Mrs. Bracher was just starting on one of her excursions from Pervyse
into Furnes. Her tiny first-aid hospital, hidden in the battered house,
needed food, clothing, and dressings for the wounded. One morning when
the three nurses were up in the trenches, a shell had dug down into
their cellar and spilled ruin. Now, it is not well to live in a place
which a gun has located, because modern artillery is fine in its
workings to a hair's-breadth, and can repeat its performance to a
fractional inch. So the little household had removed themselves from the
famous cellar to a half-shattered house, which had one whole living-room
on the ground floor, good for wounded and for the serving of meals; and
one unbroken bedroom on the first floor, large enough for three tired
women.
"Any errands, girls?" she called to her two assistants as she mounted to
her seat on the motor ambulance.
"Bring me a man," begged Hilda. "Bring back some one to stir things up."
Indeed, it had been slow for the nurses during the last fortnight. They
were "at the front," but the front was peaceful. After the hot toil of
the autumn attack and counter-attack, there had come a deadlock to the
wearied troops. They were eaten up with the chill of the moist earth,
and the perpetual drizzle. So they laid by their machine guns, and
silently wore through the grey days.
Victor, the orderly, cranked the engine for Mrs. Bracher, and she hummed
merrily away. She drove the car. She was not going to have any fumbling
male hand spoil that sweetly running motor. She had chosen the
battle-front in Flanders as the perfect place for vindicating woman's
courage, coolness, and capacity for roughing it. She was determined to
leave not one quality of initiative and daring to man's monopoly. If he
had worn a decoration for some "nervy" hazardous trait, she came
prepared to pluck it from his swelling pride, cut it in two pieces and
wear her half of it.
Her only delay was a mile in from Pervyse. The engine choked, and the
car grunted to a standstill. She was in front of a deserted farm-house.
She had a half hope that there might be soldiers billeted there. In that
case, she could ask one of them to step out and start up the engine for
her. Cranking a motor is severe on even a sturdy woman. She climbed out
over the dashboard from the wheel side, and entered the door-yard. The
barn had been demolished by shells. The ground around the house was
pitted with shell-holes, a foot deep, three feet deep, one hole six
feet deep. The chimney of the house had collapsed from a well-aimed
obus. Mrs. Bracher knocked at the door, and shook it. But there was no
answer. The house carried that silent horror of a deserted and dangerous
place. It seemed good to her to come away from it, and return to the
motor. She bent her back to the crank, and set the engine chugging. It
was good to travel along to the sight of a human face.
"No one stationed there?" she asked of the next sentinel.
"It is impossible, Madame," he replied; "the enemy have located it
exactly with a couple of their guns. Not one day passes but they throw
their shells around it."
As Mrs. Bracher completed the seven-mile run, and tore into the Grand
Place of Furnes, she was greeted by cheers from the populace. And,
indeed, she was a striking figure in her yellow leather jerkin, her
knee-breeches and puttees, and her shining yellow "doggy" boots. She
carried all the air of an officer planning a desperate coup. As she cut
her famous half-moon curve from the north-east corner of the Place by
the Gendarmerie over to the Hotel at the south-west, she saluted General
de Wette standing on the steps of the Municipal Building. He, of course,
knew her. Who of the Belgian army did not know those three unquenchable
women living up by the trenches on the Yser? He gravely saluted the
streak of yellow as it flashed by. Just when she was due to bend the
curb or telescope her front wheel, she threw in the clutch, and, with a
shriek of metal and a shiver of parts, the car came to a stop. She
jumped out from it and strode away from it, as if it were a cast-off
ware which she was never to see again. She entered the restaurant. At
three of the tables sat officers of the Belgian regiments--lieutenants,
two commandants, one captain. At the fourth table, in the window, was
dear little Doctor Neil McDonnell, beaming at the velocity and sensation
of her advent.
"You come like a yellow peril," said he. "If you are not careful, you
will make more wounded than you heal."
"Never," returned Mrs. Bracher, firmly; "it is always in control."
The Doctor, who was a considerate as well as a brave leader, well knew
how restricted was the diet under which those loyal women lived in the
chilly house, caring for "les blessés" among the entrenched soldiers. So
he extended himself in ordering an ample and various meal, which would
enable Mrs. Bracher to return to her bombarded dug-out with renewed
vigor.
