CHAPTER IX
A MYSTERY
Sally’s little cry of astonishment must have awakened the soldier.
The terror on his face when he first beheld her took away any thought of fear from the girl. Besides it was all too strange! Why should he, a soldier, be afraid, and of her? And why should he be in hiding in this queer tumble-down old place? For he was in hiding, there was no doubt of this from his furtive manner.
Some instinct in Sally, or perhaps the fact that she had seen so much hunger since her arrival in this portion of France, made her immediately take out her little package of bread which Mère ’Toinette had given her and thrust it forward.
She was standing framed in the arch made by the two fallen walls, not having moved since the moment of her amazing discovery.
The soldier’s hunger was greater than his fear, for he almost snatched the food from Sally’s hands and, as he ate it she could not bear watching him. There is something dreadful in the sight of a human being ravenously hungry.
Afterwards, when he did not speak, Sally found herself making the first remarks, and unconsciously and stupidly, not realizing what she was doing at the moment, she spoke in English.
The next instant, to her surprise, the soldier replied in the same tongue, although it seemed to Sally that he spoke with a foreign accent, what the accent was she did not know. Sally had not a great deal of experience, neither was she particularly clever.
“What are you doing here?” is what she naturally inquired.
The soldier hesitated and placed his hand to his forehead, looking at the girl dazedly.
“Why am I hiding here?” he repeated. Then almost childishly he went on: “I am hiding, hiding because no one must find me, else I would be shot at once. I don’t know how long I have been here alone. I am very cold.”
“But I don’t understand your reason,” Sally argued. “Why don’t you find some one to take care of you? You cannot be living here; besides you could not have been here long without food or water or you would have died.”
“But I have had a little food and water,” the soldier replied. “I found a few cans of food in a closet and there is water in one of the rooms.”
His voice had a complaining note which was an expression of suffering if one had understood. Then his face was feverish and wretched.
“But you don’t look as if you had used much water,” Sally remarked in her usual matter-of-fact fashion. She had a way of pursuing her own first idea without being influenced by other considerations.
“It is hard work when one’s arm is like this,” the soldier returned fretfully.
Again Sally surveyed the soiled bandage with disfavor. Apparently it had not been changed in many days, since it was encrusted with dirt and blood and having slipped had been pulled awkwardly back into place.
Temprementally, Sally Ashton hated the sight of blood and suffering. In the years of the Camp Fire training she had been obliged to study first aid, but she had left the practical application to the other girls. Her own tastes were domestic and she therefore had devoted her time to domestic affairs.
Now something must be done for the soldier whose presence in the old château and whose behavior were equally puzzling, and as there was no one else, Sally had no idea of shirking the immediate task. In her Camp Fire kit she always carried first aid supplies.
“If you will go to the room where you found the water and wash your arm as thoroughly as you can I will put on a fresh bandage for you,” she offered. “Don’t argue and don’t be long, for something simply has to be done for you, you are in such a dreadful condition.”
Even in the midst of feeling a little like Florence Nightingale, Sally preserved a due amount of caution. She had no idea of wandering about a tumble-down château with a strange soldier. In reality she was not so much afraid of him as of the house itself. She had the impression that the walls were ready to topple down and bury her.
When the soldier did not move, Sally beckoned him imperiously toward the open arch where she had remained standing just outside the walls.
“You are to come here, while I take off the old bandage. No one will see you and I am afraid to enter so dangerous a place.”
The man obeyed, and Sally cut away the soiled linen, trying not to get too distinct an impression of the wound underneath. Yet what she saw alarmed her sufficiently, for she knew enough to realize that the wound required more scientific treatment than she felt able to give. “Now go and wash your arm,” she directed, and without a word he went off.
During the ten minutes her self-imposed patient remained away, Sally seriously considered his puzzling situation and determined upon the advice she would offer.
In the first place, so far he had given her no explanation for his conduct.
Why was he in concealment? The possibility that the soldier might have committed a wrong which made it incumbent that he hide from justice did not occur to Sally. She simply determined that they would discuss the subject to some satisfactory end on his return.
