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.

CHAPTER III
Toward Germany

 
"Happy is he who takes the open road,
From rosy sunburst till the stars ascend.
Light is his heart, though heavy be his load,
If love but waits him at his journey's end."
 

THE two Red Cross nurses, Theodosia Thompson and Ruth Carroll were standing together at the edge of a bleak field in the dawn of a mid-November morning. Their companion was a young American physician. "What an extraordinary quotation under the present circumstances, Thea! But then, since you are a bundle of contradictions, I presume you suggest that love will await us at our journey's end when you really mean hate. I wonder to what extent the Germans will hate us and how difficult life will be among them when we occupy their cities on the Rhine."

Ruth Carroll, who had begun her speech as an answer to the other girl, now concluded it by turning her gaze upon Dr. Hugh Raymond, who made no effort at the moment to answer so unanswerable a question.

"Oh, I was not thinking of the entrance of our American troops into Germany, but into Belgium and the little devastated French villages which have not seen a friendly face in over four years," Theodosia Thompson replied. "Our soldiers must first pass through the rescued towns. But actually, Ruth, I was not thinking deeply at all. With the knowledge that we were soon to take the open road, the verse came into my mind. Please don't always be so matter of fact."

Possibly the two girls were talking because it is so difficult for girls to remain silent for any length of time even under the most amazing conditions. At this moment, peering steadfastly through the grey light of the approaching day, with Dr. Raymond beside them, they were beholding one of the greatest spectacles in human history, the first movement of the American Army of Occupation toward the Rhine.

In line with the vision of the three watchers at this instant khaki-clad figures were marching slowly forward with their faces turned toward the east. Behind them down the long road ammunition and supply trains were lumbering; cannons and big guns were groaning their way onward as in time of war. But although it was not war, but the vanguard of peace, nevertheless the American soldiers were prepared for war, should the armistice be ended at any moment. Overhead observation balloons were floating, which were to move more rapidly than the army and form a part of the advance guard.

"We are scheduled to enter Virton some time tomorrow, Miss Thompson. Virton is the first town across the Belgian border, then Briey and Longwy and then the little Duchy of Luxemburg. It is a great trek and I am glad to be allowed to join it. Yet somehow I wish we were sending our nurses in dirigibles so as to make the journey more quickly and safely. We have suffered so much from German treachery in the past that I can't quite trust them on this march. Yet personally I wish I could have gone with the soldiers."

The young American doctor spoke slowly and solemnly. He was a tall slender fellow with sandy hair and a rather finely cut face, a little Roman in type. His manner was also slightly dictatorial, as if he were a much older and wiser person than his feminine audience, although he was scarcely twenty-five.

Theodosia Thompson paid no attention to his remarks although he seemed to be addressing her; however Ruth Carroll listened as interestedly as any one could have desired.

Dr. Raymond had not been as friendly with the Red Cross nurses at the Château-Thierry hospital as one might naturally have expected, considering the fact that they had worked and dreamed and prayed under the same roof during the last thrilling months before the close of the war. But he was supposed not to care for women or girls, either because he was too shy, or because he suffered from an undue sense of superiority. Notwithstanding, he apparently made a mild exception in favor of Ruth Carroll, although for her intimate friend and companion, Thea Thompson, ordinarily he had to make an effort to conceal his dislike.

Over the French country this morning the snow of a few days before had hardened and been beaten down into a frost covered layer of mud, yet the wind had become a little quieter and not so piercingly cold.

"Don't you think we had best go back to the hospital in a few moments, Thea?" Ruth at this instant inquired. "There are still preparations for us to make before our Red Cross unit takes its place in the line of march. As a matter of fact I don't think I slept three hours last night, and neither Dr. Clark nor Mrs. Clark made a pretence of going to bed."

Thea linked her arm in Ruth's.

The young physician who was their companion wore a curious, rapt expression. He was still gazing after the moving army, and seemed not to have heard.

"Goodby, Dr. Raymond." Thea made a little curtsey that was unexpectedly graceful. "Thank you for suggesting to Ruth that she see the first breaking of camp of the American Army of Occupation. I know you had not intended that I accompany you, yet thank you just the same. Never so long as I live shall I forget this daybreak in France! Why, it is as if an old world had ended on the eleventh of November and a new one was beginning today! Besides who knows what experiences may lie ahead, or romances, Dr. Raymond. You see now the war has ended, perhaps even you may wake up to other interesting facts in life beside professional ones."

With an odd, challenging expression, Thea Thompson watched the young doctor's face, expecting him at least to change color or show some sign of annoyance. However, as he was a good deal taller than she, he merely looked over her head and toward Ruth Carroll.

"If you will forgive me, Miss Carroll, I won't return with you just this minute. I have nothing very special to look after and I want to see as much of this first movement of our army as possible. Afterwards our Red Cross motors and ambulances will probably have to keep in the rear."