Chapter 1

It was close upon half-past six and the evening shadows were growing
denser when two soldiers reached the little space, planted with trees,
opposite the Musée Galliéra, where the Rue de Chaillot and the Rue
Pierre-Charron meet. One wore an infantryman's sky-blue great-coat; the
other, a Senegalese, those clothes of undyed wool, with baggy breeches
and a belted jacket, in which the Zouaves and the native African troops
have been dressed since the war. One of them had lost his right leg, the
other his left arm.

They walked round the open space, in the center of which stands a fine
group of Silenus figures, and stopped. The infantryman threw away his
cigarette. The Senegalese picked it up, took a few quick puffs at it,
put it out by squeezing it between his fore-finger and thumb and stuffed
it into his pocket. All this without a word.

Almost at the same time two more soldiers came out of the Rue Galliéra.
It would have been impossible to say to what branch they belonged, for
their military attire was composed of the most incongruous civilian
garments. However, one of them sported a Zouave's _chechia_, the other
an artilleryman's _képi_. The first walked on crutches, the other on two
sticks. These two kept near the newspaper-kiosk which stands at the edge
of the pavement.

Three others came singly by the Rue Pierre-Charron, the Rue Brignoles
and the Rue de Chaillot: a one-armed rifleman, a limping sapper and a
marine with a hip that looked as if it was twisted. Each of them made
straight for a tree and leant against it.

Not a word was uttered among them. None of the seven crippled soldiers
seemed to know his companions or to trouble about or even perceive their
presence. They stood behind their trees or behind the kiosk or behind
the group of Silenus figures without stirring. And the few wayfarers
who, on that evening of the 3rd of April, 1915, crossed this
unfrequented square, which received hardly any light from the shrouded
street-lamps, did not slacken pace to observe the men's motionless
outlines.

A clock struck half-past six. At that moment the door of one of the
houses overlooking the square opened. A man came out, closed the door
behind him, crossed the Rue de Chaillot and walked round the open space
in front of the museum. It was an officer in khaki. Under his red
forage-cap, with its three lines of gold braid, his head was wrapped in
a wide linen bandage, which hid his forehead and neck. He was tall and
very slenderly built. His right leg ended in a wooden stump with a
rubber foot to it. He leant on a stick.

Leaving the square, he stepped into the roadway of the Rue
Pierre-Charron. Here he turned and gave a leisurely look to his
surroundings on every side. This minute inspection brought him to one
of the trees facing the museum. With the tip of his cane he gently
tapped a protruding stomach. The stomach pulled itself in.

The officer moved off again. This time he went definitely down the Rue
Pierre-Charron towards the center of Paris. He thus came to the Avenue
des Champs-Élysées, which he went up, taking the left pavement.

Two hundred yards further on was a large house, which had been
transformed, as a flag proclaimed, into a hospital. The officer took up
his position at some distance, so as not to be seen by those leaving,
and waited.

It struck a quarter to seven and seven o'clock. A few more minutes
passed. Five persons came out of the house, followed by two more. At
last a lady appeared in the hall, a nurse wearing a wide blue cloak
marked with the Red Cross.

"Here she comes," said the officer.

She took the road by which he had arrived and turned down the Rue
Pierre-Charron, keeping to the right-hand pavement and thus making for
the space where the street meets the Rue de Chaillot. Her walk was
light, her step easy and well-balanced. The wind, buffeting against her
as she moved quickly on her way, swelled out the long blue veil floating
around her shoulders. Notwithstanding the width of the cloak, the
rhythmical swing of her body and the youthfulness of her figure were
revealed. The officer kept behind her and walked along with an
absent-minded air, twirling his stick, like a man taking an aimless
stroll.

At this moment there was nobody in sight, in that part of the street,
except him and her. But, just after she had crossed the Avenue Marceau
and some time before he reached it, a motor standing in the avenue
started driving in the same direction as the nurse, at a fixed distance
from her.

