The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor

The only two persons whose opinion she really valued were Aunt Patricia’s and Mrs. Burton’s. Aunt Patricia had been kinder and more understanding than any human being could have dreamed possible. Mrs. Burton had not yet returned from her journey into southern France. Indeed, no word had been heard from her in a number of days, so that not alone did Aunt Patricia suffer from uneasiness. The great German drive so long expected was fanning the long line of the French battlefront into fiercer and more terrorizing flames. At any hour the greatest struggle in human history would once more burst upon the world.

An hour later Sally Ashton knocked shyly upon Lieutenant Fleury’s closed door. She did not do this in accordance with her own wishes, but because of an urgent appeal made by Miss Patricia.

As a matter of fact, for some days Miss Patricia had been haunted by the story of his life, since the outbreak of the war, which the young French officer had recounted to her. He was not conscious of asking for sympathy, nor did he consider his story unusual. Nevertheless it occurred to Miss Patricia this morning that she was unwilling to add loneliness to the difficulties which he must face during the hours of his return to health. Up to the present time he had been too engaged with his soldiering to allow much opportunity for reflection.

Miss Patricia was also convinced of the truth of what Lieutenant Fleury had told her of himself, although she had no thought of not adding the necessary proof to her instinctive conviction. But in the meantime if he really earnestly desired to see and talk to Sally Ashton and to express his gratitude, what possible harm could come of allowing them an interview? Their acquaintance had been achieved under such remarkable circumstances, to meet in a more ordinary and formal fashion would doubtless be best for them both. Afterwards they would not develop fantastic and untruthful ideas concerning each other.

At the moment of Sally’s arrival Lieutenant Fleury was despondent. It was true he had managed to escape from the Germans and could congratulate himself that he was not a prisoner and might hope within a reasonable length of time to return to his own regiment. Nevertheless what an extraordinarily stupid adventure he had stumbled into in his sub-conscious effort to seek the neighborhood of his former home!

He had come out of the experience a thousand times better than he had any right to hope, yet had he not involved an American girl in what must have been an extremely disagreeable and ungrateful task?

At this moment of her entrance into the invalid’s room Sally Ashton did not appear to have been seriously affected by her experience.

Her hour of working in the garden in the warm late winter sun had given her cheeks the color they frequently lacked, or else it was her embarrassment at meeting the young officer. Sally’s hair was also curling in the delicious and irresponsible fashion it often assumed, breaking into small rings on her forehead and at the back of her neck in the fashion of which she at least pretended to disapprove.

“Miss Patricia said you wished to speak to me. I am glad you are so much better,” she began in a reserved and ceremonious fashion as if she and the lieutenant had met on but one previous occasion before today.

In truth it seemed impossible to Sally that the French officer whom she was facing at present had been the ill and disheveled boy she had found in hiding at the château and nursed back to comparative health.

In announcing that Sally did not desire to see the young French officer again, Miss Patricia had been correct. Sally considered that she had made a grave and foolish mistake and preferred, as most of us do, that her mistake be ignored and forgotten.

Yet Lieutenant Fleury had no idea either of ignoring or forgetting Sally’s effort in his behalf.

Immediately in reply to her knock he had risen. His serious expression had now changed to one of boyish gratitude and good humor.

“Yes, I did wish to speak to you; you are kind to have come,” he returned, although in reality surprised by Sally’s extremely youthful appearance. He had only a confused memory of her face bending above him during his delirium. They had enjoyed but one conversation when he was entirely himself. On that occasion he had supposed his rescuer a young woman of some years and dignity, and Sally at present looked like a school girl. Indeed, she was a school girl when at home in her own part of the world if one can count college and school as one and the same thing.

After coming in from the garden this morning she had hastily changed her everyday Camp Fire dress for a white flannel of which she was especially fond, and without observing that the skirt had shrunk until it was extremely short.

