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[Illustration: THERE WAS A GRAY, SWIFTLY STEAMING SHIP BEARING DOWN
UPON THE ADMIRAL PEKHARD.]
Ruth Fielding
Homeward Bound
OR
A RED CROSS WORKER'S
OCEAN PERILS
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," "Ruth
Fielding in the Saddle," Etc.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
RUTH FIELDING SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York.
Copyright, 1919, by
Cupples & Leon Company
Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Tea and a Toast 1
II. Such a Dream! 10
III. It's All Over! 20
IV. Two Exciting Things 29
V. The Secret 38
VI. A New Experience 45
VII. The Zeppelin 52
VIII. Afloat 60
IX. Queer Folks 68
X. What Will Happen? 76
XI. Developments 84
XII. The Man in the Motor Boat 93
XIII. It Comes to a Head 101
XIV. A Battle in the Air 111
XV. Abandoned 121
XVI. On the Edge of Tragedy 131
XVII. Boarded 140
XVIII. The Conspiracy Laid Bare 149
XIX. Tom Cameron Takes a Hand 159
XX. The Storm Breaks 166
XXI. The Wreck 172
XXII. Adrift 180
XXIII. At the Moment of Need 186
XXIV. Counterplot 196
XXV. Home as Found 205
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
CHAPTER I--TEA AND A TOAST
"And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you did not believe a poilu
_could_ love a fat girl!"
Helen said it in something like awe. While Ruth's tea-urn bubbled cozily
three pair of very bright eyes were bent above a tiny, iridescent spark
which adorned the "heart finger" of the plumper girl's left hand.
There is something about an engagement diamond that makes it sparkle and
twinkle more than any other diamond. You do not believe that? Wait until
you wear one on the third finger of your left hand yourself!
These three girls, who owned all the rings and other jewelry that was
good for them, continued to adore this newest of Jennie Stone's
possessions until the tea water boiled over. Ruth Fielding arose with an
exclamation of vexation, and corrected the height of the alcohol blaze
and dropped in the "pinch" of tea.
It was mid-afternoon, the hour when a cup of tea comforts the fagged
nerves and inspires the waning spirit of womankind almost the world
over. These three girls crowded into Ruth Fielding's little cell, even
gave up the worship of the ring, to sip the tea which the hostess soon
poured into the cups.
"The cups are nicked; no wonder," sighed Ruth. "They have traveled many
hundreds of miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at Briarwood----"
"Dear old Briarwood Hall," murmured Jennie Stone.
"You're in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie," declared Helen
Cameron with some scorn. "Is that the way a diamond ring affects all
engaged girls?"
"Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!" groaned the
girl who had been known at boarding school as "Heavy Stone," and seldom
by any other name among her mates.
"And you still continue to eat!" ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the
three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect
complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie's reach.
"Those are not real eats," complained the girl with the diamond ring. "A
million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds."
"Listen to her!" gasped Helen. "If Major Henri Marchand could hear her
now!"
"He is a full colonel, I'd have you know," declared Jennie Stone. "And
in charge of his section. In _our_ army it is the Intelligence
Department--Secret Service."
"That is what Tom calls the 'Camouflage Bureau.' _Colonel_ Marchand has
a nice, sitting-down job," scoffed Helen.
"Colonel Marchand," said Ruth Fielding, gravely, "has been through the
enemy's lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained
more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave
men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his
courage with justice, Jennie."
"_You_ ought to know!" pouted the plumper girl. "You and my colonel have
tramped all over the French front together."
"Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to," laughed Ruth.
"And just think," cried Helen, "of her leaving us here in this hospital,
Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own
brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back
with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours----"
"Tut, tut!" said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her.
"Don't be jealous, Helen."
"It's not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy's friend with whom you
went over to the Germans," declared Helen, tossing her head.
"And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand--_that was_! 'Colonel,' I
should say," said Ruth. "Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all
during these past few months."
"During the past few years," said the plump girl sepulchrally. "Talking
about your cracked and chipped china," and she held up her empty cup to
look through it. "_I_ remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie.
Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we
treated you, Ruthie?"
"Oh, _don't_!" exclaimed Helen. "I treated my Ruthie mean in those days,
too--sometimes."
"Goodness!" drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red
Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl.
"Don't bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is
positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give
you a toast. You must drink your cup to it--and to the very dregs!"
"'Dregs' is right, Ruth," complained Jennie, peering into her cup. "You
never will strain tea properly."
"Pooh! If you do," scoffed Helen, "you never have any leaves left with
which to tell your fortune."
"'Fortune!' Superstitious child!" Then Jennie added in a whisper: "Do
you know, Madame Picolet knows how to tell fortunes splendidly with
tea-grounds. She positively told me I was going to marry a tall, dark,
military man, of noble blood, and who had recently been advanced in the
service."
