The Camp Fire Girls Behind the Lines
TextCHAPTER XVII
Folly and Courage
Before information of any kind concerning her mysterious disappearance was received from Gerry Williams, every member of the Sunrise Camp Fire had become alarmed. But it must be confessed that the girls were more annoyed than they were agitated.
Mrs. Burton and Mrs. Webster were necessarily anxious, yet as Mrs. Webster had never felt an especial interest or affection for Gerry, she was less so than her sister.
The Camp Fire girls had returned from their walk in time for a late afternoon tea. They were just finishing when Marta Clark inquired what had become of Gerry, and why she was not having tea with them?
Then for the first time Mrs. Burton mentioned that Gerry had gone away from camp with Felipe Morris several hours before. But as she had promised to return in a short time, already she was beginning to feel worried for fear something had happened.
Then another hour went by and the dusk began to descend. But since it was late summer and the days were long, some time would still elapse before actual darkness.
Nevertheless Mrs. Burton at first betrayed her nervousness by walking alone up and down the little traveled road beyond the camp. Finally she came back to the group of girls, who were still loitering about their camp fire before clearing away the tea things.
"Do be good to me, Peggy. I know you are already tired from your long walk and I won't go far," she promised. "But somehow I am so uncomfortable about Gerry I cannot keep still. I know I am absurd, but I have one of those ridiculous premonitions which never amount to anything. If she does not come back in another hour, I shall motor over to the ranch to inquire if Mr. Morris has received any word from Felipe."
In spite of the fact that Peggy was tired and also annoyed at what she presumed to be Gerry's selfish unconcern, she got up instantly at Mrs. Burton's request, and as they started off on their walk placed her arm affectionately inside her aunt's.
"I don't see why you allow yourself to become so worked up over Gerry's staying away from camp with Felipe longer than you approve," said Peggy with her usual directness. "If you do not realize how much she is interested in him, you are the only one of us who is blind. Gerry has not cared for anything except her friendship with Felipe all this summer. She has an affection for you, but except for you everything in our Camp Fire life has bored her."
Knowing by her aunt's expression that she was annoyed by her critical attitude, nevertheless Peggy, who was not in a good humor, went on with her plain speaking.
"Sometimes I have thought Gerry was really in love with Felipe; at other times I have simply thought she liked him just because he was a man and showed her some attention. Gerry is the type of girl who has not the faintest interest in other girls."
"Is this your opinion alone, or the opinion of all the Camp Fire girls?" Mrs. Burton inquired in a tone it was difficult to translate.
Peggy flushed. "Perhaps it is my opinion alone, since it sounds rather hateful. In any case, I have no right to speak except for myself. But if you wish to know the truth, the opinion is pretty general."
"Have the girls the same attitude toward you, Peggy, because of your interest in Ralph Marshall?" Mrs. Burton demanded. "You know how much of your time and thought you give to him these days, even though you rarely mention his name, and you have many more people to care for than Gerry, who is rather singularly alone. If you girls are not fond of her I am not surprised that she prefers Felipe Morris, who, after all, is exceptionally attractive."
Peggy was suddenly upon the defensive.
"I don't think I have allowed my interest in Ralph to interfere with my friendships with the Camp Fire girls," she argued defensively. "But I did not intend being disagreeable about Gerry. She is always amiable and sweet, only it is difficult not to resent her indifference and her absorption in herself."
After this speech Mrs. Burton and Peggy continued their walk in silence for a few moments. Then Mrs. Burton said in a different tone:
"When Gerry comes back this evening, Peggy, I wish you would try to be particularly nice to her. If she has become too much interested in Felipe I cannot help being sorry for her. I have never told you girls much of Gerry's history because she preferred my not telling. But she has had a hard time and no one has ever really cared for her. Her father is dead and her mother an impossibly common person without any good traits of character, so far as I have been able to discover, which would redeem her commonness. So things will be all the more difficult for Gerry if she is under the impression she cares for Felipe. In a little time our Camp Fire summer will be over and they will be separated."