The young man did look much better, having made an effort to cleanse his face as well as his wound, but as Sally took hold of his hand before beginning her task, she was startled to discover that he was suffering from a fever through neglect of his injury. This made her the more determined. Although appreciating her own inefficiency and disliking the work, there was nothing to be done at present but to go ahead with her own simple first-aid treatment. She had a bottle of antiseptic and clean surgical gauze.
As she wound the bandage, wishing she had taken the trouble to learn the art more skilfully, Sally announced:
“You must see a physician about your arm as soon as possible. You never have explained to me why you are hiding here. But in any case you cannot remain when you are ill and hungry and cold and require a great deal of attention. You must go into one of the villages to a hospital. While you were away I have been thinking what to do. You look to me too ill to walk very far and, as I am living not more than half a mile away, I will go back to our farm and tell my friends about you. Later I think I can arrange to come back for you in a motor and then we will drive you to one of the hospitals. I don’t know as much about the French hospitals as my friends do, but of course everybody is anxious to do whatever is possible for the Allied soldiers.”
Sally placed a certain amount of stress on the expression “Allied soldiers,” but never for an instant believing in the possibility that her patient could belong to an enemy nationality.
“If you tell anyone you have discovered me here in hiding, it will be the last of me,” the soldier declared.
By this time Sally was beginning to be troubled. Why did the young man look and speak so strangely? He seemed confused and worried and either unable to explain his actions, or else unwilling. Yet somehow one had the impression that he was a gentleman and there need be no fear of any lack of personal courtesy.
It was possible from his appearance to believe that he might be suffering from a mental breakdown. Sally recalled that many of the soldiers were affected in this way from shell shock or the long strain of battle.
“I suppose I must tell you something. In any case, I have to trust my fate in your hands and I know there is not one person in a thousand who would spare me. I was a prisoner and escaped from my captors. I don’t know how I discovered this old house. I don’t know how long I have been wandering about the country before I came here, only that I hid myself in the daytime and stumbled around seeking a place of refuge at night. If you report me I suppose I will not be allowed even a soldier’s death. I shall probably be hung.”
Suddenly the soldier laughed, such an unhappy, curious laugh that Sally had but one desire and that was to escape from the château and her strange companion at once and forever. Yet in spite of his vague and uncertain expression, the soldier’s eyes were dark and fine and his features well cut. He was merely thin and haggard and dirty from his recent experiences.
From his uniform it was impossible to guess anything; at least, it was impossible for Sally, who had but scant information with regard to military accoutrements.
But even in the face of his confession she was not considering the soldier’s nationality. He looked so miserable and ill, so like a sick boy, that the maternal spirit which was really strongly rooted in Sally Ashton’s nature awakened. He could scarcely stand as he talked to her.
“Please sit down. I don’t know what you are to do,” she remonstrated. “I don’t know why you ran away or from whom, but no fate could be much worse than starving to death here in this old place alone. Yet certainly I don’t want to give you up to–to anybody,” she concluded lamely, as a matter of fact not knowing to whom one should report a runaway soldier.
This was a different Sally Ashton from the girl her family and friends ordinarily knew. The evanescent dimple had disappeared entirely and also the indolent expression in her golden brown eyes. She was frowning and her lips were closed in a firmer line.
At her suggestion the soldier had returned to the chair which he had been occupying at the moment of her intrusion. But Sally saw that although he was seated he was swaying a little and that again he had put up his uninjured arm to his head.
“Perhaps I can get away from here, if you will help me. I have escaped being caught so far. I only ask you to bring me a little food. Tomorrow I shall be stronger.”
Unconsciously Sally sighed. What fate had ever driven her forth into this undesired adventure?
She did not like to aid a runaway prisoner, nor did she wish him to meet the disagreeable end he had suggested through any act of hers.
Any other one of the Camp Fire girls, Sally believed, would have given the soldier a lecture on the high ideals of patriotism, or of meeting with proper fortitude whatever fate might overtake him. At least he would have been required to divulge his nationality, and if he were an enemy, of course there could be no hesitation in delivering him to justice.
However, Sally only found herself answering:
“Yes, I suppose I can manage to bring you something to eat once more. But I cannot say when I can get here without anyone’s knowing, so you must stay where you can hear when I call. Afterwards you must promise me to go away. I don’t know what I ought to do about you.”
Sally had gone a few yards from the château when she glanced back an instant toward the old stone ruins. The atmosphere of the afternoon had changed, the sun was no longer shining and the château lay deep in shadow.
