With Tish recourse to that remedy indicated either fatigue or a certain nervous strain. That it was the latter was shown by the fact that when Mr. Burton had gone she started the engine of the car and suggested that we be ready to leave at a moment's notice. She then took a folding chair and placed herself in a dark corner of the ruined house.
"If you see the lights of a car approaching," she called, "just tell me, will you?"
However, I am happy to say that no car came near. Somewhat later Mr. Burton appeared rolling a tire ahead of him, and wearing the dazed look he still occasionally wore when confronted with new evidences of Tish's efficiency.
"Well," he said, dropping the tire and staring at Aggie and myself, "she dreamed true. Either that or----"
"Mr. Burton," Tish called, "do you mind hiding that tire until morning? We found it and it is ours. But it's unnecessary to excite suspicion at any time."
I am not certain that Mr. Burton's theory is right, but even if it is I contend that war is war and justifies certain practices hardly to be condoned in times of peace.
Briefly, he has always maintained that Tish being desperate and arguing that the C. in C.--which is military for commander-in-chief--was able to secure tires whenever necessary--that Tish had deliberately unfastened a spare tire from the rear of General Pershing's automobile; not of course actually salvaging it, but leaving it in a position where on the car's getting into motion it would fall off and could then be salvaged.
I do not know. I do know, however, that Tish retired very early to her bed in the ambulance. As Aggie was heating water for a bath, having found a sheltered horse trough behind a broken wall, I took Mr. Burton for a walk through the town in an endeavor to bring him to a more cheerful frame of mind. He was still very low-spirited, but he offered no confidences until we approached the only undestroyed building in sight. He stopped then and suggested turning back.
"It's a Y hut," he said. "We'll be about as welcome there as a skunk at a garden party."
I reprimanded him for this, as I had found no evidence of any jealousy between the two great welfare organizations. But when I persisted in advancing he said: "Well, you might as well know it. She's there. I saw her through a window."
"What has that got to do with my getting a bottle of vanilla extract there if they have one?"
"Oh, she'll have one probably; she uses it for fudge! I'm not going there, and that's flat."
"I thought you had forgotten her."
"I have!" he said savagely. "The way you forget the toothache. But I don't go round boring a hole in a tooth to get it again. Look here, Miss Lizzie, do you know what she was doing when I saw her? She was dropping six lumps of sugar into a cup of something for that--that parent she's gone bugs about."
"That's what she's here for."
"Oh, it is, is it?" he snarled. "Well, she wasn't doing it for the fellow with a cauliflower ear who was standing beside him. There was a line of about twenty fellows there putting in their own sugar, all right."
"I'll tell you this, Mr. Burton," I said in a serious tone, "sometimes I think things are just as well as they are. You haven't a disposition for marriage. I don't believe you'll make her happy, even if you do get her."
"Oh, I'll not get her," he retorted roughly. "As a matter of fact, I don't want her. I'm cured. I'm as cured as a ham. She can feed sugar to the whole blamed Army, as far as I'm concerned. And after that she can go home and feed sugar to his five kids, and give 'em colic and sit up at night and----"
I left him still muttering and went into the Y hut. Hilda gave a little scream of joy when she saw me and ran round the counter, which was a plank on two barrels, and kissed me. I must say she was a nice little thing.
"Isn't France small after all?" she demanded. "And do you know I've seen your nephew--or is it Miss Tish's? He's just too dear! We had a long talk here only a day or two ago, and I was telling about you three, and suddenly he said: 'Wait a minute. You've mentioned no names, but I'll bet my tin hat my Aunt Tish was one of them!' Isn't that amazing?"
Well, I thought it was, and I took a cup of her coffee. But it was poor stuff, and right then and there I made a kettleful and showed her how. But I noticed she grew rather quiet after a while.
At last she said: "You--I don't suppose you've seen that Mr. Burton anywhere, have you?"
"We saw something of him in Paris," I replied, and glanced out the window. He was standing across what had once been the street, and if ever I've seen hungry eyes in a human being he had them.