It was a taxi-cab. And the officer noticed two things: first, that there
were two men inside it and, next, that one of them leant out of the
window almost the whole time, talking to the driver. He was able to
catch a momentary glimpse of this man's face, cut in half by a heavy
mustache and surmounted by a gray felt hat.

Meanwhile, the nurse walked on without turning round. The officer had
crossed the street and now hurried his pace, the more so as it struck
him that the cab was also increasing its speed as the girl drew near the
space in front of the museum.

From where he was the officer could take in almost the whole of the
little square at a glance; and, however sharply he looked, he discerned
nothing in the darkness that revealed the presence of the seven crippled
men. No one, moreover, was passing on foot or driving. In the distance
only, in the dusk of the wide crossing avenues, two tram-cars, with
lowered blinds, disturbed the silence.

Nor did the girl, presuming that she was paying attention to the sights
of the street, appear to see anything to alarm her. She gave not the
least sign of hesitation. And the behavior of the motor-cab following
her did not seem to strike her either, for she did not look round once.

The cab, however, was gaining ground. When it neared the square, it was
ten or fifteen yards, at most, from the nurse; and, by the time that
she, still noticing nothing, had reached the first trees, it came
closer yet and, leaving the middle of the road, began to hug the
pavement, while, on the side opposite the pavement, the left-hand side,
the man who kept leaning out had opened the door and was now standing on
the step.

The officer crossed the street once more, briskly, without fear of being
seen, so heedless did the two men now appear of anything but their
immediate business. He raised a whistle to his lips. There was no doubt
that the expected event was about to take place.

The cab, in fact, pulled up suddenly. The two men leapt from the doors
on either side and rushed to the pavement of the square, a few yards
from the kiosk. At the same moment there was a cry of terror from the
girl and a shrill whistle from the officer. And, also at the same time,
the two men caught up and seized their victim and dragged her towards
the cab, while the seven wounded soldiers, seeming to spring from the
very trunks of the trees that hid them, fell upon the two aggressors.

The battle did not last long. Or rather there was no battle. At the
outset the driver of the taxi, perceiving that the attack was being
countered, made off and drove away as fast as he could. As for the two
men, realizing that their enterprise had failed and finding themselves
faced with a threatening array of uplifted sticks and crutches, not to
mention the barrel of a revolver which the officer pointed at them, they
let go the girl, tacked from side to side, to prevent the officer from
taking aim, and disappeared in the darkness of the Rue Brignoles.

"Run for all you're worth, Ya-Bon," said the officer to the one-armed
Senegalese, "and bring me back one of them by the scruff of the neck!"

He supported the girl with his arm. She was trembling all over and
seemed ready to faint.

"Don't be frightened, Little Mother Coralie," he said, very anxiously.
"It's I, Captain Belval, Patrice Belval."

"Ah, it's you, captain!" she stammered.

"Yes; all your friends have gathered round to defend you, all your old
patients from the hospital, whom I found in the convalescent home."

"Thank you. Thank you." And she added, in a quivering voice, "The
others? Those two men?"

"Run away. Ya-Bon's gone after them."

"But what did they want with me? And what miracle brought you all here?"

"We'll talk about that later, Little Mother Coralie. Let's speak of you
first. Where am I to take you? Don't you think you'd better come in here
with me, until you've recovered and taken a little rest?"

Assisted by one of the soldiers, he helped her gently to the house which
he himself had left three-quarters of an hour before. The girl let him
do as he pleased. They all entered an apartment on the ground-floor and
went into the drawing-room, where a bright fire of logs was burning. He
switched on the electric light:

"Sit down," he said.

She dropped into a chair; and the captain at once gave his orders:

"You, Poulard, go and fetch a glass in the dining-room. And you, Ribrac,
draw a jug of cold water in the kitchen. . . . Chatelain, you'll find a
decanter of rum in the pantry. . . . Or, stay, she doesn't like rum.
. . . Then . . ."

