Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: "HALT!" WAS THE SUDDEN COMMAND.]
Ruth Fielding
At the War Front
OR
THE HUNT FOR
THE LOST SOLDIER
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
Copyright, 1918, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. TO GET ACQUAINTED
II. AT THE CHATEAU
III. A PERILOUS PROJECT
IV. UNDER FIRE
V. MOTHER GERVAISE
VI. THE MYSTERY
VII. WHERE IS TOM CAMERON?
VIII. THE CHOCOLATE PEDDLER
IX. COT 24--HUT H
X. DEVOURING SUSPICION
XI. THE FLYING MAN
XII. AUNT ABELARD
XIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
XIV. MORE SACRIFICES THAN ONE
XV. BUBU
XVI. THE HOLLOW TOOTH
XVII. THE WORST IS TOLD
XVIII. BEARING THE BURDEN
XIX. ADVENTURE
XX. ON THE RAW EDGE OF NO MAN'S LAND
XXI. A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED
XXII. THROUGH THE GERMAN LINES
XXIII. THE GARDENER'S COT
XXIV. CAPT. VON BRENNER'S SISTER
XXV. BACK AGAIN
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
CHAPTER I
TO GET ACQUAINTED
It was a midwinter day, yet the air was balmy. The trees were
bare-limbed but with a haze clothing them in the distance that seemed
almost that of returning verdure. The grass, even in mid-winter,
showed green. A bird sang lustily in the hedge.
Up the grassy lane walked a girl in the costume of the active Red Cross
worker--an intelligent looking girl with a face that, although perhaps
not perfect in form, was possessed of an expression that was alluring.
Neither observant man nor woman would have passed her, even in a crowd,
without a second glance. There was a cheerful light in her eye and a
humorous curve to her not too-full lips that promised an uplifting
spirit within her even in serious mood.
It seemed as though this day--and its apparent peace--must breed
happiness, although it was but a respite in the middle of winter. The
balmy air, the chirrup of the bird, the far-flung reaches of the valley
which she could see from this mounting lane, all delighted the senses
and soothed the spirit.
Suddenly, with an unexpectedness that was shocking, there was a tremor
in the air and the echo of a rumbling sound beneath the girl's feet.
The crack of a distant explosion followed. Then another, and another,
until the sound became a continual grumble of angry explosions,
resonant and threatening.
The girl did not stop, but the expression of her face lost its
cheerfulness. The song of the bird was cut off sharply. It seemed as
though the sun itself began drawing a veil over his face. The peaceful
mood of nature was shattered.
The girl kept on her way, but she no longer stepped lightly and
springily. Those muttering guns had brought a somber cloak for her
feelings--to her very soul.
Somewhere a motor began to hum. The sound came nearer with great
rapidity. It was a powerful engine. It was several seconds before the
girl looked up instead of along the road in search of the seat of this
whirring sound.
There shot into view overhead, and flying low, an aeroplane that looked
like a huge flying insect--an enormous armored grasshopper. Only its
head was somewhat pointed and there, fixed in the front, was the ugly
muzzle of a machine gun. The airplane flew so low that she could see
the details.
There were two masked men in it, one at the wheel, the other at the
machine gun. The aeroplane swooped just above her head, descending
almost to the treetops, the roaring of it deafening the girl in the Red
Cross uniform. There was the red, white and blue shield of the United
States painted upon the underside of the car.
Then it was gone, mounting higher and higher, until, as she stood to
watch it, it became a painted speck against the sky. That is the lure
of the flying machine. The wonder of it--and the terror--attracts the
eye and shakes the spirit of the beholder.
With a sigh the girl went on up the lane, mounting the hill steadily,
on the apex of which, among giant forest trees, loomed the turrets and
towers of a large chateau.
Again the buzzing of a motor broke the near-by stillness, while the
great guns boomed in the distance. The sudden activity on the front
must portend some important movement, or why should so many flying
machines be drawn toward this sector?
But in a minute she realized that this was not an aeroplane she heard.
Debouching into sight from the fringing thickets came a powerful motor
car, its forefront armored. She could barely see the head and
shoulders of the man behind the steering wheel.
Down the hill plunged the car, and the girl quickly stepped to the side
of the lane and waited for it to pass. The roar of its muffler was
deafening. In a moment she saw that the tonneau of the gray car was
filled with uniformed men.
They were officers in khaki, the insignia of their several grades
scarcely distinguishable against the dull color of their clothing. How
different from the gay uniforms of the French Army Corps, which, until
of late, the girl of the Red Cross had been used to seeing in this
locality.
