A PERILOUS PROJECT
"That can be no other than Charlie Bragg," announced Ruth, getting up
in haste, and naming a young friend of hers from the States who had
been an ambulance driver for some months. "Something must have
happened."
"I fear something is happening," Major Marchand said softly. "The
sudden activity along this front must be significant, don't you think,
Mademoiselle Fielding?"
Ruth's lips were pressed together for a moment in thought, and she eyed
the major shrewdly.
"I really could not say," she observed coldly. Then she turned from
him to take the hand of the countess.
"I'm sorry our little tea must be broken in upon," the American girl
said.
She could not help loving the countess, no matter what some of the
neighbors believed regarding her. But Ruth had her doubts about this
son who was always in Paris and never at the front.
Henriette was too bashful to remain longer than Ruth, so she rose to go
as well. The countess kissed her little neighbor and sent her favor to
the girl's father and mother. Major Marchand accompanied the two
visitors out of the chateau and toward the entrance gate, which Dolge
had not opened.
"I sincerely hope we may meet again, Mademoiselle Fielding," the major
said softly.
"That is not likely," she responded with soberness.
"No? Do you expect to leave Clair soon?"
"No," she said, and there was sharpness in her voice. "But I am much
engaged in our hospital work--and you are not likely to be brought
there, are you?"
Evidently he felt the bite in her question. He flushed and dropped his
gaze. Her intimation was not to be mistaken. He seemed unlikely to be
brought wounded to the hospital.
Before he could recover himself they were at the gate. Dolge opened
the postern and the two girls stepped through, followed by the French
officer. The young fellow in the American ambulance immediately hailed
Ruth.
"Oh, I say, Miss Ruth!" he cried, "sorry to hunt you out this way, but
you are needed down at the hospital."
"So I presume, or you would not have come for me, Charlie," she told
him, smiling. "What is it?"
"Supplies needed for one of the field hospitals," he said. "And I tell
you straight, Miss Ruth, they're in bad shape there. Not half enough
help. The supply room of that station is all shot away--terrible
thing."
"Oh, dear!" gasped Ruth. "Do you mean that the Germans have bombed it?"
"It wasn't an air raid. Yet it must have been done deliberately. They
dropped a Jack Johnson right on that end of the hospital. Two
orderlies hurt and the girl who ran the supply room killed. They want
somebody to come right up there and arrange a new room and new stock."
"Oh! you won't go, Mademoiselle Ruth?" shrieked Henriette.
"It would be extremely dangerous," Major Marchand said. "Another shell
might drop in the same place."
"Oh, we settled that battery. They tell me it's torn all to pieces.
When our doughboys heard the Red Cross girl was killed they were wild.
The gunners smashed the German position to smithereens. But it was
awful for her, poor thing.
"The station needs supplies dreadfully, just the same," added Charlie
Bragg. "And somebody who knows about 'em. I told the _médicin-chef_
I'd speak to you myself, Miss Ruth----"
"I'll go with you. They can get along at Clair without me for a few
days, I am sure."
"Good," returned Charlie, and moved over a little to make room on the
seat for her. Major Marchand said:
"There must be something big going on over there. Is it a general
advance, Monsieur?"
Ruth flashed him a look and laid her fingers gently on Charlie Bragg's
arm. The ambulance driver was by no means dull.
"I can't say what is on foot," he said to the French officer. "I
should think you might know more about it than I do," he added.
His engine began to rattle the somewhat infirm car. Charlie winked
openly at Henriette, who laughed at him. The car began to move. Major
Marchand stood beside the road and bowed profoundly again to Ruth--that
bow from the hips. It was German, that bow; it proved that his
military education had not been wholly gained in France.
She could not help doubting the loyalty of Major Henri Marchand as well
as that of his older brother, the present count. Their mother might be
the loveliest lady in the world, but there was something wrong with her
sons.
Here the younger one was idling away his time about the chateau, or in
Paris, so it was said, while the count had suddenly disappeared and was
not to be found at all! Neither had been engaged in any dangerous work
on the battle front. It was all very strange.
The bouncing ambulance was swiftly out of sight of the chateau gate.
Ruth sighed.
"Say! isn't there anybody at all who can go with those supplies they're
in need of but you, Miss Ruth?" inquired Charlie Bragg, looking
sideways at her.
"No. I am alone at Clair, you know quite well, Charlie. The supplies
are entirely under my care. I can teach somebody else over there at
the bombed hospital in a short time how to handle the things.
Meanwhile, the matron--or somebody else--can do my work here. It would
not do to send a greenhorn to such a busy hospital as this must be to
which you are taking me."
"Busy! You said it!" observed the driver. "You'll see a lot of rough
stuff, Miss Ruth; and you haven't been used to that. What'll Tom
Cameron say?" and he grinned suddenly.
Ruth laughed a little. "Every tub must stand on its own bottom, Aunt
Alvirah says. I must do my duty."
"It'll be a mighty dangerous trip. I'm not fooling you. There are
places on the road---- Well! the Boches are all stirred up and they
are likely to drop a shell or two almost anywhere, you know."
"You came through it, didn't you?" she demanded pluckily.
"By the skin of my teeth," he returned.
"You're trying to scare me."
"Honest to goodness I'm not. They sent me over for the supplies and
somebody to attend to them."
"Well?" she said inquiringly, as Charlie ceased to speak.
"But I didn't think you'd have to make the trip. Isn't there anybody
else, Miss Ruth?" and the young fellow was quite earnest now.
"Nobody," she said firmly. "No use telling me anything more, Charlie.
For the very reason the trip is dangerous, you wouldn't want me to put
it off on somebody else, would you?"
He said no more. The car rattled down into the little town, with its
crooked, paved streets and its countless smells. Clair was the center
of a farming community, and, in some cases, the human inhabitants and
the dumb beasts lived very close together.
The hospital sprawled over considerable ground. It was but two stories
in height, save at the back, where a third story was run up for the
"cells" of the nurses and the other women engaged in the work. Ruth
ran up at once to her own tiny room to pack her handbag before she did
anything else.
The matron met her at the supply-room door when she came down. She was
a voluble, if not volatile, Frenchwoman of certain age.
"I dread having you go, Mademoiselle Ruth," she said, with her arm
about the girl. "I feel as though you were particularly in my care.
If anything should happen to you----"
"You surely would not be blamed," said Ruth, smiling. "Somebody must
go and why not I? Please send two orderlies to carry out these boxes.
This list calls for a lot of supplies. Surely the ambulance will be
filled."
Which was, indeed, the case. When she finally went downstairs, turning
the key of her store-room over to the matron, the ambulance body was
crowded with cases. The stretchers had been taken out before Charlie
Bragg drove in. Ruth must occupy the seat beside him in front.
She did not keep him waiting, but ran down with her bag and crept in
under the torn hood beside him. Several of the nurses stood in the
door to call good-bye after her. The sentinel in the courtyard stood
at attention as the car rolled out of the gate.
"Well," remarked Charlie Bragg, "I hope to thunder nothing busts,
that's all. You've never been to the front, have you?"
"No nearer than this," she confessed.
"Humph! You don't know anything about it."
"But is the hospital you are taking me to exactly at the front?"
"About five miles behind the first dressing station in this sector.
It's under the protection of a hill and is well camouflaged. But
almost any time the Boches may get its range, and then--good-night!"
With which remark he became silent, giving his strict attention to the
car and the road.