for the following week the four girls were too busy to think of anything save their hospital work and their household responsibilities.
but one afternoon about four o’clock one of their officer friends suggested that they pay a visit to the french line of trenches in their immediate neighborhood. not the firing line, but the second line trenches where the reserve soldiers slept, ate, smoked their cigarettes and even edited a daily paper.
for some little time there had been a lull in the fighting, so there could be little danger in such a tour of inspection. yet if there had been, the red cross girls would have given it scant thought. they were becoming so accustomed to the conditions of war that even barbara meade confessed herself a little less of a coward. indeed,[90] they were beginning to understand why many soldiers take their daily existence so calmly and cheerfully, until actually they are bored, or homesick, or both, unless fighting is going on or the prospects of it near.
trenches, you probably know, are not arranged in parallel lines, the one exactly behind the other like long pieces of ribbon. they often form a series of intricate underground passages, some of them crossing and recrossing each other, so that in one battle front in france where there were one hundred and forty miles of trenches there were only twelve miles directly facing the enemy.
naturally the red cross girls could only see a very small section of trench life during one afternoon’s visit.
“but the briefness of the excursion was the chief thing to recommend it,” barbara meade insisted afterwards, although interested at the time.
following their soldier guide, the girls walked through a deep, wide tunnel with a wooden paving at the bottom, such as one used to see in old-time village streets.
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inside the light was dim and gray, broken by shafts of sunlight filtering down through flimsy roofs of straw and branches of trees, placed above the openings to conceal the french trenches from the german air scouts.
eugenia and nona kept together at first with barbara and mildred close behind them. every few feet of the way, however, one or all four of them would stop for conversation with the french soldiers.
among the men there were several who had made pathetic efforts to turn their mole-like quarters into semblances of homes. one young fellow had actually swung a faded photograph of his mother upon a wooden peg which he had hammered into the earth. so “ma mère” had become the mascot of his trench. because of her presence, the other soldier declared, not one german shell had fallen into their ditch.
moreover, many good catholics had iron or wooden crosses suspended above the small heap of possessions each soldier was allowed to keep in his trench. these were his knapsack and rifle, sometimes a few[92] papers and magazines, perhaps a writing pad and pencil and a small roll of first-aid appliances presented by the french red cross society.
of necessity a soldier’s existence inside a trench must be a quiet one. many of them are compelled to turn night into day, so they sleep while the light shines and stay on guard at night when there is always greater danger of attack. however, as it was late afternoon when the red cross girls made their tour of inspection, it was about the time the soldiers enjoyed their recreation. only the sentries appeared to be doing active duty. many of the other men were smoking or joking with one another, some of them were even drinking afternoon tea after the fashion they had acquired from the english tommies.
as the four american girls, preceded by their guide, approached, walking along through the center of the trench as if they were on a city street, first the soldiers stared at them with surprise and then with pleasure. it was an odd sight to see a petticoat in such a place!
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naturally the soldiers wished to shake hands with their guests, to ask questions about their wounded comrades, and in many cases to tell them how they had conquered the difficulties in their underground existence.
yet how differently the four girls were affected by the experience! barbara meade felt extraordinarily depressed. even if the soldiers did make the best of things, she could not help thinking that many of them were just young boys who ought to have been whistling and working in the sunshine, or else studying or playing upon college grounds.
mildred also found it difficult to behave as cheerfully as she would have liked. however, nona and eugenia were really too entertained by what they saw and heard to reflect upon anything save the wonder of the scene about them.
the american girls were at present nursing in that portion of france where the trench system has been known to the outside world as “the labyrinth,” so intricate and maze-line are its passageways.
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but it was almost at the end of their journey when barbara meade made a discovery that in some odd fashion made a stronger appeal to her than any of the wonders they had seen. their trip had of course been made through one of the rear trenches at some distance from the german line. now they had come to the last ditch they were to be allowed to enter. it was less deep than the others and sloped gradually to the earth above. moreover, the light now shone more distinctly, so that just at first the girls were a little blinded after the darkness. it was always perpetual twilight in the deeper trenches until night fell.
barbara stood for a moment with her eyelids fluttering and a curiously intense expression on her face. then she reached out her hand and touched mildred thornton, who chanced at the instant to be nearest her.
“i can’t understand,” she whispered. then without finishing her sentence she wrinkled up her small nose in an absurd fashion, sniffing the heavy underground air.
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“i suppose our trip has gone to my head,” she murmured, “but do you know i thought i just smelt a delicious odor of flowers. do you suppose it is because the air here is different?”
eugenia also sniffed. “flowers!” she repeated indignantly, overhearing the remark. “really, barbara, i don’t see how you can manage to be foolish so many times.” nevertheless, she slipped her arm inside the younger girl’s, noticing that she looked pale and tired.
at this time the officer who had been acting as their escort moved on ahead with nona and mildred following him.
a second later and eugenia also stopped, arching her thin nostrils.
for there standing just in front of barbara was an unexpected figure. he was a boy of about nineteen. but instead of having the dark hair and eyes of most young frenchmen, he was blond, with pale gold hair, blue eyes and the faintest down of a future moustache. moreover, he held a bunch of old-fashioned flowers in his hand, which he was thrusting toward the two strange young women.
