Buch lesen: «The Red Cross Girls with Pershing to Victory»

CHAPTER I
With The American Army in France

IT was a bright winter day near the middle of November, the ground hard with frost and light flurries of snow in the air.

Over the sloping French countryside thousands of brown tents arose like innumerable, giant anthills, while curling above certain portions of the camp were long columns of smoke. American soldiers were walking about in a leisurely fashion, or standing in groups talking. Some of them were engaged in cleaning their guns or other military accoutrements, a number were investigating their kits.

Near one of the camp fires a private was singing to the accompaniment of a guitar and a banjo played by two other soldiers, with a fairly large crowd surrounding them. "Johnny get your gun, we've the Hun on the run."

Over the entire American camp there was an atmosphere of relaxation, of cheerfulness, of duty accomplished. The eleventh of November having passed, with the armistice signed, the American soldiers in France were now awaiting orders either to return home to the United States or else to march toward the Rhine. In this particular neighborhood of Château-Thierry no word had yet been received as to what units were to form a part of the American Army of Occupation, only the information that the units were to be chosen with regard to their military accomplishments since their arrival in France.

Therefore the heroes of Château-Thierry and of Belleau Woods, of St. Mihiel and the Argonne Forest were ready to accept whatever fate sent, "Home," or "The Watch on the Rhine."

Finally ending his song the singer stood up; he was wearing the uniform of the United States Marines.

"I say don't stop singing, Navara. What's a fellow to do these days without your music, when we have no longer the noise of the cannon or the shrieking of guns overhead as a substitute?" one of the group of soldiers exclaimed. "The quiet has come so suddenly it is almost as hard to grow accustomed to it, as it once was to the infernal racket."

"Oh, Navara is expecting visitors, feminine visitors. Some people have all the luck!" Corporal Donald Hackett protested, placing his banjo in its case and also rising. He spoke with a slight southern drawl and was a tall, fair young fellow with brilliant blue eyes, and both his hair and skin burned red by exposure to the outdoors.

"Come along then and be introduced to my friends; a good many of you fellows know them already," Carlo Navara answered. "Mrs. David Clark and six Red Cross nurses are motoring over from the Red Cross hospital. I suppose you have been told that sometime this afternoon half a dozen of our men are to be cited. An officer is coming from headquarters to represent the commander in chief, and present the medals. In a short time we must be ready for inspection."

Moving off together the two men formed an interesting contrast.

Carlo Navara was dark, a little below medium height, with closely cut brown hair, rather extraordinary black eyes and an olive skin.

The young singer, an American of Italian ancestry, had first fought among the snow-clad hills of Italy. Wounded, he had afterwards returned to the United States, where a great career as a singer was opening before him. Then the desire to fight in France had driven him to surrender his art and to serve as a volunteer in the marine corps.

A moment later the two men disappeared within their tents. An automobile with the Red Cross insignia soon after drove up before one of the entrances to the camp where a sentry stood guard.

Stepping out of it first came a woman, youthful of face and form, but whose hair was nearly white, her eyes a deep blue with dark lashes, and her color a bright crimson from her drive through the winter air.

Following her immediately was a young girl, scarcely eighteen years old, who was small and fair with pale blonde hair and surprisingly dark brown eyes. Both the woman and girl were wearing heavy fur coats and small hats fitting close down over their hair.

The older woman was Mrs. David Clark, the wife of the chief surgeon of the Red Cross hospital which was situated a few miles from the present camp. Before her marriage which had taken place only a little more than six months before, she had been Sonya Valesky.

The young girl was her ward, Bianca Zoli.

"I declare, Sonya, I don't see how you always manage to get ahead of the rest of us considering your advanced years," another girl exclaimed, jumping out of the car and slipping on the icy ground until her older friend caught firm hold of her.

"Do be careful, Nona Davis, and don't be humorous until you are more sure of your footing," Sonya Clark replied. "You know when you return to New York I want Captain Martin to find you as well as when you said goodby to him. But have you Dr. Clark's note to the officer of the day? I'll ask the sentry to take it in to him."

