“steady,” a voice said in barbara meade’s ear, as a strong arm slipped across her shoulders, bracing her upright.
and so surprised was she by the voice and its intonation that she felt herself brought back to consciousness.
“dick thornton,” she began weakly, and then decided that in truth she must be taking leave of her senses, to have an image of dick obtrude upon her at such a moment and in such a place.
naturally curiosity forced her to turn around and so for the instant she forgot herself and her surroundings.
she saw a young man in a khaki uniform of a kind of olive green with a close-fitting cap and visor. but beneath the cap was a face which was like and yet unlike the face of the friend she remembered. this fellow’s[215] expression was grave, almost sad, the dark-brown eyes were no longer indifferent and mocking, the upright figure no longer inactive. indeed, there was action and courage and vigor in every line of the figure and face.
barbara stepped back a few paces.
“dick thornton,” she demanded, “have i lost my mind or what has happened? aren’t you several thousand miles away in new york city, or newport, where ever the place was you intended spending the summer? i simply can’t believe my own eyes.”
dick slipped his arm inside barbara meade’s. for the time no one was noticing them; the scene about them was absorbing every attention.
“just a moment, please, barbara, i want to explain the situation to you,” dick asked, and drew the girl away behind the shelter of one of the hospital wagons.
“sit down for a moment,” he urged. “dear me, barbara, what have they been doing to you in the few weeks since we said good-by in good old new york? you are as white and tiny as a little tired ghost.”
[216]
but barbara shook her head persuasively. “please don’t talk about me,” she pleaded. “i must know what has occurred. what could have induced you to come over here where this terrible war is taking place, and what are you doing now you are here? you aren’t a soldier, are you?” and there was little in barbara’s expression to suggest that she wished her friend to answer “yes.”
dick had also taken a seat on the ground alongside barbara and now quite simply he reached over and took her hand inside his in a friendly strong grasp.
“i don’t know which question to answer first, but i’ll try and not make a long story. i want you to know and then i want you to tell mill. i came over to this part of the country so as to be near you. but i haven’t wanted to see either of you until i found out whether i was going to amount to anything. if i wasn’t of use i was going on back home without making a fuss. you see, barbara, i suppose your visit to us set me thinking. you had a kind way of suggesting, perhaps without[217] meaning it, that i was a pretty idle, good-for-nothing fellow, not worth my salt, let alone the amount of sugar my father was bestowing on me. well, i pretended not to mind. certainly i didn’t want a little thing like you to find out you had made an impression on me. still, things you said rankled. then you and old mill went away. i couldn’t get either of you out of my mind. it seemed pretty rotten, me staying at home dancing the fox trot and you and mill over here up against the lord knows what. so i—i just cleared out and came along too. but there, i didn’t mean to talk so much. whatever is the matter with you, barbara? you look like you were going to keel over again, just as you did when you tumbled out of that car.”
the girl shook her head. “you can’t mean, dick, that you have come over to enlist in this war because of what i said in new york? oh, dear me, i thought i was unhappy enough. now if anything happens to you your mother will have every right not to forgive me; besides, i shall never forgive myself.”
[218]
barbara said the last few words under her breath. although hearing them perfectly, dick thornton only smiled.
“oh, i wouldn’t take matters as seriously as that,” he returned. “i didn’t mean to make you responsible for my proceedings. i only meant you waked me up and then, please heaven, i did the rest myself. see here, barbara, after all i am a man, or at least made in the image of one. and i want to tell you frankly that i’ve gone into this terrible war game for two reasons. i don’t suppose many people do things in this world from unmixed motives. i want to help the allies; i think they are right and so they have got to win. then i thought i’d like to prove that i had some of the real stuff in me and wasn’t just the little son of a big man. then, well, here are you and mill. i’m not a whole lot of use, but i like being around if anything should go wrong. we didn’t know each other very long, barbara, but i’m frank to confess i like you. you seem to me the bravest, most go-ahead girl i ever met, and i am proud to know[219] you. i believe we were meant to be friends. just see how we have been calling each other by our first names as if we had been doing it always. funny how we left our titles behind us in new york.”
dick was talking on at random, trying to persuade his companion to a little more cheerfulness. surely they were meeting again in gruesome surroundings. yet one must not meet even life’s worst tragedies without the courage of occasional laughter.
“but i’m not brave, or any of the things you are kind enough to think me; i’m not even deserving of your friendship, let alone your praise,” the girl answered meekly. her old sparkle and fire appeared gone. dick thornton was first amazed and then angry. what had they been doing to his little friend to make her so changed in a few weeks? he said nothing, however, only waited for her to go on.
but barbara did not continue at once. for of a sudden there was an unexpected noise, a savage roaring and bellowing and then a muffled explosion.
the hand inside the american boy’s turned suddenly cold.
