Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine
[Illustration: The Visitor Was Captain Boucher.
_Frontispiece._]
Grace Harlowe with the
American Army on the Rhine
By
JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A.M.
Author of The Grace Harlowe High School Series, The Grace Harlowe
College Girls Series, Grace Harlowe’s Return to Overton Campus,
Grace Harlowe’s Problem, Grace Harlowe’s Golden Summer,
Grace Harlowe Overseas, Grace Harlowe with the Red
Cross in France, Grace Harlowe with the Marines at
Chateau Thierry, Grace Harlowe with the U. S.
Troops in the Argonne, Grace Harlowe with the
Yankee Shock Boys at St. Quentin,
etc., etc.
Illustrated
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
COPYRIGHTED, 1920, BY
HOWARD E. ALTEMUS
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I--ON THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 11
Grace Harlowe looks for Hun treachery. “What I
have seen has chilled my very soul.” The supervisor
gives her orders. Elfreda sees a danger signal. “For
the love of Heaven, stop it!” A mighty crash and a
plunge into the river.
CHAPTER II--“GRACE HARLOWE, TROUBLE-MAKER” 25
Mrs. Chadsey Smythe gets a chilly bath. “Arrest
that woman!” Won Lue makes his bow. Grace gets
a warning. Overton girls billeted in a cellar.
Keeping house under difficulties. Summoned before
a superior officer.
CHAPTER III--THE IRON HAND 38
Grace resents an imputation on her honor. A serious
accusation. “The woman is an impertinent creature!”
“Captain” Grace is accused of trying to
drown her superior. Grace Harlowe’s dismissal
demanded. The Overton girl stands on her rights.
CHAPTER IV--A TIMELY MEETING 44
The mystery of three birds. J. Elfreda comes to
grief. Grace meets her friend the general. How
“Captain” Grace got even. The supervisor hears
some unpleasant truths. “Ridiculous!” exclaims
General Gordon.
CHAPTER V--GRACE WINS AND IS SORRY 55
“I don’t know what you are talking about, but I
agree with you.” Overton girls have supper behind
a smoke screen. An obliging Chinaman. Grace lays
down the law to Mrs. Smythe. “My orders are that
you get out of my sight instantly!”
CHAPTER VI--MESSING WITH A BRIGADIER 64
Overton girls left to walk. A grilling hike. The
general is not deceived. An invitation to visit
cloudland. “Captain” Grace gives the intelligence
officer some real intelligence. “Watch the skies
in the early morning.”
CHAPTER VII--OFFICERS GET A SHOCK 76
Grace tells of the flights of enemy war pigeons.
Captain Boucher asks for the Overton girl’s
assistance. Army officers prove charming hosts.
The Chinaman is on guard. “Captain” Grace uses a
cobblestone for a door-knocker. Military police
come up on a run.
CHAPTER VIII--HUNLAND IS REACHED AT LAST 86
“Captain” Grace barred from her billets. A soldier
policeman offers to break in the door. The girls
make their beds in an army truck. Leading a gypsy
life. Overton women placed under arrest. Grace and
Elfreda smash the door of their prison.
CHAPTER IX--AN IRATE OFFICER 97
On the enemy’s threshhold. The intelligence captain
smooths the way. Grace cooks mess at headquarters.
“Bacon in the chest and potatoes in the woodbox.”
Signed up for a voyage in the skies. Making their
beds in the kitchen.
CHAPTER X--GRACE TAKES THE SKY ROUTE 105
Taking no chances with the Hun. “Good luck, and
don’t fall out.” Elfreda has no desire to go skyward
on a bubble. Grace dons a flier’s harness. Lifted
cloudward by the big “sausage.” “One balloonatic
in the family is enough.”
CHAPTER XI--ROUGH GOING IN CLOUDLAND 116
The swaying basket arouses Grace’s apprehension.
Hearing miraculously restored. The Overton girl eats
her luncheon three thousand feet above the earth.
“Haul in, you idiots!” The balloon begins to buck.
“We are adrift!” announces the major.
CHAPTER XII--A LEAP FROM THE SKIES 128
The runaway balloon soars high. “We are in a fix!”
A cheerful outlook. Clouds blot out the earth. Grace
and her companion are buffeted back and forth by the
winds. Victims of Hun bullets. Grace Harlowe is
suspended between earth and sky.