During the few moments Mrs. Clark and Nona Davis were talking, four other Red Cross nurses had followed their example and were out of the automobile. They were now walking up and down on the frozen road for warmth and exercise.

They were Mildred Thornton and her sister-in-law, Barbara Thornton, who had been doing Red Cross nursing in nearly every one of the allied countries since the outbreak of the great war.

The other two girls had been nursing in France only for the past year.

One of them, Ruth Carroll, was taller than any of her companions and strongly built, with dusky hair and grey eyes set wide apart. Her companion was tiny, with bright red hair, rather nondescript features and a few freckles, in spite of the season of the year, upon her upturned nose. Yet Theodosia Thompson, with her full red lips, her small, even white teeth and her dancing light blue eyes under a fringe of reddish brown lashes, was by no means plain.

"Aren't you praying every moment, Ruth, that we may be ordered forward with the army of occupation into Germany? Personally I shall not be happy until I see with my own eyes the Germans actually tasting the bitterness of defeat. I made a vow to myself that I would not go back home until General Pershing had led our troops to victory, and a real victory means the stars and stripes floating over a portion of the German country."

The older and larger of the two American girls smiled a slow, gentle smile characteristic of her personality and in sharp contrast with her companion's impetuous speech and action.

Both girls were Kentuckians and had been friends for years before sailing to do Red Cross work in France.

"Well, I have never been so fierce a character as you, Thea! To me victory will seem assured the day peace is signed. Yet if any of the divisions of soldiers among whom we have been nursing are ordered to Germany, certainly I hope our Red Cross unit may accompany them. I presume not nearly so many nurses will be needed as in the fighting days, however."

In the interval, while this conversation was taking place, Mrs. Clark's note had been dispatched to the officer of the day. At this moment Major Hersey appeared.

Major James Hersey, confidentially known among his battalion as "Jimmie" had the distinction of being one of the youngest majors in the United States army, and to his own regret was not only less than twenty-five years old but looked even younger.

"I am so awfully glad to see you, Mrs. Clark," he began, blushing furiously without apparent reason, as he spoke, which was an uncomfortable habit.

"I want you to congratulate me. We have just had a telephone message from headquarters saying that we are to form a part of the first big unit of the American army occupational force. We are to begin to move toward Germany at half past five o'clock Sunday morning, and I am tremendously pleased. Our orders are to march two days and rest three and our troops will move on a front of fifty miles for two weeks when we expect to reach the Rhine. But forgive my enthusiasm, Mrs. Clark. You are the first person to whom I have told the good news. Even the men don't know yet. You'll say hurrah with me." Major Hersey ended boyishly, forgetting military etiquette in his enthusiasm. He had a round, youthful face, curly light brown hair and eyes of nearly the same shade.

Later, when Sonya had offered her congratulations, insisting, however, that she was not surprised by the news if military accomplishment had been considered, she and Major Hersey led the way into the American camp in the neighborhood of Château-Thierry followed by the six American girls.

Half an hour afterwards the same information had been disseminated throughout the camp. Lieutenant-Colonel Townsend had also arrived to award the citations and the Distinguished Service Crosses to the officers and soldiers who had merited the distinction.

Never were Sonya Clark and the six Red Cross nurses to forget this, their last picture of an American camp in France before the great movement of the victorious army toward the Rhine.

The clouds of the earlier afternoon had grown heavier and more snow was falling in larger flakes, so that the earth was covered with a thin white carpet.

A cold wind was blowing across the winter fields.

The American soldiers stood in long, even lines, erect, rugged and efficient.

Sonya and her group of Red Cross nurses managed to protect themselves a little from the cold by standing behind a group of officers and near one of the officer's tents, not far from Lieutenant-Colonel Townsend and Major Hersey. They were the only women in the camp at the present time.

Therefore the only feminine applause emanated from them when the first young officer came forward to receive his citation from the hands of the Commanding Officer.

First Lieutenant Leon De Funiak was a young French officer who had been attached to a division of the United States Marines.

