"As far as I could find out there have been two laborers employed at our camp who are traitors. In spite of all the official red tape and investigations, your son Billy seems to have been the only person who discovered the fact. The little fellow apparently called himself a pacifist and made friends with the men. Anyhow they must have believed he sympathized with them, for he has been watching them for some time. I don"t know how long, I am having to guess a part of this. But they must have finally decided he was one of them, as they allowed him to find out their secrets. It is amazing. I don"t see how he managed!"
"But you have not yet told us how Billy chanced to be at your camp tonight and how he came to be hurt, Lieutenant Carson," Peggy pleaded, knowing that the same thought was in all their minds.
"Billy knew there was mischief brewing without knowing exactly what the ruffians were planning to do, at least, that is the way I understand the facts," the young officer continued. "But it seems that when he had followed them to their meeting place earlier in the evening, he found out they had placed a bomb in one of our big buildings at camp which was set to go off at a certain hour tonight. Billy says he made the men believe he considered this a great idea, otherwise they would never have allowed him to escape. He seems to have had the nerve to get up and spout a little speech on pacifism before about half a dozen of them. I believe he said that if only the men managed to destroy our war camps, the United States would never be able to enter the war in Europe and so peace would soon have to be declared as the Allies couldn"t go on without America"s aid. Anyhow, after a while they let the little fellow go and he pretended to be starting for home. But instead he made for our camp.
"Perhaps he could have managed better. What I should have done in his place I don"t know; but he was a little chap up against a pretty big proposition. He did not know how to get the news to camp unless he told some one out here what was about to take place. He was trying to slip into camp with his news when one of our sentries shot him. He was just able to tell the soldier who picked him up what his business was and--well, we found the infernal machine where he told us to look for it. And G.o.d only knows how many lives Billy has saved!"
"But my son will live?" Mrs. Webster inquired, with the quiet fort.i.tude which comes now and then to some of us in the really great moments of our lives.
"I don"t know, Mrs. Webster," Lieutenant Carson answered honestly. "I was only ordered to bring you to camp as quickly as possible."
Then the young officer took charge of the car, as he was more familiar with the road than Dan.
The southern dawn which Billy had learned to love in these past weeks was breaking into pale lavender and rose when the army automobile arrived at camp.
A good many of the soldiers were walking about, not caring to go back to sleep after what had occurred. More of them than one would imagine remembered seeing Billy about camp in the past few weeks, the delicate young fellow with the extraordinary blue eyes. Lucky thing for them that he had been around, but hard on him!
Captain Mason and Major Anderson, two of the officers who were friends of Mrs. Burton"s, came forward to meet her and Mrs. Webster.
They led the way to the hospital, with the girls and Dan and Lieutenant Carson following.
"Your son has been asking for you, Mrs. Webster, only he said you were not to be frightened about him and we were not to let you know what had happened until breakfast time," Major Anderson remarked with that same huskiness in his voice which Lieutenant Carson had been unable to conceal. "This war has made many heroes and will make many more, but I don"t know of a finer thing than your son has done. He must have known the risk he ran when he came out here alone tonight on such an errand."
At the door of the hospital, which was only a wooden house with a Red Cross flag outside, the doctor met the little company.
"You will be as quiet as you can and try not to excite him," he said, and there was something in his voice which made all questioning impossible.
Then Mrs. Webster and Dan and Peggy went inside the little hospital.
Within a few moments Dan came out again with his head bowed and went away by himself without speaking.
"Will it be many hours, Doctor?" Mrs. Burton inquired.
The doctor shook his head.
"Not many."
Mrs. Burton was standing with her arm about Vera Lagerloff, feeling Vera"s grief almost as deeply as her own. Without a tie of blood, without the right to be near him which his family had, Vera was yet closer to Billy in many ways than any other human being in the world.
"You shall see him soon, dear," Mrs. Burton murmured.
Vera nodded.
"Billy will send for me; there will be so many things he will wish to say," she replied and her tone was one of love and understanding.
"I don"t think I can get on without Billy afterwards, Mrs. Burton. No one else has realized how wonderful he was, what beautiful things he was planning to do with his life." Vera was shivering so Mrs. Burton could only hold her more closely.
"I know, dear, and yet how could one do more than Billy has done?
Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend. Billy"s friends, remember, were never merely the few people he knew; his idea of friendship was a bigger thing than ours."
"Billy wishes to speak to you, Tante, and to Vera," Peggy said at this instant appearing at the open door. "Don"t be unhappy at seeing him. He is not frightened and yet he understands perfectly he has only a little while."
Billy was lying on a cot with a nurse on one side of him and his mother on the other, but, except for this, looking much as he usually did.
His face was paler and the blue eyes even wider open, yet for once in his life they seemed to have lost their questioning look.
"I promised you not to get into mischief, Tante. Well, this is the last time; at least, I suppose it is my last. But after all one does not know; there may be other chances over there."
Billy was trying to smile and Mrs. Burton leaned over and kissed him.
"I know there will be, Billy, and you will take them as gallantly as you have done this one. Don"t worry, old chap, I"ll look after your mother and Peggy."
Then she turned away.
Vera had kneeled down and was hiding her face in the bed clothes.
It was to her Billy turned like a little boy.
"Please look at me, Vera, and tell me you are sorry. It was like me to do the right thing in the wrong way, wasn"t it? Yet there are so many things I want to say, want to explain to people. You see it is all a question of our learning to understand each other better to end fighting and all the rest of it. You believed in me, didn"t you, Vera? Yet you understand that I could not let the soldiers out here be killed when they are getting ready to give their lives for ours. What is that we read about Christ the other day, Vera?"
Vera held Billy"s two hands folded closely in her own.
"Listen, dear, and remember this:
""Christ is courage, Christ is adventure, he fights for us and with us against death.""
CHAPTER XIX
Plans for the Future
In a large hotel sitting-room a number of girls were grouped in various att.i.tudes, discussing a question which evidently interested them.
"Does any one know _why_ we are _not_ to start east tomorrow as we planned?" Marta Clark inquired, glancing up from a city map which she had been studying.
"Why, no, not exactly," Bettina Graham answered her. "Tante did not tell us definitely. She merely said that something had occurred which made her feel it would be wiser for her to remain in California a few days longer, unless we were compelled to leave for home at once. Personally I cannot imagine what is keeping her here, as I know she is anxious to go home, now that our Camp Fire summer is over and Peggy and Aunt Mollie and Dan Webster have gone. I think it was wonderfully good of her to continue with our camping party after Billy"s death, when she must have wished to leave with the others."
"I think _I_ know why she seemed to change her mind so unexpectedly yesterday and canceled all our reservations for berths," Sally Ashton announced in the mysterious manner which Sally often a.s.sumed to the annoyance of the other girls. Since her arrival in the city, Sally temporarily had forsworn her war and Camp Fire abstinence and was at this moment engaged in eating chocolates which had just arrived by parcel post from Merton Anderson.
"How absurd you are, Sally! You know no more than the rest of us!" Alice Ashton argued with sisterly frankness.
Instead of replying, sanctimoniously tightening her lips, Sally added nothing to her original statement.
"Nevertheless, won"t you _please_ tell us what you think, Sally?" Vera Lagerloff requested, and because it was Vera who made the request Sally agreed.
Since Billy"s death the Camp Fire girls had been as un.o.btrusively kind to Vera as they knew how to be. In a measure they appreciated what his loss must mean to her, although it was out of the question that they could fully understand the extent of Vera"s loneliness, the feeling of emptiness which the future now seemed to offer her.