“I wished to tell you once again how more than grateful I am to you for your great kindness,” the officer continued, smiling in spite of his serious state of mind at the unexpectedness of Sally’s appearance. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe that she had ever assumed the arduous burden of nursing a wounded soldier under more than trying conditions. Yet if Sally had not been immature, she would have never have shouldered such a responsibility!

She was smiling now and dimpling in an irresistible fashion.

“Will you make me a promise?” she demanded. “It is the one thing I ask of you. If you are really under the impression that I was good to you when I was merely risking your life, then promise never to refer to what I did for you as long as you live and never mention the story to anybody who could have the faintest chance of knowing me. You see,” Sally continued, her manner becoming more confidential, “I realize now that from every point of view I was foolish. It is kind of you to have turned out to be some one whom Miss Patricia and all of us are able to know, for you might have been a most impossible person.”

The young French officer laughed. As he recalled their last meeting and this one his benefactress struck him as a person who had the gift of provoking laughter.

“I think this a good deal to require of me,” he returned. “I will do what you ask only on condition that you – ”

“That I promise to allow you to do a favor for me some day?” Sally completed the unfinished sentence. “I suppose that is what you were about to say, wasn’t it? Of course you can do whatever kindness you like if you have the chance. But it does not seem probable. After you go away from the farm I can’t imagine any reason why we should ever see each other again. Besides, you would do whatever you could for me whether I gave you permission or not.” Here Sally smiled a second time.

For an instant the French officer stared, nonplussed.

But he was not the first person whom Sally had puzzled. She was so matter of fact and so sure of herself one could not tell whether she was extremely simple or correspondingly subtle.

Since her companion regarded her as a child, he could have but one impression.

When finally he held out his hand, Sally hesitated an instant before placing her own inside his. His exhibition of French courtesy and gratitude at their last meeting had been slightly embarrassing. But this time the lieutenant only held her hand gravely.

“You are right, Miss Ashton, whatever was possible to show my gratitude to you I should do, with or without your permission. If I am spared when the war is over I may even create the opportunity which you seem to doubt my ever having. When the war began I had a sister who was, I think perhaps only a few years older than you. If you can ever make up your mind to regard me as she would have done, it would mean a great real to me.”

Sally was beginning to feel bored. She thought her companion was very conventional and a little stupid.

She had not the faintest desire to adopt an unknown young man as a brother. Sally knew herself sufficiently well to realize that the sisterly attitude would make but little appeal to her as long as she lived. And she hoped that her interview with the rescued officer might be entertaining. Life was dull now at the farm with Mrs. Burton away and her own occupation, which had been exciting even if fatiguing, withdrawn.

“What happened to your sister?” Sally inquired politely, although intending to make her escape as soon as possible should their conversation continue on such sentimental lines.

“She was killed in the retreat when the Germans conquered this part of France at the outbreak of the war. I had gone to the front to join my regiment, so Yvonne and my mother were alone except for my little brother and a few women servants. Our château was destroyed.”

The French officer paused because Sally was looking at him with a curious expression as if an idea which she may have had in her mind for some time was now slowly crystalizing into a fact.

“Your sister’s name was Yvonne Fleury and your château was not far from here, was it not?” Sally demanded.

The young officer nodded. He did not care to discuss his past history with Sally or with any one else in the world. There was nothing to be gained by recalling the inevitable tragedies of the war.

Sally did not appear seriously distressed. Unless she happened to be an actual witness to suffering it did not touch her deeply. Besides, at the present time she was smiling oddly, as if she were pleased and displeased at the same time.

“I don’t think that you need adopt me as your sister,” she remarked.

Until this moment they had both continued standing.

Now Sally made a little motion toward the invalid’s chair which Miss Patricia had removed from their sitting-room to bestow upon her patient.

“Suppose we both sit down,” she suggested, taking the only other chair at the same instant.