CHAPTER XIII--“CAPTAIN” GRACE INVADES GERMANY 137
The major shakes the Overton girl loose. How it feels
to fall a mile through space. The officer floats into
view like a giant spider. “My, but the earth does
look good.” Grace partially wrecks a German vineyard.
CHAPTER XIV--A GUEST OF THE HUNS 146
Grace Harlowe awakens in an unfamiliar place and
overhears an enlightening conversation. The German
woman seeks information. “Captain” Grace finds
herself a prisoner in a German castle. Signals for
assistance. A night prowler in her room.
CHAPTER XV--AN INTERRUPTED INTERVIEW 159
The inquisitive frau gets a terrible fright. “You
shall suffer for this!” Morning brings more trouble.
Discovered! A Hun threat. A demonstration of Hun
“kultur.” Safe in the American lines. The intelligence
officer is aroused.
CHAPTER XVI--ELFREDA HAS A SUSPICION 170
Yvonne names the yellow cat. How Hippy cured
Nora’s admirer. Molly Marshall open to suspicion.
Billeted in a German home. “There’s a real mystery
for you.” An explosion wrecks the canteen.
CHAPTER XVII--THE TREACHERY OF THE HUN 182
Grace rescues the major. The ammunition dump
furnishes fireworks. Mrs. Smythe is shaken with
fear. “Captain” Grace refuses to obey an order.
“Something queer about that man.” The Overton
girl has bad dreams.
CHAPTER XVIII--GRACE GETS A CLUE 193
“You are the quickest-witted person I ever knew.”
“Captain” Grace “savvies” Yat Sen. The voice
from the cellar. The doctor has a visitor. A house
of mystery. “I am right or else I am terribly
wrong,” mutters Grace Harlowe.
CHAPTER XIX--A VOICE AND A FACE 200
“I must see who comes out of that house.” Grace
shatters the doctor’s argument. “The Germans are
unsportsmanlike losers.” Checkmated! Rebuked by
the supervisor. Grace meets a suspected person
and smiles a gentle greeting.
CHAPTER XX--IN A MAZE OF MYSTERIES 211
Won “savvies” too much talk. Playing the game
both ways. Molly leads the supervisor from the
canteen. Complaint is lodged against “Captain”
Grace. Suspicions confirmed. The Overton girl
makes a discovery. Grace gives a warning and
borrows an auger.
CHAPTER XXI--A MOUSE IN THE TRAP 224
Grace bores a hole through the floor of her room.
The German maid refuses a tip. When conversation
ran wild. “Planning to shoot up our friends across
the Rhine.” Grace Harlowe is amazed at what she
overhears.
CHAPTER XXII--“CAPTAIN” GRACE DECIDES TO ACT 233
Elfreda is taken into the secret. “I never dreamed
of anything so terrible as this.” Grace suspects
that she is being watched. The intelligence officer
gets an unusual invitation. The mine is laid.
CHAPTER XXIII--A DESPERATE PLOT REVEALED 242
Captain Boucher makes his call through a window.
“Should any one knock, crawl under the bed.” The
intelligence officer forgets his boots. A strange
scene in the Overton girls’ quarters.
CHAPTER XXIV--THE TRAP IS SPRUNG 246
A signal that was instantly obeyed. Ordered to
headquarters. Army officers get a genuine surprise.
Grace Harlowe reveals a deep-laid Hun plot. The
fight and the capture in the Overton girls’ billets.
Heroes who work in the shadows.
GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY ON THE RHINE
CHAPTER I
ON THE MARCH TO THE RHINE
“Here is where we take on our load,” observed Grace Harlowe, backing
her car up to the door of a peasant cottage.
“Never was a truer word spoken,” agreed J. Elfreda Briggs. “Chad of her
own sweet self is considerable of a load.” Miss Briggs reached back
and threw open the door of the army automobile, to be ready for their
passenger who had not yet appeared. “Baggage, some would characterize
her,” added the girl.
“She is our superior, Elfreda,” reminded Grace. “One always must
preserve a certain respect for one’s superior, else discipline in the
army will quickly go to pieces. While Mrs. Smythe plainly is not all
that we wish she were, she is our superior officer whom we must both
respect and obey.”
“Ever meet her?” questioned Elfreda.
“Once. I was not favorably impressed with her, though I did not see
enough of her to form an opinion worth while. That she was fat and
rather fair, I recall quite distinctly.”
“Know anything about her, Grace?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that she is said to be the wife of a wealthy
Chicago meat-packer, and that Mrs. Meat Packer wishes every one to know
that she is a rich woman and an influential one.”
