ALAN TAKES A HAND
The convalescents went on improving until, at the end of another week,
they were too active to be easily taken care of.
“You’d better look out, Bob, or they’ll be putting you back at work,”
Larry said to Bob a few days before Alan’s departure.
“There’s something in that,” declared Bob thoughtfully.
“No, there isn’t,” said Lucy, “for our surgeon said his leg wasn’t
strong yet. He can’t walk far. He mustn’t catch cold. He really isn’t
well at all.”
Larry, Alan, Bob and General Gordon all laughed at this, for Bob’s
hearty appetite and the warm color returning to his thin cheeks gave
little cause for alarm. The conversation took place at dinner one Sunday
in March, at General Gordon’s quarters in Coblenz. Elizabeth waited at
table and gave, to Bob and Lucy, such a natural and homelike air to the
meal that Bob could not resist telling her how glad he was to see her
there.
Elizabeth stopped pouring the coffee into his cup and, forgetting where
she was, exclaimed with trembling earnestness, “Oh, Mr. Bob, often now I
think—what if you refuse that day to bring me from Berlin!”
Suddenly realizing her boldness, she checked herself, cast an apologetic
glance toward General Gordon and slipped noiselessly from the room.
“I wonder at her devotion,” said Larry. “Where’s that husband of hers,
General? Has she quite forgotten him?”
“No, but Karl was very harsh with her for befriending the Allies,” said
General Gordon. “She feels uncertain of his kindness now, and, after
him, we are the friends she most values.”
“Quite an honor,” remarked Larry.
“It’s a blind sort of devotion, but a very real one,” said General
Gordon.
“I suppose Karl asks nothing better than to make friends with America
now,” said Bob. “I dare say he’d make up with Elizabeth and be glad of
the chance. I think he’s still a prisoner, Dad, unless he’s been lately
exchanged.”
“I don’t care where he is, so long as it’s some distance away,” remarked
the general. “By the way, Bob, did you know I have Cameron here with me?
Quite like old times.”
“No, is he? Well, this _is_ the Home Sector, as Larry said,” cried Bob,
delighted. “How is the old trump? Has he quite recovered?”
“Oh, entirely. He’s a true soldier. Not even a German prison could down
him long.”
“That the fellow you set free, Bob?” asked Alan. “Arthur told me about
it. He said he did his best to dissuade you.”
“Yes, I was rather a fool,” said Bob. “Without Larry—and Lucy—I don’t
think I’d have pulled it off.”
“How soon do you cross the Channel, Alan?” asked General Gordon.
“Three days from now, Cousin James, unless another storm delays
sailings.”
“It’s a hard winter. I’m glad you’re out of Archangel, Bob,” said the
general. “I wish all our boys were—or else big reinforcements sent that
might accomplish something.”
“That’s the idea, Cousin James. Enough to smash the Bolshies and quit.
They seem uncommon strong and pig-headed of late. Ask Bob the theory he
stuffed me with up there. He thinks they have real pig-heads—Boche
officers—leading them.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. How are you now, Alan? Foot feel all right?”
“Yes, sir. I’m absolutely in the pink. I’d like some work to do, but
Lucy won’t let me help her at the hospital.”
“Yes, I will, if there’s anything you know how to do,” Lucy offered.
“Could you get rid of any energy bottling spring water?”
“Might try. Better than sitting inside the hospital, staring at the pine
trees and trying to coax your little friend to talk to me.”
“Don’t you like her?” asked Lucy, always eager to hear Michelle praised.
“I do. She’s one of the sort that made France able to stick it out to
the bitter end. Only she’s too old for her age. I’d like to see her
laugh oftener.”
“She will, but not quite yet. She’s been through—things.” Lucy stopped,
suddenly unwilling to talk about the past.
“Eaton, you’re going to Oxford? I’m glad,” said Alan to Larry. “We’ll
all meet again in England before Lucy has time to get much 'homesicker.’
I don’t care if you’ve no mystery to clear up, Lucy. Come anyway.”
