“She deserves the Croix de Guerre, if it is proved that she did it,” he thought. “She will have saved many thousands of lives—for the present.” Space did not allow of any separation; broken Frenchmen and broken Germans would often lie side by side. Joan would wonder, with a grim smile to herself, what the patriotic Press of the different countries would have thought had they been there to have overheard the conversations. Neither France nor Germany appeared to be the enemy, but a thing called “They,” a mysterious power that worked its will upon them both from a place they always spoke of as “Back there.” One day the talk fell on courage. A young French soldier was holding forth when Joan entered the hut.!

“But why leave it to his son,” argued Joan. “Why couldn’t the old man have set about it himself, instead of wasting thirty precious years?” “Oh, don’t you believe her,” she advised Mr. Halliday. “She loves you still. She’s only teasing you. This is Joan.”

Joan laughed. “You don’t somehow suggest the rat,” she said: “rather another sort of beast.” “Fifteen years,” she answered. “I was a bit older than ’im. But I’ve never looked my age, they tell me. Lord, what a boy ’e was! Swept you off your feet, like. ’E wasn’t the only one. I’d got a way with me, I suppose. Anyhow, the men seemed to think so. There was always a few ’anging about. Like flies round a ’oney-pot, Mother used to say.” She giggled. “But ’e wouldn’t take No for an answer. And I didn’t want to give it ’im, neither. I was gone on ’im, right enough. No use saying I wasn’t.” “Ah,” he said, “you would understand if you had. When one of the horses goes down gored, his entrails lying out upon the sand, you know what they do, don’t you? They put a rope round him, and drag him, groaning, into the shambles behind. And once there, kind people like you and Monsieur le Médecin tend him and wash him, and put his entrails back, and sew him up again. He thinks it so kind of them—the first time. But the second! He understands. He will be sent back into the arena to be ripped up again, and again after that. This is the third time I have been wounded, and as soon as you’ve all patched me up and I’ve got my breath again, they’ll send me back into it. Mam’selle will forgive my not feeling grateful to her.” He gave a short laugh that brought the blood into his mouth.