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“there, i did know what i was talking about, after all!” barbara ejaculated faintly to her companion. however, eugenia had a habit of paying no attention to one when she chanced to be in the wrong.
“thank you,” she remarked graciously to the young soldier as she accepted his flowers, for eugenia could be gracious when she chose. “but do tell how you managed to find a bouquet at such a time and place?”
she was speaking her best school french, but in spite of her peculiar accent the soldier somehow managed to understand.
“out of my own garden,” he replied, with a faint lifting of the blond mustache.
the young soldier looked like a grown-up baby, barbara thought, with his fair curly hair, his pink cheeks and his china-blue eyes.
“you see there are long hours here in the trenches when we men have so little to do, one suffers the grand ennui,” he explained to eugenia. “so my friends and i have made a garden. if you have a[97] minute more to spare will you come and see?”
obediently the two girls followed until the soldier led them to the opening in the trench that led up to the outside world. already nona and mildred and the young officer had disappeared.
but there like a sunken garden about four feet below the earth were two beds of bright old-fashioned flowers and small stunted evergreens. the gardeners had left a pathway of earth in the center of the trench, just as one might in any ordinary garden.
barbara rubbed her eyes. she was pretending to be overcome with surprise, but in reality felt the tears coming. for some reason she could not explain it struck her as terribly pathetic that the soldiers, hiding in these trenches for such tragic work, should spend their spare hours making the dark world beautiful.
eugenia was bent upon understanding the situation.
“did you actually plant seeds here in such a place and under such conditions[98] and make them grow?” she demanded. “whatever made you think they would blossom?”
the french soldier smiled. he seemed rather to enjoy the questioning, since it showed the proper interest and admiration for his work.
“i brought back the first plant from our garden when i had been at home on sick leave,” he explained proudly. “then without thinking or expecting the flower to live, i thrust my plant into the earth where there was a little sunlight. then the pauvre petite grew and flourished and so i wrote home for others. later my comrades grew interested. they brought water for my plants and saved their tobacco ashes to put around them. then they too asked that more plants be sent them. some we found by the wayside in our walks through the woods. we have been lucky because no german shell has dared destroy our garden.”
the young fellow looked so pleased that even eugenia, who was far less sentimental than barbara, felt touched. it[99] might be ridiculous to spend one’s time tending a garden when there was so much more important work to be done, but then the french are an artistic and a sentimental people. one had read of the soldiers in the trenches planting gardens in their spare hours without really believing it until now.
but eugenia was impatient to be gone. the other three girls expected to return home immediately, but she wished first to pay a short visit to the field hospital back of the trenches to inquire about one of her patients.
however, when once they were safe upon the face of the earth again, both girls uttered exclamations of surprise. but neither of them showed the least desire to move away. for there just ahead of them was a stretch of level green country with about fifty soldiers forming a circle within it. they were not lounging or talking, but were alert and interested. they were watching something or someone who must be in the center of the circle.
barbara and eugenia discovered that[100] nona and mildred had joined the group. they were equally absorbed. indeed, when the two girls joined them, barbara had to stand on tiptoe to find out what was going on. neither of her friends paid the slightest attention to her. indeed, it was only through the kindness of a soldier who moved aside to make room for her and eugenia that they were able to see what was taking place.
there in the middle of the green space was such an entrancing figure that barbara fairly gasped with surprise and pleasure. eugenia frowned with a mixture of disapproval and interest.
a girl of about fifteen or sixteen was dancing for the entertainment of the soldiers. she was slender, with straight black hair, loose to her shoulders. on her head was a scarlet cap and she wore a thin blouse and a short skirt the color of her cap. as she whirled about in her dance now and then she would snatch the cap from her head. then the girls could see that she seemed to bend and sway almost without effort. her eyes were large and[101] dark and her lips a bright red, yet in spite of the exercise of the dance her cheeks remained pale.
“she is like a poppy dancing in the wind, isn’t she, eugenia?” barbara whispered admiringly.
eugenia looked severe. “i must say i cannot approve of such an exhibition,” she commented.
for once barbara agreed. “i don’t approve either, but the girl is entrancing. i wonder who she is and what her name can be? the soldiers behave as if she had danced for them before.”
at this moment barbara heard a voice at her elbow and turning discovered the young frenchman who had presented them the bunch of flowers.
his pink cheeks were pinker than ever and his eyes bluer. once again barbara decided that he was a glorified, grown-up baby. he held a little spray of mignonette in his hand which he tossed toward the little dancer.
“she is nicolete,” he whispered excitedly. “at least that is what i have chosen[102] to call her. no one knows who she is or where she comes from, only that she dances for us here nearly every afternoon at this hour.”