"Then," she said, smiling, "just a glass of water, please."

Her cheeks, which were naturally pale, recovered a little of their
warmth. The blood flowed back to her lips; and the smile on her face was
full of confidence. Her face, all charm and gentleness, had a pure
outline, features almost too delicate, a fair complexion and the
ingenuous expression of a wondering child that looks on life with eyes
always wide open. And all this, which was dainty and exquisite,
nevertheless at certain moments gave an impression of energy, due no
doubt to her shining, dark eyes and to the line of smooth, black hair
that came down on either side from under the white cap in which her
forehead was imprisoned.

"Aha!" cried the captain, gaily, when she had drunk the water. "You're
feeling better, I think, eh, Little Mother Coralie?"

"Much better."

"Capital. But that was a bad minute we went through just now! What an
adventure! We shall have to talk it all over and get some light on it,
sha'n't we? Meanwhile, my lads, pay your respects to Little Mother
Coralie. Eh, my fine fellows, who would have thought, when she was
coddling you and patting your pillows for your fat pates to sink into,
that one day we should be taking care of her and that the children would
be coddling their little mother?"

They all pressed round her, the one-armed and the one-legged, the
crippled and the sick, all glad to see her. And she shook hands with
them affectionately:

"Well, Ribrac, how's that leg of yours?"

"I don't feel it any longer, Little Mother Coralie."

"And you, Vatinel? That wound in your shoulder?"

"Not a sign of it, Little Mother Coralie."

"And you, Poulard? And you, Jorisse?"

Her emotion increased at seeing them again, the men whom she called her
children. And Patrice Belval exclaimed:

"Ah, Little Mother Coralie, now you're crying! Little mother, little
mother, that's how you captured all our hearts. When we were trying our
hardest not to call out, on our bed of pain, we used to see your eyes
filling with great tears. Little Mother Coralie was weeping over her
children. Then we clenched our teeth still firmer."

"And I used to cry still more," she said, "just because you were afraid
of hurting me."

"And to-day you're at it again. No, you are too soft-hearted! You love
us. We love you. There's nothing to cry about in that. Come, Little
Mother Coralie, a smile. . . . And, I say, here's Ya-Bon coming; and
Ya-Bon always laughs."

She rose suddenly:

"Do you think he can have overtaken one of the two men?"

"Do I think so? I told Ya-Bon to bring one back by the neck. He won't
fail. I'm only afraid of one thing. . . ."

They had gone towards the hall. The Senegalese was already on the steps.
With his right hand he was clutching the neck of a man, of a limp rag,
rather, which he seemed to be carrying at arm's length, like a
dancing-doll.

"Drop him," said the captain.

Ya-Bon loosened his fingers. The man fell on the flags in the hall.

"That's what I feared," muttered the officer. "Ya-Bon has only his right
hand; but, when that hand holds any one by the throat, it's a miracle if
it doesn't strangle him. The Boches know something about it."

Ya-Bon was a sort of colossus, the color of gleaming coal, with a woolly
head and a few curly hairs on his chin, with an empty sleeve fastened to
his left shoulder and two medals pinned to his jacket. Ya-Bon had had
one cheek, one side of his jaw, half his mouth and the whole of his
palate smashed by a splinter of shell. The other half of that mouth was
split to the ear in a laugh which never seemed to cease and which was
all the more surprising because the wounded portion of the face, patched
up as best it could be and covered with a grafted skin, remained
impassive.

Moreover, Ya-Bon had lost his power of speech. The most that he could do
was to emit a sequence of indistinct grunts in which his nickname of
Ya-Bon was everlastingly repeated.

He uttered it once more with a satisfied air, glancing by turns at his
master and his victim, like a good sporting-dog standing over the bird
which he has retrieved.

"Good," said the officer. "But, next time, go to work more gently."

He bent over the man, felt his heart and, on seeing that he had only
fainted, asked the nurse:

"Do you know him?"

