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Updated: July 25, 2025
Only at intervals the veering breeze brought to Sainte Lesse the immense vibration of the cannonade; only at intervals the high sky-clatter of an airplane reminded the village that the front was only a little north of Nivelle, and that what had been Nivelle was not so very far away. "If you were my girl, Maryette," remarked Smith, "I’d die of worry in that hospital."
The spy in the room upstairs, like many Germans, had reasoned wrongly on sound premises. His logic had broken down, not his amazing scientific foundation. His theory was correct; his application stupid. And now this young man was about to die. Maryette understood that. She comprehended that his death was necessary; that it was the unavoidable sequence of what he had attempted to do.
Very white, the chill sweat standing on his forehead and under his eyes, he stood against the oak, lips compressed, grey eyes watching what was happening to him. Suddenly he understood it was all over. "Djack!" He turned his gaze toward Maryette, where she struggled toward him, held by two soldiers. "Maryette Carillonnette " His voice suddenly became steady, perfectly clear.
He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled back his cuffs. "Come," he said, "I’ll help you wash. We two should finish quickly." "I am in no haste." "But it will give you an hour’s leisure, belle Maryette." "Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?" "I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together." "Do you mean to pay court to me?"
In his accent there was something poignantly familiar to Maryette, and she turned with a start and looked at him out of her dark blue, tear-marred eyes. "Are you also American?" she asked. "Gunner observer, American air squadron, mademoiselle." "An airman?" "Yes. My machine was shot down in Nivelle woods an hour ago."
Then, carrying his bundle and his bomber’s sack, heavy with latent death, he went into the inn and through the café, where the sleeping innkeeper sat huddled, and felt his way cautiously to the little dining room. The wooden shutters had been closed; a candle flared on the table. Maryette sat beside it, her arms extended across the cloth, her head bowed.
It supplied the drinking water of Sainte Lesse; and a branch of it poured bubbling into the stone-rimmed lavoir where generations of Sainte Lesse maids had scrubbed the linen of the community, kneeling there amid wild flowers and fluttering butterflies in the shade of three tall elms. There was nobody at the pool; Maryette saw that as she came out of the hazel copse through the meadow.
There were tears in his own now, and he bent his white head and looked down at the worn floor under his crippled feet. "Alas," he said, "for Denyn and for Saint Rombold’s tower. The Hun has passed that way." After a silence: "Who is it now plays the carillon in Sainte Lesse!" asked Burley. "My daughter, Maryette. Sainte Lesse has honoured me in my daughter, whom I myself instructed.
"Come on, now; it’s a case of ’Kamerad’ for yours." Braun did not move to comply with the demand. Gradually it dawned on them that the man was game. "Maryette!" he called; "where are you?" Smith said curiously: "What do you want with her, Braun?" "I want to speak to her." "Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly. The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.
Nor would Jack, your friend. Nor would your own country ask it of you, Maryette Courtray." She replied serenely: "But I ask it of myself. Do you understand, monsieur?" "Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at his useless wrist watch, then inquired the time. She went to her room, returned, wearing a little jacket and carrying a pair of big, wooden gloves. "It is after eleven o’clock," she said.
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