Shelled by an Unseen Foe Part 9

"Then it came dinner time, and they brought their stuff out on the neutral ground, and ate it together. Then pretty soon they all went back to their own trenches, and commenced singing to each other. The English sang their Christmas carols, old as the hills of England; and the Germans boomed back their songs in their big, deep voices. I tell you, fellows, it must have been queer! Just before dark, the German lieutenant stood up once more, with his white flag, and the English officer went to meet him. The German talked pretty fair English and the men heard what he said.

"'We have a lot of dead men here to bury,' he explained. 'Will you come and help us?' So the English said yes, and they all came out again and helped to bury the fellows they had shot. Then they all stood together, and the German officer took off his helmet and everybody took off their caps, and the German officer looked down at the graves, and then up, and he said, 'Hear us, Lieber Gott,' and the fellow said he must have thought his English was not good enough to pray in; so he said a little prayer in German, but everybody sort of felt as though they understood it, and of course some did. And then he put his helmet back, and shook hands very straight and stiff with our officer, and said, 'Auf wiedersehn,' and turned away. And everybody shook hands and went back to their own trenches, and long after dark they kept calling to each other 'Good-bye! Good-bye!'

"Well, fellows, that was the end. Next morning they were peppering away at each other, struggling like a lot of dogs to get a throat hold.

Seems sort of queer, don't you think so?

"I don't believe this could happen now, because they have been fighting so long that they hate each other now. I think at first that they were like dogs that someone sicks into a fight. They do it because they want to be obliging, or because they think they have to mind. They would just as soon stop and wag their tails and go to chasing cats or digging for rabbits together. But they have fought now until the bitterness of it has entered deep. I can't guess what the end will be.

I don't believe anybody can.

"You had better stir up everybody over there about it, and 'rustle the requisite' as Main always said. _Everything_ for field hospital work is badly needed. Seems to me you could send a few hundred dollars of stuff over, well as not. You, Corky, you had better sell that car of yours. You know the Commandant doesn't half approve of it, and Baxter can give up that motor-boat. You will drown yourself, Baxter, sure as sure! And think how much better you would feel to stay alive, and help a lot of shot-to-bits poor fellows in the bargain.

"Things look so different when you are right on the ground. What they tell me about some of the shot wounds that come to the hospitals makes me wonder if I have enough backbone to stand up under it, when the fighting really commences. I believe I am getting scared!

"The English fellow told me that after the first shot or two you didn't seem to mind anything; you just went right ahead, and tended to work as though, as he said, it was a May morning in an English lane. I suppose he thought that was about as near Paradise as he could imagine, but the finest place _I_ can think of is--Oh well, fellows, you know. I wish I was close enough to the gang to have you pound me on the back, and to kick that big brute of a Mackilvane for trying to stuff me under the bed. I'd like to hear some of Gregg's rag-time, and see Mealy Jones try to ride the bay horse.

"But this is the end of my paper, and I've got to go back to the hospital. To-morrow I am to be put on regular duty. That's why I am writing you this long letter. It may be a good while before I write another; so good-bye, old pals. I'll come back some day if I live.

Yours, ZAIDOS."

CHAPTER VII

A BIT OF ROMANCE

Zaidos sent off his letter and continued his explorations.

He managed to slip away from Velo finally and was greatly relieved.

Somehow everything went along better without Velo tagging at his heels.

Zaidos felt ashamed when he tried to a.n.a.lyze his feelings. He was at a loss to understand himself. Even Nurse Helen, who frankly confessed to Zaidos that she disliked Velo, was obliged to say that there was nothing openly objectionable about him. His manners were easy and graceful, and he was quicker to jump to her a.s.sistance than any man on the detail.

He treated Zaidos with a protective fondness that was almost funny. He watched him, saw that he went to bed and arose on schedule time, helped dress his scratch, and looked after him generally like a faithful and devoted nurse.

Yet Nurse Helen pondered. She never once let him handle one of the dressings which were rapidly healing the ugly little tear in Zaidos'

arm. Zaidos, escaping from Velo's watchful eye, felt like a glad little, bad little boy who has run away from school and who refuses to think of supper time, when he must go home and find that father has the note teacher has sent home by some _other_ little boy. He went here and there, his sunny smile and ready kindliness making friends everywhere.

Wherever he sat down to rest some soldier told him something of interest. Gunners explained the watch-like perfection of their guns.

Snipers told thrilling tales of long shots. The cooks showed him how cleverly the big field stoves came apart, and how they could be a.s.sembled at a moment's notice.

At supper time his new friend, Lieutenant Cunningham, called him. He had kept a place for Zaidos beside him. Velo had been omitted from the group, so he smilingly sat down in another bend of the trench with his pannikin of stew and cup of coffee, seemingly quite content. But black hate raged in his black heart!

Velo was a strange sort. He was a coward; he dreaded danger and endured hards.h.i.+ps badly. Yet the thought that harm might come to him never entered his head. He was deeply superst.i.tious, and while he could and did change the bottles and place the poison within his cousin's reach, while he placed the rusty pin in the crutch where it would inflict a wound on Zaidos' body, while he could plan endlessly to rid himself of his cousin, he would not _himself_ directly aim the blow or fire the deadly shot. He rejoiced in the battle that was threatening. Zaidos would die, and he wanted the evidence of his own eyes. Also he wanted the statements of witnesses. Sometimes when he heard Zaidos' ready laugh, and saw his bright, straightforward look, a flicker of pity shadowed his dastardly resolve. Then he remembered the soft living, the ease and luxury of the house of Zaidos, and remembering that he, as Velo Kupenol, must be all his life nothing but a dependent on his cousin's bounty, he steeled his wicked heart to its self-appointed task.