"He was so awfully touchy, Miss Lizzie," she said. "And then I was never sure---- Why do you suppose he isn't fighting? Not that it's any affair of mine, but I used to wonder."
"He's got a milk leg," I said, and set the coffee kettle off.
"A milk leg! A milk---- Oh, how ridiculous! How---- Why, Miss Lizzie, how can he?"
"Don't ask me. They get 'em sometimes too. They're very painful. My cousin, Nancy Lee McMasters, had one after her third child and----"
I am sorry to say that here she began to laugh. She laughed all over the hut, really, and when she had stood up and held to the plank and laughed she sat down on a box of condensed milk and laughed again. I am a truthful woman, and I had thought it was time she knew the facts, but I saw at once that I had make a mistake. And when I looked out the window Mr. Burton had gone.
I remained there with her for some time, but as any mention of Mr. Burton only started her off again we discussed other matters.
She said Charlie Sands was in the Intelligence Department at the Front, and that when he left he was about to, as she termed it, pull off a raid.
"He's gone to bring me a German as a souvenir; and that Captain Weber--you remember him--he is going to bring me another," she cried. "He gave me my choice and I took an officer, with a nice upcurled mustache and----"
"And five children?"
"Five children? Whatever do you mean, Miss Lizzie?"
"I understand that Captain Weber has five. I didn't know but that you had a special preference for them that way."
"Why, Miss Lizzie!" she said in a strained voice. "I don't believe it. He's never said----"
I was washing out her dish towels by that time, for she wasn't much of a housekeeper, I'll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over she kicked at it.
Finally she said: "I don't know why you think I was interested in Captain Weber. He was amusing, that's all; and I like fighting men--the bravest are the tenderest, you know. I--if you ever happen on Mr. Burton you might tell him I'm here. It's interesting, but I get lonely sometimes. I don't see a soul I really care to talk to."
Well, I promised I would, and as Mr. Burton had gone I went back alone. Tish was asleep with a hot stone under her cheek, from which I judged she'd had neuralgia, and Aggie was nowhere in sight. But round the corner an ammunition train of trucks had come in and I suddenly remembered Aggie and her horse trough. Unfortunately I had not asked her where it was.
I roused Tish but her neuralgia had ruffled her usual placid temper, and she said that if Aggie was caught in a horse trough let her sit in it. If she could take a bath in a pint of water Aggie could, instead of hunting up luxuries. She then went to sleep again, leaving me in an anxious frame of mind.
Mr. Burton was not round, and at last I started out alone with a flashlight, but as we were short of batteries I was too sparing of it and stepped down accidentally into a six-foot cellar, jarring my spine badly. When I got out at last it was very late, and though there were soldiers all round I did not like to ask them to assist me in my search, as I had every reason to believe that our dear Aggie had sought cleanliness in her nightgown.
It was, I believe, fully 2 A. M. when I finally discovered her behind a wall, where a number of our boys were playing a game with a lantern and dice--a game which consisted apparently of coaxing the inanimate objects with all sorts of endearing ter
ms. They got up when they saw me, but I observed that I was merely taking a walk, and wandered as nonchalantly as I was able into the inclosure.
At first all was dark and silent. Then I heard the trickle of running water, and a moment later a sneeze. The lost was found!
"Aggie!" I said sternly.
"Hush, for Heaven's sake! They'll hear you."
"Where are you?"
"B-b-behind the trough," she said, her teeth chattering. "Run and get my bathrobe, Lizzie. Those d-d-dratted boys have been there for an hour."
Well, I had brought it with me, and she had her slippers; and we started back. I must say that Aggie was a strange figure, however, and one of the boys said after we had passed: "Well, fellows, war's hell, all right."
"If you saw it too I feel better," said another. "I thought maybe this frog liquor was doing things to me."
Aggie, however, was sneezing and did not hear.
I come now to that part of my narrative which relates to Charlie Sands' raid and the results which followed it. I felt a certain anxiety about telling Tish of the dangerous work in which he was engaged, and waited until her morning tea had fortified her. She was, I remember, sitting on a rock directing Mr. Burton, who was changing a tire.
