We knew, of course, that Tish’s fine brain was working on the problem of
rescuing Charlie Sands; and Mr. Burton was on the whole rather keen
about it.
“I’ve got to get a German officer some way,” he said. “She’s probably
planning now to see Von Hindenburg about Sands. She generally aims high,
I’ve discovered. And in that case I rather fancy myself taking the old
chap back to Hilda as a souvenir.” He then reflected and scowled. “But
she’d be flirting with him in ten minutes, damn her!” he added.
Tish refused both sympathy and conversation during the afternoon.
On Aggie’s offering her both she merely said: “Go away and leave me
alone, for Heaven’s sake. He is perfectly safe. I only hope he took his
toothbrush, that’s all.”
It is a proof of Tish’s gift of concentration that she thought out her
plan so thoroughly under the circumstances, for the valley was shelled
all that afternoon. We found an abandoned battery position and the three
of us took refuge in it, leaving Tish outside knitting calmly. It was a
poor place, but by taking in our folding table and chairs we made it
fairly comfortable, and Mr. Burton taught us a most interesting game of
cards, in which one formed pairs and various combinations, and counted
with coffee beans. If one had four of any one kind one took all the
beans.
It was dusk when Tish appeared in the doorway, and we noticed that she
wore a look of grim determination.
“I have been to the top of the hill,” she said, “and I believe that I
know now the terrain thoroughly. In case my first plan fails we may be
compelled to desperate measures—but I find my present situation
intolerable. Never before has a member of my family been taken by an
enemy. We die, but we do not surrender.”
“You can speak for your own family, then,” Aggie said. “I’ve got a
family, too, but it’s got sense enough to surrender when necessary. And
if you think Libby Prison was any treat to my grandfather——”
Tish ignored her.
“It is my intention,” she went on, “to appeal to the general of his
division to rescue my nephew and thus wipe out the stain on the family
honor. Failing that, I am prepared to go to any length.” Here she eyed
Aggie coldly. “It is no time for craven spirits,” she said. “We may be
arrested and court-martialed for being so near the Front, to say nothing
of what may eventuate in case of a refusal. I intend to leave no stone
unturned, but I think it only fair to ask for a vote of confidence.
Those in the affirmative will please signify by saying ‘aye.’”
“Aye,” I said stoutly. I would not fail my dear Tish in such a crisis.
Aggie followed me a moment later, but feebly, and Mr. Burton said: “I
don’t like the idea any more than I do my right eye. Why bother with the
general? I’m for going to V—— and breaking up the pinochle game, and
bringing home the bacon in the shape of a Hun or two.”
However, I have reason to think that he was joking, and that subsequent
events startled him considerably, for I remember that when it was all
over and we were in safety once again he kept saying over and over in a
dazed voice: “Well, can you beat it? Can you beat it?”
In some way Tish had heard, from a battery on the hill, I think, that
headquarters was at the foot of the hill on the other side. She made her
plans accordingly.
“As soon as darkness has fallen,” she said to Mr. Burton, “we three
women shall visit the commanding officer and there make our
plea—without you, as it will be necessary to use all the softening
feminine influence possible. One of two things will then occur: Either
he will rescue my nephew or—I shall.”
“Now see here, Miss Tish,” he protested, “you’re not going to leave me
out of it altogether, are you? You wouldn’t break my heart, would you?
Besides, you’ll need me. I’m a specialist at rescuing nephews. I—I’ve
rescued thousands of nephews in my time.”
Well, she’d marked out a place that would have been a crossroads if the
German shells had left any road, and she said if she failed with the
C. O. he was to meet us there, with two baskets of cigarettes for the men
in the trenches.
“Cigarettes!” he said. “What help will they be against the enemy? Unless
you mean to wait until they’ve smoked themselves to death.”
“Underneath the cigarettes,” Tish went on calmly, “you will have a
number of grenades. If only we could repair that machine gun!” she
reflected. “I dare say I can salvage an automatic rifle or two,” she
finished; “though large-sized firecrackers would do. The real thing is
to make a noise.”
“We might get some paper bags and burst them,” suggested Mr. Burton;
“and if you feel that music would add to the martial effect I can play
fairly well on a comb.”
It was perhaps nine o’clock when we reached the crest of the hill, and
had Tish not thoughtfully brought her wire cutters along I do not
believe we would have succeeded in reaching headquarters. We got there
finally, however, and it was in a cellar and—though I do not care to
reflect on our gallant army—not as tidy as it should have been. Mr.
Burton having remained behind temporarily the three of us made our way
to the entrance, and Tish was almost bayoneted by a sentry there, who
was nervous because of a number of shells falling in the vicinity.
“Take that thing away!” she said with superb scorn, pointing to the
bayonet. “I don’t want a hole in the only uniform I’ve got, young man.
Watch your head, Lizzie!”
“The saints protect us!” said the sentry. “Women! Three women!”
Tish and I went down the muddy incline into the cellar, and two officers
who were sitting there playing cribbage looked at us and then stood up
with a surprised expression.
Tish had assumed a most lofty attitude, and picking out the general with
an unfailing eye she saluted and said: “Only the most urgent matters
would excuse my intrusion, sir. I——”
Unfortunately at that moment Aggie slipped and slid into the room feet
first in a sitting posture. She brought up rather dazed against the
table, and for a moment both officers were too surprised to offer her
any assistance. Tish and I picked her up, and she fell to sneezing
violently, so that it was some time before the conversation was resumed.