“She must be to get here, Grace. What I cannot understand is how she
ever got into army welfare work, especially how she came to be assigned
to join out with this American Third Army’s march to the Rhine.”
“Perhaps influence, perhaps her money; perhaps a little of both,”
nodded Grace. “You know as much about it as I do.”
“And that much, little as it is, is too much,” declared J. Elfreda
Briggs. “I should characterize her as an inordinately vain woman, one
of the newly rich, who, clothed with a little authority, would be a
mighty uncomfortable companion. The girls at the hospital who have
worked under her say she is a regular martinet. How does it come that
she has been unloaded on us?”
“I am sure I do not know, J. Elfreda. I do not even know with whom she
came through last night when we started out on our march to the Rhine.
I was ordered to pick her up and take her through in our automobile
to-day, together with two other women who accompany her. However, this
march to the River Rhine having only just begun, we haven’t yet settled
down to a routine.”
“Neither has the enemy,” observed Elfreda.
Grace nodded reflectively.
“He has signed the armistice, but knowing the Hun as I do, I know that,
if he thinks he can safely do so, he will play a scurvy trick on us. I
hardly think we shall be attacked, however, but, J. Elfreda, take my
word for it, there are many deep and dark Hun plots being hatched in
this victorious army at this very moment,” she declared.
“What do you mean?”
“Hun treachery, Elfreda.”
“You know something, Grace Harlowe?”
“No, not in the way you mean. I know the animal and its ways; that’s
all. Look at that line of observation balloons of ours floating in the
sky to our rear, and moving forward as we move forward. Know what they
are doing?”
“Watching the Boches.”
“Exactly. Were the Boche a worthy foe, a foe who would respect his
agreements, the need for watching him would not exist. But a foe who
has broken his word, his bond and all the ten commandments is not to
be trusted. I suppose I shouldn’t feel that way, but I have lived at
the front for many months, Elfreda, and what I have seen has chilled my
very soul. It behooves us Sammies to watch our steps and keep our hands
on our guns,” she added after an interval of reflection. “I think our
passenger is approaching.”
Mrs. Chadsey Smythe, clad in a suit of tight-fitting khaki, which
accentuated her stoutness, was walking stiffly down the path from the
cottage, followed by two welfare workers, discreetly keeping to the
rear of their superior. The face of the meat-packer’s wife wore an
expression of austerity which Grace told herself had been borrowed from
some high army officer, an officer with a grouch of several years’
standing. Mrs. Smythe halted, eyeing first the car itself, then the two
young women on the front seat, both of whom were gazing stolidly ahead.
“Are you the chauffeur?” she demanded, addressing Grace.
“I am Mrs. Grace Gray, Madame. I am driving this car through,” replied
Grace courteously.
“A car, did you say? No, this is not a car, it is a truck, and a very
dirty truck. I venture to say that it has not been washed in some
time,” observed the welfare supervisor sarcastically.
“Quite probable, Mrs. Smythe. This is wartime, you know.”
“That is not an excuse. The war is ended. Hereafter you will see that
the car is clean when you start out in the morning.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Another thing, driver, I do not brook impertinence from my
subordinates. No matter how slack this department may have been carried
on in the past, henceforth military form must be observed.”
“Yes, Madame,” replied Grace meekly.
“If proper for a superior to do so, I would ask if it is customary for
a private to remain seated when such superior approaches to speak to
the private?”
“When driving, yes.”
“It is not! Hereafter, driver, when a superior officer comes up to you,
you will step down, hold the car door open and stand at salute, if you
know how to salute, until the officer is seated. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly so, Madame.” Grace repressed a hot retort, and Elfreda’s
face burned with indignation. She found herself wondering how her
companion could keep her self-control under the insulting tone of the
welfare supervisor.
“It is quite apparent, driver, that you are new to the army and its
ways.”
“Oh!” exclaimed J. Elfreda.
“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Smythe.
“I--I think I pinched my finger in the door,” stammered Elfreda.
“Driver, step down. There is nothing like making a right start.”
Without an instant’s hesitation, Grace sprang out, grasped the door of
the car, and, standing very erect, held it until Mrs. Smythe and her
two “aides” had entered and taken their seats. Grace Harlowe closed the
door, clicked her heels together and gave her superior a snappy salute
that even a freshly made second lieutenant could not have improved upon.