“It’s going to be a great day, Alan, when you get home,” said General
Gordon. “Your mother will have all three back again—more than she ever
hoped for.”
“Yes, and Arthur and I about as hale as ever. Poor old Dad has lost his
arm—but it’s his left. We’re in luck. I’m awfully grateful to you,
Cousin James, for getting me placed here for convalescence. It hasn’t
been bad, you know.” Alan spoke with more warmth than his words held,
looking at the faces around him with the clear, casual glance that hid
so much from the average passer-by, yet somehow contrived to win him
countless friends. “I’m almost fond of my little slice of German
forest,” he added. “Lucy, you must let me help you to-morrow and walk
through it once more.”
Lucy was willing enough and, on the day following, she and Alan
volunteered to go with the orderly to the spring. The small staff at
Badheim hospital made it necessary for each member of it to perform a
variety of tasks. Lucy, far from objecting to the lack of routine,
rather liked it, and found her changing duties helped to keep her from
feeling the monotony of her hard-working daily life. Especially she
liked being out-of-doors on these crisp, sunny winter days, when the
snow felt dry and firm underfoot and the green pine-boughs shook white
flakes on her head when the cold breeze stirred them.
Alan was in high spirits at the certainty of seeing England before the
week was past. He overflowed with such light-hearted gayety that Lucy
soon reflected a part of it and, forgetting the forest silence, talked
and laughed until the squirrels began chattering above her head and a
surprised white rabbit paused in her path and fled into the shadows.
“Don’t make me laugh, Alan,” she said, as they went on deeper into the
woodland. “Somehow it always seems out of place here.”
“We’re out of place, if you like,” said Alan, refusing to be silenced.
“Come back home and I’ll show you a real English forest, as beautiful as
this, and yet without the gloom. You couldn’t imagine Robin Hood and his
men singing among these trees.”
“No, not a bit. I’ve heard Franz sing, but it was _Deutschland über
Alles_, and that’s not gay.”
“Nor true, either. The orderly’s got ahead of us. We’d better hurry.”
They approached the spring, where the soldier had unlocked the bottling
apparatus and was already unloading his hand-cart of bottles. The three
set to work and in twenty minutes had completed the task. The orderly
put things to rights and began trundling off his load while Lucy and
Alan still lingered by the stone basin, watching the clear, bright
water, into which the sunbeams twinkled through the forest boughs.
“I wonder where the children are,” said Lucy, looking toward the
cottage.
“Gone wood-cutting with the old man,” Alan suggested.
“No, he never takes them along.”
“Here he is, I fancy,” said Alan, nodding toward the open.
Two or three notes of a clear whistle sounded from among the trees at
the opposite side of the clearing. Alan got up and looked through the
pines with sudden curiosity.
“It’s not Franz at all,” said Lucy, by his side. “It’s Herr Johann, and
I don’t know who else.”
The Whistle had been once repeated but, on receiving no answer, the
whistler and his companion emerged from the forest and began walking
quickly across the snow-covered clearing to Franz’ cottage. Herr Johann
was dressed as when Lucy had last seen him. His companion looked like a
German farmer. He was tall and burly, and wore a thick jacket, woolen
mittens, and boots, below patched grey soldier’s trousers. Herr Johann
hammered on the cottage door.
It was presently opened by Franz’ wife, who, by shaking her head and
pointing toward Coblenz, evidently explained that her husband had gone
to town with his load of wood. Herr Johann gesticulated with some
vehemence. The woman listened in stolid acquiescence. The second man
waited in silence, shuffling his booted feet in the snow. After five
minutes’ conversation the two turned away and, recrossing the clearing,
disappeared among the trees. Franz’ wife stood watching them until they
were out of sight.
“Lucy, I’m jolly curious to know where they are going,” exclaimed Alan.
“Why shouldn’t we walk in that direction ourselves? I expect we can go
where we please in American-occupied territory as well as a couple of
sly, whistling Boches.”