"No," she said.

"Are you sure? Have you never seen that head anywhere?"

It was a very big head, with black hair, plastered down with grease, and
a thick beard. The man's clothes, which were of dark-blue serge and
well-cut, showed him to be in easy circumstances.

"Never . . . never," the girl declared.

Captain Belval searched the man's pockets. They contained no papers.

"Very well," he said, rising to his feet, "we will wait till he wakes up
and question him then. Ya-Bon, tie up his arms and legs and stay here,
in the hall. The rest of you fellows, go back to the home: it's time you
were indoors. I have my key. Say good-by to Little Mother Coralie and
trot off."

And, when good-by had been said, he pushed them outside, came back to
the nurse, led her into the drawing-room and said:

"Now let's talk, Little Mother Coralie. First of all, before we try to
explain things, listen to me. It won't take long."

They were sitting before the merrily blazing fire. Patrice Belval
slipped a hassock under Little Mother Coralie's feet, put out a light
that seemed to worry her and, when he felt certain that she was
comfortable, began:

"As you know, Little Mother Coralie, I left the hospital a week ago and
am staying on the Boulevard Maillot, at Neuilly, in the home reserved
for the convalescent patients of the hospital. I sleep there at night
and have my wounds dressed in the morning. The rest of the time I spend
in loafing: I stroll about, lunch and dine where the mood takes me and
go and call on my friends. Well, this morning I was waiting for one of
them in a big café-restaurant on the boulevard, when I overheard the end
of a conversation. . . . But I must tell you that the place is divided
into two by a partition standing about six feet high, with the customers
of the café on one side and those of the restaurant on the other. I was
all by myself in the restaurant; and the two men, who had their backs
turned to me and who in any case were out of sight, probably thought
that there was no one there at all, for they were speaking rather louder
than they need have done, considering the sentences which I overheard
. . . and which I afterwards wrote down in my little note-book."

He took the note-book from his pocket and went on:

"These sentences, which caught my attention for reasons which you will
understand presently, were preceded by some others in which there was a
reference to sparks, to a shower of sparks that had already occurred
twice before the war, a sort of night signal for the possible repetition
of which they proposed to watch, so that they might act quickly as soon
as it appeared. Does none of this tell you anything?"

"No. Why?"

"You shall see. By the way, I forgot to tell you that the two were
talking English, quite correctly, but with an accent which assured me
that neither of them was an Englishman. Here is what they said,
faithfully translated: 'To finish up, therefore,' said one, 'everything
is decided. You and he will be at the appointed place at a little before
seven this evening.' 'We shall be there, colonel. We have engaged our
taxi.' 'Good. Remember that the little woman leaves her hospital at
seven o'clock.' 'Have no fear. There can't be any mistake, because she
always goes the same way, down the Rue Pierre-Charron.' 'And your whole
plan is settled?' 'In every particular. The thing will happen in the
square at the end of the Rue de Chaillot. Even granting that there may
be people about, they will have no time to rescue her, for we shall act
too quickly.' 'Are you certain of your driver?' 'I am certain that we
shall pay him enough to secure his obedience. That's all we want.'
'Capital. I'll wait for you at the place you know of, in a motor-car.
You'll hand the little woman over to me. From that moment, we shall be
masters of the situation.' 'And you of the little woman, colonel, which
isn't bad for you, for she's deucedly pretty.' 'Deucedly, as you say.
I've known her a long time by sight; and, upon my word. . . .' The two
began to laugh coarsely and called for their bill. I at once got up and
went to the door on the boulevard, but only one of them came out by that
door, a man with a big drooping mustache and a gray felt hat. The other
had left by the door in the street round the corner. There was only one
taxi in the road. The man took it and I had to give up all hope of
following him. Only . . . only, as I knew that you left the hospital at
seven o'clock every evening and that you went along the Rue
Pierre-Charron, I was justified, wasn't I, in believing . . . ?"