"What's the news?" she asked, after she had broken the back of her
hunger.
"We are expecting a new member for our corps," replied the Doctor, "a
young cyclist of the Belgian army. He fought bravely at Liège and
Namur, and later at Alost. But since Antwerp, his division has been
disbanded, and he has been wandering about. We met him at Dunkirk. We
saw at once how valuable he would be to us, with his knowledge of French
and Flemish, and his bravery."
"Which ambulance will he go out with?" asked Mrs. Bracher.
"He will have a touring-car of his own," replied Dr. McDonnell.
"I thought you said he was a cyclist," objected Mrs. Bracher.
"I gave him an order on Calais," explained the Doctor. "He went down
there and selected a speed-car. I'm expecting him any minute," he added.
The short afternoon had waned away into brief twilight, and then, with a
suddenness, into the blackness of the winter night. As they two faced
out into the Grand Place, there was depth on depth of black space, from
which came the throb of a motor, the whistle of a soldier, the clatter
of hooves on cobbles. Only out from their window there fell a
short-reaching radiance that spread over the sidewalk and conquered a
few feet of the darkness beyond.
Into this thin patch of brightness, there rode a grey car, two-seated,
long, slim, pointed for speed. The same rays of the window lamp sufficed
to light up the features of the sole occupant of the car:--high
cheek-bones, thin cheeks, and pale face, tall form.
"There he is," said Dr. McDonnell, enthusiastically; "there's our new
member."
With a stride of power, the green-clad warrior entered the café, and
saluted Dr. McDonnell.
"Ready for work," he said.
"I see you are," answered Dr. McDonnell. "Will you sit down and join
us?"
"Gladly--in a moment. But I must first go across the square and see a
Gendarme."
"Your car is built for speed," put in Mrs. Bracher.
"One hundred and twenty kilometres, the hour," answered the new-comer.
"Let me see, in your language that will be seventy miles an hour. Swift,
is it not?"
"Why the double tires?" she asked.
"You have a quick eye," he answered. "I like always the extra tires, you
never know in war where the break-down will come. It is well to be
ready."
He flashed a smile at her, saluted the Doctor and left the café.
"What a man!" exclaimed Dr. McDonnell.
"That's what I say," agreed Mrs. Bracher. "What a man!"
"Look at him," continued the Doctor.
"I did, hard," answered Mrs. Bracher.
* * * * *
Mrs. Bracher, Hilda, and Scotch, were the extreme advance guard of
Doctor McDonnell's Motor Ambulance Corps. The rest of the Corps lived in
the Convent hospital in Furnes. It was here that the newcomer and his
speed-car were made welcome. He was a success from the moment of his
arrival. He was easily the leading member of the Corps. He had a
careless way with him. Being tall and handsome, he could be indifferent
and yet hold the interest. To women that arrogance even added to his
interest. His costume was very splendid--a dark green cloth which set
off his straight form; the leather jacket, which made him look like some
craftsman; the jaunty cap, which emphasized the high cheek-bones in the
lean face. Both his face and his figure being spare, he promised energy.
He had the knack of making a sensation whenever he appeared. Only a few
among mortals are gifted that way. Most of us have to get our own
slippers and light our own cigars. But he was able to convey the idea
that it was a privilege to serve him. The busy superintendent of the
hospital, a charming Italian woman, cooked special meals for him, and
served them in his room, so that he would not be contaminated by contact
with the Ambulance Corps, a noisy, breezy group. A boy scout pulled his
boots off and on for him, oiled his machine, and cranked his motor. The
lean cheeks filled out, the restless, audacious, roving eyes tamed down.
A sleekness settled over his whole person. It was like discovering a
hungry, prowling night cat, homeless and winning its meat by combat, and
bringing that cat to the fireside and supplying it with copious cream,
and watching it fill out and stretch itself in comfort.
There was a song just then that had a lilting chorus. It told of 'Rollo,
the Apollo, the King of the Swells.' So the Corps named their new member
Rollo. How wonderful he was with his pride of bearing, and the insolent
way of him. He moved like an Olympian through the herd of shabby little
scrambling folk.
