A Patriotic Schoolgirl Part 17

The code of signals was easily mastered by the society, but they jibbed at the cryptogram.

"It's too difficult, and I really haven't the brains to learn it," said Betty decidedly.

"It's as bad as lessons," wailed Sylvia.

Even Chrissie objected to being obliged to translate notes written in cipher.

"It takes such a long time," she demurred.

"I thought _you'd_ have done it," said Marjorie reproachfully. "I'm afraid you don't care for me as much as you did."

The main difficulty of the society was to find sufficient outlets for its activities. At present, knitting socks seemed the only form of aid which it was possible to render the soldiers. The members decided that they must work harder at this occupation and produce more pairs. Some of them smuggled their knitting into Preparation, with the result that their form work suffered. They bore loss of marks and Miss Duckworth's reproaches with the heroism of martyrs to a cause.

"We couldn't tell her we were fulfilling vows," sighed Marjorie, "though I was rather tempted to ask her which was more important--my Euclid or the feet of some soldier at the front?"

"She wouldn't have understood."

"Well, no, I suppose not, unless we'd explained."

"Could we ask Norty to let us save our jam and send it to the soldiers?"

Marjorie shook her head.

"We couldn't get it out to the front, and they've heaps of it at the Red Cross Hospital--at least, Elaine says so, and she helps in the pantry at present."

"We might sell our hair for the benefit of the Belgians," remarked Betty, gazing thoughtfully at Marjorie's long plait and Sylvia's silken curls.

"Oh, I dare say, when your own's short!" responded Sylvia indignantly.

"I might as well suggest selling our ponies, because you've got one and I haven't."

"If I wrote a patriotic poem, I wonder how much it would cost to get it printed?" asked Enid. "I'd make all the girls in our form buy copies."

"We might get up a concert."

"But wouldn't that give away our secret?"

With the enthusiasm of the newly-formed society still hot upon her, Marjorie started for her fortnightly exeat at her aunt's. She felt that the atmosphere of The Tamarisks would be stimulating. Everybody connected with that establishment was doing something for the war. Uncle Andrew was on a military tribunal, Aunt Ellinor presided over numerous committees to send parcels to prisoners, or to aid soldiers' orphans.

Elaine's life centred round the Red Cross Hospital, and Norman and Wilfred were at the front. She found her aunt, with the table spread over with papers, busily scribbling letters.

"I'm on a new committee," she explained, after greeting her niece. "I have to find people who'll undertake to write to lonely soldiers. Some of our poor fellows never have a letter, and the chaplains say it's most pathetic to see how wistful they look when the mails come in and there's nothing for them. I think it's just too touching for words. Suppose Norman and Wilfred were never remembered. Did you say, Elaine, that Mrs.

Wilkins has promised to take Private Dudley? That's right! And Mrs.

Hopwood will take Private Roberts? It's very kind of her, when she's so busy already. We haven't anybody yet for Private Hargreaves. I must find him a correspondent somehow. What is it, Dona dear? You want me to look at your photos? Most certainly!"

Aunt Ellinor--kind, busy, and impulsive, and always anxious to entertain the girls when they came for their fortnightly visit--pushed aside her papers and immediately gave her whole attention to the snapshots which Dona showed her.

"I took them with the camera you gave me at Christmas," explained her niece. "Miss Jones says it must be a very good lens, because they've come out so well. Isn't this one of Marjorie topping?"

"It's nice, only it makes her look too old," commented Elaine. "You can't see her plait, and she might be quite grown-up. Have you a book to paste your photos in?"

"Not yet. I must put that down in my birthday list."

"I believe I have one upstairs that I can give you. It's somewhere in my cupboard. I'll go and look for it."

"Oh, let me come with you!" chirruped Dona, running after her cousin.

Marjorie stayed in the dining-room, because Aunt Ellinor had just handed her Norman's last letter, and she wanted to read it. She was only half-way through the first page when a maid announced a visitor, and her aunt rose and went to the drawing-room. Norman's news from the front was very interesting. She devoured it eagerly. As a P.S. he added: "Write as often as you can. You don't know what letters mean to us out here."

Marjorie folded the thin foreign sheets and put them back in their envelope. If Norman, who was kept well supplied with home news, longed for letters, what must be the case of those lonely soldiers who had not a friend to use pen and paper on their behalf? Surely it would be a kind and patriotic act to write to one of them? Marjorie's impulsive temperament s.n.a.t.c.hed eagerly at the idea.

"The very sort of thing I've been yearning to do," she decided. "Why, that's what our S.S.O.P. members.h.i.+p is for. Auntie said she hadn't found a correspondent for Private Hargreaves. I'll send him a letter myself.

It's dreadful to think of him out in the trenches without a soul to take an interest in him, poor fellow!"

Without waiting to consult anybody, Marjorie borrowed her aunt's pen, took a sheet of foreign paper from the rack that stood on the table, and quite on the spur of the moment scribbled off the following epistle:--

"BRACKENFIELD COLLEGE, "WHITECLIFFE.

"DEAR PRIVATE HARGREAVES,

"I am so sorry to think of you being lonely in the trenches and having no letters, and I want to write and say we English girls think of all the brave men who are fighting to defend our country, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. I know how terrible it is for you, because I have a brother in France, and one on a battles.h.i.+p, and one in training-camp, and five cousins at the front, and my father at Havre, so I hear all about the hard life you have to lead. I have been to the Red Cross Hospital and seen the wounded soldiers. I knit socks to send to the troops, and we want to get up a concert to raise some money for the Y.M.C.A. huts.

"I hope you will not feel so lonely now you know that somebody is thinking about you.

"Believe me, "Your sincere friend, "MARJORIE ANDERSON."

It exactly filled up a sheet, and Marjorie folded it, put it in an envelope, and copied the address from the list which her aunt had left lying on the table. Seeing Dona's photos also spread out, she took the little snapshot of herself and enclosed it in the letter. She had a stamp of her own in her purse, which she affixed, then slipped the envelope in her pocket. She did not mention the matter to Aunt Ellinor or Elaine, because to do so would almost seem like betraying the S.S.O.P., whose patriotic principles were vowed to strictest secrecy.

She considered it was a case of "doing good by stealth", and plumed herself on how she would score over the other girls when she reported such a very practical application of the aims of the society.

Her cousin returned with Dona in the course of a few minutes, and suggested taking the girls into Whitecliffe, where she wished to do some shopping. They all three started off at once. As they pa.s.sed the pillar-box in the High Street, Marjorie managed to drop in her letter un.o.bserved. It was an exhilarating feeling to know that it was really gone. They went to a cafe for tea, and as they sat looking at the Allies' flags, which draped the walls, and listening to the military marches played by a ladies' orchestra in khaki uniforms, patriotism seemed uppermost.

"It's grand to do anything for one's country!" sighed Marjorie.

"So it is," answered Elaine, pulling her knitting from her pocket and rapidly going on with a sock. "Those poor fellows in the trenches deserve everything we can send out to them--socks, toffee, cakes, cigarettes, scented soap, and other comforts."

"And letters," added Marjorie under her breath, to herself.

CHAPTER XV

The Empress

The S.S.O.P. was duly, thrilled when Marjorie reported her act of patriotism. Its members, however, reproached her that she had not copied down the names and addresses of other lonely soldiers on her aunt's list, so that they also might have had an opportunity of "doing their bit".

"There wasn't time," Marjorie apologized. "Elaine came back into the room almost immediately, and I daren't let her and Dona know, because it would have broken my vow."

Her friends admitted the excuse, but it was plain that they were disappointed, and considered that with a little more prompt.i.tude she might have succeeded.