In the name of the President he was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action near St. Mihiel on September 12 when with excellent courage he had captured a machine gun which he turned upon an adjoining trench forcing the enemy occupants to surrender.

The second award was made to Corporal Donald Hackett, a friend of Carlo Navara's and an acquaintance of the Red Cross girls. Later, two citations were given to privates with whom they had no acquaintance.

The afternoon sun was disappearing and the wind growing colder.

Bianca Zoli, who stood between her guardian and Nona Davis, shivered.

Unconscious of what she was doing she also gave a little sigh due to fatigue and cold. Younger than her companions she was also more fragile in appearance.

Her guardian now turned toward her.

"I am sorry, Bianca, you are worn out. I am afraid you should not have come with us. Yet it is impossible to leave now until the citations are over."

At this same moment, another name was being announced by the Commanding Officer. Instantly Bianca Zoli's manner and appearance changed. Her cheeks became a warm crimson, her dark eyes glowed, her lips even trembled slightly although she held the lower one firm with her small white teeth.

The name called was Private Carlo Navara. The Distinguished Service Cross was his award. Early in the previous July he had crossed as a spy into the enemy's lines and there secured information which had proved of extraordinary value to the commander in chief of the allied armies.

Half an hour later, returning to the Red Cross hospital, which lay a few miles behind the American camp, Bianca Zoli sat wrapped in a rug for further warmth, yet her expression had continued radiant. With her pale fair hair blowing from underneath her fur cap, her eyes deep and dark and happy underneath a little fringe of snow which had fallen and clung to her long lashes, she looked oddly pretty.

"Do you think, Sonya, that Carlo knew he was to be cited this afternoon?" she demanded. "He has always said that his own share in the expedition into the German lines last summer was a failure and that the success was entirely due Lieutenant Wainwright, Mildred Thornton's fiancé. Has Carlo spoken to you on the subject recently? Had he been told he was to be decorated?"

A little absently the older woman nodded, at the present moment she was thinking of other matters even more absorbing than Carlo Navara's recent honor, proud as she felt of her friend.

Earlier in the day her husband, Dr. David Clark, the surgeon in charge of the Red Cross hospital, had confided in her that a unit of his nurses and physicians were to follow the American army to the frontiers of Germany. Dr. Clark had also asked his wife's advice with regard to the nurses who had best accompany them. Therefore, all the afternoon, with her subconscious mind Sonya had been endeavoring to meet and unravel this personal problem, at the same time she shared in the interest of the military ceremony to which she had been a witness.

"Yes, I believe Carlo did know what he might expect Bianca," she answered finally. "At least he told me a day or so ago he had received some word that there was to be some public recognition of his deed. I suppose Carlo did not like to discuss the matter generally as he is a more modest soldier than he is an artist."

The younger girl flushed.

"Just the same I should think Carlo might also have confided in me. I wonder if he will ever realize that you are not the best friend he has in the world, even if he does continue to think so."

The older woman smiled without replying.

Sonya knew that some day Bianca would recover from her childish jealous relation between herself and Carlo Navara.

Of late Carlo, himself, had grown entirely sensible, appreciating the fact that her marriage had ended forever his mistaken romantic attachment for a woman so much older than himself, to whose kindness in caring for him during his illness in Italy he believed he owed so much.

Moreover, Sonya's attention was soon engaged in watching the storm. During the past two hours the snow fall had been growing heavier until now it lay thick along the road and was blown into drifts by the roadside. The wind was swirling in fierce gusts and forming whirlwinds of snow in unexpected places. Save for the lights in their motor car the way was nearly dark, as daylight had almost completely disappeared.

Cautiously, although driving his car at a fairly rapid pace, the chauffeur was speeding toward the hospital. Then suddenly without warning he stopped his car so abruptly that its occupants were thrown forward out of their seats.

"What is it, what has happened?" Sonya Clark asked, as soon as she had recovered sufficient breath, then opening the door of the closed car she peered out into the snow-covered road.