Lucy nodded agreement, willing enough to dog the Germans’ footsteps,
though she had little idea that they would lead to anything of interest.
She and Alan began skirting the clearing at a quick walk, keeping just
within the last fringe of pine trees. In a few minutes they reached the
opposite side and, without much search, came upon the Germans’ footsteps
in the snow, and, in a moment, heard them talking together as they
walked on a dozen yards ahead, an occasional twig cracking beneath their
feet.
“Don’t let them hear us if you can help it,” said Alan, close to her
ear. “Don’t hide, but be as quiet as you can. I want to learn their
direction.”
The Germans walked on at a brisk, swinging gait, Herr Johann talking
volubly, his companion answering mostly in monosyllables. They never
looked back and seemed oblivious of their stalkers. Alan and Lucy kept
them just in sight, though this became more difficult as the forest grew
denser, the pines alternating with low-branching firs and cedars and the
broad brown trunks of oaks.
Suddenly a narrow woodland road came into view, winding among the trees.
Herr Johann and the other paused to look keenly along it, as far as its
windings would permit. Then they followed it a short distance, each one
taking a different direction. In a moment the man who looked like a
farmer gave a low shout and, reappearing in sight, made a gesture that
brought Herr Johann walking quickly toward him. He pointed down the
narrow road, and Herr Johann, giving a nod of satisfaction, sat down on
the bulging root of an oak tree and proceeded to fill a pipe. The other
stood waiting, leaning against the trunk.
“What do they see?” Lucy whispered to Alan from behind their shelter of
fir-boughs.
“I expect it’s old Franz himself,” Alan murmured, his face aglow with
excited amusement. “I say, Lucy, isn’t this simply priceless? What a
pity Bob isn’t here with one of his theories. I can’t make it out.”
As he spoke a faint creaking of wheels sounded on the road, and in
another minute a team composed of a horse and donkey appeared in sight
from the direction of Badheim and Coblenz, drawing Franz’ wagon, upon
which he himself sat, in front of a slender load made up, so far as Lucy
and Alan could see, mostly of a bale of hay and some cabbages. At sight
of the men awaiting him he pulled up with a start, sprang down in front
of the tree where Herr Johann sat, took off his cap, and made his
awkward bow.
Herr Johann spoke too low for Alan and Lucy to hear the whole of his
phrases. Something like this was the best that they could catch:
“—keep your word, eh, Franz?”
Franz plunged into what sounded like apologies, his rough voice also
subdued, ending with, “—two hours in Coblenz.”
Again all that was audible of Herr Johann’s reply was, “—reach the
river?”
Franz shook his head dubiously as he said something like, “—harder than
ever. And I had to unload it all.”
Alan began creeping nearer. Lucy caught his arm, whispering sharply,
“You mustn’t! They’ll see you.”
Alan stopped, nodding agreement. Lucy’s heart was beating fast. For the
first time she felt a prickling uneasiness and a fear that all this
might not be so innocently explained as she had believed. Straining her
ears, she listened once more.
Herr Johann pointed to his stolid companion and, as though comparing the
two men, said to Franz what ended with, “—more than you in a week’s
work.—a whole month?”
Franz shook his head in eager denial and, dropping on one knee before
Herr Johann, he poured out explanations or assurances of which neither
Lucy nor Alan could hear enough to piece one sentence together.
After listening a few minutes Herr Johann got up, knocked his pipe
against the tree, waved his hand as though to say that words meant
little to him, then, as if relenting, he clapped Franz on the shoulder
and gave him a short, friendly nod. Franz’ harsh, sour face eagerly
watched the other, drinking in these signs of reconciliation. Herr
Johann, without more words, started off across the road with his
companion beside him and the two disappeared in the forest.
Franz stood a full minute looking after them, motionless, his cap still
twisted in his lean hands. Then slowly he remounted his wagon, spoke to
his team and passed out of sight along the winding road.
