“What does that firing mean?” she asked.
“Signals from the outposts,” the nurse quietly replied.
“Is there any danger? Have the Germans come back?”
Surgeon Surville answered the question. He lifted the canvas screen, and looked into the room as Miss Roseberry spoke1.
“The Germans are advancing on us,” he said. “Their vanguard is in sight.”
Grace sank on the chair near her, trembling from head to foot. Mercy advanced to the surgeon, and put the decisive question to him.
“Do we defend the position?” she inquired.
Surgeon Surville ominously2 shook his head.
“Impossible! We are outnumbered as usual — ten to one.”
The shrill3 roll of the French drums was heard outside.
“There is the retreat sounded!” said the surgeon. “The captain is not a man to think twice about what he does. We are left to take care of ourselves. In five minutes we must be out of this place.”
A volley of rifle-shots rang out as he spoke. The German vanguard was attacking the French at the outposts. Grace caught the surgeon entreatingly4 by the arm. “Take me with you,” she cried. “Oh, sir, I have suffered from the Germans already! Don’t forsake5 me, if they come back!” The surgeon was equal to the occasion; he placed the hand of the pretty Englishwoman on his breast. “Fear nothing, madam,” he said, looking as if he could have annihilated6 the whole German force with his own invincible7 arm. “A Frenchman’s heart beats under your hand. A Frenchman’s devotion protects you.” Grace’s head sank on his shoulder. Monsieur Surville felt that he had asserted himself; he looked round invitingly8 at Mercy. She, too, was an attractive woman. The Frenchman had another shoulder at her service. Unhappily the room was dark — the look was lost on Mercy. She was thinking of the helpless men in the inner chamber9, and she quietly recalled the surgeon to a sense of his professional duties.
“What is to become of the sick and wounded?” she asked.
Monsieur Surville shrugged10 one shoulder — the shoulder that was free.
“The strongest among them we can take away with us,” he said. “The others must be left here. Fear nothing for yourself, dear lady. There will be a place for you in the baggage-wagon11.”
“And for me, too?” Grace pleaded, eagerly.
The surgeon’s invincible arm stole round the young lady’s waist, and answered mutely with a squeeze.
“Take her with you,” said Mercy. “My place is with the men whom you leave behind.”
Grace listened in amazement12. “Think what you risk,” she said “if you stop here.”
Mercy pointed13 to her left shoulder.
“Don’t alarm yourself on my account,” she answered; “the red cross will protect me.”
Another roll of the drum warned the susceptible14 surgeon to take his place as director-general of the ambulance without any further delay. He conducted Grace to a chair, and placed both her hands on his heart this time, to reconcile her to the misfortune of his absence. “Wait here till I return for you,” he whispered. “Fear nothing, my charming friend. Say to yourself, ‘Surville is the soul of honor! Surville is devoted15 to me!’” He struck his breast; he again forgot the obscurity in the room, and cast one look of unutterable homage16 at his charming friend. “A bientot!” he cried, and kissed his hand and disappeared.
As the canvas screen fell over him the sharp report of the rifle-firing was suddenly and grandly dominated by the roar of cannon17. The instant after a shell exploded in the garden outside, within a few yards of the window.
Grace sank on her knees with a shriek18 of terror. Mercy, without losing her self-possession, advanced to the window and looked out.
“The moon has risen,” she said. “The Germans are shelling the village.”
Grace rose, and ran to her for protection.
“Take me away!” she cried. “We shall be killed if we stay here.” She stopped, looking in astonishment19 at the tall black figure of the nurse, standing20 immovably by the window. “Are you made of iron?” she exclaimed. “Will nothing frighten you?”
Mercy smiled sadly. “Why should I be afraid of losing my life?” she answered. “I have nothing worth living for!”
The roar of the cannon shook the cottage for the second time. A second shell exploded in the courtyard, on the opposite side of the building.