It was the general who resumed it.
“This is very flattering,” he said in a cold voice, “but if you ladies
will explain how you got here I’ll make it interesting for somebody.”
Suddenly the colonel who was with him said: “Suffering Crimus! It can’t
be! And yet—it certainly is!”
We looked at him, and it was the colonel who had been so interested in
Charlie Sands at the training camp. We all shook hands with him, and he
offered us chairs, and said to the general: “These are the ladies I have
told you about, sir, with the nephew. You may recall the helpful
suggestions sent to the Secretary of War and forwarded back to me by the
General Staff. I have always wanted to explain about those dish towels,
ladies. You see, you happened on us at a bad time. Our dish towels had
come, but though neatly hemmed they lacked the small tape in the corner
by which to hang them up. I therefore——”
“Oh, keep still!” said the general in an angry tone. “Now, what brings
you women here?”
“My nephew has been taken prisoner,” Tish said coldly. “I want to know
merely whether you propose to do anything about it or intend to sit here
in comfort and do nothing.”
He became quite red in the face at this allusion to the cribbage board,
et cetera, and at first seemed unable to speak.
“Quietly, man,” said the colonel. “Remember your blood pressure.”
“Damn my blood pressure!” said the general in a thick tone.
I must refuse to relate the conversation that followed—hardly
conversation, indeed, as at the end the general did all the talking.
At last, however, he paused for breath, and Tish said very quietly:
“Then I am to understand that you refuse to do anything about my
nephew?”
“Who is your nephew?”
“Charlie Sands.”
“And who’s Charlie Sands?”
“My nephew,” said Tish.
He said nothing to this, but shouted abruptly in a loud voice:
“Orderly! Raise that curtain and let some air into this rat hole.”
Then he turned to the colonel and said: “Thompson, you’re younger than I
am. I’ve got a family, and my blood pressure’s high. I’m going out to
make a tour of the observation posts.”
“Coward!” said the colonel to him in a low tone.
The colonel was very pleasant to us when the other man had gone. The
general was his brother-in-law, he said, and rather nervous because they
hadn’t had a decent meal for a week.
“The only thing that settles his nerves is cribbage,” he explained. “It
helps his morale. Now—let us think about getting you back to safety.
I’d offer you our humble hospitality, but somebody got in here today and
stole the duckboard I’ve been sleeping on, and I can’t offer you the
general’s cellar door. He’s devoted to it.”
“What if we refuse to go back?” Tish demanded. “We’ve taken a risky trip
for a purpose, and I don’t give up easily, young man. I’m inclined to
sit here until that general promises to do something.”
His face changed.
“Oh, now see here,” he said in an appealing voice, “you aren’t going to
make things difficult for me, are you? There’s a regulation against
this sort of thing.”
“We are welfare workers,” Tish said calmly. “Behind us there stand the
entire American people. If kept from the front trenches while trying to
serve our boys there are ways of informing the people through the
press.”
“It’s exactly the press I fear,” he said in a sad voice. “Think of the
results to you three, and to me.”
“What results?” Tish demanded impatiently. “I’m not doing anything I’m
ashamed of.”
He was abstractedly moving the cribbage pins about.
“It’s like this,” he said: “Not very far behind the lines there are a
lot of newspaper correspondents, and lately there hasn’t been much news.
But perhaps I’d better explain my own position. I am engaged to a lovely
girl at home. I write to her every day, but I have been conscious
recently that in her replies to me there has been an element of—shall I
say suspicion? No, that is not the word. Anxiety—of anxiety, lest I
shall fall in love with some charming Red Cross or Y. M. C. A. girl.
Nothing could be further from my thoughts, but you can see my situation.
Three feminine visitors at nightfall; news-hungry correspondents; all
the rest of it. Scandal, dear ladies! And absolute ruin to my hopes!”
“Bosh!” said Tish. But I could see that she was uncomfortable. “If
there’s trouble I’ll send her our birth certificates. Besides, I thought
you said the general was your brother-in-law?”
Aggie says he changed color at that but he said hastily: “By marriage,
madam, only by marriage. By that I mean—I—he—the general is married
to my brother.”
“Really!” said Tish. “How unusual!”
She said afterward that she saw at once then that we were only wasting
time, and that neither one of them would move hand or foot to get
Charlie Sands back. Aggie had been scraping her skirt with a table
knife, and was now fairly tidy, so Tish prepared to depart.
“On thinking it over,” she said, “I realize that I am confronting a
situation which requires brains rather than brute force. I shall
therefore attend to it myself. Good night, colonel. I hope you find
another duckboard. And—if you are writing home present my compliments
to the general’s husband. Come, Aggie.”
At the top of the incline I looked back. The colonel was staring after
us and wiping his forehead with a khaki handkerchief.
“You see,” Tish said bitterly, “that is the sort of help one gets from
the Army.” She drew a deep breath and looked in the general direction of
the trenches. “One thing is sure and certain—I’m not going back until
I’ve found out whether Charlie Sands is still in that town over there or
whether he has been taken away so we’ll have to get at him from
Switzerland.”
Aggie gave a low moan at this, and Tish eyed her witheringly.