Alan and Lucy looked at each other, stirred their cold, cramped limbs
and set off in the general direction of the hospital. The short
afternoon was fading into twilight and a bleak wind swept the forest
branches.
“What on earth is it all about, Alan?” Lucy demanded, and her voice held
nothing of Alan’s joyous excitement at the mysterious rendezvous, but
only anger and anxiety. “It _can’t_ be anything, anything that we need
fear.”
“Fear—no. But I expect it ought to be looked into. If three Boches come
together at sound of a whistle and confer in the depths of the forest it
isn’t for the sake of upholding the Entente, nor the Star-Spangled
Banner.”
“But it might be for the sake of getting around the food restrictions.
Father has caught them at that,” said Lucy, desperately unwilling to be
alarmed at the fragmentary conversation to which they had just listened.
“Yes, it might be that. In fact it’s likely enough,” assented Alan. “If
I’d had another fellow with me instead of you we might have confronted
them then and there and demanded an explanation.”
“Oh, but—then we’d never have found out anything,” protested Lucy.
“Don’t you think Herr Johann has some good story ready to tell?”
“Perhaps. But I like settling things. Never could wait to puzzle a
matter out. Let’s run, Lucy. Aren’t you frozen?”
“Rather,” said Lucy, still thoughtful.
They fell into a jog-trot, for it was hard to run fast among the
thickly-planted trees. Alan said in a moment, as though thinking aloud:
“He was certainly taking orders. But orders for what? An uprising? Not
likely.”
“Oh, Alan, perhaps Franz is an old servant of Herr Johann’s. Maybe he
has charge of some property for him,” Lucy suggested, vaguely enough, in
spite of her insistence.
“I thought you said he had been an Alsatian farmer,” objected Alan. “Oh,
well, perhaps we’re making a fuss about nothing.”
In half an hour they were again skirting the cottage clearing. Franz had
reached home and was engaged in unharnessing his team and putting wagon
and animals into the shed behind the cottage.
“Too bad the donkey can’t tell us where it’s been,” said Alan, as a loud
bray broke the stillness. He and Lucy paused a moment to watch the
wood-cutter’s simple occupation.
Adelheid and Wilhelm were standing beside their father, Wilhelm with the
donkey’s halter-rope in his hand. Franz cast a sharp glance toward the
fringe of pines behind which Lucy and Alan stood. Then he spoke to
Adelheid, who immediately looked in the same direction, then ran across
the clearing and straight through the trees to Lucy’s side.
“_Guten tag_, Fräulein,” she panted, smiling her beaming smile, which
Lucy hardly echoed in her bewildered surprise. “Papachen saw you here,
and he asks if you and the Herr Officer will not come and warm
yourselves in our cottage. It is growing cold.”
Lucy, unwilling enough, looked at Alan. He stared at Adelheid, then
across the clearing at Franz, who stood on the cottage threshold, one
hand on the latch, looking inquiringly toward them.
“This is a rum go,” Alan said at last. “Wonder when he saw us. Shall we
go, Lucy? It seems to be our move.”
Lucy spoke to Adelheid. “I don’t think we’d better stop now, thank you
very much. It’s rather late.”
“Please, Fräulein!” the child begged, her face suddenly clouded with
disappointment. “Papachen invites you.” She repeated this as though to
impress on Lucy the importance of such rare hospitality, and added, “You
need only stop to warm yourselves. It is not yet dark.” She pulled
gently at Lucy’s hand.
Not finding a new argument, Lucy slowly followed her into the clearing,
glancing doubtfully at Alan for guidance.
“All right. Let’s go for a moment. I’d like to see his face now. No
Boche can successfully hide all his thoughts.”
“Perhaps not,” answered Lucy uncomfortably. “But the trouble is, I can’t
either.”
She hardly met Franz’ eyes when the German opened the door for them,
with his awkward bow and sour smile. To hide her face she bent over
little Wilhelm and pulled up the ragged stockings falling down his cold,
bare legs.