Peggy nodded. "I will do my best. I am sorry to have been so critical. At least Gerry does not make disagreeable speeches about other people! But you are mistaken if you think any of us has ever been unkind to her; it is only that we have found it impossible to become intimate. Of course she and Sally like each other. But if there are facts in Gerry's life she does not wish to discuss, I can understand why she prefers not to develop too close an intimacy with the rest of us, who know almost everything about one another. But don't worry, I presume some accident has delayed Gerry and Felipe. Suppose we return to camp? They may have taken some other route and arrived by this time."
But of course Gerry was not at the Sunrise camp. Within five minutes after Mrs. Burton's and Peggy's return, an automobile appeared containing an unknown man and woman.
The woman asked to be permitted to speak to Mrs. Burton alone.
Then, as she stood hesitating, trying to make up her mind what to say first, suddenly she remembered Gerry's crumpled little note.
For Gerry's sake it was as well that the news of her runaway marriage was imparted to her Camp Fire guardian and friend in this fashion, for the note revealed infinitely more than Gerry realized. With Mrs. Burton's understanding of human nature she understood something of the struggle, something of the temptation to which Gerry had yielded. Therefore in the midst of her surprise and anger she could not forget the note's final pathetic appeal.
Neither the woman nor man would tell much more than the bare facts of Gerry's and Felipe's marriage. They insisted that the ceremony was entirely legal and that immediately afterwards the young couple had gone away. In truth, they could not tell more, since as a matter of precaution Felipe had not informed either his nurse or her husband of his plans.
After appreciating that the marriage had become a reality and that there was nothing she could do or say which would make any difference, Mrs. Burton asked but few questions. She knew that Felipe's father would come to her as soon as he learned what had taken place and she preferred to discuss the situation with him and not with strangers.
Of necessity it was Mrs. Burton who imparted the information to the Camp Fire girls, but she merely told what she knew as briefly as possible, adding no comment. Then she went away to be alone. She was not thinking of Gerry's ingratitude, of the poor return she had made for her interest and assistance, but she was thinking of Gerry herself. Gerry was so young and she and Felipe knew each other so slightly. Then, as Mrs. Burton knew nothing at present of Felipe's attempt to hide in Mexico, it also occurred to her that he might soon be forced to join the army.
Left to themselves, the Camp Fire girls were not so lenient in their condemnation. It was Alice Ashton who chanced to voice the general sentiment.
"I cannot understand how any human being could behave as Gerry has done! Certainly she has proved how little the Camp Fire influence has meant to her! But there is no point in our criticising her, because some day Gerry will have to pay dearly enough."
CHAPTER XVIII
The Summons
Later in the same night, being unable to sleep, Mrs. Burton was aroused by hearing the approach of another motor car. It must have been between two and three o'clock in the dark hours before dawn when the earth is so strangely quiet. Moreover, cars were not in the habit of passing Sunrise camp at any hour, as it was too far from the main road to allure travelers.
Mrs. Burton quietly slipped on her dressing gown and slippers in order not to disturb her sister, who slept in the room with her. As she walked to the front door she was under the impression that Gerry must have returned home to camp and would wish to see her.
But outside it was so dark that for a moment she could see nothing. Then at a little distance off she discovered two figures standing close together. As Mrs. Burton drew nearer she recognized one of them as Dan Webster, and as Dan was fully dressed he could not have been in bed during the night. The other man was Lieutenant Carson.
"Yes, I have been worried all night," she overheard Dan say. "I persuaded mother to go to bed fairly early by telling her I would wait for Billy. But after midnight when he did not come I have not known what to do. I had no idea where to go to look for him. I was afraid something had happened. Is the accident serious?"
"If it were not I would never have wakened you at such an hour," Lieutenant Carson answered. "Please break the news to your mother and sister as quickly as you can and ask them to hurry. I brought over one of our army cars, so there need be no delay. On the way to camp I will tell you as much as I know."
Then Mrs. Burton stepped out of the shadow.
"Billy is hurt," she began, not asking a question, but stating a conviction. "What has he done?" she hesitated, her voice breaking.