"A raid?" she said. "What sort of a raid?"
"To capture Germans, Tish."
"A lot of chance he'll have!" she said with a sniff. "What does he know about raids? And you'd think to hear you talk, Lizzie, that pulling Germans out of a trench was as easy as letting a dog out after a neighbor's cat. It's like Pershing and all the rest of them," she added bitterly, "to take a left-handed newspaper man, who can't shut his right eye to shoot with the left, and start him off alone to take the whole German Army."
"He wouldn't go alone," said Mr. Burton.
"Certainly not!" Tish retorted. "I know him, and you don't, Mr. Burton. He'll not go alone. Of course not! He'll pick out a lot of men who play good bridge, or went to college with him, or belong to his fraternity, or can sing, or some such reason, and----"
Here to my great surprise she flung down one of our two last remaining teacups and retired precipitately into the ruins. Not for us to witness her majestic grief. Rachel--or was it Naomi?--mourning for her children.
However, in a short time she reappeared and stated that she was sick of fooling round on back roads, and that we would now go directly to the Front.
"We'll never pull it off," Mr. Burton said to me in an undertone.
"She has never failed, Mr. Burton," I reminded him gravely.
Before we started Mr. Burton saw Hilda, but he came back looking morose and savage. He came directly to me.
"Look me over," he said. "Do I look queer or anything?"
"Not at all," I replied.
"Look again. I don't seem to be dying on my feet, do I? Anything wan about me? I don't totter with feebleness, do I?"
"You look as strong as a horse," I said somewhat acidly.
"Then I wish to thunder you'd tell me," he stormed, "why that girl--that--well, you know who I mean--why the deuce she should first giggle all over the place when she sees me, and then baby me like an idiot child? 'Here's a chair,' she'd say, and 'Do be careful of yourself'; and when I recovered from that enough to stand up like a man and ask for a cup of coffee she said I ought to take soup; it was strengthening!"
Fortunately Tish gave the signal to start just then, and we moved out. Hilda was standing in her doorway when we passed, and I thought she looked rather forlorn. She blew kisses to us, but Mr. Burton only saluted stiffly and looked away. I have often considered that to the uninitiated the ways of love are very strange.
It was when we were out of the village that he turned to me with a strange look in his eyes.
"She doesn't care for Weber after all," he said. "Didn't I tell you the minute she found she could have him she wouldn't want him? Do you think I'd marry a girl like that?"
"She's a nice little thing," I replied. "But you're perfectly right--she's no housekeeper."
"No housekeeper!" he said in a tone of astonishment. "That's the cleanest hut in France. And let me tell you I've had the only cup of coffee----"
He broke off and fell into a fit of abstraction. Somewhat later he looked up and said: "I'll never see her again, Miss Lizzie."
"Why?"
"Because I told her I wouldn't come back until I could bring her a German officer as a souvenir. Some idiot had told her he was going to, and, of course, I told her if she was collecting them I'd get her one. A fat chance I have too! I don't know what made me do it. I'm only surprised I didn't make it the Crown Prince while I was at it."
But how soon were our thoughts to turn from soft thoughts of love to graver matters!
Tish, as I have said before, has a strange gift of foresight that amounts almost to prophecy.
I have never known her, for instance, to put a pink bow on an afghan and then have the subsequent development turn out to be a boy, or vice versa. And the very day before Mr. Ostermaier fell and sprained his ankle she had picked up a roller chair at an auction sale, and in twenty minutes he was in it.
At noon we stopped at a crossroads and distributed to some passing troops our usual cigarettes and chocolate. We also fried a number of doughnuts, and were given three cheers by various companies as they passed. It was when our labors were over that Tish perceived a broken machine gun abandoned by the roadside, and spent some time examining it.
"One never knows," she said, "what bits of knowledge may one day be useful."
Mr. Burton explained the mechanism to her.
"I'd be firing one of these things now," he said gloomily, "if it were not for that devilish piece of American ingenuity, the shower bath."