“Don’t be an idiot, Aggie!” she observed. “I haven’t asked you to go—or
Lizzie either. I’d be likely,” she added, “to get through our lines
unseen and into the very midst of the German Army—with one of you
sneezing with hay fever and the other one panting like a locomotive
from too much flesh.”
“Tish——” I began firmly. But she waved her hand in silence and
demanded Aggie’s flashlight. She then led the way behind the ruins of a
wall and took a bundle of papers from under her jacket.
“If the Army won’t help us we have a right to help ourselves,” she
observed. And I perceived with a certain trepidation that the papers
were some that had been lying on the table at headquarters.
“‘Memorandum,’” Tish read the top one. “‘Write home. Order boots. Send
to British Commissary for Scotch whisky. Insect powder!’ Wouldn’t you
know,” she said bitterly, “that that general would have to make a
memorandum about writing home?”
Underneath, however, there was an aeroplane picture of the Front and
V——, and also a map. Both of these she studied carefully until several
bullets found their way to our vicinity, and a sentry ran up and was
very rude about the light. On receiving a box of cigarettes, however, he
became quite friendly.
“Haven’t had a pill for a week,” he said. “Got to a point now where we
steal the hay from the battery horses and roll it up in leaves from my
Bible. But it isn’t really satisfying.”
Tish gave him a brief lecture on thus mutilating his best friend, but he
said that he only used the unimportant pages. “You know,” he
explained—“somebody begat somebody else, and that sort of thing. You
haven’t any more fags about you, have you?” he asked wistfully. “I’ll be
sandbagged and robbed if I go back without any for the other fellows.”
“We can bring some,” Tish suggested, “and you might show us to the
trenches. I particularly wish to give some to the men in the most
advanced positions.”
“You’re on,” he said cheerfully. “Bring the life savers, and we’ll see
that you get forward all right.”
Tish reflected.
“Suppose,” she said at last—“suppose that we wish to be able on
returning to our native land to state that we have not only been to our
advanced positions but have even made a short excursion into the
debatable territory—that is, into what is commonly known as No Man’s
Land?”
“All of you?” he asked doubtfully.
“All of us.”
He then considered and said: “How many cigarettes have you got?”
“About a hundred packages,” Tish replied. “Say, five to you, and the
rest used where considered most efficacious.”
“Every man has his price,” he observed. “That’s mine. I’m taking a
chance, but I’ve seen you round, so I know you’re not spies. And if you
get an extra helmet out there you might give me one. I’ve been here six
months and I’ve never seen one, on a German or off. I let a woman
reporter through last week,” he added, “and d’you think she thanked me?
No. She gave me hell because the Germans had a raid that night and
nearly got her. I’m a soldier, not a prophet.”
Tish left us immediately to go back to Mr. Burton, and Aggie clutched
at my arm in a frenzy of anxiety.
“She’s going to do it, Lizzie!” she said with her teeth chattering.
“She’s going to V—— to rescue Charlie Sands, and we’ll all be caught,
and—Lizzie, I feel that I shall never see home again.”
“Well, if you ask me, I don’t think you will,” I said as calmly as
possible. Aggie put her head on my shoulder and wept between sneezes.
“I know I’m weak, Lizzie,” she moaned, “but I’m frightened, and I’m not
afraid to say so. You’d think she only had to shoo those Germans like a
lot of chickens. I love Tish, but if she’d only sprain her ankle or
something!”
However, Tish came back soon, bringing Mr. Burton with her and two
baskets with cigarettes on top and grenades below, and also our
revolvers and a supply of extra cartridges. She had not explained her
plan to Mr. Burton, so we sat down behind the wall and she told him. He
seemed quite willing and cheerful.
“Certainly,” he said. “It is all quite clear. We simply go into No Man’s
Land for souvenirs, and they pass us. Perfectly natural, of course. We
then continue to advance to the German lines, and then commit suicide.
I’ve been thinking of doing it for some time anyhow, and this way has an
element of the dramatic that appeals to me.” I have learned since that
he felt that the only thing to do was to humor Tish, and that he was
convinced that about a hundred yards in No Man’s Land would hurt no one,
and, as he expressed it, clear the air. How little he knew our dear
Tish!
As it is not my intention to implicate any of those brave boys who
sought to give us merely the innocent pleasure of visiting the strip of
land between the two armies I shall draw a veil over our excursion
through the trenches that night, where we were met everywhere with
acclaim and gratitude, and finally assisted out of the trenches by means
of a ladder. As it was quite dark the grenades in the basket entirely
escaped notice, and we found ourselves at last headed toward the German
lines, and fully armed, though looking, as Mr. Burton observed, like a
picnic party.
He persisted in making humorous sallies such as: “Did any one remember
the pepper and salt?” and “I hope somebody brought pickles. What’s a
picnic without pickles?”
I regret to say that we were fired on by some of our own soldiers who
didn’t understand the situation, shortly after this, and that the bottle
of blackberry cordial which I was carrying was broken to fragments.
“If they hit this market basket there’ll be a little excitement,” Mr.
Burton said. He then stopped and said that a joke was a joke, but there
was such a thing as carrying it too far, and that we’d better look for a
helmet or two and then go back.
“The Germans are just on the other side of that wood,” he whispered;
“and they don’t know a joke when they see one.”
“I thought, Mr. Burton, you promised to take Hilda a German officer,”
Tish said scornfully.