"He has done something so wonderful there is not a soldier in camp who would not be proud to accomplish one-half so much. But he has been injured and – " Lieutenant Carson tried to keep his own tones from becoming husky.
"I'll see your mother, Dan," said Mrs. Burton. "Will you please waken Vera and Peggy? If Billy is conscious when we arrive he will wish to have Vera near him."
Within ten minutes the four women and Dan were on their way with Lieutenant Carson to the army cantonment.
The lieutenant had asked Dan to drive the car during the first part of the journey so that he might explain what had occurred.
"Yes, Mrs. Webster, your son is in our Red Cross hospital and everything possible is being done for him. A doctor reached him almost at once. But I wish I could tell you exactly what happened. As it is I can only repeat the story the little chap told himself. No one knows anything else, but he has been perfectly conscious all along and I am told is not suffering a great deal," Lieutenant Carson faltered, wishing that the task in which he was engaged had fallen to some one else.
"Please tell us everything you can," Peggy urged. "I feel my mother had best know the truth before we reach Billy."
"As far as I could find out there have been two laborers employed at our camp who are traitors. In spite of all the official red tape and investigations, your son Billy seems to have been the only person who discovered the fact. The little fellow apparently called himself a pacifist and made friends with the men. Anyhow they must have believed he sympathized with them, for he has been watching them for some time. I don't know how long, I am having to guess a part of this. But they must have finally decided he was one of them, as they allowed him to find out their secrets. It is amazing. I don't see how he managed!"
"But you have not yet told us how Billy chanced to be at your camp tonight and how he came to be hurt, Lieutenant Carson," Peggy pleaded, knowing that the same thought was in all their minds.
"Billy knew there was mischief brewing without knowing exactly what the ruffians were planning to do, at least, that is the way I understand the facts," the young officer continued. "But it seems that when he had followed them to their meeting place earlier in the evening, he found out they had placed a bomb in one of our big buildings at camp which was set to go off at a certain hour tonight. Billy says he made the men believe he considered this a great idea, otherwise they would never have allowed him to escape. He seems to have had the nerve to get up and spout a little speech on pacifism before about half a dozen of them. I believe he said that if only the men managed to destroy our war camps, the United States would never be able to enter the war in Europe and so peace would soon have to be declared as the Allies couldn't go on without America's aid. Anyhow, after a while they let the little fellow go and he pretended to be starting for home. But instead he made for our camp.
"Perhaps he could have managed better. What I should have done in his place I don't know; but he was a little chap up against a pretty big proposition. He did not know how to get the news to camp unless he told some one out here what was about to take place. He was trying to slip into camp with his news when one of our sentries shot him. He was just able to tell the soldier who picked him up what his business was and – well, we found the infernal machine where he told us to look for it. And God only knows how many lives Billy has saved!"
"But my son will live?" Mrs. Webster inquired, with the quiet fortitude which comes now and then to some of us in the really great moments of our lives.
"I don't know, Mrs. Webster," Lieutenant Carson answered honestly. "I was only ordered to bring you to camp as quickly as possible."
Then the young officer took charge of the car, as he was more familiar with the road than Dan.
The southern dawn which Billy had learned to love in these past weeks was breaking into pale lavender and rose when the army automobile arrived at camp.
A good many of the soldiers were walking about, not caring to go back to sleep after what had occurred. More of them than one would imagine remembered seeing Billy about camp in the past few weeks, the delicate young fellow with the extraordinary blue eyes. Lucky thing for them that he had been around, but hard on him!
Captain Mason and Major Anderson, two of the officers who were friends of Mrs. Burton's, came forward to meet her and Mrs. Webster.
They led the way to the hospital, with the girls and Dan and Lieutenant Carson following.
"Your son has been asking for you, Mrs. Webster, only he said you were not to be frightened about him and we were not to let you know what had happened until breakfast time," Major Anderson remarked with that same huskiness in his voice which Lieutenant Carson had been unable to conceal. "This war has made many heroes and will make many more, but I don't know of a finer thing than your son has done. He must have known the risk he ran when he came out here alone tonight on such an errand."
At the door of the hospital, which was only a wooden house with a Red Cross flag outside, the doctor met the little company.
