“I turned, and one waved arms at me—­a comrade whom I did not know very well—­but he lay in the open and cried for help.  So I thought of Jeanne d’Arc, and how she had no fear, and was kind, and with that, back I trotted to get the comrade.  But at that second—­pouf!—­a big noise, and I fell down and could not get up.  It was the good new leg of M’sieur le Docteur which those sacres Boches had blown off with a hand-grenade.  So that I lay dead enough.  And when I came alive it was dark, and also the leg hurt—­but yes!  I was annoyed to have ruined that leg which you gave me—­M’sieur le Docteur.”

I grinned, and something ached inside of me.

Philippe went on.  “It was then, when I was without much hope and weak and in pain and also thirsty, that a thing happened.  It is a business without pleasure, M’sieur le Docteur, that—­to lie on a battle-field with a leg shot off, and around one men dead, piled up—­yes, and some not dead yet, which is worse.  They groan.  One feels unable to bear it.  It grows cold also, and the searchlights of the Boches play so as to prevent rescue by comrades.  They seem quite horrible, those lights.  One lives, but one wishes much to die.  So it happened that, as I lay there, I heard a step coming, not crawling along as the rescuers crawl and stopping when the lights flare, but a steady step coming freely.  And with that I was lifted and carried quickly into a wood.  There was a hole in the ground there, torn by a shell deeply, and the friend laid me there and put a flask to my lips, and I was warm and comforted.  I looked up and I saw a figure in soldier’s clothing of an old time, such as one sees in books—­armor of white.  And the face smiled down at me.  ’You will be saved,’ a voice said; and the words sounded homely, almost like the words of my grandfather who keeps the grocery shop.  ‘You will be saved.’  It seemed to me that the voice was young and gentle and like a woman’s.

“‘Who are you?’ I asked, and I had a strange feeling, afraid a little M’sieur, yet glad to a marvel.  I got no answer to my question, but I felt something pressed into my hand, and then I spoke, but I suppose I was a little delirious, M’sieur, for I heard myself say a thing I had not been thinking.  ’A Martel must return to France to find the silver stirrup’—­I said that, M’sieur.  Why I do not know.  They were the words I had heard my grandfather speak.  Perhaps the hard feeling in my hand—­but I cannot explain, M’sieur le Docteur.  In any case, there was all at once a great thrill through my body, such as I have never known.  I sat up quickly and stared at the figure.  It stood there.  M’sieur will probably not believe me—­the figure stood there in white armor, with a sword—­and I knew it for Jeanne—­the Maid.  With that I knew no more.  When I woke it was day.  I was still lying in the crater of the shell which had torn up the earth of a very old battle-field, but in my hand I held tight—­this.”