A cold wind was blowing across the desolate fields. Sally was not ordinarily impressionable, yet at this moment she felt a curious sense of foreboding.
CHAPTER X
BREAKERS AHEAD
A little tired and also because her attention was occupied with her recent experience, Sally did not choose her way over the rough countryside so carefully and therefore managed to take a much longer time for her return to the farm.
Now that the sun had disappeared, the countryside seemed to have grown depressingly desolate. In the gray afternoon light the blackened tree trunks which had been partly burned were stark and ugly.
Under ordinary circumstances Sally was particularly susceptible to physical discomfort, yet this afternoon she was too concerned over her problem to be more than vaguely disturbed by her surroundings.
One thought continually assailed her. Would it be possible to appear among the other girls looking and behaving as if nothing unusual had occurred? For Sally had an honest and profound conviction that she had no talent for deception. How could she realize that she belonged to the type of women with whom dissimulation is a fine art once the exigencies of a situation required it? She had come to one definite conclusion, she would not betray the presence of the runaway soldier in the château for at least another twenty-four hours. She would take him food the next day and he might have the opportunity to attempt an escape. In all probability he would soon be captured and punished, and this was doubtless the fate he deserved; nevertheless Sally was glad that, in a cowardly fashion, she would not be directly responsible.
She looked forward to the evening and the next day with no joy, bitterly regretting that she had not spent her leisure hours in resting and reading as she had at first intended. Surely repose and a contented spirit were more to be desired than unexpected adventures!
Weary and dispirited, Sally finally arrived at home, only to be met in the front hall by Miss Patricia, who at once showed signs of an approaching storm.
As a matter of fact, she was excessively annoyed over a piece of information she had just received, so it was unfortunate that Sally should return at a moment when she must bear the brunt of it.
Moving a little listlessly up the broad uncarpeted stairs toward the bedroom she shared with her sister, the girl scarcely noticed the older woman’s presence. She was hoping that Alice had not yet returned and that she might have a few moments to herself.
Miss Patricia opened the attack with her usual vigor.
“What do you mean, Sally, by going off this afternoon, knowing that I particularly needed your help? You must understand that it is highly improper for a young girl to tramp about over this French country alone. Even if Polly Burton has permitted you Camp Fire girls the most extraordinary amount of freedom, she surely has realized this and warned you against such indiscretion. There is no way of guessing into what difficulty you may have already managed to entangle yourself!”
Sally felt herself flushing until her clear skin was suffused with glowing color.
“I am sorry, Miss Patricia,” she said, “but remember that I am not a child and cannot have you speak to me as if I were a disobedient one. I have been for a walk and – ”
But fortunately Sally was not required to complete her sentence. Suddenly Mrs. Burton had appeared out of her bedroom and began to hurry downstairs.
“Sally!” she called with a suggestion of appeal in her voice. “The excitement over your disappearance is my fault, so please don’t you and Aunt Patricia quarrel. A little while ago when I returned home and Mère ’Toinette told me that you had gone out alone and she did not know in what direction, why, I became uneasy. You will not again, will you? Really I am afraid it is not safe for you children, although with me of course the case is different. Aunt Patricia is not disposed to think so, forgetting my advanced age. Still, Sally, no matter how enthusiastic we may feel over our work here in the shell-torn area of France, we must remember these are war times when one never knows what may happen next. Besides, the French do not always understand our American ideas of liberty for young girls.”
By this time having reached the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Burton slipped her hand inside Sally’s, glancing back with a slightly amused and slightly apologetic expression toward Miss Patricia.
“Really, Aunt Patricia, I do regret your being so annoyed, yet you must not take my news too seriously. Our guests are sure not to remain with us long.”
To the latter part of her Camp Fire guardian’s remark Sally Ashton paid not the slightest heed, so concerned was she with the first part of her speech.
Why of all times should this question of her personal liberty come up for discussion this afternoon? Of her own free choice Sally felt convinced that she would never willingly go out alone. Nevertheless, how was she to keep her word to the young soldier unless she returned next day to the château? with the food she had promised him and without confiding the fact to any one else? Oh, why had she allowed herself to be drawn into this reckless promise? At this moment if she could only slip into her Camp Fire guardian’s room and ask her advice! Miss Patricia would insist that if the soldier were a deserter he straightway should be brought to justice. But Sally understood her Camp Fire guardian well enough to appreciate that, once hearing the soldier in hiding was ill and wounded, she would be as reluctant as Sally herself to follow her manifest duty.