"You will be as quiet as you can and try not to excite him," he said, and there was something in his voice which made all questioning impossible.
Then Mrs. Webster and Dan and Peggy went inside the little hospital. Within a few moments Dan came out again with his head bowed and went away by himself without speaking.
"Will it be many hours, Doctor?" Mrs. Burton inquired.
The doctor shook his head.
"Not many."
Mrs. Burton was standing with her arm about Vera Lagerloff, feeling Vera's grief almost as deeply as her own. Without a tie of blood, without the right to be near him which his family had, Vera was yet closer to Billy in many ways than any other human being in the world.
"You shall see him soon, dear," Mrs. Burton murmured.
Vera nodded.
"Billy will send for me; there will be so many things he will wish to say," she replied and her tone was one of love and understanding.
"I don't think I can get on without Billy afterwards, Mrs. Burton. No one else has realized how wonderful he was, what beautiful things he was planning to do with his life." Vera was shivering so Mrs. Burton could only hold her more closely.
"I know, dear, and yet how could one do more than Billy has done? Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend. Billy's friends, remember, were never merely the few people he knew; his idea of friendship was a bigger thing than ours."
"Billy wishes to speak to you, Tante, and to Vera," Peggy said at this instant appearing at the open door. "Don't be unhappy at seeing him. He is not frightened and yet he understands perfectly he has only a little while."
Billy was lying on a cot with a nurse on one side of him and his mother on the other, but, except for this, looking much as he usually did.
His face was paler and the blue eyes even wider open, yet for once in his life they seemed to have lost their questioning look.
"I promised you not to get into mischief, Tante. Well, this is the last time; at least, I suppose it is my last. But after all one does not know; there may be other chances over there."
Billy was trying to smile and Mrs. Burton leaned over and kissed him.
"I know there will be, Billy, and you will take them as gallantly as you have done this one. Don't worry, old chap, I'll look after your mother and Peggy."
Then she turned away.
Vera had kneeled down and was hiding her face in the bed clothes.
It was to her Billy turned like a little boy.
"Please look at me, Vera, and tell me you are sorry. It was like me to do the right thing in the wrong way, wasn't it? Yet there are so many things I want to say, want to explain to people. You see it is all a question of our learning to understand each other better to end fighting and all the rest of it. You believed in me, didn't you, Vera? Yet you understand that I could not let the soldiers out here be killed when they are getting ready to give their lives for ours. What is that we read about Christ the other day, Vera?"
Vera held Billy's two hands folded closely in her own.
"Listen, dear, and remember this:
"'Christ is courage, Christ is adventure, he fights for us and with us against death.'"
CHAPTER XIX
Plans for the Future
In a large hotel sitting-room a number of girls were grouped in various attitudes, discussing a question which evidently interested them.
"Does any one know why we are not to start east tomorrow as we planned?" Marta Clark inquired, glancing up from a city map which she had been studying.
"Why, no, not exactly," Bettina Graham answered her. "Tante did not tell us definitely. She merely said that something had occurred which made her feel it would be wiser for her to remain in California a few days longer, unless we were compelled to leave for home at once. Personally I cannot imagine what is keeping her here, as I know she is anxious to go home, now that our Camp Fire summer is over and Peggy and Aunt Mollie and Dan Webster have gone. I think it was wonderfully good of her to continue with our camping party after Billy's death, when she must have wished to leave with the others."
"I think I know why she seemed to change her mind so unexpectedly yesterday and canceled all our reservations for berths," Sally Ashton announced in the mysterious manner which Sally often assumed to the annoyance of the other girls. Since her arrival in the city, Sally temporarily had forsworn her war and Camp Fire abstinence and was at this moment engaged in eating chocolates which had just arrived by parcel post from Merton Anderson.
"How absurd you are, Sally! You know no more than the rest of us!" Alice Ashton argued with sisterly frankness.
Instead of replying, sanctimoniously tightening her lips, Sally added nothing to her original statement.
"Nevertheless, won't you please tell us what you think, Sally?" Vera Lagerloff requested, and because it was Vera who made the request Sally agreed.