A little beyond she was able to see an object lying in the road only a few feet beyond their car.

In the semi-darkness and at the distance, with the snow forming a thick veil between, it was impossible to tell just what the object might be. Partly covered with snow and showing no sign of movement it was probably an animal that had gone astray and been frozen in the November storm.

Quickly Sonya got out of the car followed by Mildred Thornton and Ruth Carroll, the other girls remaining in the automobile at her request.

The chauffeur joined them.

The next moment the four of them were bending over the figure of a young girl, who was wearing a close fitting cap and a long dark blue coat, and sewed on her sleeve a small Red Cross.

Yet when Sonya spoke to her, she showed no sign of being able to reply and made no movement, not even to the raising of her lashes. When the chauffeur lifted and placed her inside the car she still seemed unconscious.

"I think we had best go on to the hospital at once," Sonya commanded. "We are not more than a few moments' journey and whatever should be done for this girl can be better accomplished there."

CHAPTER II
A Late Recruit

A LITTLE before noon the following day, Mrs. David Clark, the wife of the surgeon in command of the Red Cross hospital near Château-Thierry, entered a small room in one of the towers of the old French château, which had been serving as a hospital for the American wounded.

The room was in the portion of the building set apart for the use of the Red Cross nurses.

Opening the door quietly and without knocking, Sonya stood for a moment in silence upon the threshold, staring in polite amazement at the figure she beheld sitting upright in the small hospital bed.

The figure was that of a young girl with straight brown hair cut short and parted at one side, a rather thin white face with a pointed chin and large hazel eyes. There was a boyish, or perhaps more of a sprite-like quality in her appearance. As Sonya looked straightway she saw a fleeting picture of Peter Pan, before the girl turned and spoke to her.

"You are Mrs. Clark aren't you? You are very kind to come to ask about me. I am sorry I gave you so much trouble yesterday; another mile or more and I should have arrived safely at the hospital and been none the worse for my long walk. You won't mind if I go on eating a moment longer, will you? I am dreadfully hungry and I have just succeeded in persuading the charming little girl who is taking care of me that there is nothing in the world the matter with me today, except the need for food. I really feel no worse from yesterday's experience, although it is nice to be so deliciously warm after one has come fairly near being frozen."

As the girl talked, the older woman came and took a little chair beside the bed. The newcomer to the hospital, who had been rescued from the snow storm the afternoon before, Sonya now discovered was not so young as she had originally believed. On closer observation there were tiny lines about the girl's eyes, a little droop at the corners of her mouth, which might, however, be due partly to fatigue and exposure.

"When you feel inclined and if you are strong enough, I wonder if you will not tell me something about yourself and where you were trying to go when we picked you up yesterday? Red Cross nurses have been in many unexpected places since the beginning of the war, yet one scarcely looks to find one lost in the snow in such a picturesque fashion," Sonya suggested half smiling and half serious.

In answer to Sonya's speech, the girl pushed the tray of food which by this time she had finished eating, to the bottom of her bed and sat resting her chin in the palms of her hands. She was leaning forward with her shoulders lifted and wearing a little white flannel dressing sacque which Bianca Zoli must have loaned to her.

"I want very much to explain to you, Mrs. Clark, and I am entirely all right again, only perhaps a little tired from my adventure. I do not seem even to have taken cold. First of all my name is Nora Jamison and I have traveled all the way from California to France, across a country and across an ocean. Was it my good fortune or my ill fortune that I landed in Paris just three days before the armistice was signed to begin my Red Cross nursing? I have been looking forward to the opportunity it seems to me for years. Oh, I have done war nursing, but near one of the California camps."

The girl turned her eyes at this moment to glance out the small window cut into the wall just beside her bed.

They were remarkable eyes, Sonya had already observed, sometimes a light brown in shade, then flecked with green and grey tones. Not in any sense was the rest of the face beautiful, although oddly interesting, the nose long and delicate, the lips thin with slightly irregular white teeth.

"I want to see what this French country is like, Mrs. Clark, see it until I shall never forget its desolation as compared to the fruitfulness and tranquility of our own. Some day when I return home I mean to make some of my own country people share my impression with me."