“How did you happen to see us, Franz?” inquired Alan, as nearly as his
wretched German would permit. Alan’s verbs were always in the wrong
place.
Franz puzzled for a second over the twisted phrase. Lucy wished Alan
would not ask questions. As they entered the cottage Franz answered
readily enough:
“I saw you and the Fräulein passing along by the clearing, and as you
walked fast and seemed cold I sent the little one to ask you to warm
yourselves by my fire. The Fräulein is very good to us. Trudchen!” he
shouted, opening the door into the second room of the cottage.
Whatever Alan might decipher from Franz’ expression, Lucy did not get
very far in reading it. He looked to her sombre, morose and unfriendly
as ever, all his politeness no more than what his situation forced upon
him. If his sharp eyes seemed to gleam with suspicious watchfulness she
fancied that her own disturbed imagination put it there.
Alan, however, kept looking at Franz in critical silence, as the German
pulled up stools before the fire and threw on pine boughs until the
flame leaped up, all the while casting quick glances at his visitors and
muttering short phrases of would-be civility, such as, “There, it burns.
Draw up, now. The wife will come presently.”
Trudchen had answered in her dull, tired voice from the bedroom beyond,
but she did not at once appear, but continued to drag her slippered feet
back and forth across the floor. Lucy felt very uneasy, for she saw that
Alan was in one of his moods of careless imprudence, which, when his
thoughtless words or actions led to success, had won him fame and
medals, and, when they brought him near disaster, had caused Arthur
Leslie to frown over “that silly ass.”
Now, forgetting everything but his curiosity, and negligently
contemptuous of Franz’ feelings, he asked casually enough, standing
beside the fire, while Lucy lifted Adelheid to her knees:
“Been to Coblenz, Franz? Selling wood in the city?”
Franz hesitated, really puzzled, Lucy fancied, by Alan’s German, but
after a little pause he answered, “Yes, Herr Officer. I go there almost
every day with my fagots.”
“Into the city, eh? Or to the Rhine?” Alan asked this quite
meaninglessly, echoing Franz’ words of half an hour back, but the
German’s eyes lighted with something like alarm as he said haltingly:
“The Rhine? Why should I go there? What does the Herr mean? The road
winds along the Moselle, but, once in the city, I sell my goods and
return.”
“Through the forest? Ever meet anyone there?”
“Alan, please don’t,” Lucy murmured.
Franz stared at the Britisher, his face set in a look of stolid
obstinacy. His lips parted and he moved his head to frame a denial, but
before it was spoken he checked himself, forced a pale smile, leaned
down to stir the fire, or to compose his countenance, and rising again
spoke coolly enough:
“Why, yes, Herr Officer. I suppose you mean the gentleman who comes here
sometimes? He is a Herr who often hunts in this forest, and, as I served
under him, he sometimes honors me by a little notice.”
As he finished this commonplace account the German faced Alan with a
kind of dumb defiance, as though inwardly he added, “There! What have
you got to object to in that?”
Alan, totally unmoved, went on in the same tone of careless inquiry,
which, in spite of its low-voiced resemblance to ordinary conversation,
would have told any listener that he did not believe a word Franz had
said:
“That’s very good of him. Not much hunting around here now, I suppose,
so he looks you up often?”
Again Franz paused before replying and again Lucy wondered if Alan’s
German honestly puzzled him. But now the woodcutter listened intently,
as though he dared not lose one of the Britisher’s words nor fail to
answer:
“Yes, _mein Herr_. He comes here sometimes, not so often. I met him in
the woods to-day.” This last was spoken with an air of conscious candor,
as though Alan must now see that he concealed nothing. “As for the
hunting, there are rabbits, and a few birds. The gentleman has simple
tastes.”
“What, the chance of potting rabbits keeps him wandering through these
woods day after day? As well tell me he’s fallen in love with Adelheid,”
exclaimed Alan, staring into the German’s face with open disbelief.