“There is something else I wish to talk to you about if you feel you are strong enough to hear. It may prove to be good news. I suppose it seems a strange coincidence, although some people would call it an act of Providence, but I am sure I don’t understand such things. It is just barely possible your sister Yvonne Fleury was not killed. When we were crossing to France from the United States we met a girl on shipboard named Yvonne Fleury, whose home, the Château Yvonne, had been destroyed in the early part of the war. As she believed her brother had been killed at the front, she had gone to New York City, where she had been living with some friends for several years. She told the entire family tragedy to our chaperon, Mrs. Burton, who afterwards told the story to us, hoping we might be especially kind to Yvonne because of her unhappiness. The other girls have been, but Yvonne and I do not like each other and she has been very disagreeable to me. Still, if she turns out to be your sister, it does not matter. Under the circumstances I suppose I ought to say nothing against her.

“I have been thinking of this for some time, ever since you told me your name, but of course there may be nothing in it. I only thought if you might like to meet this Yvonne Fleury–you see she came here to the farm and is living with us–I will speak first to Aunt Patricia and together you can decide.”

In reality Sally was not so unsympathetic or so childish as at present her words and manner suggested. During her long speech she had been watching the young officer narrowly. She had arrived at her present conclusion by putting certain facts together in a practical and commonsense fashion. There was more than a possibility that she might be wrong, so there was no reason for working oneself up into a state of hysteria or of heroics. Moreover, Sally had been entirely frank. She understood that the French officer would be overjoyed if Yvonne should prove to be his sister, but Sally herself would have felt no enthusiasm over the same discovery. As a matter of fact, she had no particular interest in Yvonne’s opportunity for happiness through her aid.

She was worried, however, because her former patient suddenly appeared so white and shaken by her words, when only a few moments before he had looked so remarkably well.

Sally moved slowly backwards toward the door.

“I’ll go and find Aunt Patricia; perhaps I should have spoken to her first of my idea. Then after you have talked with her if you would like me to find Yvonne and ask her to come to you – ”

With these words, having managed to reach the half closed door, Sally disappeared.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EXPECTED HAPPENS

Miss Patricia Lord was on her way to the French village only a few miles from their farm house. Unless the call were urgent, rarely did Miss Patricia bestow her activities outside the environments of the farm, which of course included the house, garden, barns, fields, really a sufficient large sphere of activity even for her.

It is true she had been an extremely practical benefactress to the entire neighborhood, yet her gifts had been made largely through other persons; Mrs. Burton or one of the Camp Fire girls reporting a special need among their neighbors, as promptly as possible Miss Patricia had seen that need supplied.

So, as she took her walk on this summer afternoon, had she liked she might have given a good deal of credit to herself for the change in the appearance of the countryside which the past two months had wrought.

A number of the peasants’ huts near the road had been either entirely or partly rebuilt. But more important than the actual physical shelter, Miss Patricia’s tractor had plowed its way over many acres which otherwise must have remained unproductive until, as far as the eye could see, the fields were now being made ready for planting. Even if German guns were thundering along the battle line, nevertheless behind that line the French peasants toiled on with their patience and their eternal industry.

Today Miss Patricia was thinking of life’s contrasts, of the peaceful scenes through which she was passing which only a few years before had been an altar of the world’s carnage and which might soon be so sacrificed again.

For it would seem as if the last gigantic struggle of the present war were now about to take place. Surely humanity would never pass through this universal Calvary again!

Not yet had Mrs. Burton returned from her journey into southern France!

A few days before, a letter stating that, having accomplished a portion of their mission, she, Mrs. Bishop and Monsieur Duval were preparing to start on their homeward way, had arrived for Miss Patricia, although the letter had been delayed for a week.

A more important witness of their mission had been the actual return to the French village of a number of the refugees in whose welfare Mrs. Burton had been especially interested. Among them was the French girl, Elise.

At this moment Miss Patricia was intending to pay a call to offer her congratulations to Elise and her grandmother and also to learn if Elise had seen Mrs. Burton or heard any definite information concerning her. The visit was not one to which she looked forward with pleasure, but was due to the fact that Mrs. Burton had asked it of her as a favor. Miss Patricia’s use of the French tongue was so impossible that all conversation between her and her French neighbors was an agony. Moreover, her unconsciously fierce manner seemed always to disconcert the courteous peasants.

