THE CHOCOLATE PEDDLER
There was the flash of a lamp ahead.
"Here we are!" cried Charlie Bragg, in a tone of relief, bringing the
car to a rocking stop.
Ruth Fielding could see but little as she looked out from under the
hood of the ambulance. Yet she imagined there was a ridge of land
behind the compound at the entrance to which they had halted.
Charlie got out and helped her down. A second man appeared in the
gateway of the stockade beside the sentinel. The girl approached with
the ambulance driver, who said:
"Here she is, Doc. And a load of stuff she says you'll need. This is
Miss Fielding--and she's a regular good fellow. Doctor Monteith, Miss
Fielding."
"I am glad to see you," the surgeon said warmly, taking the bag from
Ruth and seizing her cold hand in his warm clasp. "We are very busy
here and very short of supplies. Our stores were utterly destroyed
when----"
He did not finish his statement, but ushered her into the compound.
There were a few twinkling lights. She saw that there were a number of
huts within this enclosure, each being, of course, a ward.
They left Charlie Bragg and an orderly to remove the supplies from the
ambulance while the surgeon took Ruth to the hut that was to be her
own. On the way they passed a crushed and shapeless mass that might
once, the girl thought, have been another hut.
"Is that----?" she asked, pointing.
"Yes. The shell dropped squarely on it. We got her out from under the
wreckage after putting out the fire. She was killed instantly," said
the surgeon. "You are not frightened, Miss Fielding?"
"Why--yes," she said gravely. "I have, however, been frightened
before. We have had night air raids at Clair. But, as Charlie Bragg
says, 'I have not been killed yet.'"
"That is the way to look at it," he said cheerfully. "It's the only
way. Back in all our minds is the expectation of sudden death, I
suppose. Only--if it _is_ sudden! That is what we pray for--if it is
to come."
"I know," Ruth said softly. "But let us keep from thinking of it. Who
is this lady?" she asked a moment later.
"Ah!" said the gentlemanly surgeon, seeing the figure in the doorway of
the new supply hut. "It is our matron, Mrs. Strang. A lovely lady. I
will leave you to her kindness."
He introduced the girl to the elderly woman, who examined Ruth with
frank curiosity as she entered the hut.
"You are a real American, I presume," the woman said, smiling.
"I hope so."
"Not to be frightened by what has happened here already?"
"We expect such sad happenings, do we not?"
"Yes. We must. But this was a terrible thing. They say," the matron
observed, "that it was the result of treachery."
"Oh! You do not mean----?"
"They say a man has sold a map of this whole sector to the Boches. A
_man_--faugh! There are such creatures in all armies. Perhaps there
are more among our forces than we know of. They say many of foreign
blood among the Expeditionary Force are secretly against the war and
are friends of the enemy."
"I cannot believe that!" cried Ruth. "We are becoming tainted with the
fears of the French. Because they have found so many spies!"
"We will find just as many, perhaps," said Mrs. Strang, bitterly.
"France is a republic and the United States is a republic. Does
freedom breed traitors, I wonder?"
"I guess," Ruth said gently, "that we may have been too kind to certain
classes of immigrants to the United States. Unused to liberty they
spell it l-i-c-e-n-s-e."
"There are people other than ignorant foreigners who must be watched in
these awful times," the matron said bitterly. "There are teachers in
our colleges who sneer at patriotism just as they sneer at religion.
Whisper, Miss Fielding! I am told that the very man they suspect in
this dreadful thing--the American who has sold a map of this sector to
the Germans--came from one of our foremost colleges, and is an American
bred and born."
Ruth could not speak in answer to this. Her heart throbbed painfully
in her throat. To so accuse Tom Cameron of heartless and dastardly
treachery!
She could not defend him. To defend was to accuse! If everybody
believed this awful thing----
Ruth was just as sure of Tom Cameron's guiltlessness as she was of her
own faithfulness. But how damning the circumstantial evidence must be
against him!
She was thankful she heard nothing more of this thing that night.
Charlie and other men brought in the supplies. She could not arrange
them then, for she was exhausted. She only waited to lock the door
when all the supplies were placed, and then found the hut where the
women of the Red Cross slept.
She had here a narrow cot, a locker and chair, and the privacy of a
movable screen. Nothing else.
This was real "soldiering," as she soon found. Her experiences at Lyse
and at Clair had been nothing like this. In one town she had lived at
a pension, while at the latter hospital she had had her own little cell
in the annex.
However, the girl of the Red Mill never thought of complaining. If
these other earnest girls and women could stand such rough experiences
why not she?
She slept and dreamed of home--of the Red Mill and Uncle Jabez and Aunt
Alvirah Boggs, with her murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" She
was again a child and roamed the woods and fields along the Lumano
River with Tom Cameron and Helen.