“I did,” he agreed. “I did indeed. But now I think of it, I didn’t
promise her a live one. The more I consider the matter the more I am
sure that no stipulation was made as to the conditions of delivery.
I——”
But when he saw Tish continuing to advance he became very serious, and
even suggested that if we would only go back he would himself advance as
far as possible and endeavor to reach V——.
Just what Tish’s reply would have been I do not know, as at that moment
Aggie stumbled and fell into a deep shell hole full of water. We heard
the splash and waited for her voice, as we were uncertain of her exact
position.
But what was our surprise on hearing a deep masculine voice say: “Hands
up, you dirty swine!”
“Let go of me,” came in piteous accents from Aggie.
There was then complete silence, until the other voice said: “Well, I’ll
be damned!” It then said: “Bill, Bill!”
“Here,” said still another voice, a short distance away, in a sort of
loud whisper.
“There’s a mermaid in my pool,” said the first voice. “Did you draw
anything?”
“Lucky devil,” said the other voice. “I’m drawing about eight feet of
water, that’s all.”
Tish then advanced in the direction of the voices and said: “Aggie, are
you all right?”
“I’m half drowned. And there’s a man here.”
The first voice then said in an aggrieved manner: “This is my puddle,
you know, lady. And if my revolver wasn’t wet through I’m afraid there
would be one mermaid less, or whatever you are.”
The Germans at that moment sent up one of their white lights, which
resemble certain of our Fourth of July pieces, which float a long time
and give the effect of full moonlight.
“Down,” said Mr. Burton, and we all fell flat on our faces. Before doing
so, however, we had a short glimpse of Aggie’s head and another above
the water in the shell hole, and realized that her position was very
uncomfortable.
When the light died away the two men emerged, and with some difficulty
dragged her out. It was while this was going on that Tish caught my arm
and whispered: “Lizzie, I have heard that voice before.”
Well, it had a familiar sound to me also, and when he addressed the
other man as Grogan I suddenly remembered. It was the man we had thrown
from the ambulance in Paris the night Tish salvaged it! I told Tish in a
whisper, and she remembered the incident clearly.
“You sure gave me a scare,” he said to Aggie. “For if you were a German
I was gone, and if you were an officer of the A. E. F. I was gone more.
Bill and I just slipped out to take a look round the town behind those
woods, account of our captain being a prisoner there.”
“Who is your captain?” Tish asked.
“Name’s Weber. We pulled off a raid last night, and he and a fellow
named Sands got grabbed.”
“Weber?” said Mr. Burton, forgetting to whisper.
“You—you don’t mean Captain Weber?” I asked after a sickening pause.
“That’s the man.”
“Oh, dear!” said Aggie.
Suddenly Mr. Burton stopped and put down the basket of grenades.
“I’m damned if I’m going to rescue him!” he said firmly. “Now look here,
Miss Tish, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve got private reasons for
leaving Weber exactly where he is.
“I don’t wish him any harm, but if they’d take him and put him to road
mending for three or four years I’d be a happier man. And as far as I’m
concerned, I’m going to give them the chance.”
The two men had stood listening, and now Bill spoke:
“Am I to understand that this is a rescue party?” he said. “Seeing the
basket I thought it was a picnic. I just want to say this: If you have
any idea of going to V——, and as we were going in that direction
ourselves, we might combine. My friend here and I were over last night,
and we know how to get into the town.”
“Very well,” Tish agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “I have no
objection. It must be distinctly understood, however, that I am in
charge. Captain Sands is my nephew.”
Another light went up just then, and I perceived that he was staring at
her.
“My—my word!” he gasped.
We then fell on our faces, and while lying there I heard him whispering
to Bill. He then said to Tish: “I believe, lady, that we have met
before.”
“Very possibly,” Tish said calmly. “In the course of my welfare work I
have met many of our brave men.”
“I wouldn’t call it exactly welfare work you were doing when I saw you.”
“No?” said Tish.
“You may be interested to know that if you hadn’t stolen that
ambulance——”
“Salvaged.”
“——salvaged that ambulance I would now be in safety in Paris, instead
of—— Not that I’d exchange,” he added. “I wouldn’t have missed this
excursion for a good bit. But they made it so darned unpleasant for me
that I enlisted.”
The starlight having now died we rose and prepared to advance. Mr.
Burton, however, was very difficult and tried to get Tish to promise to
leave Captain Weber if we found him.
“It’s the only bit of luck I’ve had since I left home, Miss Tish,” he
said.
Tish, however, ignored him, and with the help of our new allies briefly
sketched a plan of campaign.
I make no pretensions to military knowledge, but I shall try to explain
the situation at V——, as our dear Tish learned it from the general’s
papers and the two soldiers. The real German position—a military term
meaning location and not attitude—was behind the town, but they kept
enough soldiers in it to hold it, and in case of an attack they filled
it up with great rapidity. So far the church tower remained standing, as
the Allies wished on taking the town to use it to look out from and
observe any unfriendly actions on the part of the Germans.
“If only,” Tish said, “we could have repaired that machine gun and
brought it the affair would be extremely simple. It has from the
beginning been my intention to give the impression of an attack in
force.”
She then considered for a short time, and finally suggested that the two
soldiers return to the allied Front and attempt to secure two automatic
rifles.
“And it might be as well,” she added, “to take Miss Aggie with you. She
is wet through, and will undoubtedly before long have a return of her
hay fever, which with her has no season. A sneeze at a critical time
might easily ruin us.”