Since Billy's death the Camp Fire girls had been as unobtrusively kind to Vera as they knew how to be. In a measure they appreciated what his loss must mean to her, although it was out of the question that they could fully understand the extent of Vera's loneliness, the feeling of emptiness which the future now seemed to offer her.
Vera's long and devoted friendship with Billy had separated her from the usual intimacy with other girls, nevertheless she was a general favorite. For a good many years Billy had required whatever time and thought she could spare from her ordinary duties and affections.
"I think, Vera, that Tante recently has heard some unexpected news of Gerry," Sally finally announced with the proper degree of solemnity and with a due sense of dramatic values.
At least she was a dramatic success to the extent of surprising her audience.
"What authority have you for such a statement, Sally?" Alice Ashton demanded in the superior voice and manner which Alice now and then affected.
Sally shrugged her shoulders. "I haven't any authority, I have a 'hunch'," she returned, appreciating how painfully her slang would annoy her intellectual sister.
"But how is it possible that Gerry could have written? Don't you think she and Felipe are still hiding in Mexico? We know that much from what Mr. Morris has told us! If Gerry should write to Mrs. Burton she might betray her own and Felipe's secret and she would not do that," Marta Clark protested.
"I did not say Gerry had written, I only said that I believed Tante had received some information concerning her," Sally answered, undisturbed by criticism.
In response to this speech the expressions on the faces of the four other girls became curiously alike.
"I don't believe if I were Mrs. Burton I should ever take an interest in Gerry again," Marta Clark announced. "Perhaps I am more in a position to say this than any of the rest of you, because all of you have some past association with Mrs. Burton; she was an intimate friend of your mothers. She simply chose to be kind to me and to invite me to spend this summer with her Camp Fire group without any especial reason, just as she has been good to Gerry. If I should repay her kindness as Gerry has done, I should never dare make the effort to see her again, or to ask her forgiveness, no matter how greatly I might desire it."
"I feel just as you do, Marta," Bettina Graham agreed.
But Sally gave a little protesting cough, holding a chocolate drop suspended in the air for an instant.
"Judge not, lest ye be judged," she declared sententiously, and then with a somewhat less self-righteous expression, "Was that quotation from the Bible or Shakespeare and did I quote correctly? The truth is I wish that all of you would not be so hard upon Gerry. I know you think it silly and impossible for a girl not yet eighteen to be really in love, but just the same Gerry is in love with Felipe. As she is in love with him and he has been a coward and is now a fugitive from his own country, I don't suppose Gerry is so happy that all of you need be disagreeable about her. Personally I am perfectly sure that if Gerry wishes Tante's sympathy and help again, Tante would be sure to do whatever she could to help her."
"Hats off to Sally!" Bettina Graham remarked and no one disputed the suggestion. "Still of course, Sally dear, it is impossible that any news could have been received from Gerry, since she and Felipe must remain out of the country until the war is over and the whole circumstance of Felipe is forgotten," Bettina continued. "But suppose when Tante returns we inquire why we are to wait over in Los Angeles a few days more? I presume she would not object to explaining. I believe no one asked her the direct question."
"Yes, but she would have volunteered to tell had she wished us to know," Alice Ashton argued.
Vera Lagerloff, who had been sitting by an open window looking out toward a circle of hills which were like giant amethysts in the afternoon light, turned toward the other girls.
"Suppose if we have no other plans we spend tomorrow on Mount Lowe and give Mrs. Burton the opportunity to be alone," she suggested. "We have been at the seashore so long I am anxious for a day among the hills."
Then she addressed Marta Clark.
"You are mistaken, Marta, if you think all of us here, aside from you, have some past association with Mrs. Burton. I have none except that Billy and I always have been friends and he asked his aunt to take an interest in me. Now Mrs. Burton is going to do something for me which seems more wonderful than anything she has ever done for any one else, although I know she has been a fairy godmother to a good many people. But she is to pay my expenses and allow me to go to France to work in the devastated country which has lately been cleared of the Germans. 'The Field of Honor' is the name for this part of France which I like best. I hope to work among the homeless children. But in any case I have been brought up on a farm and can do farming work, which I have heard is especially needed. I am to study in New York City before I sail. Courses of study are being given there under the auspices of the French Huguenot societies."
