The Coolidge Examiner

AN OFFICIAL ERROR
By H. M. Egbert

© by W. G. Chapman—WNU Service.

"We are all agreed upon our verdict, gentlemen?" inquired the presiding officer of the court-martial.

"Yes, sir," answered Major La fleche.

"Yes, sir," repeated the other members, down to the junior one, Lieutenant Leblanc, who repeated the words in a dry voice and licked his lips nervously.

"It is the only verdict possible under the laws of war," said Colonel Boileau. "Let the prisoner be brought in."

Two noncommissioned officers led the young fellow into the tent. He was a fair-haired boy, not more than two or three and twenty. He faced the court impassively, but the fear of death was evident in his ashen face and twining fingers.

"Jean Marchand," said the colonel, "you have been found guilty of the crime of sleeping on sentry duty. There is only one punishment for that. Have you anything to say before sentence is pronounced upon you?"

"Not much, sir," answered the boy. "I had not slept for three nights, owing to the forced marches. And the sergeant put me on duty two nights in succession, by error."

"Let Sergeant Lavergne be recalled," commanded the colonel, and presently the sergeant appeared within the tent.

"Was the prisoner placed on sentry duty on two successive nights?" asked Colonel Boileau.

"No, sir," replied the sergeant quietly.

He was not sure, now that they questioned him, but having given his evidence, he did not want to get into trouble. Besides, he hated the young American who had returned at the outbreak of war to fight for his father's country.

Marchand, with his American ideas, had been what is called a "Jawver." He had made trouble with the commissariat, with the little thieving corporal who sold the hay—altogether he was what the sergeant regarded as a bad influence in the force—that is to say, a man, not a machine.

War had been declared four days before, and the company was moving by forced marches toward the frontier. In war times sleeping on sentry duty has, justly enough, only one penalty—death. Marchand could hope for no mercy, for his negligence might have cost hundreds of lives.

He had been brought to America in childhood, and had grown up an American in every sense of the word. His father, a silk importer, had prospered in the land of his adoption, and two months before, while on a business trip to his native land, had died suddenly. The boy and his mother had hurried to France to adjust his affairs. Then Mrs. Marchand had remembered some old friends in Nancy, and had gone there for a brief visit, while the son settled the Paris business tangle.

Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, war blazed out. Mrs. Marchand, shut up in Nancy, could get no news of her son. And Jean, ablaze with new love for the land of his birth, had enlisted as a private soldier.

The tragedy of the affair was that Nancy was not six miles distant, and the mother, waiting there, did not know but that Jean was in Paris.

Colonel Boileau faced the prisoner.

"The sentence of the court is that you be shot at dawn," he said.

The noncommissioned officers took the young man to the guard tent. The court-martial dispersed. It was evening, and the company had been ordered to advance no further till it received orders.

The firing squadron which had been told off to perform the execution at dawn whispered together. It was a melancholy duty, yet a necessity, if discipline was to be maintained, for upon the vigilance of her soldiers the safety of the motherland depended. In his tent Colonel Boileau scanned his war map, together with his aide, Jacquevel, the captain who had endeavored most strongly of all the court to find extenuating circumstances.

When the business of the night was done Boileau turned to Jacquevel.

"It's a sad business," he said. "But it's a necessity. And, to be frank, Jacquevel, I suspected that young man of more than the crime of which he was accused. If it were only that, I should telegraph Joffre, asking for a commutation of sentence."

"Of what do you suspect him, sir?" inquired Captain Jacquevel.

"Espionage," answered the colonel. "He is not a Frenchman. Did you not detect his accent?"

"Alsatian," suggested Captain Jacquevel.

"Never," replied Boileau. "I spent three months in Alsace. They have the heavy Teutonic guttural in their throats, not that North German burr of Marchand's. I think—"

But what he thought was never said, for at that moment an orderly raised the flap of the tent.

"A lady wishes to see you, sir," he said. "A Mme. Marchand of Nancy."

Colonel Boileau looked triumphantly at Jacquevel. "You see," he said. "A prearranged thing. No doubt another spy, passing as a relative. Well, show her in, Louis. And we'll keep her when she comes in," he added to Jacquevel, "unless she can tell a plain story."

The tent flap was raised again and a little old lady came in. Despite his angry suspicions Colonel Boileau rose and offered her a camp stool. For the little old lady was so typically French.

"Well, madam?" he asked.

"My son has enlisted in your company, colonel," said the little old lady triumphantly.

Yes, there was triumph in her voice and all through the story she told him. For Mme. Marchand had in secret wished that her son might not forfeit his birthright, and, learning at Nancy, by a friend who managed to reach her, that Jean had enlisted, nothing would satisfy her but that she must go to the place where he was and see him in the uniform which his father had worn.

"And, thank heaven, he is here," she continued. "I walked from Nancy, starting at noon."

"You walked from Nancy, madam?" inquired the colonel incredulously.

"Six miles? Pooh! That is nothing. During the war of 1870, when my Philippe was serving on the frontier, I walked from Nancy to Paris. And now I have come to see my Jean in the midst of his comrades. To think that, with all his American citizenship he preserved his French heart—"

"Did you say he was an American, madam?" demanded Colonel Boileau gruffly.

"Assuredly. His father and I went to America when he was a baby, and he obtained citizenship at twenty-one. But a Frenchman never forgets France. Now take me to him, colonel!"

Colonel Boileau sat staring into the little old lady's face. She was typically French, so smartly attired, despite her widow's weeds. Captain Jacquevel coughed in a melancholy manner and looked down at the ground.

"My son is only a private now," continued Mme. Marchand. "But soon you will see him a corporal, and then a sergeant. He will be promoted for gallantry upon the field and made lieutenant, then captain, major—who knows but that the end of the war may see him a colonel?"

Colonel Boileau could find nothing to say. For a long while he sat staring at the little old lady. At last he arose.

"Captain Jacquevel, you will offer our hospitality to Mme. Marchand until I return," he said, and, leaving the tent, went to the guard tent.

Inside, between two corporals, sat Jean Marchand. He was seated bolt upright, staring out into the darkness. The terror had not yet come upon him, for it all seemed like a disordered dream—all the incidents since his enlistment.

Colonel Boileau led the prisoner outside the tent. The corporals, springing to their feet, saluted their officer. It did not seem strange to them that he should have come for Marchand—nothing seemed strange in times like these.

When they had gone a little way Colonel Boileau shouted, "Halt!"

The prisoner faced him expectantly. He did not know that the hour of execution had not been advanced.

"Marchand," said the colonel, "your mother is here."

Jean Marchand's hand went up to his hat brim mechanically, in the manner he had learned.

"Marchand, you will die at sunrise," said Colonel Boileau. "But you will appear before your mother and tell her that you are a free man. She will think that you have been killed in action. Do you understand?"

The young man nodded, and Colonel Boileau brought him to the tent door and conducted his mother out to him.

Half an hour later a wagon, drawn by four horses and escorted by a file of soldiers, conveyed Mme. Marchand back to Nancy. Her eyes were brimming with tears of happiness at the thought of her son's future.

Jean Marchand stood at the colonel's door. He was awaiting the soldiers who were to conduct him back to the guard tent.

Colonel Boileau took him by the shoulders and pointed southward.

"Yonder lies Tourville," he said. "The Army of the East is recruiting there. Your future lies there. Officially, you die at dawn. But Jean Marchand is not a unique name, and it is possible that another Jean Marchand may win honors in war and serve the army of his mother land."