Aggie, however, absolutely refused to return, and said that by holding
her nostrils closed and her mouth open she could, if she felt the
paroxysm coming on, sneeze almost noiselessly. She said also that
though not related to her by blood Charlie Sands was as dear as her own,
and that if turned back she would go to V—— alone and, if captured, at
least suffer imprisonment with him.
Tish was quite touched, I could see, and on the two men departing to
attempt the salvage of the required weapons she assisted me in wringing
out Aggie’s clothing and in making her as comfortable as possible.
We waited for some time, eating chocolate to restore our strength, and
attempting to comfort Mr. Burton, who was very surly.
“It has been my trouble all my life,” he observed bitterly, “not to
leave well enough alone. I hadn’t any hope of the success of this
expedition before, but now I know you’ll pull it off. You’ll get Sands
and you’ll get Weber and send him back—to—well, you understand. It’s
just my luck. I’m not complaining, but if I’m killed and he isn’t I’m
going to haunt that Y hut and make it darned unpleasant for both of
them.”
Tish reproved him for debasing the future life to such purposes, but he
was firm.
“If you think I’m going to stand round and be walked through and sat on,
and all the indignities that ghosts must suffer, without getting back,”
he said gloomily, “you can think again, Miss Tish!”
When the two men returned Tish gave them a brief talking-to.
“First of all,” she said, “there must be no mistake as to who is in
command of this expedition. If we succeed it will be by finesse rather
than force, and that is distinctly a feminine quality. Second, there is
to be no unnecessary fighting. We are here to secure my nephew, not the
German Army.”
The man we had bumped off the step of the ambulance, whose name proved
to be Jim, said at once that that last sentence had relieved his mind
greatly. A few prisoners wouldn’t put them out seriously, but the Allies
were feeding more than they could afford already.
“But a few won’t matter,” he added. “Say, a dozen or so. They won’t kick
on that.”
* * * * *
I have never learned where Tish learned her strategy—unless from the
papers she took from the general’s cellar.
Military experts have always considered the plan masterly, I believe,
and have lauded the mobility of a small force and the greater element of
surprise possible, as demonstrated by the incidents which followed.
Briefly Tish adhered to her plan of making the attack seem a large one,
by spreading the party over a large area and having it make as much noise
as possible.
“By firing from one spot, and then running rapidly either to right or
left, and firing again,” she said, “those who have only revolvers may
easily appear to be several persons instead of one.”
She then arranged that the two automatic rifles attack the town from in
front, but widely separated, while Aggie and myself, endeavoring to be a
platoon—or perhaps she said regiment—would advance from the left. On
the right Mr. Burton was to move forward in force, firing his revolver
and throwing grenades in different directions. Of her own plans she said
nothing.
“Forward, the Suicide Club!” said Mr. Burton with that strange sarcasm
which had marked him during the last hour.
I have since reflected that certain kinds of men seem to take love very
unpleasantly. Aggie, however, maintains that the deeper the love the
greater the misery, and that Mr. Wiggins once sent back a muffler she
had made for him on seeing her conversing with the janitor of the church
about dust in her pew.
In a short time we had passed through the wood and the remainder of the
excursion was very slow, owing to being obliged to crawl on our hands
and knees. We could now see the church tower, and Tish gave the signal
to separate. The men left us at once, but for a short time Tish was near
me, as I could tell by an irritated exclamation from her when she became
entangled in the enemy’s barbed wire. But soon I realized that she had
gone. Looking back I believe it was just before we met the Germans who
were out laying wire, but I am not quite certain. There were about ten
of the enemy, and they almost stepped on Aggie. She said afterward that
she was so alarmed that she sneezed, but that having buried her entire
face in a mudhole they did not hear her. We lay quite still for some
time, and when they had gone and we could move again Tish had
disappeared.
However, we obeyed orders and went on moving steadily to the left, and
before long we were able to make out the ruins of V—— directly before
us. They were apparently empty and silent, and concealing ourselves
behind a fallen wall we waited for the automatic rifles to give the
signal. Aggie had taken cold from her wetting, and could hardly speak.
“I’b sure they’ve taked Tish,” were her first words.
“Not alive,” I said grimly.
“Lizzie! Oh, by dear Tish!”
“If you’ve got to worry,” I said rather tartly, “worry about the
Germans. It wouldn’t surprise me a particle to see her bring in the
lot.”
Well, the attack started just then and Aggie and I got our revolvers and
began shooting as rapidly as possible, firing from the end of the
village, and with Mr. Burton’s grenades from one side and our revolvers
from the other it made a tremendous noise. Aggie and I did our best, I
know, to appear to be a large number, firing and then moving to a new
point and firing again. I must say from the way those Germans ran toward
their own lines behind the town I was not surprised at the rapidity of
the final retreat which ended the war. As Aggie said later, we were not
there to kill them unless necessary, but they ran so fast at times it
was difficult to avoid hitting them. They fairly ran into the bullets.
In a very short time there was not one in sight, but we kept on firing
for a trifle longer, and then made for the church, meeting the two
privates on the way. When we arrived Mr. Burton was already there and
had unfastened a large bolt on the outside of the door. We crowded in,
and somebody closed the door and we had a moment to breathe.
“Well, here we are,” said Mr. Burton in a quite cheerful tone. “And not
a casualty among us—or the Germans either, I fancy, save those that
died of heart disease. Are we all here, by the way?”
