So quietly she set each to her task while Chung smoothed a place under the tree and spread down a clean oiled sheet that he took out of his tin box of tools and he put on his surgeon’s garments and prepared to cut out bullets and sew up gaps in the bodies of those who lay wounded. And now for the first time Mayli found herself quarreling with him, for she could not bear to leave any man who still drew his breath. But Chung said, pointing to this one and another, “Let that one die, he is doomed. That one’s eyes are glazed. We must save only those who have the chance of life.”
“How can you tell who will live and who will not?” she cried.
But he was ruthless and pointed his finger at this one and at that one, signifying which ones were to live and which to die. And she felt tears come into her eyes while she worked without stop, but she took the time, nevertheless, to hold a cup of water for a dying man to drink and she took time to stop for the stained letters and pictures they held out to her of their wives and mothers and their children and those whom they loved. Even as they drew their last breath they summoned strength to search into some hidden place in their soiled garments and take out sweat-stained, bloody bits of paper like these and give them into her hands, murmuring and gasping their last hopes, “Tell them — tell them—” and before he could say what must be told, man after man died.
And without knowing it she began to sob, not aloud, but with deep inward sobs, and her throat was as tight as though an iron band were about it, and her hands trembled, and she saved all the poor bits of paper which had served to those men as symbols of what they loved best on earth.
She would not weep aloud, for well she knew this was only the first day of many days that would be like this, but she was new and untried and for this day at least there was no glory worth such sorrow. Her women were far more calm than she, for they had done these same tasks before and for men of their own kind, and these were strangers. But Mayli had seen young men like these living and full of merriment and noise, and she had seen them in their own countries, careless, well beloved in comfortable homes. She had danced with such young men and let them make a little love to her and they were not strange to her. It was piteous to see them here, outwitted and betrayed, cut off and trapped, and she felt no scorn for them but only sorrow. Most piteous of all was to see their gratitude when they heard her speak to them in their own tongue.
“I haven’t heard — a woman — speak English — in a thousand years,” a blond young lad sighed. He closed his blue eyes and clutched her hand. “Couldn’t you — sing?” he whispered. “Just — something?”
And she, her throat still so tight that she could scarcely breathe enough to sing, nevertheless forced herself and sang the first song that came to her lips, the song she had been singing a few nights ago,
“Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine.”
She sang it low at first but the singing eased her throat and in a moment her voice came more clear and the dying boy smiled.
“Why — it’s an English — song,” he whispered. “How did you—”
His voice ceased and his hand loosened and yet she held it, her tears streaming down her face as she sang, until the song was ended. And then she put the heavy hand down, such a young hand, still bony and thin with youth, the nails worn down and blackened and the grime black in the fair skin. And then she put her head on her knees and wept indeed, careless of who saw or heard her, for it seemed to her that there was only misery and woe in such a world as this.
At that moment she felt herself lifted up. Two hands upon her arms grasped her and pulled her to her feet and she turned.
“Sheng!” she whispered.
“It was you, then,” he said. “It was you I heard the other night — singing that same song!”
XV
THUS BESIDE THE BODY of the dead English boy did Sheng and Mayli meet. Had these been other days they might have taken time for surprise, but surprise of some sort came to them every day in this strange land. When anything could happen and none could foretell what he would be doing or where he would be an hour ahead, not Mayli nor Sheng felt surprise beyond the first outcry. Each took the other’s two hands, and they stood, their hands thus strongly clasped, their eyes searching each other’s faces, and each felt now what the other felt, a comfort that was beyond speech. Gladness there could not be, for they stood in the midst of defeat and death, but courage poured through their hands to their hearts and in that instant he forgot his jealousy and his doubt of her.
He saw her face streaming with sweat, her hair hanging wet upon her forehead and at her neck. She had on a rough straw hat such as farmers wear and the fading green twigs were twisted about the crown. She was bone-thin, he saw, and her blue cotton uniform clung to her thinness, wet, too, with her sweat. Her feet were bare in straw shoes, and her sleeves were rolled above her elbows.
And she saw a tall gaunt young man, hard as leather, in a dirty uniform. Down that dark face of his the sweat poured in lines like rain and dripped from his chin. Indeed the sun was merciless upon them both. There were no trees except the squat growth of the jungle and the wounded had crawled to these small spots of shade and lay panting for water. Near them a shadow-faced Indian began to moan softly for water,
“Pani-pani—” he moaned.
They turned at the sound of his voice, and saw that his shoulder was torn away and that he was bleeding to death. Now Sheng even before he spoke to Mayli, dropped her hands and went over to the dying man and opened his own bottle of precious water and put it to the man’s lips, and he lifted the man’s head upon his right hand so that he might drink more easily.
“Oh, he will die anyway,” Mayli cried in a low voice. “Save the water for yourself—”
But Sheng let the man drink and drink until the last was gone. Then he put down the man’s head into the hot earth, and even as he did so the man died.
“The water is wasted,” Mayli said in the same low voice.
“It would have choked me had I refused it to him,” Sheng replied. He corked the empty bottle and slung it to its place and then he turned to her again and took her one hand and held it in his.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Here,” she said, “with my women.”
“And I have been dreaming of you in that little house with the foolish small dog you love better than you do me,” he said.
“And I thought you were anywhere but near me,” she said, her cracked lips smiling.
“It was you I heard singing that night we marched,” he said, “and I thought it could not be you.”
These few words they said to each other in the midst of the men who lay wounded and dying and sunstruck, and each knew that even this moment must end because of their duty to these others. Indeed the women were stealing curious looks at them already and so they unclasped their hands.
“I will seek you out tonight,” Sheng said.
“I shall be watching for you,” she said. And then it seemed to her she could not wait until night of such a day as this, for who knew at the end of the day who would be living and who dead?
“Take care of your life,” she said to him and her eyes pleaded. “Be sure that the night finds you safe.”