United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
"And then?" "Second Foreign." "Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired Neeland. "Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finistère calls me. I’ve got to smell the sea off Eryx before I can get well." A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who stood near, turned his head and cast a professionally appraising glance at the young fellow on crutches. His name was Vail; he was a physician.
Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland " "I am intensely interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed again.
Fate laid a guiding hand on the shoulder of Carfax and gave him a gentle shove toward the Vosges. Destiny linked arms with Stent and Brown and led them toward Italy. Wayland’s rendezvous with Old Man Death was in Finistère. Neeland sailed with an army corps, but Chance met him at Lorient and led him into the strangest paths a young man ever travelled.
He nodded, still mystified, but interested. "Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked. "I thought it resembled a fish " "Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?" "Yes." "Then you know that L’Ombre means ’the shadow’." "Yes." "Did you know, also, that there is a fish called ’L’Ombre’?" "No; I did not know that." "There is. It looks like a shadow in the water.
"I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force." "May I see your credentials, Captain Neeland?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone. "Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerning your identity?" There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white.
There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest. An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.
Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood. When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired.
As for the others, Carfax, Brown, Stent, Wayland, Neeland, this is what happened to each one of them. But the episode of Carfax comes first. It happened somewhere north of the neutral Alpine region where the Vosges shoulder their way between France and Germany. After he had exchanged a dozen words with a staff officer, he began to realize, vaguely, that he was done in.
"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not unless except for this one matter of L’Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère here in this house" she flushed again "I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous ... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient.
Word Of The Day