PERILS INCREASE
Jacob, Belinda's self-appointed helper, aroused the girl from the spell
of fear under which she had fallen at sight of Doctor Herschall.
"Poor Ernest is suffering greatly, Fräulein," he said. "These boys!
They should be at home with their mothers. It matters not so much that
war takes us old fellows. It is crueler to the young."
The girl, recalled to her duty, hurried to the side of the lad. Ernest
was not a patient youth. His disregard of her orders had brought on
this attack of pneumonia that the doctor had now successfully combatted.
He was querulous and by his exactions made it difficult for the nurse
to attend properly the other serious cases left in her charge. It was
not in Belinda's nature to be unkind, or even brusque. She could only
be patient and faithful.
Meanwhile she sensed rather than saw the neatly fitted cog-wheels of
the Prussian system begin to revolve in this newly established station
of its hospital service--and revolve without a hitch. Discipline was
the keynote and within an hour of the Herr Doktor's arrival one would
scarcely have believed this was but a recently occupied base.
The Red Cross is the Red Cross everywhere; but in Germany at the
present time it is almost entirely merged in the military branch of the
government.
On Belinda Melnotte's part it took at first much fortitude for her to
go about her usual tasks. The presence of Doctor Herschall at this
hospital seemed almost unbelievable; though from Sue Blaine's letter
she knew he must be somewhere on the battle front.
She well knew the opinions of the Herr Doktor, for he had expressed
them time and again within her hearing. He had been a student at Bonn
in his youth and was a Prussian by birth. His belief in the military
destiny of the Prussian Government was not to be shaken. That he had
remained in America so long after the war was begun was a mystery to
all those who knew him well.
During the ten years he had resided in the United States, Doctor
Herschall had made no attempt to associate himself with America or
American interests. His affiliations were entirely German and he
scoffed at any advancement in science or any discovery in his own
profession, that did not have its birth in the German universities.
How much she had been influenced to take up this Red Cross work by her
antipathy for Doctor Herschall and a desire to escape his attentions,
Belinda had scarcely known; but now she would have given anything had
the ocean again separated the Herr Doktor and herself.
How she wished she had retired with the French nurses and other
attendants. For it did not seem--now--so necessary that she should have
run into this unforeseen danger by attending these "_Boches_."
She used the accustomed scornful phrase in her thought, yet with a
qualm of conscience. These Germans were not "a stupid and brutal
people." They had once been as near to her and as dear to her as her
father's nation. If her mother had lived until she was grown to young
womanhood, and had been to her the companion and friend her father
had been, Belinda might have been pro-German--might not have had her
thoughts and sympathies drawn so strongly to the French.
A man nurse, a strong, capable fellow, appeared to relieve her rather
late in the evening. She had been assigned a cot in one of the empty
wards, where she slept with other women attendants. They accepted her
as German like themselves, but from another hospital unit. It was
too late and all were too weary for Belinda to be troubled by any
cross-examination.
She knew when she awoke on the morrow she would awake to the danger of
a general inspection of the wards which the Herr Doktor would probably
undertake. Because of Paul Genau's advice--his insistence, indeed--her
full name had not been recorded with the Military Head.
Had it been possible for Belinda Melnotte to escape from the hospital
enclosure on this morning, she certainly would have deserted her ward
and tried to get through the lines into territory held by the French.
The point of the wedge driven by the German advance into the yielding
French lines she was told was far beyond the town. Many non-combatants
had been caught by the swift advance and were being sent to the rear by
the Germans. Some--those who would be a burden to the conquerors--were
weeded out and allowed to escape to the French lines; and Belinda might
have been fortunate enough to be one of these.
However, with two sentinels standing at the gateway of the hospital
enclosure and nobody allowed to go out without a permit save the
stretcher-bearers, what chance had she? Perforce she was held to her
service.
She did not see Paul Genau that day or the following. But Carl was
at her beck and call at almost any time. He was stationed with a
detachment of privates to guard the hospital. His regiment was
scattered along the roads hereabout guarding lines of communication and
the supply trains that rumbled past.
"Thank you, Cousin Carl," she said, when he had done some friendly act
for her. "You are a comfort."
"Say!" gasped the enamored Carl, "I'd be glad to serve you at all
times, Cousin 'Linda. You are the nicest girl I ever knew. If this war
were only over----"
"Well, what if it were?" she asked, rather amused by his seriousness.
"_Ach!_ I'd marry you, 'Linda," he cried, with perfect frankness.
"Silly!" scoffed Belinda. "I'll be a sister to you. That is the best I
can do."
"I don't want any more sisters; I have enough of them already,"
grumbled Carl. "You know what Mena and Louisa are, 'Linda. They would
try the temper of any man."
"How do you know I would not be a greater trial?" she asked him, much
amused.
"I have asked these wounded what sort you are," Carl replied simply.
"They tell me you are uniformly kind. That you were just as kind to the
French sick as you were to them."
"Praise indeed!" murmured Belinda. She was touched by this evidence of
the faithfulness of these men who had been prisoners.
"Anyhow," Carl continued, "Paul Genau says you are fair game. He swears
he means to win you."
"Oh, indeed!" ejaculated Belinda hotly.