Confidence on this particular subject was for the present out of the question, and as soon as she conveniently could Sally disappeared inside her own room. Later, when the other girls had returned, weary from their long errand of mercy in the next village and yet immensely interested in their experience, Sally pretended to have a slight headache.
During supper she scarcely listened to the ever steady stream of conversation which flowed unceasingly each evening. In the daytime the American newcomers to the old French farm on the Aisne were too much engaged to allow opportunity for conversation. After supper they gathered in their improvised sitting-room to talk until their early bedtime.
The sitting-room was oddly furnished with whatever furniture could be rescued after the commandeering of the more valuable possessions by the Germans.
In the attic a few broken chairs stored away for years had been brought down and repaired. These were beautiful pieces of furniture in conspicuous contrast to the couches and stools which originally had arrived at the farm as large wooden boxes containing provisions.
With old Jean’s assistance, Peggy and Vera had developed unexpected talents as carpenters.
Moreover, whatever her faults, Miss Patricia Lord was an unfailing source of supply. During her brief stay in Paris, without mentioning the fact to any one else, she had purchased thirty yards of old blue and rose cretonne, perhaps with the knowledge that beauty even of the simplest kind helps one to happiness and accomplishment.
Therefore the two couches in the sitting-room were covered with the cretonne, and half a dozen box chairs; and there were cretonne valances at the windows.
Save a single old lamp which had been left in the sitting-room, it had no other ornaments.
The lamp was of bronze and bore the figure of a genie holding the stand, so that obviously it had been christened “Aladdin’s lamp.” It was supposed to gratify whatever wish one expressed, but the Camp Fire girls were too busy with the interests of other people at present to spend much time in considering their personal desires.
There was one other object of interest in the room, a large photograph of the ruined Rheims Cathedral, which Mrs. Burton had bought in the neighborhood of Rheims not long before. The classic French city was not many miles from the present home of the group of American girls.
As beautiful almost in destruction as it had been in its former glory, the photograph stood as a symbol of the imperishable beauty of French art. Also it represented another symbol. Here on the white wooden mantel of the French farm house “on the field of honor” it called to the American people to continue their work for the relief and the restoration of France.
Tonight as she lay resting upon one of the couches, dressed in a simple dinner dress of some soft violet material, Mrs. Burton had glanced several times toward the photograph.
As a tribute to her headache and a general disinclination to associate with her companions, Sally had been permitted to occupy the other couch which stood on the opposite side of the room.
In their one large chair, close to the table with the lamp, Aunt Patricia sat knitting with her usual vigor and determination. Aside from Sally, the Camp Fire girls were grouped about near her.
After having been quiet for the past half hour, Mrs. Burton suddenly asked: “Would any of you care to hear a poem concerning the destruction of the Cathedral at Rheims, written by a Kentucky woman? A friend sent it to me and it was so exquisite I have lately memorized it. In the last few moments while I have been looking at our photograph I have repeated the lines to myself. I wonder if it would interest you?”
The girls replied in a chorus of acquiescence, but Mrs. Burton did not venture to begin until she also had received a nod of agreement from Aunt Patricia. Between the older and younger woman there was a bond of strong affection. Nevertheless, mingled with Mrs. Burton’s love and respect, there was also a certain humorous appreciation.
Since their arrival in France the Camp Fire girls had been compelled to spend their evenings in doors. This was unlike their former custom.
Recently, when they had grown weary of talking, perhaps for only a half hour before bedtime, some one of them had fallen into the habit of reading aloud to the others.
Apart from the pleasure, Mrs. Burton regarded this as useful education.
Not a great many newspapers and magazines reached the old farm house in comparison with other days at camp; nevertheless they arrived in sufficient number both from the United States and Paris to keep one fairly in touch with world movements. The reading of the French papers and magazines was of course especially good practice.
Yet, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Burton could seldom be persuaded to be anything save a listener. After reading or talking the greater part of the day to her new French friends, she was apt to be worn out by evening.