"Good gracious!" Aggie said.
"Fact. I got into a machine-gun school, but one day in a shower one of the officers perceived my--er--affliction, badly swollen from a hike, and reported me."
Tish was strongly inclined to tow the machine gun behind us and eventually have it repaired, but Mr. Burton said it was not worth the trouble, and shortly afterward we turned off the main road into a lane, seeking a place for our luncheon. Tish drove as usual, but she continued to lament the gun.
"I feel keenly," she said, "the necessity of being fully armed against any emergency. And I feel, too, that it is my solemn duty to salvage such weapons as come my way at any and all times."
I called to her just then, but she was driving while looking over her shoulder at Mr. Burton, and it was too late to avoid the goat. We went over it and it lay behind us in the road quite still.
"You've killed it, Tish," I said.
"Not at all," she retorted. "It has probably only fainted. As I was saying, I feel that with our near approach to the lines we should be armed to the teeth with modern engines of destruction, and should also know how to use them."
We were then in a very attractive valley, and Tish descending observed that if it were not for the noise of falling shells and so on it would have been a charming place to picnic.
She then instructed Aggie and me to prepare a luncheon of beef croquettes and floating island, and asked Mr. Burton to accompany her back to the car.
As I was sitting on the running board beating eggs for a meringue at the time I could not avoid overhearing the conversation.
First Mr. Burton, acting under orders, lifted the false bottom, and then he whistled and observed: "Great Cæsar's ghost! Looks as though there is going to be hell up Sixth Street, doesn't it?"
"I'll ask you not to be vulgar, Mr. Burton."
"But--look here, Miss Tish. We'll be jailed for this, you know. You may be able to get away with the C. in C.'s tires, but you can't steal a hundred or so grenades without somebody missing them. Besides, what the--what the dickens are you going to do with them? If it had been eggs now, or oranges--but grenades!"
"They may be useful," Tish replied in her cryptic manner. "Forearmed is forewarned, Mr. Burton. What is this white pin for?"
I believe she then p
ulled the pin, for I heard Mr. Burton yell, and a second later there was a loud explosion.
I sat still, unable to move, and then I heard Mr. Burton say in a furious voice: "If I hadn't grabbed that thing and thrown it you'd have been explaining this salvage system of yours to your Maker before this, Miss Carberry. Upon my word, if I hadn't known you'd blow up the whole outfit the moment I was gone I'd have left before this. I've got nerves if you haven't."
"That was an over-arm pitch you gave it," was Tish's sole reply. "I had always understood that grenades were thrown in a different manner."
I distinctly heard his groan.
"You'll have about as much use for grenades as I have for pink eye," he said almost savagely. "I don't like to criticize, Miss Tish, and I must say I think to this point we've made good. But when I see you stocking up with grenades instead of cigarettes, and giving every indication of being headed for the Rhine, I feel that it is time to ask what next?"
"Have you any complaint about the last few weeks?" Tish inquired coldly.
"Well, if we continue to leave a trail of depredations behind us---- It's bad enough to have a certain person think I'm a slacker, but if she gets the idea that I'm a first-class second-story worker I'm done, that's all."
Fortunately Aggie announced luncheon just then.
Every incident of that luncheon is fixed clearly in my mind, because of what came after it. We had indeed penetrated close to the Front, as was shown by the number of shells which fell in it while we ate. The dirt from one, in fact, quite spoiled the floating island, and we were compelled to open a can of peaches to replace it. It was while we were drinking our after-dinner coffee that Tish voiced the philosophy which upheld her.
"When my hour comes it will come," she said calmly. "Viewed from that standpoint the attempts of the enemy to disturb us become amusing--nothing more."
"Exactly," said Mr. Burton, skimming some dust from the last explosion out of his coffee cup. "Amusing is the word. Funny, I call it. Funny as a crutch. Why, look who's here!"
There was a young officer riding up the valley rapidly. I remember Tish taking a look at him and then saying quickly: "Lizzie, go and close the floor of the ambulance. Don't run. I'll explain later."
The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart Page 396