She looked straight ahead of her with a sad little reflective smile:
“I have passed by many strange places in the world… And then I saw the little Grand Duchess at the Charity Bazaar… We seemed to love each other at first glance… She asked to have me for her companion… They investigated… And so I went to her.”
The girl’s face became sombre and she bent her dark eyes on the snow as they walked.
All the world was humming and throbbing with the thunder of the Russian guns. Flakes continually dropped from vibrating pine trees. A pale yellow haze veiled the sun.
Suddenly Miss Dumont lifted her head:
“If anything ever happens to part me from my friend,” she said, “I hope I shall die quickly.”
“Are you and she so devoted?” he asked gravely.
“Utterly. And if we can not some day take the vows together and enter the same order and the same convent, then the one who is free to do so is so pledged… I do not think that the Empress will consent to the Grand Duchess Marie taking the veil… And so, when she has no further need of me, I shall make my novitiate… There are soldiers ahead, Mr. Estridge. Is it the woman’s battalion?”
He, also, had caught sight of them. He nodded.
“It is the Battalion of Death,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s see what they look like.”
The girl-soldiers stood about carelessly, there in the snow among the silver birches and pines. They looked like boys in overcoats and boots and tall wool caps, leaning at ease there on their heavy rifles. Some were only fifteen years of age. Some had been servants, some saleswomen, stenographers, telephone operators, dressmakers, workers in the fields, students at the university, dancers, laundresses. And a few had been born into the aristocracy.
They came, too, from all parts of the huge, sprawling Empire, these girl-soldiers of the Battalion of Death–and there were Cossack girls and gypsies among them–girls from Finland, Courland, from the Urals, from Moscow, from Siberia–from North, South, East, West.
There were Jewesses from the Pale and one Jewess from America in the ranks; there were Chinese girls, Poles, a child of fifteen from Trebizond, a Japanese girl, a French peasant lass; and there were Finns, too, and Scandinavians–all with clipped hair under the astrakhan caps–sturdy, well shaped, soldierly girls who handled their heavy rifles without effort and carried a regulation equipment as though it were a sheaf of flowers.
Their commanding officer was a woman of forty. She lounged in front of the battalion in the snow, consulting with half a dozen officers of a man’s regiment.
The colour guard stood grouped around the battalion colours, where its white and gold folds swayed languidly in the breeze, and clots of virgin snow fell upon it, shaken down from the pines by the cannonade.
Estridge gazed at them in silence. In his man’s mind one thought dominated–the immense pity of it all. And there was a dreadful fascination in looking at these girl soldiers, whose soft, warm flesh was so soon to be mangled by shrapnel and slashed by bayonets.
“Good heavens,” he muttered at last under his breath. “Was this necessary?”
“The men ran,” said Miss Dumont.
“It was the filthy boche propaganda that demoralised them,” rejoined Estridge. “I wonder–are women more level headed? Is propaganda wasted on these girl soldiers? Are they really superior to the male of the species?”
“I think,” said Miss Dumont softly, “that their spiritual intelligence is deeper.”
“They see more clearly, morally?”
“I don’t know… I think so sometimes… We women, who are born capable of motherhood, seem to be fashioned also to realise Christ more clearly–and the holy mother who bore him… I don’t know if that’s the reason–or if, truly, in us a little flame burns more constantly–the passion which instinctively flames more brightly toward things of the spirit than of the flesh… I think it is true, Mr. Estridge, that, unless taught otherwise by men, women’s inclination is toward the spiritual, and the ardour of her passion aspires instinctively to a greater love until the lesser confuses and perplexes her with its clamorous importunity.”
“Woman’s love for man you call the lesser love?” he asked.
“Yes, it is, compared to love for God,” she said dreamily.
Some of the girl-soldiers in the Battalion of Death turned their heads to look at this young girl in furs, who had come among them on the arm of a Red Cross driver.
Estridge was aware of many bib brown eyes, many grey eyes, some blue ones fixed on him and on his companion in friendly or curious inquiry. They made him think of the large, innocent eyes of deer or channel cattle, for there was something both sweet and wild as well as honest in the gaze of these girl-soldiers.
One, a magnificent blond six-foot creature with the peaches-and-cream skin of Scandinavia and the clipped gold hair of the northland, smiled at Miss Dumont, displaying a set of superb teeth.
“You have come to see us make our first charge?” she asked in Russian, her sea-blue eyes all a-sparkle.
Miss Dumont said “Yes,” very seriously, looking at the girl’s equipment, her blanket roll, gas-mask, boots and overcoat.
Estridge turned to another girl-soldier:
“And if you are made a prisoner?” he enquired in a low voice. “Have you women considered that?”
“Nechevo,” smiled the girl, who had been a Red Cross nurse, and who wore two decorations. She touched the red and black dashes of colour on her sleeve significantly, then loosened her tunic and drew out a tiny bag of chamois. “We all carry poison,” she said smilingly. “We know the boche well enough to take that precaution.”
Another girl nodded confirmation. They were perfectly cheerful about it. Several others drew near and showed their little bags of poison slung around their necks inside their blouses. Many of them wore holy relics and medals also.
Miss Dumont took Estridge’s arm again and looked over at the big blond girl-soldier, who also had been smilingly regarding her, and who now stepped forward to meet them halfway.
“When do you march to the first trenches?” asked Miss Dumont gravely.
“Oh,” said the blond goddess, “so you are English?” And she added in English: “I am Swedish. You have arrived just in time. I t’ink we go forward immediately.”
“God go with you, for Russia,” said Miss Dumont in a clear, controlled voice.
But Estridge saw that her dark eyes were suddenly brilliant with tears. The big blond girl-soldier saw it, too, and her splendid blue eyes widened. Then, somehow, she had stepped forward and taken Miss Dumont in her strong arms; and, holding her, smiled and gazed intently at her.
“You must not grieve for us,” she said. “We are not afraid. We are happy to go.”
“I know,” said Palla Dumont; and took the girl-soldier’s hands in hers. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Ilse Westgard. And yours?”
“Palla Dumont.”
“English? No?”
“American.”
“Ah! One of our dear Americans! Well, then, you shall tell your countrymen that you have seen many women of many lands fighting rifle in hand, so that the boche shall not strangle freedom in Russia. Will you tell them, Palla?”
“If I ever return.”
“You shall return. I, also, shall go to America. I shall seek for you there, pretty comrade. We shall become friends. Already I love you very dearly.”
She kissed Palla Dumont on both cheeks, holding her hands tightly.
“Tell me,” she said, “why you are in Russia, and