He then struck a match, and my heart sank.
“Tish!” I cried. “Tish is not here!”
It was then that a voice from the far end of the church said:
“Suffering snakes! I’m delirious, Weber! I knew that beer would get me.
I thought I heard——”
Some one was hammering at the door with a revolver, and we heard Tish’s
dear voice outside saying: “Keep your hands up! _Lizzie!_”
Mr. Burton opened the door and Tish backed in, followed by a figure that
was muttering in German. She had both her revolvers pointed at it, and
she said: “Close the door, somebody, and get a light. I think it’s a
general.”
Well, Charlie Sands was coming with a candle stuck in the neck of a
bottle, and he seemed extremely surprised. He kept stumbling over things
and saying “Wake me, Weber,” until he had put a hand on my arm.
“It’s real,” he said then. “It’s a real arm. Therefore it is, it must
be. And yet——”
“Stop driveling,” Tish said sharply, “and tie up this general or
whatever he is. I don’t trust him. He’s got a mean eye.”
It has been the opinion of military experts that the reason the enemy
had apparently lost its morale and failed to make a counter attack at
once was the early loss of this officer. In fact, a prisoner taken later
I believe told the story that V—— had been attacked and captured by an
entire division, without artillery preparation, and that he himself had
seen the commanding officer killed by a shell. But the truth was that
Tish, having fallen into an empty trench a moment or so before I missed
her, had after recovering from the shock and surprise followed the
trench for some distance, finding that she could advance more rapidly
than by crawling on the surface.
She had in this manner happened on a dugout where a German officer was
sitting at a table with a lighted candle marking the corners of certain
playing cards with the point of a pin. He seemed to be in a very bad
humor, and was muttering to himself. She waited in the darkness until he
had finished, and had shoved the cards into his pocket. When he had
extinguished the candle he started back along the trench toward the
village, and Tish merely put her two revolvers to his back and captured
him.
I pass over the touching reunion between Tish and her beloved nephew.
He seemed profoundly affected, and moving out of the candlelight gave
way to emotion that fairly shook him. It was when he returned wiping his
eyes that he recognized the German officer. He became exceedingly grave
at once.
“I trust you understand,” he said to him, “that this—er—surprise party
is no reflection on your hospitality. And I am glad to point out also
that the pinochle game is not necessarily broken up. It can continue
until you are moved back behind the Allied lines. I may not,” he added,
“be able to offer you a church, because if I do say it you people have
been wasteful as to churches. But almost any place in our trenches is
entirely safe.”
He then looked round the group again and said: “Don’t tell me Aunt Aggie
has missed this! I couldn’t bear it.”
“Aggie!” I cried. “Where is Aggie?”
It was then that the painful truth dawned on us. Aggie had not entered
the church. She was still outside, perhaps wandering alone among a cruel
and relentless foe. It was a terrible moment.
I can still see the white and anxious faces round the candle, and Tish’s
insistence that a search be organized at once to find her. Mr. Burton
went out immediately, and returned soon after to say that she was not
in sight, and that the retiring Germans were sending up signal rockets
and were probably going to rush the town at once.
We held a short council of war then, but there was nothing to do but to
retire, having accomplished our purpose. Even Tish felt this, and said
that it was a rule of war that the many should not suffer for the few;
also that she didn’t propose losing a night’s sleep to rescue Charlie
Sands and then have him retaken again, as might happen any minute.
We put out the candle and left the church, and not a moment too soon,
for a shell dropped through the roof behind us, and more followed it at
once. I was very uneasy, especially as I was quite sure that between
explosions I could hear Aggie’s voice far away calling Tish.
We retired slowly, taking our prisoner with us, and turning round to
fire toward the enemy now and then. We also called Aggie by name at
intervals, but she did not appear. And when we reached the very edge of
the town the Germans were at the opposite end of it, and we were obliged
to accelerate our pace until lost in the Stygian darkness of the wood.
It was there that I felt Tish’s hand on my arm.
“I’m going back,” she said in a low tone. “Driveling idiot that she is,
I cannot think of her hiding somewhere and sneezing herself into
captivity. I am going back, Lizzie.”
“Then I go too,” I said firmly. “I guess if she’s your responsibility
she’s mine too.”
Well, she didn’t want me any more than she wanted the measles, but the
time was coming when she could thank her lucky stars I was there.
However, she said nothing, but I heard her suggesting that we separate,
every man for himself, except the prisoner, and work back to our own
side the best way we could.
With her customary thoughtfulness, however, she held a short
conversation with Mr. Burton first. I have not mentioned Captain Weber,
I believe, since our first entrance into the church, but he was with us,
and I had observed Mr. Burton eyeing him with unfriendly eyes. Indeed, I
am quite convinced that the accident of our leaving the church without
the captain, and finding him left behind and bolted in, was no accident
at all.
Tish merely told Mr. Burton that the prisoner was his, and that if he
chose and could manage to present him to Hilda he might as well do it.
“She’s welcome to him,” she said.
“He’s not my prisoner.”
“He is now; I give him to you.”
Finding him obdurate, however, she resorted to argument.
“It doesn’t invalidate an engagement,” she said rather brusquely, “for a
man to borrow the money for an engagement ring. If it did there would be
fewer engagements. If you want to borrow a German prisoner for the same
purpose the principle is the same.”