The captain stopped. The girl reflected, with a thoughtful air.
Presently she asked:

"Why didn't you warn me?"

"Warn you!" he exclaimed. "And, if, after all, it wasn't you? Why alarm
you? And, if, on the other hand, it was you, why put you on your guard?
After the attempt had failed, your enemies would have laid another trap
for you; and we, not knowing of it, would have been unable to prevent
it. No, the best thing was to accept the fight. I enrolled a little band
of your former patients who were being treated at the home; and, as the
friend whom I was expecting to meet happened to live in the square,
here, in this house, I asked him to place his rooms at my disposal from
six to nine o'clock. That's what I did, Little Mother Coralie. And now
that you know as much as I do, what do you think of it?"

She gave him her hand:

"I think you have saved me from an unknown danger that looks like a very
great one; and I thank you."

"No, no," he said, "I can accept no thanks. I was so glad to have
succeeded! What I want to know is your opinion of the business itself?"

Without a second's hesitation, she replied:

"I have none. Not a word, not an incident, in all that you have told me,
suggests the least idea to me."

"You have no enemies, to your knowledge?"

"Personally, no."

"What about that man to whom your two assailants were to hand you over
and who says that he knows you?"

"Doesn't every woman," she said, with a slight blush, "come across men
who pursue her more or less openly? I can't tell who it is."

The captain was silent for a while and then went on:

"When all is said, our only hope of clearing up the matter lies in
questioning our prisoner. If he refuses to answer, I shall hand him over
to the police, who will know how to get to the bottom of the business."

The girl gave a start:

"The police?"

"Well, of course. What would you have me do with the fellow? He doesn't
belong to me. He belongs to the police."

"No, no, no!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "Not on any account! What, have
my life gone into? . . . Have to appear before the magistrate? . . .
Have my name mixed up in all this? . . ."

"And yet, Little Mother Coralie, I can't . . ."

"Oh, I beg, I beseech you, as my friend, find some way out of it, but
don't have me talked about! I don't want to be talked about!"

The captain looked at her, somewhat surprised to see her in such a state
of agitation, and said:

"You sha'n't be talked about, Little Mother Coralie, I promise you."

"Then what will you do with that man?"

"Well," he said, with a laugh, "I shall begin by asking him politely if
he will condescend to answer my questions; then thank him for his civil
behavior to you; and lastly beg him to be good enough to go away."

He rose:

"Do you wish to see him, Little Mother Coralie?"

"No," she said, "I am so tired! If you don't want me, question him by
yourself. You can tell me about it afterwards. . . ."

She seemed quite exhausted by all this fresh excitement and strain,
added to all those which already rendered her life as a nurse so hard.
The captain did not insist and went out, closing the door of the
drawing-room after him.

She heard him saying:

"Well, Ya-Bon, have you kept a good watch! No news? And how's your
prisoner? . . . Ah, there you are, my fine fellow! Have you got your
breath back? Oh, I know Ya-Bon's hand is a bit heavy! . . . What's this?
Won't you answer? . . . Hallo, what's happened? Hanged if I don't think
. . ."

A cry escaped him. The girl ran to the hall. She met the captain, who
tried to bar her way.

"Don't come," he said, in great agitation. "What's the use!"

"But you're hurt!" she exclaimed.

"I?"

"There's blood on your shirt-cuff."

"So there is, but it's nothing: it's the man's blood that must have
stained me."

"Then he was wounded?"

"Yes, or at least his mouth was bleeding. Some blood-vessel . . ."

"Why, surely Ya-Bon didn't grip as hard as that?"

"It wasn't Ya-Bon."

"Then who was it?"

"His accomplices."

"Did they come back?"

"Yes; and they've strangled him."

"But it's not possible!"

She pushed by and went towards the prisoner. He did not move. His face
had the pallor of death. Round his neck was a red-silk string, twisted
very thin and with a buckle at either end.