Young Harding was moody, and confided to me that he did not like the idea of crossing the German frontier and going to Cologne.
"There will be dirty work," he said, "as sure as fate. The Huns will begin sniping and then we shall have to start reprisals. Well, if they ask for it I hope we shall give it them. Without mercy, after all they have done. At the first sign of treachery I hope the machine-guns will begin to play. Every time I see a Hun I shall feel like slitting his throat."
"Well, you'll get into a murderous state of mind," I answered him. "We shall see plenty, and live among them. I expect they will be tame enough."
"Some poor devils of ours will be murdered in their beds," said Harding. "It makes my blood boil to think of it. I only hope we shan't stand any nonsense. I'd like to see Cologne Cathedral go up in flames. That would be a consolation."
Charles Fortune broke away from his musical fantasy of "Blear-eyed Bill" and played a bar or two of the "Marseillaise" in ragtime. It was a greeting to Pierre Nesle, who came into the room quietly in his _képi_ and heavy motor-coat, with a salute to the company.
"_Bon soir, petit Pierre!_" said Fortune, "_qu'il y a, done--quoi?--avec ta figure si sombre, si mélancolique, d'une tristesse pitoyable_----"
Pierre Nesle inspired him to sing a little old French _chanson_ of Pierrot disconsolate.
Pierre had just motored down from Lille--a long journey--and was blue with cold, as he said, warming his hands at the charcoal stove. He laughed at Fortune's jesting, begged a cigarette from Harding, apologised for keeping on his "stink-coat" for a while until he had thawed out--and I admired the boy's pluck and self-control. It was the first time I had seen him since he had gone to Lille to see his sister. I knew by the new lines about his eyes and mouth, by a haggard, older look he had that he had seen that sister of his--Marthe--and knew her tragedy.
It was to Brand's room that he went after midnight, and from Brand, a day later, I heard what had happened. He had begun by thanking Brand for that rescue of his sister in Lille, in a most composed and courteous way. Then suddenly that mask fell from him and he sat down heavily in a chair, put his head down on his arms upon the table and wept like a child in uncontrollable grief. Brand was immensely distressed and could not think of any word to comfort him. He kept saying, "Courage! Courage!" as I had said to Madame Chéri when she broke down about her boy Edouard, as the young Baronne had sent word to Eileen from her prison death-bed, and as so many men and women had said to others who had been stricken by the cruelties of war.