"Is it ever hot out your way?" queried Rollo during one of Mrs.
Bracher's flying visits to Furnes.
"I could hardly call it hot," replied the nurse. "The walls of our
house, that is, the fragments of them left standing, are full of
shrapnel. The road outside our door is dented with shell holes. Every
house in the village is shot full of metal. There's a battery of seven
Belgian guns spitting away in our back-yard. But we don't call it hot,
because we hate to exaggerate."
"I'll have to come out and see you," he said, with a smile.
He became a frequent visitor at Pervyse.
"Rollo is wonderful," exclaimed Hilda.
"How wonderful?" asked Mrs. Bracher.
"Only to-day," explained Hilda, "he showed me his field-glasses, which
he had taken from the body of a German officer whom he killed at
Alost."
"That's true," corroborated Scotch, "and once in his room at the
hospital he showed me a sable helmet. Scarlet cloth and gold braid, and
the hussar fur all over it. It's a beauty. I wish he'd give it to me."
"How did he get it?" asked Mrs. Bracher.
"He shot an officer in the skirmish at Zele."
"He must have been a busy man with his rifle," commented Mrs. Bracher.
"He was. He was," said Hilda. "Why, he's shot fifty-one men, since the
war began."
"Does he keep notches on his rifle?" queried Mrs. Bracher.
"I think it's a privilege to have a man as brave as he is going out with
us," replied Hilda. "We must bore him frightfully."
"He's peaceful enough now, isn't he," observed Mrs. Bracher, "trotting
around with a Red Cross Ambulance Corps. I should think he'd miss the
old days."
* * * * *
Hilda and Mrs. Bracher were having an early morning stroll.
"It's a little too hot up by the trenches," said the nurse; "we'll take
the Furnes road."
"It was a wet night, last night," commented she, after they had trudged
along for a few minutes.
"Are you going to walk me to Furnes?" asked Hilda.
"You're losing your prairie zip," retorted Mrs. Bracher. "You ought to
be glad of the air, after that smelly straw."
"The air is better than the mud," returned Hilda, holding up a boot,
which had gathered part of the roadway to itself.
"We'll be there in a minute," said the nurse.
"Where's there?" asked Hilda.
"Right here," answered Mrs. Bracher.
They had come to the deserted farm-house where she had once met with her
delay and where she had knocked in vain.
"See here," she exclaimed.
"Wheel marks," said Hilda.
"Motor-car tracks," corrected Mrs. Bracher.
The soggy turf that led from the road into the door-yard of the
farm-house was deeply and freshly indented.
"Perhaps some one's here now," suggested Hilda.
"Never fear," answered the nurse. "It's night work."
"Up to two weeks ago," she went on, "this farm was shot at, every day,
from over the Yser. Since then, it hasn't been shelled at all."
"What of it?" asked Hilda.
"We'll see," said Mrs. Bracher. "It always pays to get up early, doesn't
it, my dear?"
"I don't know," returned the girl, dubiously. She was footsore with Mrs.
Bracher's speed.
"Well, that's enough for one morning," concluded the nurse, with one
last look about the farm.
"I should think it was," agreed Hilda.
They returned to their dressing-station.
* * * * *
It was early evening, and the nurses had finished their frugal supper.
With the dishes cleared away, they were sitting for a cosy chat about
the table. Overhead hung a lamp, with a base so broad that it cast a
heavy shadow on the table under it. There was a fire of coals in the
little corner stove, and through the open door of the stove a friendly
glow spread out into the room. As they sat there resting and talking, a
tap-tap came at the window.
"Ah, the Commandant is back," said Hilda. The women brightened up. The
door opened and their good friend, Commandant Jost, entered. He was a
man tall and slender and closely-knit, with a rich vein of sentiment,
like all good soldiers. He was perhaps fifty-two or three years of age.
His eyebrows slanted down and his moustache slanted up. His eyes were
level and keen in their beam of light, and they puckered into genial
lines when he smiled. His nose was bent in just at the bridge, where a
bullet once ploughed past. This mishap had turned up the end of a large
and formerly straight feature. It was good to have him back again after
his fortnight away. The evening broke pleasantly with talk of common
friends in the trenches.