He seemed to be weakening.
“I’d like to do it—if only to see her face,” he said slowly. “Not but
what it’s a risk. He’s a good-looking devil.”
In the end, however, he agreed, and the last we saw of them he was
driving the German ahead, with a grenade in one hand and his revolver in
the other, and looking happier than he had looked for days.
Almost immediately after that I felt Tish’s hand on my arm. We turned
and went back toward V——.
Military experts have been rather puzzled by our statement that the
Germans did not reënter V—— that night, but remained just outside, and
that we reached the church again without so much as a how-do-you-do from
any of them. I believe the general impression is that they feared a
trap. I think they are rather annoyed to learn that there was a period
of several hours during which they might safely have taken the town; in
fact, the irritable general who was married to the colonel’s brother was
most unpleasant about it. When everything was over he came to Paris to
see us, and he was most unpleasant.
“If you wanted to take the damned town, why didn’t you say so?” he
roared. “You came in with a long story about a nephew, but it’s my plain
conviction, madam, that you were flying for higher game than your nephew
from the start.”
Tish merely smiled coldly.
“Perhaps,” she said in a cryptic manner. “But, of course, in these days
of war one must be very careful. It is difficult to tell whom to trust.”
As he became very red at that she gently reminded him of his blood
pressure, but he only hammered on the table and said:
“Another thing, madam. God knows I don’t begrudge you the falderals
they’ve been pinning on you, but it seems to me more than a coincidence
that your celebrated strategy followed closely the lines of a
memorandum, madam, that was missing from my table after your departure.”
“My dear man,” Tish replied urbanely, “there is a little military word I
must remind you of—salvage. As one of your own staff explained it to me
one perceives an object necessary to certain operations. If on saluting
that object it fails to return the salute I believe the next step is to
capture it. Am I not right?”
But I regret to say that he merely picked up his cap and went out of our
sitting room, banging the door behind him.
To return. We reached the church safely, and from that working out in
different directions we began our unhappy search. However, as it was
still very dark I evidently lost my sense of direction, and while
peering into a cellar was suddenly shocked by feeling a revolver thrust
against my back.
“You are my prisoner,” said a voice. “Move and I’ll fire.”
It was, however, only Tish. We were both despondent by that time, and
agreed to give up the search. As it happened it was well we did so, for
we had no more than reached the church and seated ourselves on the
doorstep in deep dejection when the enemy rushed the village. I confess
that my immediate impulse was flight, but Tish was of more heroic stuff.
“They are coming, Lizzie,” she said. “If you wish to fly go now. I shall
remain. I have too many tender memories of Aggie to desert her.”
She then rose and went without haste into the church, which was sadly
changed by shell fire in the last two hours, and I followed her. By the
aid of the flashlight, cautiously used, we made our way to a break in
the floor and Tish suggested that we retire to the cellar, which we did,
descending on piles of rubbish. The noise in the street was terrible by
that time, but the cellar was quiet enough, save when now and then a
fresh portion of the roof gave way.
I was by this time exceedingly nervous, and Tish gave me a mouthful of
cordial. She herself was quite calm.
“We must give them time to quiet down,” she said. “They sound quite
hysterical, and it would be dangerous to be discovered just now. Perhaps
we would better find a sheltered spot and get some sleep. I shall need
my wits clear in the morning.”
It was fortunate for us that the French use the basements of their
churches for burying purposes, for by crawling behind a marble
sarcophagus we found a sort of cave made by the debris. Owing to that
protection the grenades the enemy threw into the cellar did no harm
whatever, save to waken Tish from a sound sleep.
“Drat them anyhow!” she said. “I was just dreaming that Mr. Ostermaier
had declined a raise in his salary.”
“Tish,” I said, “suppose they find Aggie?”
She yawned and turned over.
“Aggie’s got more brains than you think she has,” was her comment. “She
hates dying about as much as most people. My own private opinion is and
has been that she went back to our lines hours ago.”
“Tish!” I exclaimed. “Then why——”
“I just want to try a little experiment,” she said drowsily, and was
immediately asleep.
At last I slept myself, and when we wakened it was daylight, and the
Germans were in full possession of the town. They inspected the church
building overhead, but left it quickly; and Tish drew a keen deduction
from that.
“Well, that’s something in our favor,” she said. “Evidently they’re
afraid the thing will fall in on them.”
At eight o’clock she complained of being hungry, and I felt the need of
food myself. With her customary promptness she set out to discover food,
leaving me alone, a prey to sad misgivings. In a short time, however,
she returned and asked me if I’d seen a piece of wire anywhere.
“I’ve got considerable barbed wire sticking in me in various places,” I
said rather tartly, “if that will do.”
But she only stood, staring about her in the semidarkness.
“A lath with a nail in the end of it would answer,” she observed.
“Didn’t you step on a nail last night?”
Well, I had, and at last we found it. It was in the end of a plank and
seemed to be precisely what she wanted. She took it away with her, and
was gone some twenty minutes. At the end of that time she returned
carrying carefully a small panful of fried bacon.
“I had to wait,” she explained. “He had just put in some fresh slices
when I got there.”
While we ate she explained.
“There is a small opening to the street,” she said, “where there is a
machine gun, now covered with debris. Just outside I perceived a soldier
cooking his breakfast. Of course there was a chance that he would not
look away at the proper moment, but he stood up to fill his pipe. I’d
have got his coffee too, but in the fight he kicked it over.”
