Part 16 (2/2)
He had already been in the trenches held by both the French and British to study their methods of defence and offence. This training all the junior, as well as senior, officers of the American expeditionary forces were having, for this was an altogether new warfare that was being waged on the sh.e.l.l-swept fields of France and Belgium.
Helen had arranged to remain in Paris with Jennie Stone when her father went back to the States. She expressed herself as rather horrified at some of the things she learned Ruth did for and endured from the wounded men.
”Why, they are not at all nice-some of them,” she objected with a shudder. ”That great, black-whiskered man almost swore in French just now.”
”Jean?” laughed Ruth. ”I presume he did. He has terrible wounds, and when they are dressed he lies with clenched hands and never utters a groan. But when a man does _that_, keeping subdued the natural outlet of pain through groans and tears, his heart must of necessity, Helen, become bitter. His irritation spurts forth like the rain, upon the unjust and the just-upon the guilty and innocent alike.”
”But he should consider what you are doing for him-how you step out of your life down into his--”
”_Up_ into his, say, rather,” Ruth interrupted, flus.h.i.+ng warmly. ”It is true he of the black beard whom you are taking exception to, is a carter by trade. But next to him lies a count, and those two are brothers. Ah, these Frenchmen in this trial of their patriotism are wonderful, Helen!”
”Some of them are very dirty, unpleasant men,” sighed Helen, shaking her head.
”You must not speak that way of my children. Sometimes I feel jealous of the nurses,” said Ruth, smiling sadly, ”because they can do so much more for them than I. But I can supply them with some comforts which the nurses cannot.”
They were, indeed, like children, these wounded, for the most part. They called Ruth ”sister” in their tenderest moments; even ”maman” when they were delirious. The touch of her hand often quieted them when they were feverish. She read to them when she could. And she wrote innumerable letters-intimate, family letters that these wounded men would have shrunk from having their mates know about.
Ruth, too, had to share in all the ”news from home” that came to the more fortunate patients. She unpacked the boxes sent them, and took care of such contents as were not at once gobbled down-for soldiers are inordinately fond of ”goodies.” She had to obey strictly the doctors'
orders about these articles of diet, however, or some of the patients would have failed to progress in their convalescence.
Nor were all on the road to recovery; yet the spirit of cheerfulness was the general tone of even the ”dangerous” cases. Their unshaken belief was that they would get well and, many of them, return to their families again.
”_Chere pet.i.te mere_,” Louis, the little Paris tailor, shot through both lungs, whispered to Ruth as she pa.s.sed his bed, ”see! I have something to show you. It came to me only to-day in the mail. Our first-and born since I came away. The very picture of his mother!”
The girl looked, with sympathetic eyes, at the postcard photograph of a very bald baby. Her ability to share in their joys and sorrows made her work here of much value.
”I feel now,” said Louis softly, ”that _le bon Dieu_ will surely let me live-I shall live to see the child,” and he said it with exalted confidence.
But Ruth had already heard the head physician of the hospital whisper to the nurse that Louis had no more than twenty-four hours to live. Yet the poilu's sublime belief kept him cheerful to the end.
Many, many things the girl of the Red Mill was learning these days. If they did not exactly age her, she felt that she could never again take life so thoughtlessly and lightly. Her girlhood was behind her; she was facing the verities of existence.
CHAPTER XVII-AT THE GATEWAY OF THE CHATEAU
Ruth heard from Clare Biggars and the other girls at the Lyse Hospital on several occasions; but little was said in any of their letters regarding Mrs. Mantel, and, of course, nothing at all of the woman's two friends, who Ruth had reason to suspect were dishonest.
She wondered if the prefect of police had looked up the records of ”Professor Perry” and the Italian commissioner, the latter who, she was quite sure, could be identified as ”Signor Aristo,” the chef, and again as ”Jose,” who had worked for the Red Cross at Robinsburg.
France was infested, she understood, with spies. It was whispered that, from highest to lowest, all grades of society were poisoned by the presence of German agents.
Whether Rose Mantel and her two friends were actually working for the enemy or not, Ruth was quite sure they were not whole-heartedly engaged in efforts for the Red Cross, or for France.
However, her heart and hands were so filled with hourly duties that Ruth could not give much thought to the unsavory trio. Rose Mantel, the woman in black, and the two men Ruth feared and suspected, must be attended to by the proper authorities. The girl of the Red Mill had done quite all that could be expected of her when she warned the police head at Lyse to be on his guard.
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