Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine. Chase Josephine
Flower
Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine
CHAPTER I
ON THE MARCH TO THE RHINE
“HERE is where we take on our load,” observed Grace Harlowe, backing her car up to the door of a peasant cottage.
“Never was a truer word spoken,” agreed J. Elfreda Briggs. “Chad of her own sweet self is considerable of a load.” Miss Briggs reached back and threw open the door of the army automobile, to be ready for their passenger who had not yet appeared. “Baggage, some would characterize her,” added the girl.
“She is our superior, Elfreda,” reminded Grace. “One always must preserve a certain respect for one’s superior, else discipline in the army will quickly go to pieces. While Mrs. Smythe plainly is not all that we wish she were, she is our superior officer whom we must both respect and obey.”
“Ever meet her?” questioned Elfreda.
“Once. I was not favorably impressed with her, though I did not see enough of her to form an opinion worth while. That she was fat and rather fair, I recall quite distinctly.”
“Know anything about her, Grace?”
“Nothing beyond the fact that she is said to be the wife of a wealthy Chicago meat-packer, and that Mrs. Meat Packer wishes every one to know that she is a rich woman and an influential one.”
“She must be to get here, Grace. What I cannot understand is how she ever got into army welfare work, especially how she came to be assigned to join out with this American Third Army’s march to the Rhine.”
“Perhaps influence, perhaps her money; perhaps a little of both,” nodded Grace. “You know as much about it as I do.”
“And that much, little as it is, is too much,” declared J. Elfreda Briggs. “I should characterize her as an inordinately vain woman, one of the newly rich, who, clothed with a little authority, would be a mighty uncomfortable companion. The girls at the hospital who have worked under her say she is a regular martinet. How does it come that she has been unloaded on us?”
“I am sure I do not know, J. Elfreda. I do not even know with whom she came through last night when we started out on our march to the Rhine. I was ordered to pick her up and take her through in our automobile to-day, together with two other women who accompany her. However, this march to the River Rhine having only just begun, we haven’t yet settled down to a routine.”
“Neither has the enemy,” observed Elfreda.
Grace nodded reflectively.
“He has signed the armistice, but knowing the Hun as I do, I know that, if he thinks he can safely do so, he will play a scurvy trick on us. I hardly think we shall be attacked, however, but, J. Elfreda, take my word for it, there are many deep and dark Hun plots being hatched in this victorious army at this very moment,” she declared.
“What do you mean?”
“Hun treachery, Elfreda.”
“You know something, Grace Harlowe?”
“No, not in the way you mean. I know the animal and its ways; that’s all. Look at that line of observation balloons of ours floating in the sky to our rear, and moving forward as we move forward. Know what they are doing?”
“Watching the Boches.”
“Exactly. Were the Boche a worthy foe, a foe who would respect his agreements, the need for watching him would not exist. But a foe who has broken his word, his bond and all the ten commandments is not to be trusted. I suppose I shouldn’t feel that way, but I have lived at the front for many months, Elfreda, and what I have seen has chilled my very soul. It behooves us Sammies to watch our steps and keep our hands on our guns,” she added after an interval of reflection. “I think our passenger is approaching.”
Mrs. Chadsey Smythe, clad in a suit of tight-fitting khaki, which accentuated her stoutness, was walking stiffly down the path from the cottage, followed by two welfare workers, discreetly keeping to the rear of their superior. The face of the meat-packer’s wife wore an expression of austerity which Grace told herself had been borrowed from some high army officer, an officer with a grouch of several years’ standing. Mrs. Smythe halted, eyeing first the car itself, then the two young women on the front seat, both of whom were gazing stolidly ahead.
“Are you the chauffeur?” she demanded, addressing Grace.
“I am Mrs. Grace Gray, Madame. I am driving this car through,” replied Grace courteously.
“A car, did you say? No, this is not a car, it is a truck, and a very dirty truck. I venture to say that it has not been washed in some time,” observed the welfare supervisor sarcastically.
“Quite probable, Mrs. Smythe. This is wartime, you know.”
“That is not an excuse. The war is ended. Hereafter you will see that the car is clean when you start out in the morning.”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Another thing, driver, I do not brook impertinence from my subordinates. No matter how slack this department may have been carried on in the past, henceforth military form must be observed.”
“Yes, Madame,” replied Grace meekly.
“If proper for a superior to do so, I would ask if it is customary for a private to remain seated when such superior approaches to speak to the private?”
“When driving, yes.”
“It is not! Hereafter, driver, when a superior officer comes up to you, you will step down, hold the car door open and stand at salute, if you know how to salute, until the officer is seated. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly so, Madame.” Grace repressed a hot retort, and Elfreda’s face burned with indignation. She found herself wondering how her companion could keep her self-control under the insulting tone of the welfare supervisor.
“It is quite apparent, driver, that you are new to the army and its ways.”
“Oh!” exclaimed J. Elfreda.
“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Smythe.
“I – I think I pinched my finger in the door,” stammered Elfreda.
“Driver, step down. There is nothing like making a right start.”
Without an instant’s hesitation, Grace sprang out, grasped the door of the car, and, standing very erect, held it until Mrs. Smythe and her two “aides” had entered and taken their seats. Grace Harlowe closed the door, clicked her heels together and gave her superior a snappy salute that even a freshly made second lieutenant could not have improved upon.
“Oh, you can at least salute, I see,” observed the passenger. “I sincerely hope, however, that you are a better driver than you are a soldier. I wish a fast driver, but not a careless one. If you are afraid to drive fast I will request the colonel to give me a driver who is not.”
“Yes, Madame.”
There was mischief in the eyes of Grace Harlowe as she climbed into the driver’s seat, an expression that J. Elfreda understood full well was a sure forecast of trouble to come.
The road was greatly congested, and for a time the driver worked her way cautiously along at a rate of speed of not more than ten miles an hour.
“Faster! Are you too timid to drive?” cried the passenger.
At this juncture an opening presented itself, a narrow space between two army trucks, and an officer’s car tearing along behind her at a terrific pace was reaching for the opening. Grace opened up and hurled her car at the opening as if it were a projectile on its way to the enemy lines. The two cars touched hubs. Grace fed a little more gas and went into the opening a winner.
“Stop it!” shouted Mrs. Chadsey Smythe.
Ahead there were open spots and Grace made for them, dodging, swerving, the car careening, the horn sounding until the drivers ahead, thinking a staff officer was coming, made all the room they could for the charging army automobile. Madame was expostulating, threatening, jouncing about until speech became an unintelligible stutter. Reaching a clear stretch of road, by clever manipulation Grace