"I wish I were at home! I wish I were at home!" was her waking thought.
It was the first time she had whispered that wish since leaving the
States. But never before had her heart been so sore and her spirit so
depressed.
When, some weeks before, she had believed Tom Cameron seriously
wounded, she had been frightened and anxious only. Now the whole world
seemed to have gone wrong. There was nobody with whom she could confer
about this awful trouble.
She arose, and, after making her toilet and before breakfast, went out
of the hut. She beheld an entirely different looking landscape from
that which she was used to about Clair.
Through the gateway of the compound she saw a rutted road, with dun
fields beyond. Behind, the ridge rose abruptly between the hospital
and the battle front.
A red-headed young Irishman in khaki stood at the gateway, or tramped
up and down with his rifle on his shoulder. He could not look at the
girl without grinning, and Ruth smiled in return.
"'Tis a broth of a mornin', Miss," he whispered, as she drew near. "Be
you the new lady Charlie Bra-a-agg brought over last night?"
"Yes. I am to take the place of the girl who--who----"
She faltered and could not go on. The Irish lad nodded and blinked
rapidly.
"Bedad!" he muttered. "We'll make the Boches pay for that when we go
over the top. Never fear."
He halted abruptly, became preternaturally grave, and presented arms.
The young surgeon, Dr. Monteith, who had met Ruth the night before,
tramped in from a morning walk.
"Good morning, Miss Fielding. Did you sleep?"
She confessed that she did. He smiled, but there was a deep crease
between his eyes.
"I am glad you are up betimes. We need some of your supplies. Can I
send the orderlies with the schedule soon?"
"Oh, yes! I will try to be ready in half an hour," she cried, turning
quickly toward the hut, of which she carried the key.
"Wait! Wait!" he called. "No such hurry as all that. You have not
breakfasted, I imagine? Well, never neglect your food. It is vital.
I shall not send to you until half-past eight."
He saluted and went on. Ruth went to the hut in which the nurses
messed. The night shift had just come in and she found them a
pleasant, if serious, lot of women. And of all nationalities by
blood--truly American!
There was an air about the nurses in the field hospital different from
those she had met in institutions farther back from the battle line.
There were serious girls there, but there was always a spatter of
irresponsibles as well.
Here the nurses were like soldiers--and soldiers in active and
dangerous service. There was a marked reserve about them and an
expression of countenance that reminded Ruth of some of the nuns she
had seen at home--a serenity that seemed to announce that they had
given over worldly thoughts and that their minds were fixed upon higher
things.
There was a hushed way of speaking, too, that impressed Ruth. It was
as though they listened all the time for something. Was it for the
whine of the shells that sometimes came over the ridge and dropped
perilously near the hospital?
As the day went on, however, the girl found that there was considerably
more cheerfulness and light-heartedness in and about the hospital than
she supposed would be found here. Having straightened out her own hut
and supplied the various wards with what they needed for the day, she
went about, getting acquainted.
It was a large hospital and there were many huts. In each of these
shelters were from two dozen to forty patients. A nurse and an orderly
took care of each hut, with a night attendant. Everybody was busy.
There were many visitors, too--visitors of all kinds and for all
imaginary reasons. People came in automobiles; these had passes from
military authorities to see and bring comforts to the wounded. And
there were more modest visitors who came on foot and brought baskets of
jams and jellies and cakes and home-made luxuries that were eagerly
welcomed by the wounded. For soldiers everywhere--whether well or
ill--develop a sweet tooth.
Into the compound about midafternoon Ruth saw a tall figure slouch with
a basket on his arm. It had begun to drizzle, as it so often does
during the winter in Northern France, and this man wore a bedrabbled
cloak--a brigandish-looking cloak--over his blue smock.
She had never seen such a figure before; and yet, there was something
about the man that seemed familiar to the keen-eyed girl.
"Who is he?" she asked a nurse standing with her at the door of a ward,
and pointing to the man slouching along with his basket across the open
way.
"Oh, that? It is Nicko, the chocolate peddler," said the nurse
carelessly. "A harmless fellow. Not quite right--here," and she
tapped her own forehead significantly. "You understand? They say he
lived here when first the Boches used their nasty gas, and he was
caught in a cellar where a gas bomb exploded, and it affected his
brain. It does that sometimes, you know," she added sadly.
Ruth's eyes had followed the chocolate seller intently. Around a
corner of a hut swung the surgeon, who was already the girl's friend.
He all but ran against the slouching figure, and he spoke sharply to
the man.
For an instant the chocolate peddler straightened. He stood, indeed,
in a very soldierly fashion. Then, as the quick-tempered surgeon
strode on, Nicko bowed. He bowed from the hips--and Ruth gasped as she
saw the obeisance. Only yesterday she had seen a man bow in that same
way!