“Oh, you can at least salute, I see,” observed the passenger. “I
sincerely hope, however, that you are a better driver than you are
a soldier. I wish a fast driver, but not a careless one. If you are
afraid to drive fast I will request the colonel to give me a driver who
is not.”
“Yes, Madame.”
There was mischief in the eyes of Grace Harlowe as she climbed into
the driver’s seat, an expression that J. Elfreda understood full well
was a sure forecast of trouble to come.
The road was greatly congested, and for a time the driver worked her
way cautiously along at a rate of speed of not more than ten miles an
hour.
“Faster! Are you too timid to drive?” cried the passenger.
At this juncture an opening presented itself, a narrow space between
two army trucks, and an officer’s car tearing along behind her at a
terrific pace was reaching for the opening. Grace opened up and hurled
her car at the opening as if it were a projectile on its way to the
enemy lines. The two cars touched hubs. Grace fed a little more gas and
went into the opening a winner.
“Stop it!” shouted Mrs. Chadsey Smythe.
Ahead there were open spots and Grace made for them, dodging, swerving,
the car careening, the horn sounding until the drivers ahead, thinking
a staff officer was coming, made all the room they could for the
charging army automobile. Madame was expostulating, threatening,
jouncing about until speech became an unintelligible stutter. Reaching
a clear stretch of road, by clever manipulation Grace sent the car
into a series of skids that would have excited the envy of a fighting
aviator. That it did not turn over was because there was no obstruction
in the road to catch the tires and send the car hurtling into the ditch.
“For the love of Heaven, stop it, Grace Harlowe!” gasped Miss Briggs.
“I’m on the verge of nervous prostration. You’ll have us all in the
hospital or worse.”
Grace grinned but made no reply. She straightened up a little as the
officer’s car finally shot past her, and it was then that she saw she
had been racing with a general, though she did not know who the general
might be. She hoped he did not know who it was that had cut him off,
but of course he could not expect her to look behind her when driving
in that tangle of traffic. That was good logic, so she devoted her
attention and thought wholly to the work in hand, and, putting on more
speed, rapidly drew up on the charging automobile ahead, reasoning that
the general would have a fairly clear road, which road would be hers
provided she were able to keep up with him.
Ahead of them a short distance she espied a concrete bridge. There
was a concrete barrier on either side of the bridge, but the bridge
was amply wide to permit two vehicles to pass. The general’s car took
the bridge at high speed, army trucks drawing to their right so as
to leave him plenty of room. Grace followed, driving at the bridge at
top speed, but when within a few yards of the structure a truck driver
swayed over past the center of the span, evidently not having heard her
horn.
The girl thought she could still go through, but discovered too late
that the truck was too far over to permit her passing. The emergency
brakes went on and the horn shrieked, but too late. The truck driver,
losing his head, swung further to the left instead of to the right
as he should have done, thus crowding Grace further over toward the
concrete wall-railing.
“Hold fast!” shouted Grace.
Ere the passengers could “hold fast” the car met the end of the
concrete railing head-on with a mighty crash, the rear of the car shot
up into the air and the passengers were hurled over the dash. They
cleared the obstruction and went hurtling into the river, disappearing
beneath its surface. The car lurched sideways until half its length
hung over, threatening any moment to slip down after them into the
stream. Harlowe luck had not improved. This time Grace had overreached
the mark.
Those readers who have followed Grace through the eventful years from
her exciting days in the Oakdale High School have learned to love
her for her gentle qualities and to admire her for her pluck and
achievements, for the sterling qualities that from her early school
days drew to her so many loyal friends.
It was in “GRACE HARLOWE’S PLEBE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL” that the readers
of this series first became acquainted with her. They followed her
through her high school course as told in “GRACE HARLOWE’S SOPHOMORE
YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL,” “GRACE HARLOWE’S JUNIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL”
and “GRACE HARLOWE’S SENIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL,” in which those dear
friends of her girlhood days, Nora O’Malley, Anne Pierson and Jessica
Bright--the Original Four--shared her joys and her sorrows.
After high school came college, Grace and Anne going to Overton,
Nora and Jessica choosing for their further education an eastern
conservatory of music. At Overton new friends rallied to Grace’s
colors, such as Elfreda Briggs, Arline Thayer, Emma Dean, Mabel Ashe
and many others. Four eventful years were spent at old Overton, the
experiences of those college years being related in “GRACE HARLOWE’S
FIRST YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE,” “GRACE HARLOWE’S SECOND YEAR AT OVERTON
COLLEGE,” “GRACE HARLOWE’S THIRD YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE” and “GRACE
HARLOWE’S FOURTH YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE,” followed by “GRACE HARLOWE’S
RETURN TO OVERTON CAMPUS” and “GRACE HARLOWE’S PROBLEM.”
