Ruth Fielding at the War Front Part 5

"But you expect me to run!" burst out Ruth, in sudden indignation.

"You can't help here. No use your taking a chance. You'll be in enough danger later. Now, you go on, Miss Ruth. Scoot! Here comes another!"

They heard the whine of the flying sh.e.l.l almost on top of the thud of the distant gun. Charlie seized her hand and they ran up the road for several yards. Then he stopped short, as the sh.e.l.l burst--this time far to the left of the stalled ambulance.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed. "You've got me rattled, too. Here! I'll go along to Mother Gervaise with you. Some of the fellows may be there and I can get help. Come on."

"Oh, Charlie!" murmured the girl. "I'm afraid for you."

"Trying to make me a quitter, are you?" he demanded. "Don't you know that if the Boches get you, they get you, and that's all there is to it? And one way or another that fliver's got to be got out of that hole."

Ruth was silenced. This young fellow--"boy" he called him in her own mind--had a quality of courage that shamed her. It was just the kind of bravery needed for the work he was doing in the war--a measure of recklessness that keeps one from counting the cost too exactly.

Charlie Bragg had a philosophy of his own that kept him cheerful in the face of peril and was eminently practical at just this time.

He hurried her along the road, his hand under her elbow, seemingly able to see in the dark like a cat. But it was all black before Ruth's eyes, and she stumbled more than once. Her knees felt weak.

"I--I _am_ scared, Charlie," she confessed, almost in a whisper.

"Yep. So was I, at first. But you know a fellow can't give in to it.

If he does he'll never get to be a first-cla.s.s ambulance driver. I bet some of the boys will be here at Mother Gervaise's and I can get help."

Another moment, and they seemed to turn a corner in the road and Ruth saw a small patch of light at the left of the roadway. She made it out to be an open window--the swinging shutter flung back against the wall.

There was no gla.s.s in the opening.

"There it is," Charlie said. "You might have pa.s.sed it right by, alone. You see, the house is close up against the high bank, and the hill is between us and the front. The Boches can't drop a sh.e.l.l here.

It's a regular wayfarer's rest. There's a car--and another. We'll be all right now."

Ruth saw the outlines of the two cars parked beside the road. The young fellow led her directly toward the patch of yellow lamplight.

She saw finally a broad, thatched cottage, the eaves of the high-peaked roof almost within reach as they came to the door.

Charlie Bragg knocked, then, without waiting for a summons to enter, lifted the wooden latch and shoved the sagging door open.

"h.e.l.lo, folks!" he said. "Got shelter for a couple of babes in the woods? I got stalled down there at the Devil's Corner, and---- Let me introduce Miss Fielding. She's real folks like ourselves."

He had pushed Ruth in and entered behind her. Two young men--plainly Americans--rose from the table where they were eating. A squarely built woman bent over the fire at the end of the room. She did not look around from her culinary task.

"h.e.l.lo, Bragg!" was the response from the other ambulance drivers.

"Cub Holdness and Mr. Francis Dwyer," said Charlie, introducing the two. "I've got stalled, fellows."

He swiftly told of the accident and the two young men left the table.

The Frenchwoman turned and waddled toward the table, stirring spoon in hand and volubly objecting.

"_Non, non_!" she cried. "You would spoil the so-good ragout. If you do not eat it while it is hot----"

"The ragout can be heated over," put in Charlie. "But if the Boches get my car with a sh.e.l.l--good-night! Come on, fellows. And bring a rope. I believe we three can pull the old girl out."

The boys tramped out of the cottage. Mother Gervaise turned to Ruth and stared at her with very bright, black eyes.

She was a broad-faced woman, brown and hearty-looking, and with a more intelligent appearance than many of the peasants Ruth had seen. She wore sabots with her skirt tucked up to clear her bare ankles. Her teeth were broad and strong and white, and she showed them well as she smiled.

"The mademoiselle is _Americaine_?" she said. "Like these _ambulanciers_? Ah! brave boys, these. And mademoiselle is of the _Croix Rouge_, is it not?"

"I am working in the hospital at Clair," Ruth told her. "I am on my way with supplies to a station nearer the front."

"_Ma foi_!" exclaimed Mother Gervaise. "This has been a bad business.

You will sup, Mademoiselle, yes?"

"I will, indeed. The accident has not taken away my appet.i.te."

"Isn't it so? We must eat, no matter what next happens," said the woman. "Me, now! I am alone. My whole family have been destroyed.

My husband and his brother--both have been killed. I had no children.

Now I think it is as well, for children are not going to have much chance in France for years to come. All my neighbors have scattered, too."

"Then you have always lived here? Even before the war?" Ruth asked.

"_Oui, Mademoiselle_. Always. I was born right in that corner yonder, on a straw pallet. The best bed my mother had. We have grown rich since those days," and she shrugged her shoulders.

"I was an only child and the farm and cot came to me. Of course, I had plenty of the young men come to make love to me and my farm. I would have none of that kind. Some said I went through the wood and picked up a crooked stick after all. But Pierre and me--_ma foi_! We were happy, even if the old father and Pierre's brother must come here to live, too.

"The old father he die before the Germans come. I thank _le bon Dieu_ for that. Pierre and his brother were mobilized and gone before the horde of _les Boches_ come along this road. I am here alone, then. I begin making coffee and soup for them. Well, yes! They are men, too, and become hungry and exhausted. I please them and they treat me well.

I learn what it means to make money--cash-money; and so I stay. Money is good, Mademoiselle.

"I might have wished poison into their soup; but that would not have killed them. And had I doctored it myself I would have been hung, and been no better off. So I made friends," and she smiled grimly.

"But I learned how boastful men could be--especially Germans. One--he was a major and one of the n.o.bility--stayed here overnight. He promised to take me back to Germany when the war was over--which would be in a few weeks. They were to be in Paris in a few days then.

"He promised I would be proud when I became all German. France, he said, would never be a separate country again. For most of the people--my people--he said, were weaklings. They would emigrate to America and the remaining would intermarry with Germans. So all France would become Germany.

"When he was awake, he was full of bombast, that major! When he was asleep he snored outrageously. Ugh! For the first time in my life I hate anybody," declared Mother Gervaise, shuddering.

"But he paid me well for his lodging. And his men paid me for the soup. They marched past steadily for two days. Then they were gone and the country all about was peaceful for a week. At the end of that time they come back."

Here Mother Gervaise smiled, but it was a victorious smile. Her face lighted up and her eyes shone again.

"Pellmell back they came," she repeated. "It was a retreat. Many had lost their guns and their packs. I had no soup for them. I said I had lost my poulets and all. But it was not so. I had them hidden.

"The orderly of my major came in here, threw up his hands, and shouted: 'No Paris! No Paris!' And then he tramped on with his fellows. They chopped the trees and blew up many houses. But mine was marked, as the Boches did in those first days: 'These are good people. Let them be.'

So I was not molested," finished Mother Gervaise.

"Now, sit you down, Mademoiselle, at the table. Here where I have spread a napkin. The ragout----

"Bless us and save us!" she added, as a sudden roar of voices sounded outside the cot and the throaty rattle of a motor engine. "Whom have we here?"

She went to the door and flung it open. Ruth hesitated at the chair in which she had been about to be seated. Outside she saw bunched several uniformed men. They were hilariously pushing into the cottage, thrusting the excited Mother Gervaise aside.