"I don't think we're afraid," I said, and consulted the Becketts. The little old lady answered for both. She was stoutly sure they were not afraid! "We shouldn't deserve to be Jim's parents if we were--of a thing like _that_! You tell the Captain, Molly, we're getting used to bombs, and we want the story right here, on the spot!"
"_C'est très chic, ça!_" remarked the Captain, eyeing the mite of a woman. He stood for a minute, his scarred face pale in the mist, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on a headless stone king. Then he began his story of the soldier-priest.
Monsieur le Curé de St. Pol was very young when the war began--almost as young as a _curé_ can be. He did not think, at first, to become a soldier, for he hated war. But, indeed, in those early days he had no time to think at all. He only worked--worked, to help care for the wounded who were pouring into Rheims, toward the last of August, 1914. Many were brought into the Cathedral, where they lay on the floor, on beds of straw. The Curé's duty was among these. He had relations in Rheims--a family of cousins of the same name as his. They lived in a beautiful old house, one of the best in Rheims, with an ancient chapel in the garden. There was an invalid father, whose wife devoted her life to him, and a daughter--a very beautiful young girl just home from a convent-school the spring before the war broke out. There was a son, too--but naturally, he was away fighting.
This young girl, Liane de St. Pol, was one of many in Rheims who volunteered to help nurse the wounded. All girls brought up in convents have some skill in nursing, you know!
While she and the Curé were at work in the Cathedral, among the wounded men who came in were her own brother, a lieutenant, and his best friend, a captain of his regiment. Both were badly hurt--the St. Pol boy worse than his friend. Yet even for him there was hope--if he could have had the best of care--if he could have been taken home and lovingly nursed there. That was not possible. The surgeons had no time for house-to-house visits. He was operated on in the Cathedral, and as he lay between life and death, news came that the Germans were close to Rheims.
In haste the wounded were sent to Épernay--to save them from being made prisoners. But some could not go: Louis de St. Pol and his friend Captain Jean de Visgnes. De Visgnes might have been hidden in the St. Pol house but he would not leave the boy, who could not be moved so far. The Curé vowed to hide both, and he did hide them in a chapel of the Cathedral itself. On September 3, at evening, the first Germans rode into the town and took up their quarters in the Municipal Palace, where they forced the Mayor, a very old man, to live with them. It was a changed Rheims since the day before. The troops of the garrison had gone in the direction of Épernay, since there was no hope of defence. Many rich people had fled, taking what they could carry in automobiles or cabs. The poor feared a siege--or worse: they knew not what. The St. Pol family received into their house a number of women whose husbands were at the Front, and their babies. No one ventured out who could stay indoors. The city filled up with German soldiers, with the Kaiser's son, Prince August Wilhelm, at their head. They, too, had wounded. The Cathedral was put to use for them, and the Curé cared for the Boches as he had cared for the French. This gave him a chance, at night, to nurse his two friends. So dragged on seven days, which seemed seven years; and then rumours drifted in of a great German retreat, a mysterious failure in the midst of seeming victory. The Battle of the Marne was making itself felt. In rage and bewilderment the Germans poured out of Rheims, leaving only their wounded behind. The townspeople praised God, and thought their trial was over. But it was only just begun! On the 16th the bombardment opened. The Germans knew that their wounded still lay in the Cathedral, but they did not seem to care for men out of the fighting line. A rain of bombs fell in the town--one of the first wrecked the Red Cross ambulance--and many struck the Cathedral. Then came the night when the straw bedding blazed, and fire poured through the long naves, rising to the roof.