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Updated: May 14, 2025
"Perhaps, Maurie, your Clarette will come to you without your seeking her, for all Belgium seems headed toward France just now. What do you think? Will the Germans capture Dunkirk?" The man brightened visibly at this turn in the conversation. "Not to-day, sir; not for days to come," he replied.
"I think, Patsy dear, it will be best to leave this Belgian girl in ignorance of her husband's fate." "I, myself, have a wife," quoth little Maurie, with smug assurance, "but she is not worrying about me, wherever she may be; nor do I feel especial anxiety for Clarette. A woman takes what comes especially if she is obliged to." Patsy regarded him indignantly.
"But we have need of his services," said Ajo sternly, "and the man is in our employ and under contract to obey us." "I also need his services," retorted Clarette, "and I made a contract with him before you did, as my marriage papers will prove." The little boy and girl had now crowded into the doorway on either side of their mother, clinging to her skirts while they "made faces" at the Americans.
The rascal can run an automobile; so I suppose he can run a launch." "What puzzles me," remarked Patsy, "is how Lieutenant Elbl ever got hold of Maurie, and induced him to assist him, without our knowing anything about it." "I used to notice them talking together a good bit," said Jones. "But Clarette has kept Maurie a prisoner. She wouldn't let him come back to the ship."
Next moment Clarette had filled the doorway again. "You may as well go away," said the woman harshly. Patsy stood irresolute. "Have you money to pay the rent and to provide food and clothing?" she presently asked. "I have found a few francs in Henri's pockets," was the surly reply. "And when they are gone?" Clarette gave a shrug. "When they are gone we shall not starve," she said.
Gys sometimes accompanied them and sometimes went to the front with the ambulance; but he never caused his friends anxiety on these trips, because he could not endanger his life, owing to the cessation of fighting. The only incident that enlivened this period of stagnation was the capture of Maurie. No; the authorities didn't get him, but Clarette did.
Clarette announced her determination to follow her husband to Ostend, and perhaps she did so, as they did not see her again. It was on Sunday, the twentieth of December, that the Battle of the Dunes began and the flames of war burst out afresh.
"Who else may claim them, monsieur?" "I thought they were the children of your first husband, the blacksmith." Clarette glared at him, with lowering brow. "Blacksmith? Pah! I have no husband but Henri, and heaven forsook me when I married him." "Come, Patsy," said Ajo to his companion, "our errand here is hopeless. And perhaps Clarette is right." They made their way back to the launch in silence.
"To be frank, mamselle," said he, "they are not my children. I had a baby, but it was killed, as I told you. The boy and girl I have mentioned were born when Clarette was the wife of another man a blacksmith at Dinant who had a sad habit of beating her." "But you love the little ones, I am sure." He shook his head. "They have somewhat the temper of their father, the blacksmith.
I took them when I took Clarette just as I took the silver spoons and the checkered tablespread she brought with her but now that a cruel fate has separated me from the children, perhaps it is all for the best." The doctor gave a snort of disgust, while Ajo smiled.
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