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| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/redcrossbarge00lown |
THE RED CROSS BARGE
BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
AUTHOR OF 'THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR,' 'THE LODGER,' 'GOOD OLD ANNA,' ETC.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO.
15 WATERLOO PLACE
1916
[All rights reserved]
CONTENTS
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
THE RED CROSS BARGE
PART I
1
The Herr Doktor moved away his chair from the large round table acrosshalf of which, amid the remains of a delicious dessert a large-scale mapof the surrounding French countryside had been spread out.
On the other half of the table had been pushed a confusion of delicatewhite-and-gold coffee-cups and almost empty liqueur-bottles—signs ofthe pleasant ending to the best dinner the five young Uhlan officers whowere now gathered together in this French inn-parlour had eaten since'The Day.'
Although the setting sun still threw a warm, lambent light on the highchestnut trees in the paved courtyard outside, the low-walled room wasalready beginning to be filled with the pale golden shadows of an Augustnight. A few moments ago the Herr Commandant had loudly called for alamp, and Madame Blanc, owner of the Tournebride, had herself brought itin. Placed in the centre of the table the lamp illumined the flushed,merry young faces now bent over the large coloured map.
Alone the Herr Doktor sat apart from the bright circle of light, and,although he was himself smoking a pipe, the fumes of the other men'sstrong cigars seemed to stifle him.
Of only medium height, with the thoughtful, serious face which marks thethinker and worker; clad, too, in the plain, practical 'feld-grau'uniform of a German Red Cross surgeon, he was quite unlike his temporarycomrades. And there was a further reason for this unlikeness. The HerrDoktor, Max Keller by name, was from Weimar; the young officers nowround him were Prussians of the Junker class. They were quite civil tothe Herr Doktor—in fact they were too civil—and their high spirits,their constant, exultant boasts of all they meant to do in Paris—inParis where they expected to be within a week, for it was now August 27,1914—jarred on his tired, sensitive brain.
Behind his large tortoise-shell spectacles the Herr Doktor's eyes