The story of the fruition of the Overton girl’s dreams is told in
“GRACE HARLOWE’S GOLDEN SUMMER,” when she became the bride of her
lifelong friend and chum, Tom Gray, and went to “Haven Home” a happy
wife. Grace’s home life was a brief one, for the great world war
enveloped the big white “House Behind the World,” as she had so happily
characterized it. First Tom Gray went away to serve his country in its
hour of need, then Grace followed him as a member of the Overton unit,
and in “GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS” is related the story of how she became
involved in the plots of the Old World nearly to her own undoing. In
“GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE” she is assigned to drive
an ambulance at the front, which she had long yearned to do, and out
there in the thick of the fighting she is called upon to face death
in many forms. It is, however, in a following volume, “GRACE HARLOWE
WITH THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY,” however, that the Overton girl
meets with hardships and perils that nearly cost her her life. Yet more
thrilling even than this were her experiences as related in “GRACE
HARLOWE WITH THE U. S. ARMY IN THE ARGONNE,” where perhaps the most
desperate fighting of the war occurred.
“GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE YANKEE SHOCK BOYS AT ST. QUENTIN” finds Grace
an active participant in that most brilliant single achievement of the
war, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line, in which, by sheer pluck and
daring, she saves an entire regiment from certain annihilation and wins
a decoration for her heroism.
Following the signing of the armistice the march of the American troops
toward the Rhine began. With them went Grace Harlowe and her faithful
friend, J. Elfreda Briggs, Anne Nesbit having been left behind to
continue her work in a hospital.
Just how it had come about that Grace and Elfreda were to accompany the
troops neither girl knew. The assignment brought joy to both girls,
and especially to Grace, for when the sound of the big guns died away
and an unnatural stillness settled over war-torn Europe she felt ill
at ease, felt as if there were something lacking, though down deep in
her heart was a thankfulness that overbalanced the regret that the
excitement of months in the war zone was a thing of the past. She was
first thankful for the soldiers, then for her husband, Tom Gray, who
also was on his way to the Rhine, and for the little Yvonne, now their
daughter, the child whom Grace had picked up as a waif in a deserted
French village under fire.
Grace, at her own request, was permitted to drive through with her
friend, in an army car. The first day she carried, besides herself,
supplies for canteen work, for both she and Elfreda Briggs were now
welfare workers. It had been understood that Mrs. Smythe was to go with
the invading army, but that she would take an active part in directing
the work neither girl considered probable, for, as a rule, such workers
left the actual directing to some person of experience. Not so with
Mrs. Chadsey Smythe. She proposed to be a working head, and she was.
At least she had been an active participant on the march to the Rhine
since she came up with Grace Harlowe. Her real troubles began with the
starting of the car with Grace at the wheel, and the troubles continued
without a second’s intermission right up to and including that fatal
second when Grace collided with the bridge rail and Mrs. “Chadsey,”
together with the other occupants of the car, took an unexpected dive
into the river.
Fortunately for the five women in the car, the machine had remained on
the road, else it might have fallen on them and finished them entirely.
Grace came up to the surface first, shook the water from her eyes,
and then dived and brought up one of the welfare workers who had
accompanied Mrs. “Chadsey.” The other woman and Elfreda came up of
their own accord and Grace quickly went in search of Mrs. “Chadsey.”
“There she is,” gasped Elfreda, pointing downstream, where the welfare
supervisor was seen floundering, fighting desperately to get to shore,
not realizing that the water at that point was shallow enough to permit
her to stand up and keep her chin above water.
Grace swam to her quickly and grasped the supervisor by the hair of her
head just as Mrs. “Chadsey,” giving up, had gone under. Even though the
water there was only about five feet deep, Grace had never come nearer
to drowning, for not only did Mrs. “Chadsey” grip her with both arms,
but fought desperately, when Grace got her head above water.
“Stop it!” gasped Grace, struggling to free herself from the grip of
those really strong arms. “You’ll drown us both.”
“Let me go!” screamed the supervisor, fastening a hand in the Overton
girl’s hair.
One of Grace’s hands being thus freed she took a firm grip in the hair
of her opponent, pushed her head under the water and both sank out of
sight.