The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays Part 21

"So we'll have one of those hospital scenes to-day. I'll stage a small engagement, and have a number of men wounded. They'll be brought in, and there will be a night scene. The doctors and other nurses go off duty, and you are in charge. An emergency occurs--maybe a bandage slips from an artery and you sit and hold the wound until a doctor can come and tie the artery again. We'll work it out as we go along."

"Is there anything for me?" asked Alice.

"No, your part will stand all right as it is until you get to the big hospital scene. Come on now, Ruth; we'll have a rehearsal."

The rehearsal went off well, and the little change promised to strengthen the story of the war play. The hospital was set up near Mr.

Apgar's corn-crib.

"And maybe that'll be a good thing," he said. "If you folks use enough of them there disinfectants and carbolic acid, you may scare away all the rats and mice that eat my corn in the winter."

"Oh! will there be rats and mice?" asked Ruth, apprehensively.

"Not in the hospital," said Mr. Pertell with a laugh. "It will be strictly sanitary--as much so as things were in the days of sixty-three."

The fight between the two forces was staged some distance away from the hospital, and the guns soon began to rattle and to roar again. The girls did not mind them by this time, however.

This skirmish had no particular part in the general story, but it was filmed just the same, as it could be spliced in with the other fighting scenes.

"And you can't get too much of that," Mr. Pertell said.

Russ, with some helpers, was taking the fighting pictures preliminary to the hospital act. He was nearing the end of the reel in his machine when, to his dismay, he found he had forgotten to bring a spare one.

"Here, you!" he called to one of the extra soldiers lying lazily on the gra.s.s near the camera, "hop over and ask Pop Snooks to give you an extra reel for me."

The man did not answer.

"Don't you hear me?" yelled Russ, grinding away at the film which was being quickly used up. "Go and get me that reel!"

Still no response.

"Are you deaf?" shouted Russ, and then he thought perhaps the discharge of so many cannon had made the man unable to hear.

"Go over and punch that fellow!" cried Russ to Paul. "Wake him up, and tell him to get me that extra reel."

"All right," Paul a.s.sented. "I'd go myself only I have to carry a message to headquarters in a minute or two."

He ran over and kicked the soldier, who seemed to be asleep.

"Hi! What's the idea?" demanded the rudely awakened one.

"The camera man wants you to go to get him some film."

"Who--me?"

"Yes--you! Skip!"

"I can't go get no film!"

"You can't? Why not?"

"'Cause I'm dead, that's why! I was told to be killed, and I was. I fell off my hoss dead, an' I'm deader'n a door nail. I da.s.sn't git up to git no film for n.o.body. I'm dead!"

And the man rolled over and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

A RETAKE

"What's the matter over there?" called Russ to Paul. "Is he going to get my film?"

"He says he can't."

"Can't? Why not? Has he lost his legs?"

"No. But he's dead. This is carrying realism to the extreme."

"Oh, good-night!" cried Russ. "I haven't but a few feet left. Make him go."

"I won't go I tell you," the man cried. "I was told to play dead, and I'm goin' to," and he stuck to the instructions he had received.

Fortunately, one of Russ' helpers was free a moment later, and he went for the extra roll of film, while the dead man enjoyed his part to his satisfaction.

"Well, he did just right," said Mr. Pertell, when told of the incident afterward. "I wish more performers would do exactly as they are told. Of course, I don't mean to say a player must slavishly do just as I tell him. But in some cases a dead man's coming to life might spoil a big scene."

Matters were now in readiness for the preliminary hospital scene. A ward had been fitted up in a shed where electric lights could be used to get the necessary illumination, the current being brought from town. In the shed were ranged white beds, in which a number of wounded men were reposing. Other men were in wheeled chairs, while still others sat up as if recovering from a long and dangerous siege from wounds. All were picturesquely bandaged.

The preliminary scenes had been taken. The doctor had made his rounds of the wounded on the cots. He had taken their temperature and had felt their pulses, while the other women of the company, as nurses, accompanied the surgeon on his journey. Other wounded were brought in.

Night settled down in the hospital. The big, hissing electric lights were turned off, and from outside a window "moonlight" streamed in. The moonlight, of course was made by another electric light, properly shaded.

"Now, I think we're ready for you, Ruth," said the director. "You are on duty alone in the ward when the emergency occurs."

In the glow of the beams of light from the window Ruth, on duty alone, took her place.

"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, from where he was standing behind Russ, who was grinding away at the camera. "You start from your half-doze, Ruth, and listen. Then you approach one of the cots and discover that the bandage has slipped and that the man is bleeding to death. You press on the artery, and finally rouse another of the hospital patients--one not badly wounded--and send him for the surgeon."

Ruth carried out the instructions perfectly. Her acting was so very natural that afterward, when the film was shown, more than one person found himself holding his breath lest Ruth should remove her thumb from the severed artery.

The slightly wounded man limped out to get the surgeon, who came rushing in, and the artery was tied. Then followed words of praise for Ruth.

This laid the foundation for her summons to a larger hospital when the proper time came.

The next day more battle views were the order of the day. In one of these Estelle had to do some fast riding, to leap her horse across a ditch and speed away from pursuing troopers.

"Aren't you nervous for fear you'll fall?" asked Ruth, as the young horsewoman was making ready.