Shelled by an Unseen Foe Part 7

He was more attentive to his cousin than ever.

Only in the rare moments when he was alone and secure from observation did he allow himself to take off the mask of good nature and kindliness, and let those thin features of his twist into the wicked leer that well fitted them. He no longer saw himself in the part of hero. He was too eager to remove from his way the boy who stood between him and all the luxury he craved. But his common sense told him that at the present, at least, there was nothing to be done. He would have to await further developments. In the meantime he would gain his cousin's confidence. That ought to be easy. Zaidos was the most friendly fellow he had ever seen. Velo resolved that if ever he came in for the Zaidos name and t.i.tle, he would show them just how haughty and overbearing a young n.o.bleman could be. But in the meantime, he thought it better to do as Zaidos commanded and say nothing about the family. Zaidos had elected to be known as a common soldier, and he would keep to his word. Velo realized that he himself could make no pretentions while Zaidos was about; he would not stand for that. So Velo acted in his best and oiliest manner, and waited on the nurse, and urged his services on the doctors, and wondered why they never acted at ease and friendly with him, as they all did with the laughing boy on the cot.

When they were sent ash.o.r.e it dawned on Velo that now they would be separated. Zaidos would have to go to a hospital to wait for his leg to heal; but he was well, and would be set at some duty which would separate him from Zaidos. That would never do. He worried over it as they approached land, and finally took the matter to the doctor. He put the matter strongly. He had promised Zaidos' dying father that he would not be separated from the boy. They were almost of an age, but he had always been the one to look out for Zaidos, and surely now if ever was the time to be true to his trust. He explained the manner of their enlistment, and reminded the doctor they were both listed among the drowned.

"You see I _must_ remain near him," he urged. "Just help me find a way."

"The hospitals are all short handed," mused the good-natured physician.

"I think they would be glad to get you. There is lots of heavy lifting that tells on the nurses, and all that sort of thing, you know. It will be two weeks before Zaidos can be discharged. That bone is not knitting right. It was splintered, you see. I'll do all I can for you, Velo, and I think it will work out nicely."

So it came about that when the patients on the Red Cross ship were transferred to the land hospital within the English lines, Velo was there in full force, carrying one end of Zaidos' stretcher. Of course it was the light end; Velo saw to that instinctively, but then it was Velo's attention to just such little details that made life easy for him.

Zaidos soon improved so that he was allowed to hop about on crutches.

The second day he used them, however, a bra.s.s pin somehow worked into the arm pad and scratched him badly before he knew that it was just where his weight would press it into his shoulder. It was very sore, and that same night, when he sat carefully on the edge of his narrow bed, waiting for Velo to come and help him undress, the bed went down and Zaidos was thrown to the floor. It hurt his leg again. Velo picked him up and was so sorry that for once Zaidos felt a twinge of remorse when he thought of the way he had guyed him.

But the nurse, who had been transferred to the land hospital also, pressed her lips tight together and thought hard. Zaidos was almost too unlucky. She took him under her own special care, although Velo protested and a.s.sured her that she must not burden herself while he was there to look out for his cousin.

"I don't see why so many things keep happening to you," she said to Zaidos while she dressed the place on his arm where the bra.s.s pin had made a bad sore.

"I _am_ playing in hard luck, at that," said Zaidos, smiling. "Every time I turn around I seem to b.u.mp myself somehow. I was on the football team, and had won my letter for running. Do you suppose I will ever get to run again?"

"I don't know," said the nurse. "I don't see why this leg should make much difference. It was only one bone, you know, and you could bandage that leg if it felt weak. But you can't keep falling off cots and sticking infected pins into you."

"Funny thing about that cot," said Zaidos. "The bolt that held the spring and headboard together was gone--completely gone. I wonder if it ever was in. Perhaps when they put it together, they forgot that corner, and it stuck together until I happened to sit down on it just right. I've known things like that. I'm glad it didn't go down with some poor fellow who was badly wounded. It gave my leg an awful jolt.

And it certainly gets me where I got that pin in the crutch pad. It must have been in the lining, and just worked out. I don't believe it will make a bad sore. My blood is pretty good. It's funny, though."

"A lot of queer things happen to you, Zaidos," said the nurse. "Tell me, have you no other name? Are you just Zaidos and nothing else?"