Nevertheless, the old men and women and children whom she met on the road into the village and later upon the village streets bowed to her with more than ordinary friendliness. If they could not comprehend her words or her manner, the value of her kindness they could understand.

A child ran out of one of the houses and unexpectedly presented Miss Patricia with a little battered image of St. Joseph, and although St. Joseph is one of the patron saints of marriage, Miss Patricia accepted her gift with warm appreciation.

An hour later, when she received the first intimation of what had occurred, Miss Patricia was standing in the little yard in front of their hut with Grand’mère and Elise.

There was no restraint about Grand’mère’s conversation now that her granddaughter was restored to her; indeed, she was pouring forth such a flood of rapid speech that Miss Patricia had the sensation of drowning in a sea of words of which she could understand about one in fifty.

Nevertheless, it was pleasant to glance now and then toward Elise, who was as charmingly pretty as her neighbors and friends had described her. From her weeks of enforced imprisonment and something nearly approaching starvation, the young French girl was thin and haggard. Yet as nothing more terrible had happened, she was too rejoiced over her return not to show delight and gratitude in every expression of her vivid face. Moreover, after being allowed to cross the borderland from Germany into France, she really had a meeting of a few moments with Mrs. Burton, who had given her the money and the information necessary for her homecoming.

At the moment when one of Elise’s friends ran into the yard from an unexpected direction, Miss Patricia’s first sensation was that of relief. At least she could enjoy a short respite from her position of exclusive audience to Grand’mère. The woman appeared so excited and so full of some story she undoubtedly had come to tell, that immediately she became the center of attention. Moreover, a dozen other persons soon followed her until in a few seconds the little yard was crowded with gesticulating figures.

Miss Patricia was about to withdraw when a single word arrested her attention. The word was of course pronounced in French fashion, yet in the past few weeks Aunt Patricia had learned to recognize its peculiar French intonation. The word was Mrs. Burton’s name.

Through guessing, through intuition and also through the united efforts of her new friends, soon after Miss Patricia learned as much of the woman’s tale as it was desirable for her to hear at the present time.

This story had spread through the village. A French ambulance bearing the sign of the croix de rouge had just driven through the town en route to the farm house on the Aisne, the present home of the Camp Fire girls. Returning from her work in southern France, Mrs. Burton had been injured and rather than be cared for in a hospital had begged to be brought directly to the farm.

As a matter of fact, Miss Patricia arrived at the farm house exactly two minutes before the Red Cross ambulance drew up before the front door. How she managed this one could only discover from Miss Patricia. The village owned a single motor car used in transporting supplies and Miss Patricia saw that it traveled faster on this occasion than ever before in its history.

Besides, Mrs. Burton, who was so swathed in bandages one could scarcely recognize her, the ambulance contained Monsieur Duval, the French senator, Mrs. Bishop and a Red Cross nurse.

Ignoring them all, Aunt Patricia lifted Mrs. Burton in her arms and carried her upstairs to her room, placing her upon the bed.

An hour later, when the farm house had grown strangely quiet and everybody had been sent outdoors except the nurse and a doctor who had been hastily summoned, Aunt Patricia stalked down the steps into the drawing-room. Here she found Monsieur Duval and Mrs. Bishop waiting to explain the situation to her.

They had been motoring toward home and several miles back of the French line, when without any reason for such a catastrophe, a shell had dropped from a German aeroplane and exploded near their car.

Aside from Mrs. Burton, no member of the party had been hurt, but a piece of the shell had imbedded itself inside her chest and was supposed to be too near her lungs for an operation.

“Do you mean that Polly Burton has a chance to live without an operation?” Miss Patricia demanded in grim tones when her two companions had finished their unsatisfying explanation of what had taken place.

Mrs. Bishop shook her head.

“I am afraid not; that is why we took the risk of bringing her home to you when she wished so much to come.”

“Is there a chance for her to recover through an operation?” Miss Patricia next asked without a perceptible change either in her expression or manner.

