sort of defiance too. He was determined
to hold her, but to hold her on his own terms.
Aunt Harriet had been vaguely uneasy, but Harvey's arrival seemed to put
everything right. She even kissed him when he came, and took great pains
to carry off Cousin Jennie when she showed an inclination toward
conversation and a seat on the porch.
Sara Lee had made a desperate resolve. She intended to lay all her
cards on the table. He should know all that there was to know. If,
after that, he still wanted to hold her--but she did not go so far.
She was so sure he would release her.
It was a despairing thing to do, but she was rather despairing those
days. There had been no letter from Henri or from Jean. She had written
them both several times, to Dunkirk, to the Savoy in London, to the
little house near the Front. But no replies had come. Yet mail was
going through. Mabel Andrews' letters from Boulogne came regularly.
When August went by, with no letters save Harvey's, begging her to come
back, she gave up at last. In the little church on Sundays, with Jennie
on one side and Aunt Harriet on the other, she voiced small silent
prayers--that the thing she feared had not happened. But she could not
think of Henri as not living. He was too strong, too vital.
She did not understand herself those days. She was desperately unhappy.
Sometimes she wondered if it would not be easier to know the truth, even
if that truth comprehended the worst.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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