An unusual silence followed Vera's long speech and then it was Sally Ashton who spoke first.
"For your sake, Vera, I am so glad, for I know the new life and the new work will mean a great deal to you just now. I only wish I were going with you."
"But you, Sally, what on earth could you do that would be useful in France?" Alice remonstrated, not because she wished to be disagreeable but to relieve the little tension which Vera's confidence had wrought.
"At least I can cook, which is a more useful accomplishment than any you can offer, Alice," Sally returned with such ridiculous spitefulness that the other girls laughed.
"I believe I am also envious of you, Vera," Bettina remarked. "All summer I have been feeling that we were not doing enough to help with the war merely by economizing and sewing and knitting, all the hundred and one small things we have tried to do. If we were boys we would be going through at least a little military training and in a few years would be able to volunteer. It is simply amazing what the girls and women are doing in England. So far we have not nearly approached their efforts. Do you know there is a 'Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps' already in France working directly behind the lines. I believe the Tommies call them 'The Tommy-waacs.' We have been talking about being behind the lines this summer, but I wish we could be more directly there."
"But what is the exact work the English girls are doing?" Alice demanded, as if she were seriously weighing a problem in her mind. "I am sure we can do the same things if they become necessary."
"I don't know all the varieties of war work of course, Alice," Bettina returned. "In Great Britain women and girls have taken the places of the men in more departments of labor than we can imagine. Of course we know they are working in munition shops and aeroplane factories and in ship building, and are telephone and telegraph operators. Now they are also working among the blind, being specially trained for the work, of course, and are actually driving ambulances and motor trucks near the fighting line. But I will bore you if I go on enumerating even the little I know. Personally I agree with, Vera, I should prefer to work among the children. Madame Montessori, the great Italian teacher, has been in the United States this summer trying to establish what she calls the order of the 'White Cross.' The members of the White Cross are to devote themselves to the care of the children who have suffered from the war. She says there is no hope of their growing into healthy and normal men and women unless they receive special care."
"Is there an organization anything like our own Camp Fire girls in France?" Sally Ashton demanded unexpectedly. "I know there is in England where they call themselves the 'Girl Scouts.' But I should think that young girls living and working together in France as we have been trying to do, might help each other and be useful to other people as well."
"I quite agree with you, Sally," Bettina returned. "Odd, that no one of us can answer your question! But as soon as we return East I mean to make it my business to find out if there is a French Camp Fire. At least we could write to the French Camp Fire girls if they exist."
At this instant the girls' conversation was interrupted by the sudden opening of a door and Mrs. Burton's entrance.
She was not in mourning but was wearing a black dress and hat which were unbecoming and made her look older.
"Why is everybody so serious?" she instantly demanded.
Before any one else could reply Sally Ashton answered:
"We are serious because we are thinking that some day we may ask you to take us to France to form Camp Fire clubs over there and to do whatever we can to help. Oh, of course I know we must learn more of what will be required of us and be prepared to make all kinds of sacrifices."
Flinging her hat on the bed with as great carelessness as if she were a girl and also as if she were pleased to be rid of it, Mrs. Burton replied:
"You are an amazing child, Sally. Even if I had the courage for such an undertaking, which I have not, do you suppose I would have sufficient influence with the parents of any one of you to persuade them to allow you to stir one foot away from your own land at a time like this? But I understand you have been hearing Vera's news. The circumstances with Vera are exceptional. Wait here another moment, there is something I have to tell you."
Then Mrs. Burton disappeared into her bedroom which adjoined their hotel sitting-room. Their hotel was not in the center of the city but in a suburb a few miles out.
A few moments later she returned wearing a lavender crepe dressing gown and looking younger and more attractive.
For some reason she sat down next to Sally and put her arm about Sally's shoulders.
"I hope my information may interest you," she began with a slight suggestion of appeal in her voice, glancing from one of the girls to the other.