This was real "soldiering," as she soon found. Her experiences at Lyse and at Clair had been nothing like this. In one town she had lived at a pension, while at the latter hospital she had had her own little cell in the annex.
However, the girl of the Red Mill never thought of complaining. If these other earnest girls and women could stand such rough experiences why not she?
She slept and dreamed of home--of the Red Mill and Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah Boggs, with her murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" She was again a child and roamed the woods and fields along the Lumano River with Tom Cameron and Helen.
"I wish I were at home! I wish I were at home!" was her waking thought.
It was the first time she had whispered that wish since leaving the States. But never before had her heart been so sore and her spirit so depressed.
When, some weeks before, she had believed Tom Cameron seriously wounded, she had been frightened and anxious only. Now the whole world seemed to have gone wrong. There was n.o.body with whom she could confer about this awful trouble.
She arose, and, after making her toilet and before breakfast, went out of the hut. She beheld an entirely different looking landscape from that which she was used to about Clair.
Through the gateway of the compound she saw a rutted road, with dun fields beyond. Behind, the ridge rose abruptly between the hospital and the battle front.
A red-headed young Irishman in khaki stood at the gateway, or tramped up and down with his rifle on his shoulder. He could not look at the girl without grinning, and Ruth smiled in return.
""Tis a broth of a mornin", Miss," he whispered, as she drew near. "Be you the new lady Charlie Bra-a-agg brought over last night?"
"Yes. I am to take the place of the girl who--who----"
She faltered and could not go on. The Irish lad nodded and blinked rapidly.
"Bedad!" he muttered. "We"ll make the Boches pay for that when we go over the top. Never fear."
He halted abruptly, became preternaturally grave, and presented arms.
The young surgeon, Dr. Monteith, who had met Ruth the night before, tramped in from a morning walk.
"Good morning, Miss Fielding. Did you sleep?"
She confessed that she did. He smiled, but there was a deep crease between his eyes.
"I am glad you are up betimes. We need some of your supplies. Can I send the orderlies with the schedule soon?"
"Oh, yes! I will try to be ready in half an hour," she cried, turning quickly toward the hut, of which she carried the key.
"Wait! Wait!" he called. "No such hurry as all that. You have not breakfasted, I imagine? Well, never neglect your food. It is vital.
I shall not send to you until half-past eight."
He saluted and went on. Ruth went to the hut in which the nurses messed. The night shift had just come in and she found them a pleasant, if serious, lot of women. And of all nationalities by blood--truly American!
There was an air about the nurses in the field hospital different from those she had met in inst.i.tutions farther back from the battle line.
There were serious girls there, but there was always a spatter of irresponsibles as well.
Here the nurses were like soldiers--and soldiers in active and dangerous service. There was a marked reserve about them and an expression of countenance that reminded Ruth of some of the nuns she had seen at home--a serenity that seemed to announce that they had given over worldly thoughts and that their minds were fixed upon higher things.
There was a hushed way of speaking, too, that impressed Ruth. It was as though they listened all the time for something. Was it for the whine of the sh.e.l.ls that sometimes came over the ridge and dropped perilously near the hospital?
As the day went on, however, the girl found that there was considerably more cheerfulness and light-heartedness in and about the hospital than she supposed would be found here. Having straightened out her own hut and supplied the various wards with what they needed for the day, she went about, getting acquainted.
It was a large hospital and there were many huts. In each of these shelters were from two dozen to forty patients. A nurse and an orderly took care of each hut, with a night attendant. Everybody was busy.
There were many visitors, too--visitors of all kinds and for all imaginary reasons. People came in automobiles; these had pa.s.ses from military authorities to see and bring comforts to the wounded. And there were more modest visitors who came on foot and brought baskets of jams and jellies and cakes and home-made luxuries that were eagerly welcomed by the wounded. For soldiers everywhere--whether well or ill--develop a sweet tooth.
Into the compound about midafternoon Ruth saw a tall figure slouch with a basket on his arm. It had begun to drizzle, as it so often does during the winter in Northern France, and this man wore a bedrabbled cloak--a brigandish-looking cloak--over his blue smock.
She had never seen such a figure before; and yet, there was something about the man that seemed familiar to the keen-eyed girl.
"Who is he?" she asked a nurse standing with her at the door of a ward, and pointing to the man slouching along with his basket across the open way.
"Oh, that? It is Nicko, the chocolate peddler," said the nurse carelessly. "A harmless fellow. Not quite right--here," and she tapped her own forehead significantly. "You understand? They say he lived here when first the Boches used their nasty gas, and he was caught in a cellar where a gas bomb exploded, and it affected his brain. It does that sometimes, you know," she added sadly.
Ruth"s eyes had followed the chocolate seller intently. Around a corner of a hut swung the surgeon, who was already the girl"s friend.
He all but ran against the slouching figure, and he spoke sharply to the man.
For an instant the chocolate peddler straightened. He stood, indeed, in a very soldierly fashion. Then, as the quick-tempered surgeon strode on, Nicko bowed. He bowed from the hips--and Ruth gasped as she saw the obeisance. Only yesterday she had seen a man bow in that same way!
CHAPTER IX
COT 24--HUT H
The guns on the battle front had been silent for twenty-four hours; but there were whispers of the Yankees "getting back" at the Heinies in return for the outbreak of German gunfire which had startled Ruth Fielding the afternoon she had taken tea at the Chateau Marchand.
The outbreak of the new attack--this time from the American side--began about nine o"clock at night. A barrage was laid down, behind which, Ruth learned, several raiding parties would go over.
Just the method of this advance across No Man"s Land Ruth did not understand. But all the time the guns were roaring back and forth (for, of course, the Germans quickly replied) she knew the American boys were in peril all along that sector.
That was a bad night for Ruth. She lay in her cot awake, but with her eyes closed, breathing deeply and regularly so that those about her thought she was asleep.
In the morning the matron said:
"You are really quite wonderful, Miss Fielding, to sleep through all that. I wish I could do the same."
And all night long Ruth had been praying--praying for the safety of the boys that had gone over the top, not for herself. That she was in danger did not greatly trouble her. She thought of the soldiers. She thought particularly of Tom Cameron--wherever he might be!
The flurry of gunfire was over by dawn. After breakfast Ruth went down to the gate. She had heard the ambulances rolling in for hours, and now she saw the stretcher-bearers stumbling into the receiving ward with the broken men. Here they were operated upon, when necessary, and sorted out--the _grands blesses_ sent to the more difficult wards, the less seriously wounded to others.
Curiosity did not bring Ruth to the gate. It was in the hope of seeing Charlie Bragg that she went there. Nor was she disappointed.
His shaky old car rolled up with three men under the canvas and one with a bandaged arm sitting on the seat beside him. Charlie was pale and haggard. Half the top of the ambulance had been shot away since she had ridden in it, and the boy had roughly repaired the damage with a blanket. But he nodded to Ruth with his old cheerful grin. Nothing could entirely quench Charlie Bragg.
"Got tipped over and holed up in a marmite cave for a couple of hours during the worst of it last night," he told Ruth. "Never mind. It gave me another chapter for my new book. Surely! I"m going to write a second one. They all do, you know. You rather get the habit."
"But, Charlie! Is--is there any news?" she asked him, with shaking voice and eyes that told much of her anxiety.
He knew well what she meant, and he looked grim enough for a minute, and nodded.