"Goodness! And who could not have told you the same after having seen
your Henri following you about the last time he had leave in Paris?"
laughed Helen. Then she added: "The toast, Ruthie! Let us have it, now
the cups are filled again."
Ruth stood up, smiling down upon them. She was not a large girl, but in
her uniform and cap she seemed very womanly and not a little impressive.
"Here's to the sweetest words the exile ever hears," said she softly,
her eyes suddenly soft and her color rising: "'Homeward bound!' Oh,
girls, when shall we see America and all our friends and the familiar
scenes again? Cheslow, Helen! And the dear, dear old Red Mill!"
She drank her own toast to the last drop. Then she shrugged her pretty
shoulders and put her serious air aside. Her eyes sparkled once more as
she exclaimed:
"On my own part, I was only reminiscing upon the travels of this old tea
set. Back and forth from the dear old Red Mill to Briarwood Hall, and
all around the country on our vacations. To your Lighthouse Point place,
Jennie. To your father's winter camp, Helen. And out West to Jane's
uncle's ranch, and down South and all! And then across the ocean and all
about France! No wonder the teacups are nicked and the saucers cracked."
"What busy times we've had, girls," agreed Helen.
"What busy times Ruth has had," grumbled Jennie. "You and I, Nell, come
up here from Paris to visit her now and then. Otherwise we would never
hear a Boche shell burst, unless there is an air raid over Paris, or the
Germans work their super-gun and smash a church!"
"Ruth is so brave," sighed Helen.
"Cat's foot!" snapped Ruth. "I'm just as scared as you are every time I
hear a gun. Oh!"
To prove her statement, that cry burst from her lips involuntarily.
There was an explosion in the distance--whether of gun or bomb, it was
impossible to say.
"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen, clasping her hands. "I thought you wrote us
that our boys had pushed the Germans back so far that the guns could
scarcely be heard from here?"
"Must be some mistake about that," muttered Jennie, with her mouth full
of tea-wafers. "There goes another!"
Ruth Fielding had risen and went to the narrow window. After the second
explosion a heavy siren began to blow a raucous alarm. Nearer aerial
defense guns spoke.
"Oh, girls!" exclaimed Ruth, "it is an air raid. We have not had one
before for weeks--and never before in broad day!"
"Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn't come," Helen said, trembling. "Let us
find a _cave voûtée_. I saw signs along the main street of this village
as we drove through."
"There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital," said Ruth, and then
another heavy explosion drowned what else she might have said.
Her two visitors dropped their teacups and started for the door. But
Ruth did not turn from the window. She was trying to see--to mark the
direction of the Boche bombing machine that was deliberately seeking to
hit the hospital of Clair.
"Come, Ruthie!" cried Helen, looking back.
"I don't know that I should," the other girl said slowly. "I am in
charge of the supplies. I may be wanted at any moment. The nurses do not
run away from the wards and leave their poor _blessés_ at such a time----"
Another thundering explosion fairly shook the walls of the hospital.
Jennie and Helen shrieked aloud. They were not used to anything like
this. Their months of war experience had been gained mostly in Paris,
not so near the front trenches. A bombing raid was a tragedy to them. To
Ruth Fielding it was an incident.
"Do come, Ruthie!" cried her chum. "I am frightened to death."
"I will go downstairs with you----"
The sentence was never finished. Out of the air, almost over their
heads, fell a great, whining shell. The noise of it before it exploded
was like a knife-thrust to the hearts of the frightened girls. Jennie
and Helen clung to each other in the open doorway of Ruth's cell. Their
braver companion had not left the window.
Then came the shuddering crash which rocked the hospital and all the
taller buildings about it!
Clair had been bombed many times since the Boche hordes had poured down
into France. But never like this, and previous bombardments had been for
the most part at night. The aerial defense guns were popping away at the
enemy; the airplanes kept up a clatter of machine-gun fire; the alarm
siren added to the din.
But that exploding shell drowned every other sound for the moment. The
whole world seemed to rock. A crash of falling stones and shattered
glass finally rose above the dying roar of the explosion.
And then the window at which Ruth Fielding stood sprang inward, glass
and frame together, the latter in a grotesque twisted pattern of steel
rods, the former in a million shivered pieces.
Smoke, or steam, or something, filled the cell for a minute and blinded
Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone. This cloud cleared, and struggling up
from the floor just outside the doorway, where the shock had flung them,
the two terrified girls uttered a simultaneous cry.
Ruth Fielding lay on her face upon the floor of her cell. A great,
jagged tear in her apron and dress revealed her bared shoulder, all
blood-smeared. And half across her body lay a slab of gray stone that
had been the sill of the window!