fic, if somewhat
sheepish, expression on his face. And one night the village was
bombarded, and on Henri's refusing to be moved to the cellar Sara Lee
took up a determined stand in his doorway, until at last he made a most
humiliating move for safety.

Bit by bit Sara Lee got the story, its bare detail from Henri, its
courage and sheer recklessness from Jean. It would, for instance, run
like this, with Henri in a chair perhaps, and cutting dressings--since
that might be done with one hand--and Sara Lee, sleeves rolled up and
a great bowl of vegetables before her:

"And when you got through the water, Henri?" she would ask: "What then?"

"It was quite simple. They had put up some additional wire, however--"

"Where?"

"There was a break," he would explain. "I have told you--between their
trenches. I had used it before to get through."

"But how could you go through?"

"Like a snake," he would say, smiling. "Very flat and wriggling. I have
eaten of the dirt, mademoiselle."

Then he would stop and cut, very awkwardly, with his left hand.

"Go on," she would prompt him. "But they had put barbed wire there. Is
that it? So you could not get through?"

"With tin cans on it, and stones in the cans. I thought I had removed
them all, but there was one left. So they heard me."

More cutting and a muttered French expletive. Henri was not a
particularly patient cripple. And apparently there was an end to the
story.

"For goodness' sake," Sara Lee would exclaim despairingly; "so they
heard you! That isn't all, is it?"

"It was almost all," he would say with his boyish smile.

"And they shot at you?"

"Even better. They shot me. That was this one." And he would point to
his arm.

More silence, more cutting, a gathering exasperation on Sara Lee's part.

"Are you going on or not?"

"Then I pretended to be one of them, mademoiselle. I speak German as
French. I pretended not to be hurt, but to be on a reconnoissance. And
I got into the trench and we had a talk in the darkness. It was most
interesting. Only if they had shown a light they would have seen that
I was wounded."

By bits, not that day, but after many days, she got the story. In the
next trench he slipped a sling over the wounded arm and, as a Bavarian
on his way to the dressing station, got back.

"I had some trouble," he confessed one day. "Now and then one would
offer to go back with me. And I did not care for assistance!"

But sometime later there