So he stood stock-still, folded his arms, and awaited their arrival. ("Die Flundern werden sich wundern....")
As the eight or ten men galloped up, Florian noted from afar their looks of amazement at the sight of him. They hailed him in German, and he did not reply. He stood like a statue; he said to himself that he would meet his fate with dignity. But he had not reckoned with the ludicrous effect of his attire. Two of the men dismounted, and one of them addressed him in German with a broad grin on his face; but the other—a young officer—silenced the first one abruptly, and turning a grim countenance to Florian, asked him in French why he was in that array.
"What have you done with your uniform?" he asked, scowling.
Florian scowled back at him, and gave no reply. He had made up his mind that he would not speak. ("Die Flundern werden sich wundern.")
The officer gave an order, and two soldiers took him by the arms and dragged his blanket from him. He stood there in his muddy boots, bare in the sunshine, his face and hands and hair caked with mud. But he was a fine and handsome figure for all that.
The officer and the men had turned their attention to the knot in the blanket. They undid it and took out the contents of the improvised pocket.
Then they looked at the figure before them and at each other. The chocolate was German; the cigarettes were German; the boots were German. What was the man?
"Meschugge," murmured the lieutenant in explanation, not of Florian's nationality, but of his condition of mind.
"Meschugge! Meschugge!" repeated the others, laughing.
The officer seemed uncertain. He turned and spoke in a low voice to the others. Florian knew they were discussing him. Would they arrest him as a cunning Belgian who had discarded his uniform, stolen the boots and the blanket, and was shamming to be insane and dumb? Or would they think him a German gone daft and send him to an infirmary? He hoped so. It would be easier to make one's escape from an infirmary than from a German prison. A German prison! Florian clenched his teeth. He saw that the officer seemed inclined to adopt this course.
"Die Flundern werden—" He almost said it aloud. The sound of these guttural German voices round him seemed to drag the words out of him. He felt his lips moving and he saw them watching him closely.... Suddenly the crazy words ran out of his mouth. "Die Flundern werden sich wundern!"
He was not prepared for the effect of those words. The soldiers burst into loud laughter; even the officer's hard face relaxed and he smiled broadly. The others repeated it with comments. "Did you hear? 'Die Flundern'!… He has the Ueberbrettel on the brain!" And they roared with laughter and clapped him on the bare shoulders and asked him in what Kabarett he had left his heart and his senses.
Florian understood not a word, but he knew he was safe. At least, for the present.
Whatever the words were, they had saved him, and he made up his mind that for the time being he would use no others. A little later he added one other word to his repertoire, and that was Meschugge, which is Berlin dialect for mad. He himself had no faint idea of what it meant, but he heard it pronounced, evidently in regard to himself, by the Prussian Lieutenant in whose charge he was conducted back to the German lines.
"Die Flundern werden sich wundern," and "Meschugge." With those six words, murmured at intervals once or twice in a day, he got through the rear lines of the German army, and through a brief stay in a camp hospital, and finally into a Liège infirmary. Those who heard him knew there could be no mistake. He was no Belgian and no Frenchman. Of all words in the rich German vocabulary, of all lines of German verse or song, no foreigner in the world could ever have hit on just these. None but a true son of the Fatherland—indeed none but a pure-blooded Berliner—would have even known what they meant.
"Ein famoser Kerl," was this young Adonis, who had turned up from heaven knows where in a blanket and a pair of boots. "Ein ganz famoser Kerl!" And they clapped him on the shoulders. "Er lebe hoch!"
Thus it came about that the Water-corpse and Mélanie of the Café des Westens unwittingly saved the life of a gallant Belgian soldier. And as this is the only good deed they are ever likely to perform, may it stand to their credit on the Day of Judgment when they are summoned to account for their wretched and unprofitable lives.
CHAPTER XXI
On the 1st of May the Ourthe and the Aisne, each with a crisp Spring wave to its waters, came together at Bomal. "Here I am, as fresh as ever," said the frisky little Aisne.
"Oh, come off the rocks," grumbled the Ourthe, elbowing her way towards the bridge, "and don't be so gushing."
"There's a stork passing over us with a May-baby in his beak," bubbled the Aisne.
"A good thing if he dropped it. Here I am very deep," quoth the Ourthe.
The Aisne, who was not deep at all, did not understand the quibble. "How very blue you are!" she gurgled. "What is the matter? Is it going to rain?"
"If it does, mind you keep to your bed," retorted the Ourthe sarcastically.
"I won't. I am coming into yours," plashed the Aisne; and did so.
"Oh! The Meuse take you!" grumbled the Ourthe foaming and swelling.
And they went on together, quarrelling all the way to Liège, where the Meuse took them both.
The stork flew across the bridge, and stopped over Dr. Brandès's house.
"Open your eyes, little human child," said the stork. "This is where you are born."
"Rockaby, lullaby, bees in the clover...." sang Nurse Elliot, of the American Red Cross, rocking the cradle with her foot and looking dreamily out of the window. From where she sat she could catch a glimpse of the Bomal church steeple and the swaying tops of the trees in the cemetery.
"Perhaps this poor lamb would be better off if it were already asleep over there under those trees," reflected Nurse Caroline Elliot. And as if in assent, the infant in the cradle uttered a melancholy wail.
Nurse Elliot immediately began to sing Bliss Carman's May-song:
The baby soon gave up all attempt to compete with the powerful American contralto, and with puckered brow and tiny clenched fist went mournfully to sleep again. He had been in the world just seven days and had not found much to rejoice over. Life seemed to consist of a good deal of noise and discomfort and bumping about. There seemed to be not much food, a great deal of singing, and a variety of aches. "I wish I were back in the land of Neverness," wept the baby, "lying in the cup of a lotus-flower in the blue morning of inexistence."
The stork, still standing on one leg on the roof resting from its journey, heard this and said: "Never mind. Cheer up. It is not for long."
"For how long is it?" asked the baby anxiously.
"Oh, less than a hundred years," said the stork, combing the feathers of its breast with its beak.
Then the baby wept even more bitterly. "Why? Why, for so short a time?" it cried.
"You bother me," said the stork; and flew away.
And the cradle rocked and the baby wept and Miss Caroline Elliot sang.
They had arrived in Bomal ten days before—Louise, Chérie and Mireille—after a nightmare journey, through Holland and Flanders. At the station in Liège, Chérie, who was very ill, aroused the compassionate attention of the American Red Cross nurses and they obtained permission to bring her in a motor ambulance to Bomal. Nurse Elliot, a tall kind woman, accompanied her, and was permitted to remain with her and assist her during the ordeal of the ensuing days.