There came a ring at the door. A knob at the outer door pulled a string
that ran to their room and released a tiny tinkle. Victor, the orderly,
answered the ring. He had a message for the Commandant. Jost held it
high up to read it by the lamp. Hilda brought a lighted candle, and
placed it on the table. He sat down, wrote his answer, and gave it to
the waiting soldier. He returned, closed the door, and looked straight
into the face of each of his friends.
"You have to go?" asked Hilda.
"We expect an attack," he answered. It was then 9:30.
"What time?" asked Hilda.
"The Dixmude and Ramskappele attacks were just before dawn. When the
mists begin to rise, and the enemy can see even dimly, then they attack.
I think they will attack to-night, just so."
"How does that concern you?" asked Hilda. "What do you have to do?"
"I have just asked my Colonel that I take thirty of my men and guard the
section in front of the railroad tracks. That is where they will come
through."
"What is the situation in the trenches, to-night?" asked Hilda.
"We have only a handful. Not more than fifty men."
"Not more than fifty!" cried Mrs. Bracher. "How many mitrailleuse have
you at the railroad?"
"Six, two in the second story of the house, and four in the station
opposite."
"Six ought to be enough to rake the road."
"Yes, but they won't come down the road," explained Jost; "they will
come across the flooded field on rafts, with machine guns on the rafts.
They can come down on both sides of the trench, and rake the trench.
What can fifty men do against four or five machine guns? They will have
to run like hares, or else be shot down to a man. They can rake the
trenches for two miles on each side."
"What will happen if the Germans get on top of the trenches?" asked Mrs.
Bracher.
"The very first thing they will do--they will place a gun on top of the
trench, and rake this whole town. They can rake the road that leads to
Furnes. It would cut off your retreat to Furnes."
That meant the only escape for the women would be through the back-yard,
and over fields knee-deep in mud, where dead horses lie loosely buried
in hummock graves.
"What do you think we had better do?" asked Hilda. "To leave now seems
like shirking our job."
"There'll be no job for you, if the enemy come through to-night,"
returned the Commandant; "they'll do the job. But listen, you'll have a
little time. If you hear rifle fire or mitrailleuse fire on the
trenches, then go, as fast as you can run. If you hear as few as only
four soldiers running down this road, take to your heels after them.
That will be your last chance."
The bell tinkled again. The orderly called the Commandant into the hall.
Jost returned with a message. He read it, and pulled out a note-book
from his pocket. He consulted it with care. He sat down at the table,
wrote his reply, and gave it to the messenger. He returned, shrugged his
shoulders, and went silent. All waited for him to speak. Finally he
roused himself.
"The mitrailleuse have only 3500 rounds left to each gun," he said, "and
there are no cartridges in the trenches."
"That means," prompted Hilda.
"Four hundred cartridges a minute, those guns fire," he said, "that
means eight or nine minutes, and then the Germans."
A pounding came at the front door. A captain entered, throwing his long
cape over his shoulder.
"We have no ammunition," he said--"the men have nothing. I've just come
from the Colonel."
The Captain was excited, the Commandant silent.
"Shall we evacuate?" Hilda pressed her question with him.
"I cannot answer for you," the Captain said. "If the enemy attack,
there's nothing to hold them. They'll come through. If they come,
they'll take you women prisoners or kill you. You'll have to make your
choice now. There will be no choice then."
"Furnes isn't so prosperous, you know," said Hilda, "even if we did run
back there."
Only the day before, Furnes had received a long-distance bombardment
that had killed thirty persons and wounded one hundred.
At a word from the Commandant, the orderly left the room. The women
heard him drive their ambulance out from shelter, crank up the engine,
and run it for five minutes to get it thoroughly heated. Then he turned
the engine off, and put a blanket over the radiator, tucking it well in
to preserve the heat.
"Let's put what we need into the car," suggested Mrs. Bracher.
They picked up their bags, and went toward the ambulance.
It was pleasant to do something active under that tension. They stepped
out into a night of chill and blackness. They could not see ten feet in
front of them. It was moon-time but no moon. Heavy clouds were in
possession of the sky, weaving a thick texture of darkness.
