He had been wrong to leave without Julie, and yet he could
have done nothing else. It was impossible to foresee a shelling of the
chateau by the French themselves.
The screaming and whistling came again, but he did not see any
explosion near the chateau. One could not tell much from such a swift
and passing sound, but he concluded that it was a German shell replying.
He had seen a German battery near the house and it would not remain
quiet under bombardment.
He had no doubt that the French gunners, having got the range, would
keep it. Somebody, perhaps an aeroplane or an officer with flags in a
tree, was signaling. It was horrible, this murderous mechanism by which
men fired at targets miles away, targets which they could not see, but
which they hit nevertheless. Every pulse beating hard, John shook his
fist at the invisible German guns and the invisible French guns alike.
Then he recovered himself with an angry shake and began to run again. He
knew now that he must go forward and secure a French force for rescue.
But no matter how much he urged himself on, a great power was pulling at
him, and it was Julie Lannes, a prisoner of the Germans in the chateau.
Often he stopped and looked back, always in the same direction. Twice
more he saw shells burst in the neighborhood of the house, and then his
heart would beat hard, but after brief hesitation he would always pursue
his course once more toward the French army.
He did not know the time, but he believed it to be well past midnight.
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