"Oh, yes, I have five or six other names," said Zaidos, smiling. "But you know in Greece it is the custom to call the--"

He glanced into the face before him with a queer embarra.s.sed look, and stopped.

"Just so," said the nurse. "I understand. You are the head of your house, whatever that is, and you have very sensibly decided to keep it all to yourself while you are mixed up in this war. Well, Zaidos, in England, too, we sometimes call the head of a n.o.ble house by his family name. For my part, however, I prefer to think of you simply as a particularly nice, agreeable boy, who has made his illness a very pleasant time for the people who have been near him; and so I think I will call you something simpler than Zaidos. Is John one of your five or six names?"

"Nothing so easy as that," said Zaidos, smiling. "Why, I will tell you what they are."

"I don't want to know," said the nurse. "I, too, have a name that we will forget for the time, but you may call me Nurse Helen. And I have the dearest father in the world whose name is John; so I will call you John. Do you mind?"

"I should say not!" said Zaidos.

"You see, John," said Nurse Helen, "every time I say that name I feel closer to my home and all the dear ones there. Some day I will tell you about them all."

"I wish you would," said Zaidos. "I have often wondered how your people could let a dandy girl like you get into this sort of thing."

He wanted to say such a _pretty_ girl, but did not quite have the courage to do it. "You know you might even get hurt."

"It's quite likely," said Helen simply. "One has to accept that chance. And there _is_ a chance about everything. A lot of the people in this war, dreadful as it is, will go home when it is over, and get run over by London busses, or fall down stairs, or things like that."

"Or slip on banana peels," added Zaidos. "You are right about it. I wonder I never thought of it before."

"Who is Velo Kupenol?" asked Helen. "Is he really your cousin?"

"My second cousin, to be exact," said Zaidos; "He has lived at our house ever since he was a boy eight years old. I don't exactly understand Velo lots of the time."

"I wouldn't think he was too awfully hard to understand," said Helen.

"Well, he is," said Zaidos. "He has been just nice to me ever since I was hurt, but he has done some of the queerest things. And what he told the doctor about what happened the day we were in the water--Oh well, I can't explain it very well!"

Zaidos was too modest to tell Helen that the account had simply been twisted around to Velo's advantage.

"Don't try," commented Helen. "There is one thing I feel as though I ought to tell you. That is, that I want you to watch that cousin of yours. If we are doing him an injustice, we will find it out just so much sooner. Otherwise it pays to be on guard. Just tell me one thing, John. If anything happened to you, would there be anything for Velo to gain by your death?"

Zaidos looked uncomfortable.

"Oh, I suppose so," he said. "Why, yes, to be honest with you, he would gain a lot. But I can't--Oh, he wouldn't be such a sneak!

Perhaps I had better tell you all about everything, now you have sort of adopted me."

"Not if you think best not to," said Helen; "but of course I would love to know all about you."

"And I had better tell you," said Zaidos. "You see, I have no relatives at all except Velo, and we aren't too sure of him yet, are we?"

He rapidly recounted the happenings of the past from the time the telegram reached him in far America. Several times Helen interrupted with a keen question.

When Zaidos finished, she sighed.

"Well, John," she said, "as far as I can see, there is not a thing you can take as a real clue. But it all looks queer, just the same.

Sometimes everything _will_ happen so things look black. That is why circ.u.mstantial evidence is always so dangerous. But all the same, I worry over you."

"Don't do that," said Zaidos. "I ought to be old enough to look out for myself."

"What are you going to do when your leg heals?" asked Helen.

"I'm going to join the Red Cross," said Zaidos.

"How perfectly fine!" exclaimed Helen. "We will be posted together for awhile if you do, because the field hospitals at the front where I am going are very short handed. Don't you suppose we could persuade Velo that his duty lies in some other sphere of action?"

"I don't believe so," said Zaidos.

"No, I know we couldn't," said Helen. "He has repeatedly told me that he would never leave you. Here he comes now. Let's try it!"

She smiled as Velo approached and drew himself up. Nurse Helen was undeniably beautiful, even in her severe uniform.

No, Velo had _no_ intention of deserting his dear cousin. If Zaidos joined the Red Cross, so would Velo. It made no difference to him at all. If Zaidos was stationed in the trench hospitals at the front, that was where _he_ would be found.

And two weeks later he actually did find himself there. It was in one of the lulls between engagements, and they arrived with no more excitement or danger than might attend any summer trip.

But there they were, actually in the trenches.