A Patriotic Schoolgirl Part 26

Gladys had a pair of field-gla.s.ses, and with their aid could plainly make out the German camp on the hill opposite. She was quite excited.

"I can see the barbed wire," she declared, "and the tents, and I believe I can make out some things that look like figures. The focus of these gla.s.ses isn't very good. I wish we had a telescope."

"If they've field-gla.s.ses I expect they can see the school," said Meg.

"Oh, but they wouldn't let them have any, you may be sure!"

"Are they kept very strictly?" asked Dona.

"Of course. They're under military discipline," explained Meg.

"Would you like to take a peep?" said Gladys, offering the gla.s.ses. "You must screw this part round till it focuses right for your eyes. Can you see now?"

"Yes, beautifully. What are they doing?"

"Just lounging about I expect. I believe they have to do a certain amount of camp work, keep their tents tidy, and clean the pans and peel potatoes and that kind of thing, and they may play games."

"It's a pity we can't set them to work on the land," said Meg.

"They do in some places. I'm afraid it couldn't be managed here. So near the sea it would be far too easy for them to escape."

CHAPTER XXI

The Roll of Honour

Letters arrived at Brackenfield by an early post. They were inspected first by the house mistresses, and delivered immediately after breakfast to the girls, who generally flew out into the quadrangle or the grounds to devour them. Mrs. Anderson made it a rule to write to Marjorie and Dona alternately, and they would hand over their news to each other. On Tuesday morning Marjorie received the usual letter in her mother's handwriting, but to her surprise noticed that the postmark was "London"

instead of "Silverwood". With a sudden misgiving she tore it open. It contained bad tidings. Larry, who had lately been sent to the front, had been wounded in action, and was in a military hospital in London. His mother had hurried up to town to see him, and had found him very ill. He was to undergo an operation on the following day.

"I shall remain here till the operation is over," wrote Mrs. Anderson.

"I feel I must be near him while he is in such a dangerous condition. I will send you another bulletin to-morrow."

Marjorie went to find Dona, and in defiance of school etiquette walked boldly into Ethelberta's. She knew that on such an occasion she would not be reprimanded. Miss Jones, who happened to come into the room, comforted the two girls as best she could.

"While there is life there is hope," she said. "Many of our soldiers go through the most terrible operations and make wonderful recoveries.

Surgeons nowadays are marvellously clever. My own brother was dangerously wounded last autumn, and is back in the trenches now."

"I shall think of Larry all day," sobbed Dona.

"Are they ever out of our thoughts?" said Miss Jones. "I believe we all do the whole of our work with the trenches always in the background of our minds. Most of us at Brackenfield simply live for news from the front."

There was great feeling for Marjorie in Dormitory No. 9. Betty had had a brother wounded earlier in the war, and Sylvia had lost a cousin, so they could understand her anxiety. Chrissie also offered sympathy.

"I know how wretched you must be," she said.

"Thanks," answered Marjorie. "It certainly makes one jumpy to have one's relations in the army."

"Isn't your brother fighting, Chrissie?" asked Betty.

"No," replied Chrissie briefly.

"But he must surely be of military age?"

"He's not very well at present."

Betty and Sylvia looked at each other. There was something mysterious about Chrissie's brother. She seldom alluded to him, and she had lately removed his photograph from her dressing-table. The girls always surmised that he must be a conscientious objector. They felt that it would be a terrible disgrace to own a relative who refused to defend his country. They were sorry for Chrissie, but it did not make them disposed to be any more friendly towards her.

To Marjorie the news about Larry came as a shock. It was the first casualty in the family. She now realized the grim horror of the war in a way that she had not done before. All that day she went about with the sense of a dark shadow haunting her. Next morning, however, the bulletin was better. The operation had been entirely successful, and the patient, though weak, was likely to recover.

"The doctor gives me very good hopes," wrote Mrs. Anderson. "Larry is having the best of skilled nursing, so we feel that everything possible is being done for him."

