Ruth Fielding at the War Front.
by Alice B. Emerson.
CHAPTER I
TO GET ACQUAINTED
It was a midwinter day, yet the air was balmy. The trees were bare-limbed but with a haze clothing them in the distance that seemed almost that of returning verdure. The gra.s.s, even in mid-winter, showed green. A bird sang l.u.s.tily in the hedge.
Up the gra.s.sy lane walked a girl in the costume of the active Red Cross worker--an intelligent looking girl with a face that, although perhaps not perfect in form, was possessed of an expression that was alluring.
Neither observant man nor woman would have pa.s.sed her, even in a crowd, without a second glance. There was a cheerful light in her eye and a humorous curve to her not too-full lips that promised an uplifting spirit within her even in serious mood.
It seemed as though this day--and its apparent peace--must breed happiness, although it was but a respite in the middle of winter. The balmy air, the chirrup of the bird, the far-flung reaches of the valley which she could see from this mounting lane, all delighted the senses and soothed the spirit.
Suddenly, with an unexpectedness that was shocking, there was a tremor in the air and the echo of a rumbling sound beneath the girl"s feet.
The crack of a distant explosion followed. Then another, and another, until the sound became a continual grumble of angry explosions, resonant and threatening.
The girl did not stop, but the expression of her face lost its cheerfulness. The song of the bird was cut off sharply. It seemed as though the sun itself began drawing a veil over his face. The peaceful mood of nature was shattered.
The girl kept on her way, but she no longer stepped lightly and springily. Those muttering guns had brought a somber cloak for her feelings--to her very soul.
Somewhere a motor began to hum. The sound came nearer with great rapidity. It was a powerful engine. It was several seconds before the girl looked up instead of along the road in search of the seat of this whirring sound.
There shot into view overhead, and flying low, an aeroplane that looked like a huge flying insect--an enormous armored gra.s.shopper. Only its head was somewhat pointed and there, fixed in the front, was the ugly muzzle of a machine gun. The airplane flew so low that she could see the details.
There were two masked men in it, one at the wheel, the other at the machine gun. The aeroplane swooped just above her head, descending almost to the treetops, the roaring of it deafening the girl in the Red Cross uniform. There was the red, white and blue shield of the United States painted upon the underside of the car.
Then it was gone, mounting higher and higher, until, as she stood to watch it, it became a painted speck against the sky. That is the lure of the flying machine. The wonder of it--and the terror--attracts the eye and shakes the spirit of the beholder.
With a sigh the girl went on up the lane, mounting the hill steadily, on the apex of which, among giant forest trees, loomed the turrets and towers of a large chateau.
Again the buzzing of a motor broke the near-by stillness, while the great guns boomed in the distance. The sudden activity on the front must portend some important movement, or why should so many flying machines be drawn toward this sector?
But in a minute she realized that this was not an aeroplane she heard.
Debouching into sight from the fringing thickets came a powerful motor car, its forefront armored. She could barely see the head and shoulders of the man behind the steering wheel.
Down the hill plunged the car, and the girl quickly stepped to the side of the lane and waited for it to pa.s.s. The roar of its m.u.f.fler was deafening. In a moment she saw that the tonneau of the gray car was filled with uniformed men.
They were officers in khaki, the insignia of their several grades scarcely distinguishable against the dull color of their clothing. How different from the gay uniforms of the French Army Corps, which, until of late, the girl of the Red Cross had been used to seeing in this locality.
Their faces were different, too. Gray, lean, hard-bitten faces, their eyebrows so light and spa.r.s.e that it seemed their eyes were hard stones which never seemed to shift their straight-ahead gaze. Yet each man in the tonneau and the orderly beside the driver on the front seat saluted the Red Cross girl as she stood by the laneside.
In another half-minute the car had turned at the bottom of the hill and was out of sight.
She sighed again as she plodded on. Now, indeed, was the spring gone from her limbs and her expression was weary with a sadness that, although not personal, was heavy upon her.
Her thought was with the aeroplane and the motor car and with the thundering guns at the battle front, not many miles away. Yet she hastened her steps up this gra.s.sy lane toward the chateau, in quite the opposite direction.
The sudden stir of the military life of this sector portended something unusual. An advance of the enemy or an attempt to make a drive upon the Allies" works. In any case, down in the little, low-lying town behind her, there might be increased need of hospital workers. She must, before long, be once more at the hospital to meet the first ambulances rolling in from the field hospitals or from the dressing stations at the very front.
She reached the summit of the ridge, over which the lane pa.s.sed to the valley on the west side of the hill. The high arch of the gateway of the chateau was in sight.
Coming from that direction, walking easily, yet quickly, was the lean military figure of a young man who switched the roadside weed stalks with a light cane. He looked up quickly as the girl approached, and his rather somber face lighted as though the sight of her gave him pleasure.
Yet his gaze was respectful. He was handsome, keenly intelligent looking and not typically French, although he was dressed in the uniform of a branch of the French service, wearing a major"s chevrons.
As the Red Cross girl came nearer, he put his heels together smartly, removed his kepi, and bowed stiffly from the waist. It was not a Frenchman"s bow.
The girl responded with a quiet bend of her head, but she pa.s.sed him by without giving him any chance to speak. He followed her only with his eyes--and that but for a moment; then he went on down the lane, his stride growing momentarily longer until he pa.s.sed from view.
A cry from the direction of the broad gateway ahead next aroused the attention of the girl in the Red Cross uniform. She looked up to see another girl running to meet her.
This was a short, rather plump French girl, whose eyes shone with excitement, and who ran with hands outstretched to meet those of the Red Cross girl. The latter was some years the older.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth! Mademoiselle Ruth Fielding!" cried the French girl eagerly. "Did you meet him? Ah-h!"
Ruth Fielding laughed as she watched the mobile face of her friend.
The latter"s cheeks were flushed with excitement, her eyes rolled. She was all aquiver with the emotion that possessed her.
"Did you see him?" she repeated, as their hands met and Ruth stooped to press her lips to the full ones of her friend.
"Did I see whom, you funny Henriette?" asked Ruth.
"Am I fon-nay?" demanded Henriette Dupay, in an English which she evidently struggled to make clear. "Then am I not nice?"
"You are both funny and nice," declared Ruth Fielding, hugging the girl"s plump body close to her own, as they walked on slowly to the chateau gate. "Tell me. Who was I supposed to see? A motor full of officers pa.s.sed me, and an aeroplane over my head----"
"Oh, non! non!" cried Henriette. Then, in awe: "Major Marchand."
"Oh! Is that Major Marchand?"
"But yes, Mademoiselle Ruth. Ah-h! Such a man--such a figure! He is Madame the Countess" younger son."
"So I understand," Ruth said. "He is safely engaged in Paris, is he not?" and her tone implied much.
"Ye-es. So it is said. He--he must be a ve-ry important man, Mademoiselle, or his duty would not keep him there."
"Unless the Boches succeed in raiding Paris from the air he is not likely to get hurt at all--this Major Marchand?"
"Oh!" pouted Henriette. "You are so critical. But he is--what you say?--so-o beautiful!"
"Not in my eyes," said Ruth grimly. "I don"t like dolly soldiers."
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" murmured the French girl. "Do not let Madame the Countess suspect your feelings toward her younger son. He is all she has now, you know."
"Indeed? Has the older son fallen in battle?"
"The young count has disappeared," whispered Henriette, her lips close to Ruth"s ear. "We heard of it only lately. But it seems he disappeared some months ago. n.o.body knows what has become of him."