Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine. Chase Josephine
is your name?”
“Won Lue.”
“Belong to the labor battalion?”
“Les. Plenty blad men b’long labor blattalion,” observed Won.
“So I have heard, but surely you are not a bad man, Won?”
He shook his head with emphasis.
“Me good Chinaman, a-la.”
“I am glad to hear that.”
“Well, I never,” declared Elfreda Briggs. “One would think you and Won were very old friends. Better look out for those oily Orientals. They are not to be trusted.”
“So I have been told,” replied Grace absently. “I wonder where Mrs. Smythe has taken herself. Ah, here comes one of her aides.”
The young woman said she had come for the supervisor’s bags, having been directed there by the officer who had come to their assistance on the river bank.
“I trust Mrs. Smythe is feeling better,” said Grace with a voice full of sympathy. “You are Miss Cahill, I believe?”
“Yes. Madame is in high temper because they have put her in a cellar. The lieutenant told her she was in luck that she didn’t have to wrap herself up in a blanket and sleep on the ground, which did not serve to improve her temper. I wish we might stay here with you two ladies.”
“Why not come with us, then?” urged Grace.
“The supervisor wouldn’t let me. However, I am going to request that we be relieved some way.”
“Better go through with it until we get to the Rhine,” advised Grace. “Something may develop that will make a change possible. If I can assist you to that end you may depend upon me to do so.”
“Thank you. May – may I tell you something, Mrs. Gray?”
Grace nodded smilingly.
“Mrs. Smythe, I fear, is going to make you a lot of trouble. She is making all sorts of threats of what she is going to do and – ”
“If she doesn’t succeed any better than she has thus far, there won’t be much left of her,” interjected Miss Briggs. “How long have you been with her?”
“Only since we started for the Rhine. We were directed from headquarters to join out with the outfit to act as her assistants, Miss O’Leary and myself, but we have had about enough of it already. She is making servants of us and – ”
“In wartime we must do many things that we don’t care to do,” suggested Grace. “We are still at war with the Huns, so we must take whatever comes to us, doing our best to keep our heads level.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gray. You make me feel better. I shall do my best not to lose my temper, but really I do not see how such a woman could be chosen for our important work. I call it a rank injustice.”
“That’s what the doughboys say about their treatment,” smiled Grace. “C’est la guerre (it is war). Come in to see us whenever you can. So few of us women are out here that we should do what we can to make it pleasant for one another.”
Miss Cahill thanked her and went out, after which the two Overton girls changed their wrinkled uniforms, put on dry underwear and sat down each before a steel trench mirror to do her hair. This proceeding occupied all their time up to the mess hour, when they went out with their kits to draw their evening meal. Doughboys made way for them and insisted on their taking a place at the front of the line, but Grace smilingly declined to do anything of the sort.
Most of the men in that division had seen the welfare women and knew by that time who they were, for a woman at the front was too rare a sight not to attract attention. Then, too, there were among them men who either knew of their own knowledge what Grace Harlowe had accomplished or had heard the story from others. Her smash on the bridge was already known to several regiments, and when the two girls appeared, looking as fresh and well-groomed as if they had been serving in Paris rather than out at the front, the doughboys wondered and admired.
Grace and Elfreda, having drawn their rations, returned to their cellar, where, to their surprise, they found a bundle of fagots, which some considerate person had left for them.
“Isn’t that fine? I wonder who gave the wood to us?” cried Grace. “Now we can brew some tea. Get the tea ready while I start the fire. Well, I do declare, here is a can of water, and in a petrol can too. J. Elfreda, have you an admirer? Have you been deceiving me?”
“If I have he isn’t a Chinaman,” retorted Miss Briggs.
“Thank you.”
The cellar was soon filled with smoke, but neither girl cared so long as tea was to be the result. After finishing the meal they began considering where they were going to sleep. There were two cots in the cellar, cots without springs, rough boards having been nailed on, but no mattress.
“Not very inviting, but I for one shall be able to sleep soundly, I know,” declared Grace. “When we get to the Rhine we probably shall be billeted in a house where we can have ordinary comforts. I know I shall have difficulty in accustoming myself to civilized life again, won’t you, J. Elfreda?”
“Not so that you could notice it,” was Miss Briggs’ brief reply. “I – ”
“Hulloa the cellar!” shouted a voice from above.
“Enter,” answered Grace.
A sergeant of infantry crunched in, coughed as he inhaled the smoke, and, snapping to attention, saluted, which both girls returned.
“What is it, Sergeant?” asked Grace.
“Captain Rowland wishes you to report at his headquarters at half past seven o’clock, Madame.”
“Very good, Sergeant. Where are the captain’s headquarters?”
“Four dumps down the street from here, to the right as you go out, down one flight to the cellar.”
“Thank you. Will you have a nip of tea? We still have some left.”
The sergeant accepted a tin-cup of tea, gulped it down, thanked them, and saluting tramped out.
“Queer fellows those doughboys,” murmured Grace. “All gold, but odd josies every one of them.”
“Is that what you are thinking of? Were I in your place I should be thinking of what I am going to say to Captain Rowland this evening. This is the summons I have been waiting for. You understand what this means, do you not, Grace?”
“I presume so. However, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“Humph! That is more than you did to-day,” grumbled J. Elfreda Briggs.
Half an hour later, after a final look into the steel mirror, Grace, accompanied by Miss Briggs, left the cellar and started for Captain Rowland’s headquarters, Grace having first pinned her croix de guerre and Distinguished Service Cross to her breast. She had neglected to wear them in the confusion of the start that morning, though being supposed to wear them at all times when in uniform.
CHAPTER III
THE IRON HAND
CAPTAIN ROWLAND sat at a table that had seen more prosperous days, and the camp chair that he was using creaked ominously. Elfreda Briggs feared that it was about to collapse under him, for the captain was not a slight man by any means.
Neither Overton girl had ever before met Captain Rowland, but they had heard of him as a severe man, cold and not always as just as were most of his fellow officers, so rumor had said.
Mrs. Smythe was seated on a camp stool just back of the captain, and with her was a young woman that Grace had never seen before, though she afterwards learned that the girl was Marie Debussy, a French woman, who, it appeared, was acting as the supervisor’s maid. Except for the lieutenant who had assisted Mrs. Smythe on the occasion of her rescue from the river, there were no others present.
“Are