With a great weight off her mind, Marjorie handed the letter to Dona, and hurried off to look for Winifrede to tell her the good news. As she was not in the quadrangle, Marjorie went into the library on the chance of finding her there. The room was empty, though Miss Duckworth had just been in to put up fresh notices. Almost automatically Marjorie strolled up, and began to read them. A Roll of Honour was kept at Brackenfield, where the names of relations of past and present girls were recorded. It was rewritten every week, so as to keep it up to date. She knew that Larry would be mentioned in this last list. Thank G.o.d that it was only among the wounded. The "killed" came first.

ADAMS, Captain N. H., 4th Staffordshires (fiance of Dorothy Craig).

HUNT, Captain J. C., Welsh Borderers (brother of Sophy Hunt).

JACKSON, Lieut. P., 3rd Lancashires (husband of Mabel Irving).

KEARY, Private P. L., Irish Brigade (brother of Eileen Keary).

PRESTON, Private H., West Yorks (brother of Kathleen and Joyce Preston).

Marjorie stopped suddenly. Private Preston--the humorous dark-eyed young soldier whose acquaintance she had made in the train, and renewed in the Red Cross Hospital. Surely it could not be he! Alas! it was only too plain. She knew he was the brother of Kathleen and Joyce Preston, for he had himself mentioned that his sisters used to be at Brackenfield. Also he was certainly in the West Yorkshire regiment. This bright, strong, clever, capable young life sacrificed! Marjorie felt as if she had received a personal blow. Oh, the war was cruel--cruel! Death was picking England's fairest flowers indeed. A certain chapter in her life, which had seemed to promise many very sweet hopes, was now for ever closed.

"They might have put his V.C. on the list," she said to herself. "I wish I knew where he's buried. I shall never forget him--though I only saw him twice. He was quite different from anyone else I've ever met."

Somehow Marjorie did not feel capable of mentioning Private Preston to anybody, even to Dona. She had kept the little newspaper photograph of him which had been cut out of the _Onlooker_, when he won his V.C. She enclosed it in an envelope and put it within the leaves of her Bible.

That seemed the most appropriate place for it. She could not leave it amongst the portraits of her other war heroes, for fear her room-mates might refer to it. To discuss him now with Betty or Sylvia would be a desecration. His death was a wound that would not bear handling. For some days afterwards she was unusually quiet. The girls thought she was fretting about her brother, and tried to cheer her up, for Larry's bulletins were excellent, and he seemed to be making a wonderful recovery.

"He is to leave the military hospital in a fortnight," wrote Mrs.

Anderson, "and be transferred to a Red Cross hospital. We are using all our influence to get him sent to Whitecliffe, where Aunt Ellinor and Elaine could specially look after him."

To have Larry at Whitecliffe would indeed be a cause for rejoicing.

Marjorie could picture the spoiling he would receive at the Red Cross Hospital. She wondered if he would have the same bed that had been occupied by Private Preston. It was No. 17, she remembered. "One shall be taken, and the other left," she thought. For Larry there was the glad welcome and the nursing back to life and health, and for that other brave boy a grave in a foreign land. Some lines from a little volume of verses flashed to her memory. They had struck her attention only a week before, and she had learnt them by heart.

"For us-- The parting and the sorrow; For him-- 'G.o.d speed!'

One fight,-- A n.o.ble deed,-- 'Good-night!'

And no to-morrow.

Where he is, In Thy Peace Time is not, Nor smallest sorrow."

Marjorie was almost glad that on her next exeat at The Tamarisks Elaine was away from home. She was afraid her cousin might speak of Private Preston, and she did not wish to mention his name again.

"I'm afraid you'll be dull this afternoon without Elaine," said Aunt Ellinor; "and I'm obliged to attend a committee meeting at the Food Control Bureau. I've arranged for Hodson to take you out. Where would you like to go? To Whitecliffe, and have tea at the cafe? You must choose exactly what you think would be nicest."

As the girls wished to do a little shopping, they decided to visit Whitecliffe first, have an early tea at the cafe, and then take a walk on the moor, ending at Brackenfield, where Hodson would leave them.