But he must change his tactics. Zaidos as usual was surrounding himself with friends. Velo felt that he must be doubly careful. There must be no more strange, unaccountable accidents to Zaidos. When the blow fell it must crush him utterly; until then, he must be left to move securely.

Velo thought of all this as he sat talking to the soldier beside him and eating the plain fare of the men in the field.

The talk was all of the coming attack. Spies had reported a movement of preparation in the enemy's ranks, and there was a stir of warning in the very air. To Velo's amazement, no one seemed worried or anxious.

The conversation moved smoothly on, as though the battle was a test of skill on a chess-board. Not a man there seemed to regard the coming event in a personal light. Even the uncertainty did not distress anyone. The attack would surely come, but whether it would come the following night or in a week's time did not seem to matter in the least. Velo had expected to see in an event like this a lot of men brooding gloomily over the possible outcome, a dismal time with last farewells, and touching letters written home. He watched the young officer beside him. He had finished his meal and had taken out a pad of paper and an indelible pencil. He wrote rapidly, but with a calm and smiling face. Velo could not imagine any tragic farewells in _that_ letter.

Velo, still staring at the writer, listened to the conversation along the wall of the trench. It had at last turned from war to out-door sports. Velo, who never exercised if he could avoid it, listened idly.

A small, pale boy in a lieutenant's uniform was violently upholding certain rules while the officer next to Zaidos disputed him smilingly.

They argued pleasantly, but with the most intense earnestness.

"Who is that straw-colored chap?" Velo asked the writer beside him.

"Across?" questioned the scribbler. "We call him 'Sister Anne.' You know she was the lady in Bluebeard's yarn that kept looking out the window. He is always sticking his head out of the trenches, to see what he can see. He's going to get his some day."

"Don't you know his real name?" asked Velo. "He acts as though he thought he was somebody of importance."

"Why, when you come down to it, I suppose perhaps he is when he is at home," said the man. "He's a jolly good sort, though. He's the Earl of Craycourt."

"And who is the chap beside my cousin?" asked Velo, steadying his voice with difficulty.

"The Prince of Teck's second son," answered the writer. Velo's curiosity rather disgusted him. "Anybody else you would like to know about?"

"Well, who are you?" said Velo, trying to get back.

"Your very humble servant, John Smith," he said. He slid the pencil down into his puttee and stood up, bowing. He did not ask Velo for his name but, closing the pad, strolled off and slid an arm around the neck of the second son of the Prince of Teck.

Velo for once felt small, but he jotted young John Smith down on his black list for further reference! As for the others, he could not get over the fact of their n.o.ble birth. He stood staring at the group.

Zaidos was as usual in the center of things, having the best sort of a time. That was Zaidos' luck, thought Velo. He stared at the bent head of "John Smith," bending over the "second son of the Prince of Teck."

For a plain "John Smith" he seemed exceedingly chummy with the young n.o.bleman. Velo was a natural-born toady. True worth, real n.o.bility of mind and soul meant nothing to him. But he did not lack a.s.surance.

After a moment he braced up and joined the group where Zaidos and Lord Craycourt, who answered willingly to the nickname "Sister Anne" were swapping school yarns and the others were in gales of laughter.

And at that moment, without warning, in the arm of the trench where Velo had just been sitting, a great sh.e.l.l dropped and exploded with the noise of pandemonium. A wave of dirt and splinters were pushed towards them. As the air cleared, there was the sound of a feeble moan or two, then silence. "John Smith," rather white, stood looking at the fresh mound of earth.

"There were six fellows in there when I came away," he said. "Get to work, everybody!"

With sabers and pieces of wood and hands, they cleared away the wreckage. One by one they came to the pitiful fragments that had been men. One by one, they laid them reverently aside. It was only just as they had reached the angle leading to the cook house that they found a crumpled body that moved slightly as they touched it.

"We can't hurt him much; he's too far gone," said "John Smith." "Lift him up, and get him over to the First Aid!"

They kicked a rough way into the cook house, hurried through it and the connecting tunnel to the First Aid. There they laid the shattered body on the table, and with the exception of Zaidos and Velo, all went back to repair the trench.

Never again during his experience with the Red Cross did Zaidos find time to watch the marvelous skill of a field surgeon. The soldier, a large and muscular man, was almost in ribbons. His flesh was actually tattered, and the dirt had been driven into the wounds. A leg had been blown off, and both arms were broken. Yet he lived. There was quick and silent work for awhile. When the doctor finally stood up and looked critically at his finished task lying there bandaged like a mummy and breathing with the heavy slowness of insensibility, he nodded in satisfaction.

"I only wish all the other poor fellows who come in here had your luck, my boy," he said, nodding at the insensible patient. "If I could get you one at a time, it would be an easy matter; but when you come at us by the dozen, it is a different affair entirely. He's ready," he added to Zaidos. "Get a couple of bearers, and take him to the rear. Don't lift him yourself. There are plenty to do it to-night, and your leg is not too strong yet."

Zaidos called a couple of privates from the trench, and went with them back to the main hospital. The man on the stretcher lay like dead.

Nurse Helen received him.

"I'm coming your way to-morrow, John," she said. "I have been detailed to the First Aid shelter."

"I'm sorry," said Zaidos. "It is too near the firing line in there for a woman."

"For a woman perhaps," said Helen with a little smile, "but not for a nurse. That is a different thing, John."