This time, as Mrs. Bishop appeared unable to speak, Monsieur Duval answered instead.

“There is one in a hundred, but we dared not accept the responsibility without first coming to you.”

“Then telegraph at once for the best surgeon in Paris who can be spared and also for Captain Richard Burton. I will give you his address. In the meantime, if you can find hospitality elsewhere than at our farm I shall be grateful. We shall have but little opportunity to make visitors comfortable for the next few days.”

With this Miss Patricia withdrew.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FIELD OF HONOR

Some little time afterwards, late on a March afternoon, the yard in front of the farm house on the Aisne, chosen by the Camp Fire girls for their temporary home in France, was occupied by a number of persons. They had separated into groups and were either walking about the place or else were seated in informal attitudes.

On the wooden steps leading directly down from the house two girls moved aside to allow a woman and a man to pass them.

The woman was Miss Patricia, who appeared taller and more painfully gaunt than ever, and moreover, was laying down the law upon some subject in her usual didatic fashion. Yet the man whose arm was slipped through hers was regarding her with devoted and amused affection. According to Captain Richard Burton and in the opinion of a number of other persons, Miss Patricia’s good sense and devotion in the past few weeks had saved his wife’s life.

Miss Patricia was discussing with him the question of increasing the number of cows upon the farm until a dairy could be run upon really scientific principles. She desired a dairy sufficiently large to supply milk to the nearby hospitals as well as to the babies in the villages. Up to the present time she had been largely interested in preserving the health of the young children who came within her sphere of effort. But realizing that milk at present was one of the greatest needs in France for the proper feeding of the wounded soldiers and of the convalescents, Miss Patricia was arranging for the shipment of a herd of a hundred cows from the United States. As a matter of fact, she was supposed to be asking Captain Burton’s advice upon the subject, though Miss Patricia’s method of asking advice was merely to announce what she intended doing.

After watching the two older persons disappear toward the barn, which had been restored until it presented a very comfortable aspect, Peggy Webster glanced up from her knitting to look earnestly at her companion.

“How long do you intend remaining in France to continue with the reconstruction work, Vera?” she inquired.

Vera Lagerloff was sewing upon a dress for one of the children in the neighborhood, since few of them had clothing enough to keep them warm and comfortable in spite of all that was being done for them in the reclamation districts by an increasing force of American women and girls.

Vera’s eyes followed the direction Miss Patricia’s tall figure had just taken.

“I intend to stay on indefinitely until the war is over and afterwards if I feel I can be of more use here than anywhere else. A few days ago Miss Patricia told me that she would be very glad to pay my expenses, as she believed I was ‘a laborer worthy of my hire.’ What an extraordinary woman she is and how much she seems to get out of life, if not for herself, then certainly for other people! I shall never forget our first meeting and the way in which she then took hold of the situation. I think none of us will forget her recent devotion to Mrs. Burton. Any one of us would have been willing to do what she did, only no one would have had the courage or the intelligence.”

Peggy nodded. “I have written mother pretty much the same thing you have just said. Certainly no one of our family can ever pay our debt to Aunt Patricia. Not that I should dare make the attempt!” Peggy added, smiling and looking a little anxiously at the sock she was about to finish. “But I wonder if I am envious of you, Vera, I mean of your planning to remain over here so long? Mother and father have written they would like me to come home as soon as I feel I am not especially needed and Tante has entirely recovered. They wish her to return as well, but I am by no means sure she will. There are moments of course when I am homesick and feel it my duty to be with my own people, now that Billy is gone and Dan has at last been permitted to volunteer. Then on the other hand, I naturally want to be in France while Ralph is here fighting. Have I told you that after Ralph’s visit to us at the farm my family has consented to our engagement. We have promised not to consider marrying until the war is over. I am not speaking of this to any of the other Camp Fire girls, Vera, only to you and Bettina. But I shall always think of you, even if the future should separate us for a long time, as if you were almost my sister. I suppose if Billy had lived you would have been my sister.”