Bewildered by the noise, panic-stricken as the danger from the shells threatened the cottage more and more nearly, Grace threw her arms round the nurse, and clung, in the abject21 familiarity of terror, to the woman whose hand she had shrunk from touching22 not five minutes since. “Where is it safest?” she cried. “Where can I hide myself?”
“How can I tell where the next shell will fall?” Mercy answered, quietly.
The steady composure of the one woman seemed to madden the other. Releasing the nurse, Grace looked wildly round for a way of escape from the cottage. Making first for the kitchen, she was driven back by the clamor and confusion attending the removal of those among the wounded who were strong enough to be placed in the wagon. A second look round showed her the door leading into the yard. She rushed to it with a cry of relief. She had just laid her hand on the lock when the third report of cannon burst over the place.
Starting back a step, Grace lifted her hands mechanically to her ears. At the same moment the third shell burst through the roof of the cottage, and exploded in the room, just inside the door. Mercy sprang forward, unhurt, from her place at the window. The burning fragments of the shell were already firing the dry wooden floor, and in the midst of them, dimly seen through the smoke, lay the insensible body of her companion in the room. Even at that dreadful moment the nurse’s presence of mind did not fail her. Hurrying back to the place that she had just left, near which she had already noticed the miller’s empty sacks lying in a heap, she seized two of them, and, throwing them on the smoldering23 floor, trampled24 out the fire. That done, she knelt by the senseless woman, and lifted her head.
Was she wounded? or dead?
Mercy raised one helpless hand, and laid her fingers on the wrist. While she was still vainly trying to feel for the beating of the pulse, Surgeon Surville (alarmed for the ladies) hurried in to inquire if any harm had been done.
Mercy called to him to approach. “I am afraid the shell has struck her,” she said, yielding her place to him. “See if she is badly hurt.”
The surgeon’s anxiety for his charming patient expressed itself briefly25 in an oath, with a prodigious26 emphasis laid on one of the letters in it — the letter R. “Take off her cloak,” he cried, raising his hand to her neck. “Poor angel! She has turned in falling; the string is twisted round her throat.”
Mercy removed the cloak. It dropped on the floor as the surgeon lifted Grace in his arms. “Get a candle,” he said, impatiently; “they will give you one in the kitchen.” He tried to feel the pulse: his hand trembled, the noise and confusion in the kitchen bewildered him. “Just Heaven!” he exclaimed. “My emotions overpower me!” Mercy approached him with the candle. The light disclosed the frightful27 injury which a fragment of the shell had inflicted28 on the Englishwoman’s head. Surgeon Surville’s manner altered on the instant. The expression of anxiety left his face; its professional composure covered it suddenly like a mask. What was the object of his admiration29 now? An inert30 burden in his arms — nothing more.
The change in his face was not lost on Mercy. Her large gray eyes watched him attentively31. “Is the lady seriously wounded?” she asked.
“Don’t trouble yourself to hold the light any longer,” was the cool reply. “It’s all over — I can do nothing for her.”
“Dead?”
Surgeon Surville nodded and shook his fist in the direction of the outposts. “Accursed Germans!” he cried, and looked down at the dead face on his arm, and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “The fortune of war!” he said as he lifted the body and placed it on the bed in one corner of the room. “Next time, nurse, it may be you or me. Who knows? Bah! the problem of human destiny disgusts me.” He turned from the bed, and illustrated32 his disgust by spitting on the fragments of the exploded shell. “We must leave her there,” he resumed. “She was once a charming person — she is nothing now. Come away, Miss Mercy, before it is too late.”
He offered his arm to the nurse; the creaking of the baggage-wagon, starting on its journey, was heard outside, and the shrill roll of the drums was renewed in the distance. The retreat had begun.
Mercy drew aside the canvas, and saw the badly wounded men, left helpless at the mercy of the enemy, on their straw beds. She refused the offer of Monsieur Surville’s arm.
“I have already told you that I shall stay here,” she answered.