Their faces were different, too. Gray, lean, hard-bitten faces, their
eyebrows so light and sparse that it seemed their eyes were hard stones
which never seemed to shift their straight-ahead gaze. Yet each man in
the tonneau and the orderly beside the driver on the front seat saluted
the Red Cross girl as she stood by the laneside.
In another half-minute the car had turned at the bottom of the hill and
was out of sight.
She sighed again as she plodded on. Now, indeed, was the spring gone
from her limbs and her expression was weary with a sadness that,
although not personal, was heavy upon her.
Her thought was with the aeroplane and the motor car and with the
thundering guns at the battle front, not many miles away. Yet she
hastened her steps up this grassy lane toward the chateau, in quite the
opposite direction.
The sudden stir of the military life of this sector portended something
unusual. An advance of the enemy or an attempt to make a drive upon
the Allies' works. In any case, down in the little, low-lying town
behind her, there might be increased need of hospital workers. She
must, before long, be once more at the hospital to meet the first
ambulances rolling in from the field hospitals or from the dressing
stations at the very front.
She reached the summit of the ridge, over which the lane passed to the
valley on the west side of the hill. The high arch of the gateway of
the chateau was in sight.
Coming from that direction, walking easily, yet quickly, was the lean
military figure of a young man who switched the roadside weed stalks
with a light cane. He looked up quickly as the girl approached, and
his rather somber face lighted as though the sight of her gave him
pleasure.
Yet his gaze was respectful. He was handsome, keenly intelligent
looking and not typically French, although he was dressed in the
uniform of a branch of the French service, wearing a major's chevrons.
As the Red Cross girl came nearer, he put his heels together smartly,
removed his kepi, and bowed stiffly from the waist. It was not a
Frenchman's bow.
The girl responded with a quiet bend of her head, but she passed him by
without giving him any chance to speak. He followed her only with his
eyes--and that but for a moment; then he went on down the lane, his
stride growing momentarily longer until he passed from view.
A cry from the direction of the broad gateway ahead next aroused the
attention of the girl in the Red Cross uniform. She looked up to see
another girl running to meet her.
This was a short, rather plump French girl, whose eyes shone with
excitement, and who ran with hands outstretched to meet those of the
Red Cross girl. The latter was some years the older.
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth! Mademoiselle Ruth Fielding!" cried the French
girl eagerly. "Did you meet him? Ah-h!"
Ruth Fielding laughed as she watched the mobile face of her friend.
The latter's cheeks were flushed with excitement, her eyes rolled. She
was all aquiver with the emotion that possessed her.
"Did you see him?" she repeated, as their hands met and Ruth stooped to
press her lips to the full ones of her friend.
"Did I see whom, you funny Henriette?" asked Ruth.
"Am I fon-nay?" demanded Henriette Dupay, in an English which she
evidently struggled to make clear. "Then am I not nice?"
"You are both funny and nice," declared Ruth Fielding, hugging the
girl's plump body close to her own, as they walked on slowly to the
chateau gate. "Tell me. Who was I supposed to see? A motor full of
officers passed me, and an aeroplane over my head----"
"Oh, non! non!" cried Henriette. Then, in awe: "Major Marchand."
"Oh! Is that Major Marchand?"
"But yes, Mademoiselle Ruth. Ah-h! Such a man--such a figure! He is
Madame the Countess' younger son."
"So I understand," Ruth said. "He is safely engaged in Paris, is he
not?" and her tone implied much.
"Ye-es. So it is said. He--he must be a ve-ry important man,
Mademoiselle, or his duty would not keep him there."
"Unless the Boches succeed in raiding Paris from the air he is not
likely to get hurt at all--this Major Marchand?"
"Oh!" pouted Henriette. "You are so critical. But he is--what you
say?--so-o beautiful!"
"Not in my eyes," said Ruth grimly. "I don't like dolly soldiers."
"Oh, Mademoiselle Ruth!" murmured the French girl. "Do not let Madame
the Countess suspect your feelings toward her younger son. He is all
she has now, you know."
"Indeed? Has the older son fallen in battle?"
"The young count has disappeared," whispered Henriette, her lips close
to Ruth's ear. "We heard of it only lately. But it seems he
disappeared some months ago. Nobody knows what has become of him."
"He, at least, was on the battle front?" asked the American girl. "He
is missing? Probably a prisoner of the Germans?"
"No-o. He was not at the front," confessed the other girl. "He, too,
was engaged in Paris, it is understood. But hush! We are at the gate.
I will ring. Don't, Mademoiselle Ruth, let the dear countess suspect
that you do not highly approve of her remaining son."
The Red Cross girl smiled rather grimly, but she gave the promise.