"Don't blame me, 'Linda," urged Carl. "I only repeat his own
expression."
"And you evidently think me 'fair game,' too."
"Oh, _I_ am in love with you, Cousin," declared Carl boldly. "Paul is
never in love--not really--with anybody but himself."
Belinda made no audible comment upon this statement, but to herself she
admitted Carl Baum was an apt reader of Paul's character.
There were other matters that caused her much more anxiety just then
than Carl's boyish protestations of admiration. The flying machines
of all kinds remained very active above this part of the field. Daily
there were battles in the air--often several engagements between
sunrise and dark. While at night the anti-aircraft guns, flare-bombs,
and searchlights betrayed the fact that the French were making frequent
raids into the territory occupied by the German forces.
She saw the successful attack upon the German observation balloons; but
of course she did not know what part Sanderson had in the raid. Her
thoughts were, however, upon him almost continually. She wondered if he
had learned that she was within the enemy's lines; and, if so, what he
thought about her and if he considered her peril.
Her expectation of the appearance of Doctor Herschall in her ward was
likewise nerve-racking. A medical examiner came each morning to look
at her patients and examine her charts. She had of course written
these up in German instead of in French, and this physician had
commended her work warmly.
"You are a credit to the profession, Nurse Genau," he said.
So the name she had acknowledged by Paul's advice had spread among the
hospital attachés. But what would the Herr Doktor say when he met and
recognized her?
These personal trials rather tempered the threatening perils of the
battle that raged almost at the door of the hospital. The German
commander suddenly discovered that his advance wedge was being squeezed
from both sides by the unexpected weight of the enemy's reserves.
Reinforcements were brought up with promptness; but the German advance
was halted.
The guns thundered continually. The hospital lay about in the middle
of the widest part of the wedge and so escaped the French shells. But
bomb-dropping from the French air machines had become a nightly terror.
To the north of the hospital, and several miles away, was a small wood.
In some way it had escaped utter annihilation, perhaps because it was
too open to offer cover for either infantry or a battery.
Toward evening, when Belinda was outside for a breath of air, she,
with others, saw a most exciting duel in the air just above this grove
of trees. First of all a small aeroplane was observed coming swiftly
out of the north. There had been no action in that direction during the
day, and this machine was alone.
"_Ach!_" said Carl, who was near his cousin, "that fellow is a spy. It
is a spy-plane. You can see he has been carrying one of his accursed
comrades into our territory for spy-work and is now returning alone."
"Are you sure it is a French plane?"
"Absolutely. See! He is chased." Then: "_Ach!_ our flyingmen never
fail!"
A second aeroplane was shooting down from a greater height, close upon
the trail of the Nieuport. The two aviators circled so low above the
treetops that the spectators could plainly observe the duel.
Belinda shuddered.
The German airman pointed his craft once, and then again, to bring his
fixed machine-gun to bear upon the French aeroplane; but either the
latter managed better and escaped, or the German's gun was clogged. At
least the latter did not bring his antagonist down at once.
Suddenly the watchers gasped in unison--a smothered cry of horror. The
swiftly darting aeroplanes, half circling each other, seemed drawn
together by the suction of their propellers. They entangled, pitched
downward, and plunged through the broken treetops, out of sight.
"Oh! The poor things! The poor things!" groaned Belinda, covering her
eyes.
Carl removed his cap. "A hero--that," he said. "Ach, he did not fail!"
The horrified girl could appreciate little of the heroism of either
aviator. The awful incident depressed her anew. She could not sleep for
hours that night for thought of it.
Suppose one of the aviators was Frank Sanderson? He must be daily
suffering just such deadly peril in the air. Her heart ached and she
rose to another day's work in the hospital, heavy-eyed and despairing.
By order of the visiting doctor several semi-convalescents were removed
from her ward that morning. They all seemed grieved to part with
her--these men whom she had so shrunk from nursing in the first place.
It touched the girl.
Other wounded were being brought into the station all the time and the
other wards were filling up. Soon the stretcher-bearers were directed
to her ward with an unconscious burden.
"Badly bruised, but otherwise only a broken shoulder, Nurse," one
informed Belinda. "They put him under ether to set the bone. A brave
fellow, this. They found him in the wood yonder--the hero of that air
fight last night."
"Impossible!" gasped the nurse. "They must have both been killed. I saw
them fall. Are you sure?"
"Oh, yes, Fräulein. He is a _fliegender Mann_--they stripped the
uniform from him when he was brought in."
The bearers did not see the girl's face as they lifted the hero from
the stretcher to the clean cot. She gazed with both amazement and
horror at his countenance. It was masked in a fortnight's growth of
beard--a reddish whisker--and the inflamed welt of a bullet marred one
cheek. His rather long hair was tossed back from his brow. Just at the
roots of it was a sharply defined scar--the mark of a not long-healed
wound.
She was left alone beside the cot as the bearers clumped out in their
heavy boots. Enthralled, Belinda continued to gaze upon the features
which, disguised as they were, she could not fail to recognize.
Behind her Jacob called softly:
"Fräulein! Fräulein! the Herr Doktor Herschall approaches to inspect
the ward."