Tonight she began to speak in a low voice as if she were tired, yet as her little audience was so near it did not matter and her voice never failed in its beautiful quality.
“Rheims
“It was a people’s church–stout, plain folk they,
Wanting their own cathedral, not the king’s
Nor prelate’s, nor great noble’s. On the walls,
On porch and arch and doorway–see, the saints
Have the plain people’s faces. That sweet Virgin
Was young Marie, who lived around the corner,
And whom the sculptor knew. From time to time
He saw her at her work, or with her babe,
So gay, so dainty, smiling at the child.
That sturdy Peter–Peter of the keys–
He was old Jean, the Breton fisherman,
Who, somehow, made his way here from the coast
And lived here many years, yet kept withal
The look of the great sea and his great nets.
And John there, the beloved, was Etienne,
And good St. James was François–brothers they,
And had a small, clean bakeshop, where they sold
Bread, cakes and little pies. Well, so it went!
These were not Italy’s saints, nor yet the gods,
Majestic, calm, unmoved, of ancient Greece.
No, they were only townsfolk, common people,
And graced a common church–that stood and stood
Through war and fire and pestilence, through ravage
Of time and kings and conquerors, till at last
The century dawned which promised common men
The things they long had hoped for!
O the time
Showed a fair face, was daughter of great Demos,
Flamboyant, bore a light, laughed loud and free,
And feared not any man–until–until–
There sprang a mailed figure from a throne,
Gorgeous, imperial, glowing–a monstrosity
Magnificent as death and as death terrible.
It walked these aisles and saw the humble ones,
Peter the fisherman, James and John, the shopkeepers,
And Mary, sweet, gay, innocent and poor.
Loud did it laugh and long. ‘These peaceful folk!
What place have they in my great armed world?’
Then with its thunderbolts of fire it drove
These saints from out their places–breaking roof,
Wall, window, portal–and the great grave arch
Smoked with the awful funeral smoke of doom.
“Thus died they and their church–but from the wreck
Of fire and smoke and broken wood and stone
There rose a figure greater far than they–
Their Lord, who dwells within no house of hands;
Whose beauty hath no need of any form!
Out from the fire He passed, and round Him went
Marie and Jean and Etienne and Francois,
And they went singing, singing, through their France–
And Italy–and England–and the world!”
When Mrs. Burton began her recitation she sat up on the edge of her couch and leaning forward kept her eyes fastened sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the picture of the great cathedral. Now and then her gaze quickly swept the faces of her audience.
She was wondering if the poem had bored any one of them. It was a long poem and perhaps its spiritual meaning would not be altogether plain.
However, as the poem reached its conclusion, and her voice with its dramatic power and sweetness made the picture of the peasant people and their peasant church a visible and compelling thing, she no longer felt fearful.
The faces of the girls before her were fine and serious; Bettina and Marta, who cared more for poetry and art than the others, had flushed and their eyes were filled with tears.
As Mrs. Burton finished, it was as if one could actually hear the new spirit of brotherhood which Christ preached two thousand years ago, “singing, singing, through the world.”
Yet in the silence which was a fitting tribute to the poem, suddenly the entire audience broke into a ripple of laughter. From the far side of the room a gentle snore had been Sally Ashton’s sole expression of appreciation.
Following the sound of the laughter, Sally sat up and began blinking her soft golden brown eyes, looking for all the world like a sleepy kitten.
“I think you had far better give yourself up to justice and have someone take care of you properly,” she announced in a far-away voice. This was the conclusion which Sally had just reached at the end of her half-sleeping and half-waking dream of her runaway soldier.
She did not know that she was to make such an extraordinary remark aloud, but fortunately no one had the faintest knowledge of her meaning.
Indeed, no one really heard her, as the girls were too amused over Sally’s characteristic habit of falling asleep on occasions when conversation or entertainment bored her.
Immediately after the laughter, Sally, not understanding its cause, nevertheless arose and began her journey to bed. She was annoyed but not seriously, since in waking she had reached the conclusion she desired. In the morning at dawn, before the other members of her household were awake, she would make a second trip to the château.
She would carry provisions to the soldier and then advise him to leave the neighborhood immediately. Unless he departed of his own free will, taking his chances as he must, she then would be compelled to tell that he was in hiding.