A JOYOUS REUNION
“Bart!” Frank repeated with a groan. “And perhaps I’ve killed him!”
Tom lighted a candle while Billy rushed for his canteen. They dashed
some of its contents into Bart’s pallid face and chafed his hands and
wrists.
In a few minutes their vigorous efforts had results. Bart moved
uneasily, his eyes opened and rested vacantly at first and then
intelligently upon the faces of his friends.
“Hello, fellows!” he murmured weakly. “What’s up?”
Their joy was beyond measure. Even while they were seeking to restore
him to consciousness they had been tormented by the fear of seeing only
an insane gleam in his eyes when he should open them.
“Bart, old man!” cried Frank, in a voice that broke despite all efforts
to control it. “You know us, then?”
“Know you?” repeated Bart wonderingly and trying to raise himself,
a movement which they gently checked. “Of course I know you. Are you
kidding me?”
“Listen, Bart,” replied Frank with a warning glance at his companions
not to reveal prematurely the whole story. “You got a knock on the head
in the fighting that put you out of business for a while and we’ve been
a little scared. But you’re all right now.”
“Sure, I’m all right,” answered Bart, “and I’ll be ready tomorrow to
take another crack at the Huns. How is the battle going?”
“All to the good,” answered Frank. “But you’d better lie still for a
while. We’ll put you on my bed and you won’t have even a headache in
the morning.”
Bart protested, but they overruled him and tucked him in the blankets,
where he promptly went to sleep. Then Frank went in search of one of
the doctors who came promptly. He listened with the greatest interest
while the three chums told their story. Then he made as careful an
examination of Bart as he could without waking him.
“He’ll be all right, I think,” was his verdict. “He’s fairly well
nourished. I suppose he’s found plenty of food in the wake of the
army. And the life in the open air has built him up after his hospital
experience. The only trouble has been with his mind, and from what you
tell me he’s come to himself again. Of course he’ll have to take things
easy for the next few days and you mustn’t tell him now about his
hospital escapade. Let him think the injury happened to him yesterday.
We’ll take him along in one of the ambulances, and I venture to say
that in a week he’ll be with you again as well as ever.”
“I can’t forgive myself for knocking him down,” said Frank mournfully.
The doctor laughed.
“Best thing you ever did in your life,” he said. “The blow he got
on the head was just what he needed to shake him into sanity again.
Medical history is full of just such cases. You’ve got the proof of it
right here. He was undoubtedly insane when he came into the tent to
take your blanket. He knew that he was cold and his only thought was to
get something to keep him warm.”
“But why should he happen to strike our tent instead of somebody
else’s?” asked Billy.
“Because he knew it was yours,” answered the doctor. “In his poor
twisted brain he had recognized you and knew vaguely that you were his
friends. Probably he has been dodging around somewhere and kept track
of you.”
The boys’ eyes grew moist as the pathos of it all came upon them.
The doctor left them some stimulating medicine, promised to send the
ambulance around in the morning and took his leave.
There was no more sleep for the boys the rest of that night. They were
strung to too high a pitch of excitement and delight. They felt as
though they were treading on air.
Bart was back with them again, dear old Bart, whose absence they had
mourned as though he had been their brother, brave old Bart, with the
heart of a lion, who had stood at their side in a score of desperate
fights. For hours they sat outside the tent so that they would not
disturb the sleeper, and talked in low voices of the great thing that
had happened.
Bart woke in the morning refreshed and perfectly himself again as far
as his mind was concerned. They fed him well and when the ambulance
came around they helped to put him in it, promising to drop round to
see him whenever they could get leave. The ambulance went along with
the army, so that the boys had the feeling that Bart was with them all
the time, even though not stepping along in the ranks.
Dick dropped in on them during the day, as did Will Stone, who was
going along in one of the tank units of the army of occupation, and
their delight was almost as great as that of the Army Boys themselves
when they heard the news. Together they went to visit Bart at every
opportunity they had, and rejoiced to find that he was getting
stronger all the time.
The nurse who had him in charge had been told his story, and, being a
person of tact and discretion, she had gradually told him the truth bit
by bit, “in homeopathic doses,” as Tom put it. The absence of the noise
of the big guns was rather hard to explain, but she did it somehow, and
finally Bart came to know the whole truth. It was something of a shock
to him, but his delight at the defeat and surrender of the Huns was so
great that it more than counterbalanced his distress.
In a few days, the doctor pronounced him strong enough to take his
regular place in the ranks, and when he stepped out with them one
morning in a brand new uniform and looking as stalwart and fit as ever
he had, the Army Boys felt as though they had nothing on earth left
to ask for. And their delight was shared by the rest of the regiment,
with whom Bart was a general favorite, and who overwhelmed him with
handshakes and congratulations. The boys marked that day as the best
that had ever been on their calendar.
All were in a jubilant mood as they strode along in the crisp, cool
air. It was almost a trial to keep their measured step. They all felt
more like dancing.
“The only kick I have was that I wasn’t in at the finish,” said Bart.
“I’d like to have heard the last shot fired. And I sure would have
liked to have been with you fellows in the tunnel, and in the clearing
of that Argonne Forest. You fellows were certainly going fast in those
last days of the war.”
“You needn’t kick,” grinned Billy. “You’re some speed merchant
yourself. You went to sleep in France and woke up in Germany.”