“What fight?” I asked.
“He blamed another soldier for taking the bacon. He was really savage,
Lizzie. From the way he acted I gather that they haven’t any too much to
eat.”
Breakfast fortified us both greatly, but it also set me to thinking
sadly of Aggie, whose morning meal was a crisp slice of bacon, varied
occasionally by an egg. I had not Tish’s confidence in her escape. And
Tish was restless. She insisted on wandering about the cellar, and near
noon I missed her for two hours. When she came back she was covered with
plaster dust, but she made no explanation.
“I have been thinking over the situation, Lizzie,” she said, “and it
divides itself into two parts. We must wait until nightfall and then
search again for Aggie, in case my judgment is wrong as to her escape.
And then there is a higher law than that of friendship. There is our
duty to Aggie, and there is also our duty to the nation.”
“Well,” I said rather shortly, “I guess we’ve done our duty. We’ve taken
a prisoner. I owe a duty to my backbone, which is sore from these rocks;
and my right leg, which has been tied in a knot with cramp for three
hours.”
“When,” Tish broke in, “is a railroad most safe to travel on? Just after
a wreck, certainly. And when, then, is a town easiest to capture? Just
after it has been captured. Do you think for one moment that they’ll
expect another raid tonight?”
“Do you think there will be one?” I asked hopefully.
“I know there will.”
She would say nothing further, but departed immediately and was gone
most of the afternoon. She came back wearing a strange look of triumph,
and asked me if I remembered the code Aggie used, but I had never
learned it. She was very impatient.
“It’s typical of her,” she said, “to disappear just when we need her
most. If you knew the code and could get rid of the lookout they keep in
the tower, while I——”
She broke off and reflected.
“They’ve got to change the lookout in the tower,” she said. “If the one
comes down before the other goes up, and if we had a hatchet——”
“Exactly,” I said. “And if we were back in the cottage at Penzance, with
nothing worse to fight than mosquitoes——”
We had no midday meal, but at dusk Tish was lucky enough to capture a
knapsack set down by a German soldier just outside the machine-gun
aperture, and we ate what I believe are termed emergency rations. By
that time it was quite dark, and Tish announced that the time had come
to strike, though she refused any other explanation.
We had no difficulty in getting out of the cellar, and Tish led the way
immediately to the foot of the tower.
“We must get rid of the sentry up there,” she whispered. “The moment he
hears a racket in the street he will signal for reënforcements, which
would be unfortunate.”
“What racket?” I demanded.
But she did not reply. Instead she moved into the recess below the tower
and stood looking up thoughtfully. I joined her, and we could make out
what seemed to be a platform above, and we distinctly saw a light on it,
as though the lookout had struck a match. I suggested firing up at him,
but Tish sniffed.
“And bring in the entire regiment, or whatever it is!” she said
scornfully but in a whisper. “Use your brains, Lizzie!”
However, at that moment the sentry solved the question himself, for he
started down. We could hear his coming. We concealed ourselves hastily,
and Tish watched him go out and into a cellar across the street, where
she said she was convinced they were serving beer. Indeed, there could
be no doubt of it, she maintained, as the men went there in crowds, and
many of them carried tin cups.
Tish’s first thought was that he would be immediately relieved by
another lookout, and she stationed herself inside the door, ready to
make him prisoner. But finally the truth dawned on us that he had
temporarily deserted his post. Tish took immediate advantage of his
absence to prepare to ascend the tower, and having found a large knife
in the knapsack she had salvaged she took it between her teeth and
climbed the narrow winding staircase.
“If he comes back before I return, Lizzie,” she said, “capture him, but
don’t shoot. It might make the rest suspicious.”
She then disappeared and I heard her climbing the stairs with her usual
agility. However, she returned considerably sooner than I had
anticipated, and in a state of intense anger.
“There is another one up there,” she whispered. “I heard him sneezing.
Why he didn’t shoot at me I don’t know, unless he thought I was the
other one. But I’ve fixed him,” she added with a tinge of complacency.
“It’s a rope ladder at the top. I reached up as high as I could and cut
it.”
She then grew thoughtful and observed that cutting the ladder
necessitated changing a part of her plan.
“What plan?” I demanded. “I guess my life’s at stake as well as yours,
Tish Carberry.”
“I should think it would be perfectly clear,” she said. “We’ve either
got to take this town or starve like rats in that cellar. They’ve got so
now that they won’t even walk on the side next to the church, and some
of them cross themselves. The frying pan seems to have started it, and
when the knapsack disappeared—— However, here’s my plan, Lizzie. From
what I have observed during the day pretty nearly the entire lot, except
the sentries, will be in that beer cellar across in an hour or so. The
rest will run for it—take my word—the moment I open fire.”
“I’ll take your word, Tish,” I said. “But what if they don’t run?”
She merely waved her hand.
“My plan is simply this,” she said: “I’ve been tinkering with that
machine gun most of the day, and my conviction is that it will work. You
simply turn a handle like a hand sewing machine. As soon as you hear me
starting it you leave the church by that shell hole at the back and go
as rapidly as possible back to the American lines. I’ll guarantee,” she
added grimly, “that not a German leaves that cellar across the street
until my arm’s worn out.”
“What shall I say, Tish?” I quavered.