Kendal was sprawling on the ground. I knew that that pile of bricks and rubble was about to fall on him. I ran . but the Baron was ahead of me. It was too late to pick up the boy . so he threw himself on top of him for protection.
I screamed. I could see nothing for a second or so because of the blinding dust.
“Kendal,” I called desperately.
Then I was kneeling beside them tearing off the rubble.
There was blood on the Baron’s leg. I kept calling Kendal.
Kendal crawled out and stood before me. I felt a crazy joy because he appeared to be unhurt.
But the Baron was lying there among the bricks and the dust. still and silent.
Jeanne, Kendal and I knelt down in the dust beside the Baron. His leg seemed to be twisted under him. He was unconscious and I thought that he was dead. Strange emotions swept over me. I had seen death once that morning. But it could not happen to the Baron. Never the Baron. He was indestructible.
“We must get help at once,” I said to Jeanne.
Jeanne stood up. People were now coming out of their houses to see what damage had been done. We called to them and soon there was a little group around us. I could not take my eyes from him lying there, inert, blood on his clothes, his usually fresh coloured face deathly pale, his eyes closed. I was conscious of a terrible emptiness.
Nicole, my dear friend had gone for ever and that was a sadness which would haunt my life. But I could not imagine a life without the Baron, to remember, to revile, to hate.
Someone had brought out a ladder and they put him on it using it as a stretcher. They could take him to the hospital they said.
I replied on impulse: “Bring him to my house. I can look after him there. And go and get a doctor … quickly … quickly …”
He was carried into the house. Kendal clung to my hand.
“Is he dead?” he asked.
“No,” I answered fiercely.
“No… he can’t be dead. Not the Baron.”
That was the beginning of the siege of Paris, the most tragic and humiliating period of that great city’s history.
I gave little thought to the war during the next day. My mind was solely on my patient. The doctor had come. Part of the bone in the Baron’s right leg had been crushed. He might be able to walk again perhaps with the aid of a stick. His vital organs were undamaged and strong and the loss of blood and the shock had not been too great for him; he would recover and be able to resume a restricted way of life.
I sat by his bed throughout that first night. He was unconscious then and we were at that time uncertain how much damage had been done. I was glad they had not taken him into the hospital. They had other victims of the bombardments there and were preparing for a rush of casualties so there was no pressure to send him. I said I could nurse him with the help of jeanne and the doctor was only too glad that I should do so.
He showed me how to dress the leg. The wound appalled me. There was considerable pain, I knew, but the Baron bore that with the fortitude I would expect of him.
I had, with Jeanne's help, moved the beds down so that we were all on one floor and not too far from each other. I had a terrible fear that I might be separated from Kendal.
Every sound made us start for we feared that the bombardment would begin again, but it did not and the streets were quiet.
It was a strange night that first one sitting by his bed. I could not believe that only the night before I had slept in my bed with Nicole in her room and Kendal safe in his.
My great fear was for Kendal. I lived again and again that terrible moment when I had thought the building was going to collapse on him.
And, if the Baron had not thrown himself upon him, if he had not protected him . my small child would surely have been crushed to death.
It was strange what I owed this man. All my humiliation, my subjection and now. my son’s life.
I kept hearing Nicole’s voice.
“There is good in him. You can find it.
Yes, I had found something good already. He had come to take us away . risking his life to do so, as it was now proved. He had saved my son’s life.
I sat there through the darkness of the night. I did not light a candle. Nicole had said some days before that we must preserve the candles . we must preserve everything. There was certain to be a shortage.
So I sat there and watched the dawn come while I looked down on the contours of his sleeping face. A certain colour had returned to it and it no longer had that look of death on it. He was breathing more easily. I knew that he would live and I felt a great gladness in my heart.
I closed my eyes and I thought: Too much is happening in too short a time. Death is always close, I suppose, but at times like this it comes nearer. Nicole had always seemed so alive . and then suddenly, walking along a street, she is struck down . and that is the end. And the Baron! It could so easily have happened to him.
It was war. I had brushed it aside, shown little interest in it.
Stupid wars which men fought to amuse themselves, for no one ever came well out of war. And people died . one’s loved ones went into the street and that was the end.
I opened my eyes. He was looking at me.
“Kate,” he said.
I leaned over him.
“How do you feel?”
“Strange,” he said.
“Very strange …”
“It was the bombardment. A wall fell on you.”
“I remember.” Then quickly: “The boy?”
“He’s unharmed.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank you, too,” I said.
A smile touched his lips and he closed his eyes.
I felt the tears in my own. I thought: He will get well. Yes, he is indestructible.
I was glad he was with us. Even lying in a bed more dead than alive he brought a feeling of security.
Kendal had slipped into the room. I held out my hand and he ran to me.
“Is he asleep?”
I nodded.
“Is he very hurt?”
“I think he might be.”
“Do you think he would like to come to the Gardens and fly my oriflamme kite tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow,” I said.
“But perhaps … one day.”
There was an unreality about the days which followed. My thoughts were entirely taken up with nursing the Baron, which was the main preoccupation of our days. It was a great relief when the bombardment stopped and the days were quiet, though ominously so. The Baron spent most of those first days in sleep. The doctor had given me something to make him do so and he had taught me how to dress the wound. He was an earnest young man, very concerned about the situation.
“We were expecting a rush of casualties,” he said, ‘but I think the enemy realizes those sort of tactics don’t work so well. They can batter the town but Paris is a big place and if the people see their city attacked they become stubborn. These Prussians know how to conduct a war and my view is that they will try to starve us into surrender. “
“A grim prospect.”
“For Paris … yes. Those Bonapartes have a great deal to answer for.”
He was a stern republican but I couldn’t care about politics, and I was grateful for what he did for me.
Jeanne was a wonderful help. She went out every morning to see what she could buy and it was the excitement of the day to look through her shopping basket when she returned. We had a considerable amount of flour in the house so we were able to bake bread which would keep us going for some time if everything else failed.
I took Kendal for a walk in the afternoons while Jeanne remained at home in case the Baron wanted anything. I never went far from the house and I would not let Kendal out of my sight.
I explained to him what had happened to Nicole. He was an extremely intelligent child and once again I was amazed by the manner in which children adapt themselves to circumstances. He seemed to grasp the fact that there had been a war which the French had lost and because of this we were now living in a besieged city.