The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army Part 1

The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army.

by Margaret Vandercook.

CHAPTER I

_A Peasant's Hut in Russia_

In the last volume of the Red Cross series the four American girls spent six months in tragic little Belgium. There, in an American hospital in Brussels, devoted to the care, not of wounded soldiers, but of ill Belgians, three of the girls lived and worked.

But Eugenia went alone to dwell in a house in the woods because the cry of the children in Belgium made the strongest appeal to her. The house was a lonely one, supposed to be haunted, yet in spite of this Eugenia moved in. There the money of the girl whom her friend had once believed "poor as a church mouse" fed and cared for her quickly acquired family.

In Eugenia's haunted house were other sojourners furnis.h.i.+ng the mystery of this story and endangering her liberty, almost her life. They were a Belgian officer and his family whom the Red Cross girl kept in hiding.

Somehow the officer had managed to return to his own country from the fighting line in Belgium. After securing the papers he desired from the enemy, by Eugenia's aid, he was enabled to return once more to King Albert and the Allied armies. Thus Eugenia was left alone to bear the brunt of the German displeasure after the discovery of her misdeeds. She was imprisoned in Brussels, and became dangerously ill. Finally, because she was an American, Eugenia was made to leave the country, rather than to suffer the punishment which would have been hers had she belonged to another nationality.

But the four American Red Cross girls also had the companions.h.i.+p of d.i.c.k Thornton during their stay in the once lovely capital of Belgium.

d.i.c.k had not recovered the use of his arm, but in spite of this had come to Brussels to help with the work of the American Relief society.

Here his once friendly relation with Barbara Meade no longer existed.

Because of her change of att.i.tude he apparently grew more attached to Nona Davis.

However, at the close of the story, when Barbara is taking Eugenia back to southern France, she and d.i.c.k unexpectedly meet aboard a fog-bound s.h.i.+p. And in the darkness the light finally s.h.i.+nes when d.i.c.k and Barbara discover at last that their feeling for each other is stronger than friends.h.i.+p.

Later, near "the pool of truth" not far from the "Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door," Eugenia Peabody again meets Captain Henri Castaigne, the young French officer whom she had once nursed back to health. A short time afterwards he and Eugenia are married.

Later the three other American Red Cross girls decide to continue their nursing of the wounded soldiers of the Allied armies in far-off Russia.

One cold October afternoon three American girls were standing in the stone courtyard of a great Russian fortress near the border line of Poland.

Situated upon a cone-shaped hill, the fort itself had been built like the three sides of a square, with the yard as the center. Along the fourth side ran a cement wall with a single iron gate.

Evidently the three girls were engaged in Red Cross work, for they wore the familiar service uniforms. One of them had on a heavy coat and cap, but the other two must have just come out of doors for a few moments.

Indeed, their first words revealed this fact.

"I really don't feel that you should be starting upon this expedition alone, Nona," Mildred Thornton argued. She was a tall girl, with heavy, flaxen hair and quiet, steel-gray eyes. She was gazing anxiously about her, for Russia was a new and strange world to the three American Red Cross nurses, who had arrived at their present headquarters only a few weeks before.

Nearly a year had pa.s.sed since the four friends separated in Belgium.

Then Mildred and Nona Davis had remained at their posts to care for the homeless Belgian children, while Barbara Meade and Eugenia Peabody returned to southern France.

Now at the close of Mildred Thornton's speech to Nona, Barbara Meade frowned. She was poised on one foot as if expecting to flee at any moment.

"I quite agree with you, Mildred," she protested. "Nona's message was far too mysterious and vague to consider answering. We must not forget that we are now in a country and among a people whom we don't understand in the least. Besides, I promised both d.i.c.k and Eugenia that we would be more careful. How I wish one or the other of them were here to advise us!"

s.h.i.+vering, Barbara, who was the youngest and smallest of the girls, slipped her arm through Mildred's.

A few yards before them sentries were marching slowly up and down, with their rifles resting on their shoulders, while a double row guarded a single wide gate. Every now and then a common soldier pa.s.sed on his way to the performance of some special duty. Gray and colorless, the afternoon had a peculiar dampness as if the wind had blown across acres of melting snow.

Nevertheless in reply to her friends' objections Nona Davis shook her head.

"Yes, I realize you may both be right, and yet so urgent was my message that I feel compelled to do what was asked of me. But don't worry about me, I have the letter with the directions safe in my pocket. Good-by."

Then before either of the other girls could find time to argue the point a second time, the young southern girl had kissed each of them and turned away. Later they saw her give the pa.s.sword at the gate and the sentry allow her to pa.s.s out.

Before her lay a stretch of spa.r.s.ely settled country divided by a wide and much traveled road. Several miles further along a wide river crossed the land, but near at hand there were only small farms and meagre clumps of pine woods.