"There they start," said the Commandant.
Shell fire was beginning from the north, from the direction of the sea.
"They are covering their advance," he went on.
"Those are 21 or 28 Point shells. They are falling short about 1800
yards, but they are coming straight in our direction."
They walked past their car and down the road. They looked across the
fields into the black night. Straight down the road a lamp suddenly
shone in the gloom. It moved to and fro, and up and down. There was
regularity in its motion. A great shaft of answering white light shot up
into the night from the north.
"They are signalling from inside our line here," said the Commandant,
"over there to the enemy guns beyond Ramskappele. Some spy down here
with a flash-lamp is telling them that we're out of ammunition."
"But can't we catch the spy?" urged Hilda. "That light doesn't look to
be more than a few hundred yards away."
"That is further away than it looks," answered Jost; "that's all of a
mile away. He's hidden somewhere in a field."
Mrs. Bracher seized Victor by the arm, and faced the Commandant.
"I know where he's hidden," she cried. "Let me show you."
The Commandant nodded assent.
"Messieurs, les Belges," she commanded in a sharp, high voice, "come
with me and move quickly!"
She brought them back to the car.
"Send for four of your men," she said to Jost. They came.
"Wait in the house," she said to Hilda.
"Now we start," Mrs. Bracher ordered. "Victor, you take the wheel. Drive
down the Furnes road."
They drove in silence for five minutes, till her quick eye picked a
landmark out of the dimness.
"Drive the car slowly past, and on down the road," she ordered, "don't
stop it. We six must dismount while it is moving. Surround the house
quietly. The Commandant and I will enter by the front door."
They had come to the deserted farm-house. It loomed dimly out of the
vacant fields and against the background of travelling clouds. Victor
stayed at the wheel. Mrs. Bracher, the Commandant, and the four
soldiers, jumped off into the road. The six silently filed into the
door-yard. The four soldiers melted into the night. Mrs. Bracher caught
the handle of the door firmly and shoved. The door gave way. She and
Jost stepped inside. The Commandant drew his pistol. He flashed his
pocket light down the hall and up the stairs. There was nothing but
vacancy. They passed into the room at their right hand. Jost's light
searched its way around the room. In the corner, stood a tall soldier,
dressed in green.
"Let me introduce Monsieur Rollo, the spy," said Mrs. Bracher. There was
triumph in her voice. The Commandant put a whistle to his lips and blew.
His four men came stamping in, pistols in hand.
"Clever device, this," said Mrs. Bracher. She had stooped and lifted out
a large electric flash lamp from under a sweater.
"Clever woman, this," said the Commandant, saluting Mrs. Bracher. "How
did you come to know the place?"
"Monsieur Rollo uses double tires on a wet soil," she explained.
"Monsieur Rollo will now bring his signal lamp outside the house," the
Commandant said curtly. "He will signal the enemy that our
reinforcements and ammunition have arrived, and that an attack to-night
will be hopeless. He may choose to signal wrongly. In that case, you men
will shoot him on the instant that firing begins at Pervyse."
The soldiers nodded. They marched Rollo to the field, and thrust his
signal lamp into his hands.
"One moment," he said. He turned to Mrs. Bracher.
"Where is the American girl to-night?" he asked.
"At Pervyse, of course," replied the nurse, "where she always is. The
very place where you wanted to bring your men through and kill us all."
"I had forgotten," he said. "If Mademoiselle Hilda is at Pervyse, then I
signal, as you suggest"--he turned to the Commandant--"but not because
you order it--you and your little pop-guns."
Mrs. Bracher sniffed scornfully.
"One last bluff of a bluffer, as Hilda would say," she muttered.
The soldiers stood in circle in the mud of the field, the tall
green-clad figure in their midst.
Rollo turned on the blinding flash that stabbed through the night. He
held it high above his head, and at that level moved it three times from
left to right. Then he swung the light in full circles, till it became a
pinwheel of flame. Four miles away by the sea to the north, a white
light shot up into the sky, rose twice like a fountain, and was followed
by a starlight that fed out a green radiance.
"The attack is postponed," he said.