[220]
“what was that?” she whispered.
but dick shook his head indifferently. “oh, just a few big guns letting themselves go. they do that now and then unexpectedly. there is no real fighting. i have been here a week. sometimes at night there is a steady crack, crack of rifles down miles and miles of the trenches from both sides and as far off as you can hear. then every once in a while like thunder of angry heathen gods the cannons roar. it’s a pretty mad, bad world, barbara.”
by this time the noise had died away and barbara took her hand from dick’s.
“we must not stay here much longer,” she suggested, “yet i must tell you something. you remember all the things i said to you in new york about being useful and a girl having as much courage as a boy and the right to live her own life and all that?”
dick nodded encouragingly. nevertheless and in spite of their surroundings he had to pretend to a gravity he did not actually feel. for to him at least barbara appeared at this moment enchantingly pretty and absurd.
[221]
if only she had not been so tiny and her eyes so big and softly blue! of course, the short brown curls were now hidden under her nurse’s cap. but her lips were quivering and the color coming and going in her cheeks, which now held little hollows where the roundness had previously been.
she held her hands tight together across her knees.
“i have turned out a hopeless failure with my nursing, dick. all the silly things i told you about myself were just vanity. eugenia and mildred and even nona, who has had little experience, are doing splendidly. but the superintendent and all the people in charge of our hospital want me to go home. you see, the trouble is i’m a coward. sometimes i don’t know whether i am afraid for myself or whether it is because i am so wretched over all the pain around me. i try to believe it is the last, but i don’t know. when that cannon was fired i was frightened for us.”
dick thornton’s expression had changed. “why, of course you were. who isn’t scared to death all the time in such an[222] infernal racket? suppose you think i haven’t been frightened out of my senses all this week? i just go about with my knees shaking and scarcely know what i’m doing. the soldiers tell me they feel the same way when they first get into the firing line; after a while one gets more used to it. but see here, barbara,” dick’s brows knit and the lines about his handsome mouth deepened. “if you feel the way you say you do, in heaven’s name tell me what you mean by coming so near the battlefield? whatever put it into your head to attempt this ambulance work? why don’t you stay at the hospital and make yourself useful? that’s what mildred is doing, isn’t she?”
barbara nodded. “yes, but i wasn’t useful at the hospital. so i decided to walk right up to the cannon’s mouth and see if i couldn’t conquer myself. if my nerves don’t go to pieces here i feel i can endure most anything afterwards.” barbara glanced fearfully about her. fortunately they were hidden from any sight of suffering. then she got quietly up on her feet.
[223]
“i must go to my work now, i’m afraid i have already been shirking,” she said. “but please, dick, you have not yet answered my question. what is it you are doing with the army? have you enlisted as a soldier?”
dick took off his cap. already his skin had darkened from the week’s hardships and exposure, for a line of white showed between his hair and the end of his cap.
“no, i am not a soldier, barbara. after all, you know i am an american and i don’t quite feel like killing anybody, german or no german. so i am trying to do the little i can to help the fellows who are hurt, just as you are, although in a different fashion. remember i told you once that my real gift might be that of a chauffeur. well, that’s what i am these days, a glorified chauffeur. i am running one of the field ambulances. you see, i am a pretty skilful driver. i go out over the fields with my car whenever the deutschers give us a chance and with two other fellows pick up the wounded tommies and try to rush them back to safety. it’s a pretty[224] exciting business. but somehow in spite of being scared i like it.”
barbara again held out her hand. “will you shake hands with me before we have to say good-by? because i want you to know that when i thought you were careless and good for nothing you were really brave and splendid. while i—oh, well, it is tiresome to talk about oneself. you’ll come to see us as soon as you can. mildred will be so anxious. and please, please be careful for her sake.”
for half a moment barbara had an impulse to mention mildred thornton’s intimacy with brooks curtis, the young newspaper correspondent, to her brother. but then she realized that there was not time. moreover, mildred would probably prefer telling him whatever there might be to tell herself.
besides, at this instant nona davis appeared, looking both worried and annoyed. what had become of barbara meade that she was not attending to her duties? was she ill again?
naturally on discovering barbara talking[225] to a stranger at such a time nona was puzzled and displeased. she had never seen dick thornton to know him, although mildred had of course frequently spoken of her brother.
a few seconds later, when the necessary explanations had been made, nona and barbara went together into the temporary hospital building. dick found his quarters and dropped asleep. he had not thought it worth while to mention to barbara that he had been working like a hercules since earliest dawn.
