And then it transpired he had been carrying in the British wounded at the end of that day. He had been hit in the leg without knowing it, and just as he was starting off to help to carry in the German wounded, he collapsed.
_To help to carry in the German wounded!_ Those Germans who had tortured his own comrade all day! Dear Tommy! Dear, straight, noble, simple British soldier! How could one ever have mistrusted your rough justice or your Christian humanity?
Real boy that he is, he warms up to the glee of narrating his audacities when out at night with a party on listening-post duty.
He used to creep up to the enemy’s trench and bayonet what came handy.
“I couldn’t fire, you see, miss, nor do anything likely to make a noise, so it had to be done on the quiet. But I got a good many that way.”
Baby Vivi is tired of her game of cards. For a while past she has been amusing herself by boxing the two sitting soldiers. Very well-delivered vigorous thumps she applies on their chests with her little fists, and they obligingly go over backwards on the grass. She now comes to exercise her powers on the Territorial. He catches her in his arms.
The men all look at the little girl with strange, troubled, tender eyes. One knows what is at the back of their thought. One of them expresses it presently.
“To think that anyone could ever hurt a little creature like that!”
Vivi’s young mother sits with her small group further away. She has told them how she has fled out of her castle in the Ardennes at dawn, without having had time even to pack her children’s clothes. They had thought themselves safe with the pathetic hopefulness that filled poor Belgium from the moment when the French troops and the English appeared in strength upon the soil. “Now all is well,” they said; “now we are safe.”
A French General and his staff lodged in the château, and the men camped in the park. On the vigil of the day fixed for their intended advance, the General took her on one side. An old man, he had been through the whole of the war of ’70. He solemnly warned her of the folly of remaining in her home, as she intended.
“Madame, I know the Germans. I know of what they are capable. I have seen them at work; I have not forgotten.”