After a few more words of disapproval, Barbara Meade shrugged her shoulders, and then she and Mildred re-entered the small curved doorway of the Russian fort. The left wing was being used as a hospital for the wounded, while the rest of the great fortification was crowded with officers and soldiers.

These men were being held in reserve to await the threatened invasion of the oncoming German hosts. Warsaw had fallen and one by one the ancient Russian fortifications once deemed invincible had given way before the German guns. But here at Grovno, under the command of the great General Alexis, the Russians were to make a final stand.

However, without thinking of anything save personal matters, Nona Davis first set out along the main traveled road. Now and then she was compelled to step aside to let a great ox cart go past; these carts were filled with provisions being brought into the fort. Occasionally a covered car rattled past loaded with munitions of war, or a heavy piece of artillery drawn on low trucks. But one would like to have seen a far greater quant.i.ty of supplies of all kinds being brought to the old fortress. It was an open secret that the supply of munitions was not what it should be, and yet Grovno was expected to withstand all attacks.

But the young American girl was not reflecting upon the uncertainties of war during her walk. Neither did she feel any nervousness because of the newness of her surroundings, for the country in the rear of the fortifications was chiefly inhabited by Russian women and children and a few old men.

Nona walked on quickly and with a speed and careless grace that covered the ground without apparent effort.

She was looking extremely well, but above all other things Nona Davis appeared supremely interested. For some reason, still unknown to her, she had been more stirred and excited by the coming into Russia than any country she had yet seen. She both admired and feared the Russian people, with their curious combination of poetry and stupidity, of dullness and pa.s.sion. Before returning to her own land she meant to try and understand them better. For somewhere she had read that the future art of the world was to come forth from Russia. It is the Slavic temperament and not the Anglo-Saxon that best expresses itself in music and literature.

Nona's errand this afternoon was a curious and puzzling one, fraught with unnecessary mystery.

Four days before, a Russian boy about twelve years old had appeared at the gate of the fortress at Grovno, bearing a note addressed to Miss Nona Davis. Oddly enough, although the note was written in perfect English, it was not signed. In spite of this it requested that the American girl come to a small house about a mile and a half away to see a former friend.

But who the friend could be, not one of the three girls could imagine.

Yet they scarcely talked of anything else. Nona had no acquaintances in Russia save the people she had met in connection with her work, and there was no one in her past whom she could possibly conceive of having come into Russia as a tourist at such a time.

Therefore it was Mildred Thornton's and Barbara Meade's opinion that Nona should pay not the slightest heed to such a communication.

Anonymous letters lead to nothing but evil. But in spite of their objections, here at the first possible opportunity Nona was obeying the behest. Probably she could not have explained why, for she was too sensible not to appreciate that possible discomfort and even danger might lie ahead of her. Perhaps as much as anything she was actuated by a spirit of sheer adventure.

So it is little wonder that during her walk Nona's thoughts were now and then engaged with her own affairs. Yet after a little her attention wandered from the immediate future and she fell to recalling the history of the past years' experiences, her own and her three friends.

No wonder Barbara was often lonely and homesick for d.i.c.k Thornton.

She had become engaged to him on the fog-bound trip she had made with him in getting Eugenia safely out of Belgium. Remembering Eugenia's escape, Nona said a short prayer of thankfulness. After her hiding of the Belgian officer and his family from the German authorities, she would never have been allowed to leave Belgium unpunished had she not been an American woman. Remembering the fate of the English girl who had committed the same crime, Nona appreciated how much they had to be thankful for.

And now Eugenia was married to Captain Castaigne, the young French officer. Curious that among the four of them who had come from the United States to do Red Cross work among the Allies, Eugenia should be the first to marry! She, a New England old maid, disapproving of matrimony and, above all, of international marriages!

Yet the wedding had taken place in the previous spring at the little French "Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door," where the four girls had spent the most cheerful months since their arrival in Europe for the war nursing.

Only once had Nona and Mildred deserted their posts in Belgium, where they had continued Eugenia's work of caring for the homeless Belgian children. Then they had gone to attend her wedding, but had returned to Belgium as soon as possible.

But Eugenia and Captain Castaigne had taken scarcely more time for their own honeymoon.

Soon after the ceremony Captain Castaigne had gone to rejoin his regiment and three days after Eugenia had become a member of the staff of a French hospital near her husband's line of trenches.

So it turned out that Barbara Meade was left at the Chateau d'Amelie, as Madame Castaigne's friend and companion. d.i.c.k Thornton boarded in the village near by, so that he and Barbara had a number of happy months together.

But d.i.c.k had finally decided that he must return to America and had urged Barbara and his sister Mildred to return with him. Of course, Nona had been invited to accompany them, but no special pressure had been brought upon her.