Ruth Fielding at the War Front Part 24

They traveled through the lowland swiftly but cautiously. Ruth could not see the way, and clung to Major Marchand's hand. But she tried to make no sound.

Once he drew her aside into a jungle of brush and they crouched there, completely hidden, while a file of soldiers marched by, their file leader flashing an electric torch to show the way.

"The relief," whispered Major Marchand, when they had gone. "They may be swarming down this hill after us in a few minutes."

The two hurried on. The keen feeling of peril and adventure gripped Ruth Fielding's soul. It was not with fear that she trembled now.

At length they halted in a pitch-black place, which might have been almost anything but the sheepfold Major Marchand told Ruth it was. He produced an officer's trench whistle and blew a long and peculiar blast on it.

"Now, hush!" he whispered. "It is against usage to use these whistles for anything but the command to go over the top at 'zero.' Necessity, however, Mademoiselle, knows no law."

They waited. Not a sound answered. There was no stir on any side of them. Ruth's fears seemed quenched entirely. Now a feeling of exultation gripped her. She was fairly into this adventure. It was too late to go back.

The major blew the whistle a second time and in the same way. Suddenly a dark figure loomed before them. There was a word In French spoken out of the darkness. It was not the pa.s.sword the Major had given the American sentinel.

"Come, Mademoiselle," said the major. "Give me your hand again."

Ruth's warm hand slipped confidently into his enclosing palm. The Frenchman's courtesy and unfailing gentleness had a.s.sured her that she was perfectly safe in his care.

They left the sheepfold, the second man, whoever he was, moving ahead to guide them. Even in the open it was now very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were faint and seemed very far away.

Finally Ruth saw that a ridge of land confronted them; but they did not climb its face. Instead, they followed a winding path along its foot, which soon, to the girl's amazement, became a tunnel. It was dimly lit with an electric bulb here and there along its winding length.

"Where are we?" she whispered to the major.

"This is the first approach-trench," he returned. "But silence, Mademoiselle. Your voice is not--well, it is not masculine."

She understood that she was not to attract attention. A woman in the trenches would, indeed, create both curiosity and remark.

The guide stopped within a few yards and sought out trench helmets that they all put on. When the strap was fastened under her chin Ruth almost laughed aloud. What would Helen and Jennie say if they could see her in this brand of millinery?

She controlled her laughter, however. Here, at the first cross-trench, stood a sentry who let them by when the ghostly leader of the trio, whose face she could not see at all, had whispered the pa.s.sword. Ruth walked between her two companions, and her dress was not noticed in the dark.

Soon they were out of the tunnels through the ridge. Later she learned that the ridge was honeycombed with them. The trench they entered was broader and open to the sky. And muddy!

She stepped once off the "duckboards" laid down in the middle of the pa.s.sway and dipped half-way to her knee in the mire. She felt that if the major had not pulled her up quickly she might have sunk completely out of sight.

But she did not utter a sound. He whispered in her ear:

"I admire your courage, Mademoiselle. Just a short distance farther.

Do not lose heart."

"I am just beginning to feel brave," she whispered in return.

Presently the leader stopped. They waited a moment while he fumbled along the boarded side of the trench. Then a plank slid back. It was the door of a dugout.

"This way, Major," the man said in French.

The major pushed Ruth through the narrow opening. The plank door was closed. It was a vile-smelling place.

A match was scratched, a tiny flame sprang up, and then there flared a candle--one of those trench candles made of rolled newspapers and paraffin. It illumined the dugout faintly.

There were bunks along the walls, and in the middle of the planked cave was a rustic table and two benches. Evidently the men who sometimes occupied this trench had spent their idle hours here. But to Ruth Fielding it seemed a fearful place in which to sleep, and eat, and loaf away the long hours of trench duty.

"All ready for us, Tremp?" asked Major Marchand of the man who had led them to this spot.

The American girl now saw that the man was a squat Frenchman in the horizon blue uniform of the infantry and with the bars of a sergeant.

He was evidently one of the French officers a.s.signed to teach the Americans in the trenches.

In his own tongue the man replied to his superior. He drew from one of the empty bunks two bulky bundles. The major shook them out and they proved to be two suits of rubber over-alls and boots together--a garment to be drawn on from the feet and fastened with buckled straps over the shoulders. They enclosed the whole body to the armpits in a waterproof garment.

"A complete disguise for you, Mademoiselle--with the helmet," Major Marchand suggested. "And a protection from the water."

"The water?" gasped Ruth.

"We have half a mile of mora.s.s to cross after we get out of the trenches," was the reply. "I am unable to carry you over that, pickaback. You will have to wade, Mademoiselle."

CHAPTER XXII

THROUGH THE GERMAN LINES

Perhaps this was the moment most trying for Ruth Fielding in all that long-to-be-remembered night. And the Frenchmen realized it.

Having come so far and already having endured so much, however, the girl of the Red Mill was of no mind to break down. But the thought introduced into her brain by Major Marchand's last words was troubling her.

As for roughing it in such an admirable garment as this rubber suit, Ruth was not at all distressed. She had camped out in the wilderness, ridden half-broken cow ponies on a Wyoming ranch, and gone fishing in an open boat. It was not the mannish dress that fretted her.

It was the suggestion of the long and arduous pa.s.sage between the American trenches and the German trenches. What lay for her in that No Man's Land of which she had heard so much?

"I am ready," she said at length, and calmly. "Am I to remove my skirts?"

"Quite unnecessary, Mademoiselle," replied the major respectfully.

"See! The garment is roomy. It was made, you may be sure, for a man of some size. Your skirts will ruffle up around you and help to keep you warm. At this time in the year the swamp water is as cold as the grave."

Without further question the girl stepped into the rubber suit.

Sergeant Tremp helped to draw it up to her armpits, and then buckled it over her shoulders. He showed her, too, how to pull in the belt.

She immediately felt that she would be dry and warm in the suit. And, although the boots seemed loaded, she could walk quite well in them.

Major Marchand gave her a pair of warm gloves, which she drew on, after tucking her hair up under her helmet all around.

The major thrust two automatic pistols into his belt. But he gave her a small electric torch to carry, warning her not to use it.

"Then why give it to me?" she asked.

"Ah, Mademoiselle! We _might_ need it. Now--_allons_!"