Monsieur Surville lifted his hands in polite remonstrance33. Mercy held back the curtain, and pointed to the cottage door.
“Go,” she said. “My mind is made up.”
Even at that final moment the Frenchman asserted himself. He made his exit with unimpaired grace and dignity. “Madam,” he said, “you are sublime34!” With that parting compliment the man of gallantry — true to the last to his admiration of the sex — bowed, with his hand on his heart, and left the cottage.
Mercy dropped the canvas over the doorway35. She was alone with the dead woman.
The last tramp of footsteps, the last rumbling36 of the wagon wheels, died away in the distance. No renewal37 of firing from the position occupied by the enemy disturbed the silence that followed. The Germans knew that the French were in retreat. A few minutes more and they would take possession of the abandoned village: the tumult38 of their approach should become audible at the cottage. In the meantime the stillness was terrible. Even the wounded wretches39 who were left in the kitchen waited their fate in silence.
Alone in the room, Mercy’s first look was directed to the bed.
The two women had met in the confusion of the first skirmish at the close of twilight40. Separated, on their arrival at the cottage, by the duties required of the nurse, they had only met again in the captain’s room. The acquaintance between them had been a short one; and it had given no promise of ripening41 into friendship. But the fatal accident had roused Mercy’s interest in the stranger. She took the candle, and approached the corpse42 of the woman who had been literally43 killed at her side.
She stood by the bed, looking down in the silence of the night at the stillness of the dead face.
It was a striking face — once seen (in life or in death) not to be forgotten afterward44. The forehead was unusually low and broad; the eyes unusually far apart; the mouth and chin remarkably45 small. With tender hands Mercy smoothed the disheveled hair and arranged the crumpled46 dress. “Not five minutes since,” she thought to herself, “I was longing47 to change places with you!” She turned from the bed with a sigh. “I wish I could change places now!”
The silence began to oppress her. She walked slowly to the other end of the room.
The cloak on the floor — her own cloak, which she had lent to Miss Roseberry — attracted her attention as she passed it. She picked it up and brushed the dust from it, and laid it across a chair. This done, she put the light back on the table, and going to the window, listened for the first sounds of the German advance. The faint passage of the wind through some trees near at hand was the only sound that caught her ears. She turned from the window, and seated herself at the table, thinking. Was there any duty still left undone48 that Christian49 charity owed to the dead? Was there any further service that pressed for performance in the interval50 before the Germans appeared?
Mercy recalled the conversation that had passed between her ill-fated companion and herself. Miss Roseberry had spoken of her object in returning to England. She had mentioned a lady — a connection by marriage, to whom she was personally a stranger — who was waiting to receive her. Some one capable of stating how the poor creature had met with her death ought to write to her only friend. Who was to do it? There was nobody to do it but the one witness of the catastrophe51 now left in the cottage — Mercy herself.
She lifted the cloak from the chair on which she had placed it, and took from the pocket the leather letter-case which Grace had shown to her. The only way of discovering the address to write to in England was to open the case and examine the papers inside. Mercy opened the case — and stopped, feeling a strange reluctance52 to carry the investigation53 any farther.
A moment’s consideration satisfied her that her scruples54 were misplaced. If she respected the case as inviolable, the Germans would certainly not hesitate to examine it, and the Germans would hardly trouble themselves to write to England. Which were the fittest eyes to inspect the papers of the deceased lady — the eyes of men and foreigners, or the eyes of her own countrywoman? Mercy’s hesitation55 left her. She emptied the contents of the case on the table.
That trifling56 action decided57 the whole future course of her life.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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entreatingly
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| 哀求地，乞求地 | |
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forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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6
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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7
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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invitingly
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| adv. 动人地 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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24
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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25
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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28
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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32
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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33
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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34
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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36
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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39
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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40
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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41
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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42
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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45
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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46
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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47
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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48
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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49
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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50
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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51
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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52
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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53
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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54
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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56
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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57
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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