Then without further explanation of her meaning she turned again to her companion.

"I wonder if you are going to be willing to do me a great favor? Strange, I know, to be asking a favor of some one who has never seen one and knows nothing of one, save that I am already in your debt! I want you to take me with you as one of your Red Cross nurses to work with the army of occupation on the Rhine. Please don't refuse me yet.

"When I arrived in Paris three days before the signing of the armistice I was kept waiting there until the day after the celebration. Then I was told that if I preferred I could stay on in Paris a week or more and go back home, since now that the war was over, there would be less need for Red Cross nurses. Yet somehow I managed to plead my cause and the morning after the armistice I was ordered to report to Dr. Clark at his hospital near Château-Thierry. Probably there would be nurses who were tired and would now wish to be discharged and sent home. I was told that a letter had been written Dr. Clark to expect me. There was a very especial reason why I wished to come to this neighborhood which I would like to tell you later. Well, I had a fairly difficult journey from Paris. I was alone and know almost no French. But there was no one to send with me and even the Red Cross organization relaxed just a little with the prospect of peace. Nevertheless nothing happened to me of any importance until I reached the station where I was told some one would be waiting to drive me to the hospital. There was no one. But the mistake was mine, because I thought an old Frenchman told me the Red Cross hospital was only five miles away. At present, knowing my own failure to understand French I think that he probably said fifteen miles. However, I feel I must have walked nearer fifty, if I may exaggerate the actual facts. I kept asking in my best French to be told the proper direction and thinking I understood and then getting lost. When I started out from the little French station it was early in the morning and really not very cold; you must not think I am altogether without judgment. But now that I am safely here, you will take me with you to Germany? Just think how far I have traveled for this chance! Your other nurses have had their opportunity."

Two bright spots of color were at this moment glowing on the girl's cheeks, her lips and eyes were eager as a child.

Nevertheless Sonya shook her head.

"I am sorry, Miss Jamison, but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. In the first place, my husband has already made the choice of the Red Cross nurses who are to form his unit. He selected his staff of nurses and physicians last night. There is no time for delay. The division of troops we are to serve leaves before dawn Sunday morning. The Red Cross units will bring up the rear. We will probably move later on the same morning. Don't think I am not sympathetic; why you must feel like the last of our American troops who reached Château-Thierry the morning of the armistice. Major Hersey told me it was difficult to keep them from fighting, armistice, or no armistice. But you will be able to remain here at the hospital for a time. We still have a number of the wounded to be cared for and more than half the staff will stay behind."

The new nurse covered her eyes for a moment with her hands, they were beautiful nurse's hands, with long slender, firm fingers.

"Mrs. Clark, I haven't any immediate family, the one person I cared for and to whom I was engaged was killed here in the neighborhood of Château-Thierry at one of the first engagements of the United States troops. We had planned to do wonderful things with our life together after the war was past and he was safely home. Now, I haven't the courage, not for a time anyhow, to go on with what we hoped to do. I must have work, change, movement. I am very strong, see how quickly I have recovered from yesterday. To stay here at the hospital and work now that the war is over would of course be better than going home at once. But the hospital will be sure to close in a little time and the men sent nearer the coast so as to be ready to sail as soon as they are able. May I at least talk to Dr. Clark? Will you ask him to give me a few moments? I shall be dressed in a little while and can come to his office."

Sonya rose up from her chair and stood hesitating a moment.

There was something in the girl's story, something in her face which was oddly wistful and appealing. More than an ordinary loss lay behind her quickly told tragedy.

"Why, yes, I'll speak to Dr. Clark if you desire it and in any case he will wish to know you have recovered. Yet I am afraid I cannot truthfully hold out much hope to you. As a matter of fact I have not personally the least influence with my husband in professional matters. If I had, well I should like to take you with our Red Cross unit to the Rhine," and Sonya stooped, obeying an unusual impulse and kissed the new girl lightly on the forehead before leaving her.