Her work in the hospital and supply room engaged so much of her time that for the first few weeks Ruth scarcely found opportunity to exercise properly. _Madame, la Directrice_, fairly had to drive her out of the hospital into the open air.
The fields and lanes about the town were lovely. Here the Hun had not seized and destroyed everything of beauty. He had been driven back too quickly in the early weeks of the war to have wreaked vengeance upon all that was French.
Clair was the center of a large agricultural community. The farmers dwelt together in the town and tilled the fields for several miles around. This habit had come down from feudal times, for then the farmers had to abide together for protection. And even now the inhabitants of Clair had the habit of likewise dwelling with their draft animals and cattle!
The narrow courts between the houses and stables were piled high with farm fertilizer, and the flies were a pest. The hospital authorities could not get the citizens to clean up the town. What had been the custom for centuries must always be custom, they thought.
The grumbling of the big guns on the battlefront was almost continuous, day and night. It got so that Ruth forgot the sound. At night, from the narrow window of her cell, she could see the white glare over the trenches far away. By day black specks swinging to and fro in the air marked the observation balloons. Occasionally a darting airplane attracted her to the window of her workroom.
Clair was kept dark at night. Scarcely the glimmer of a candle was allowed to shine forth from any window or doorway. There was a motion picture theater in the main street; but one had to creep to it by guess, and perhaps blunder in at the door of the grocer"s shop, or the wine merchant"s, before finding the picture show.
By day and night the French aircraft and the anti-aircraft guns were ready to fight off enemy airplanes. During the first weeks of Ruth Fielding"s sojourn in the town there were two warnings of German air raids at night. A deliberate attempt more than once had been made to bomb the Red Cross hospital.
Ruth was frightened. The first alarm came after she was in bed. She dressed hurriedly and ran down into the nearest ward. But there was no bustle there. The ringing of the church bells and the blowing of the alarm siren had not disturbed the patients here, and she saw Miss Simone, the night nurse, quietly going about her duties as though there was no stir outside.
Ruth remembered Charlie Bragg"s statement of the case: "If they get you they get you, and that"s all there is to it!" And she was ashamed to show fear in the presence of the nurse.
The French drove off the raider that time. The second time the German dropped bombs in the town, but n.o.body was hurt, and he did not manage to drop the bombs near the hospital. Ruth was glad that she felt less panic in this second raid than before.
Thinking of Charlie Bragg must have brought that young man to see her.
He came to the hospital on his rest day; and then later appeared driving his ambulance and asked her to ride.
The red cross she wore gave authority for Ruth"s presence in the ambulance, and n.o.body questioned their object in driving through the back roads and lanes beyond Clair.
The country here was not torn up by marmite holes, or the chasms made by the Big Berthas. Such a lovely, quiet country as it was! Were it not for the steady grumbling of the guns Ruth Fielding could scarcely have believed that there was such a thing as war.
But it was not likely that Ruth would ride much with Charlie Bragg for the mere pleasure of it. The young fellow drove at top speed at all times, whether the road was smooth or rutted.
"Really, I can"t help it, Miss Ruth," he declared. "Got the habit. We fellows want always to get as far as we can with our loads before something breaks down, or a sh.e.l.l gets us.
"By the way, seen anything of the werwolf again?"
"Mercy! No. Do you suppose we did really see anything that night?"
"Don"t know. I know there was an attack made upon this sector two nights after that, and a raid on an artillery base that we were keeping particularly secret from the Boches. Somebody must have told them."
"The Germans are always flying over and photographing everything," said Ruth doubtfully.
"Not that battery. Had it camouflaged and only worked on it nights. The Boches put a barrage right behind it and sent over troops who did a lot of damage.
"Believe me! You don"t know to what lengths these German spies and German-lovers go. You don"t know who is true and who is false about you.
And the most ingenious schemes they have," added Charlie.
"They have tried secret wireless right here-within two miles. But the radio makes too much noise and is sure to be spotted at last. In one place telegraph wires were carried for several miles through the bed of a stream and the spy on this side walked about with the telegraph instrument in his pocket. When he got a chance he went to the hut near the river bank, where the ends of the wire were insulated, and tapped out his messages.
"And pigeons! Don"t say a word. They"re flying all the time, and sometimes they are shot and the quills found under their wings. I tell you spies just swarm all along this front."
"Then," Ruth said, ruminatingly, "it must have been a dog we saw that night."
"The werwolf?" asked Charlie, with a grin.
"That is nonsense. It is a dog trained to run between the spy on this side and somebody behind the German lines. Poor dog!"
"Wow!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young fellow with disgust. "Isn"t that just like a girl? "Poor dog," indeed!"
"Why! you don"t suppose that a n.o.ble dog would _want_ to be a spy?"
cried Ruth. "You can scarcely imagine a dog choosing any tricky way through life. It is only men who deliberately choose despicable means to despicable ends."
"Hold on! Hold on!" cried Charlie Bragg. "Spies are necessary-as long as there is going to be war, anyway. The French have got quite as brave and successful spies beyond the German lines as the Germans have over here; only not so many."
"Well-I suppose that"s so," admitted Ruth, sighing. "There must be these terrible things as long as the greater terrible thing, war, exists. Oh!
There is the chateau gateway. Drive slower, Mr. Bragg-do, please!"
They mounted a little rise in the road. Above they had seen the walls and towers of the chateau, and had seen them clearly for some time. But now the boundary wall of the estate edged the road, and an arched gateway, with high grilled gates and a small door set into the wall beside the wider opening, came into view.
A single thought had stung Ruth Fielding"s mind, but she did not utter it. It was: Why had none of the German aviators dropped bombs upon the stone towers on the hill? Was it a fact that the enemy deliberately ignored the existence of the chateau-that somebody in that great pile of masonry won its immunity from German bombs by playing the traitor to France and her cause?
Charlie had really reduced the speed of the car until it was now only crawling up the slope of the road. Something fluttered at the postern-gate-a woman"s petticoat.
"There"s the old woman," said Charlie, "Take a good look at her."
"You don"t mean the countess?" gasped Ruth.
"Whiskers! No!" chuckled the young fellow. "She"s a servant-or something. Dresses like one of these French peasants about here. And yet she isn"t French!"
"You have seen her before, then," murmured Ruth.
"Twice. There! Look at her mustache, will you? She looks like a grenadier."
The woman at the gate was a tall, square-shouldered woman, with a hard, lined and almost masculine countenance. She stared with gloomy look as the Red Cross ambulance rolled by. Ruth caught Charlie"s arm convulsively.
"Oh! what was that?" she again whispered, looking back at the woman in the gateway.
"What was what?" he asked.
"That-something white-behind her-inside the gate! Why, Mr. Bragg! was it a dog?"
"The werwolf," chuckled the young chauffeur.
CHAPTER XVIII-SHOCKING NEWS
From both Helen and Jennie letters reached the girl of the Red Mill quite frequently. Ruth saw that always her correspondence was opened and read by the censor; but that was the fate of all letters that came to Clair.
"We innocents," said the matron of the hospital, "are thus afflicted because of the plague of spies-a veritable Egyptian plague!-that infests this part of my country. Do not be troubled, Mam"zelle Americaine. You are not singled out as though your friendliness to France was questioned.