Franz now showed signs of great uneasiness. His lips were pressed
together in a sort of angry bewilderment. Whether it was in real alarm
or merely that he was obliged to suppress his ill-humor Lucy was
uncertain, but she could not endure to sit there any longer and said to
Alan with vehemence, “Let’s go.”
She put Adelheid off her knees and rose just as Trudchen shuffled into
the room, wrapped as usual in a ragged shawl over her cotton dress, her
hair in flaxen wisps, her face tired, troubled and red-eyed from recent
tears.
“Good-day, _gnädige Fräulein_,” she said, smiling faintly at Lucy, and
giving Alan a short curtsey. “Forgive me for delaying. I have my
Friedrich sick and I was putting him in bed.”
“I’m sorry. What can I do?” asked Lucy, forgetting Franz.
“Nothing, I thank you. He needs only to be warm and quiet. Will you not
sit down?”
“No, we’re just going. We came in for a moment to warm ourselves. It’s
getting late, so we must hurry.” Lucy smiled at Adelheid and patted her
shoulder, feeling sorry and uncomfortable. “Promise to let me know,
Frau, if Friedrich is worse?”
“Yes, many thanks,” nodded Trudchen, following Lucy and Alan to the
door, Franz silently bringing up the rear.
Once outside the cottage and walking fast across the twilit clearing,
Lucy poured out upon Alan a flood of reproaches. “I don’t think you
should have talked so, Alan. He offered us hospitality and it was no
time to ask questions. If he is innocent you were wrong to insult him.”
When Alan could get in a word he said, glancing with some amusement at
Lucy’s disapproving face, “Look at it from another point of view, Lucy,
before you go for me like that. If he is innocent I didn’t insult him,
for my questions could hold no offense. If he is guilty his
villainy—whatever on earth it is—deserves to be ferreted out, even at
the cost of making him burn a few extra pine logs or of hurting his
wife’s feelings. Which is more important, that peace should not be
delayed, or that Franz should not be offended?”
“Oh, Alan, how could he delay peace? What an imagination you have!”
cried Lucy, exasperated.
“Right-o. If he has no bad intentions then I didn’t offend him. So
what’s the row?”
“It’s impossible to argue with you,” declared Lucy, silenced against her
will.
Once in the hospital she described all the afternoon’s events to Bob.
When she finished with an account of Alan’s questions to Franz, to her
satisfaction Bob promptly agreed with her that Alan had acted wrongly.
However, she learned at her brother’s first words that he did not
actually share her own view.
“I think you should have held your tongue, Alan,” he told the Britisher,
staring out, as he spoke, from the hospital window into the shadowy
forest. “I’d go any lengths to get the truth out of Franz, but what you
did was to rouse his suspicions and discover nothing that will help us
at all.”
“His suspicions were already aroused,” Alan protested. “Otherwise why
did he spy on us and invite us in with such false civility?”
“Perhaps he only saw you at the edge of the clearing and, not being sure
how far you had wandered in the forest, thought he would make friendly
advances and be on the safe side.”
“To regain our confidence, you mean, in case we had seen him confabing
with his gentleman hunter? What a German idea! How dull he must think
us.”
“If you’d been a little sharper you’d have said nothing,” Bob grumbled.
“You’ve put him on guard against us.”
“No, I haven’t, he was there before. If I were you I’d insist on
learning the truth at once. He can’t hold out against you. They’ve
primed him with plausible answers up to a certain point. Beyond that
he’s muddle-headed and would blurt out anything. Why remain in doubt?”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Bob admitted after a pause. “It is rather silly
to let him bother us. But somehow I don’t think it will be easy to find
out his secret, whether it’s an innocent or a guilty one. His master has
a hard hand, I imagine, when his servants fail him.”
“Gammon!” scoffed Alan. “Why, I wormed some of it out of him this
afternoon in five minutes. I’d have got it all if it hadn’t been for
Lucy’s pleading glances. Don’t come to England and tell me you never
found out what he’s up to, or I’ll say I’m not the only silly ass in the
family.”