Читать книгу The Red Cross Girls with Pershing to Victory - Vandercook Margaret - Страница 4

IN the afternoon, traveling in the direction of Belgium, there was an unexpected movement under the broad seat of the Red Cross car which startled its occupants.

The first exclamation came from Bianca Zoli who happened to be sitting just over a space where a large box of provisions originally had been stored. The box had been removed, however, and the food eaten at luncheon.

"I am absurd!" Bianca exclaimed, clutching at Nora Jamison's hand, as she was sitting beside her. "But I thought I felt something stir. I wonder if the excitement of our journey is having a strange influence upon me?"

"I don't think so," the older girl returned, "I have been conscious of life, a movement of some kind underneath us ever since we left the little French farmhouse. I say I have been conscious, no, I have not been exactly that, only puzzled and uncomfortable."

Leaning over, Nora at this instant lifted the curtain, and Bianca bending forward at the same time, they both became aware of the figure of the little French girl who had vanished a few moments before their departure from her home.

"Sonya!" Bianca called.

This was scarcely necessary, since by this time every occupant of the car knew equally well what had happened and curiously enough, without discussion, understood the explanation for the child's action.

The little girl had believed that this group of women and girls, wearing the Red Cross of service, were her friends and if possible would protect her from what she feared most in all the world, the grey uniformed German soldiers. Also they were leaving the neighborhood where she had lived under a burden of terror.

Her one desire was to escape from the captured town where the Germans had been in authority so many weary months. As Nora Jamison and Bianca both struggled to assist the child, they found she could scarcely help herself, so stiff had she become from her uncomfortable position.

Yet she managed with their aid to climb up and sit crowded close between Bianca and Nora Jamison.

"What are you going to do with this child, Sonya?" Bianca demanded, more sympathetic than she cared to reveal, remembering her own childhood, which had been more lonely and difficult than any one had ever realized. Not even Sonya, who had come to her rescue in those past days in Italy, more from a combination of circumstance than from any great affection for her, had ever understood.

In response Sonya bit her lips and frowned. There was something about the little French girl which had attracted her strongly at the first sight of her, an attraction she could not have explained, unless it were compassion, and yet she had seen many pathetic, forsaken children during her war work in France.

"I am sure I don't know, Bianca," she replied finally. "I suppose we can leave the child with some French family along our route. However, most of them have responsibilities enough of their own, without our adding a child whose last name we do not even know and who appears unable to tell us anything about herself."

"We cannot take the child back to her own home, even if we could turn back, which is of course out of the question. I would not have the courage to leave the little girl alone there, when she has showed so plainly her wish to escape. Oh, well, life is full enough of problems and some one will surely take the child off our hands! people in adversity are wonderfully kind to one another; our life in France during the war has taught us that much."

Both Sonya and Bianca were speaking English so that the little interloper would not be able to understand what they were saying.

"I wonder why we cannot take 'La petite Louisa' along with us, Sonya? After all one little girl more or less won't matter and we may need her for our mascot in the new work that lies before us. I don't know why I feel the Red Cross nursing with the army of occupation will have new difficulties our former nursing did not have. Perhaps because the soldiers will probably not be seriously ill and are likely to be a great deal more bored," Mildred Thornton urged.

Sonya shook her head.

"Mildred, it is a little embarrassing to have to speak of it, but please remember my husband is something of a martinet in matters of Red Cross discipline. I am afraid he will not think we have the right to add a little girl to our responsibilities. However, the child is with us now not by our choice, and we must make her as comfortable as possible until we have some inspiration concerning her. Miss Jamison, you will look after her, won't you, since she seems to prefer you?"

But already Nora Jamison had assumed that the care of the little French girl had been entrusted to her as a matter of course.

Later, the journey through France and into Belgium and thence into Luxemburg became, not only for the American army but for the Red Cross units which accompanied it, a triumphant procession.

In every little village along their route bells were rung, schools closed while the children and the citizens gathered in the streets to shout their welcome. Through the country at each crossroads groups of men, women and young people were found waiting to express their thankfulness either with smiles or tears.

Thirty-six hours after leaving their hospital near Château-Thierry, Mrs. Clark and her Red Cross workers crossed the frontier of Belgium and entered the little town of Virton.

In Virton, at the Red Cross headquarters, awaiting them they found orders from Dr. David Clark. As promptly as possible they were to proceed to the capital of Luxemburg and there establish a temporary Red Cross hospital. Dr. Hugh Raymond was to take charge with Miss Blackstone as superintendent, the Red Cross nurses assuming their usual duties. Before their arrival arrangements for their reception would have been made and a house secured for their temporary hospital.

This was necessary since along the route of march numbers of soldiers were being attacked by influenza and must be cared for. Ordinary hospitals were already overcrowded with wounded American soldiers who had been prisoners in Germany.

Therefore, obeying orders, this particular Red Cross unit entered Luxemburg a few hours before the arrival of General Pershing at the head of his victorious troops.

It was early morning when the Red Cross girls drove into the little duchy, which has occasioned Europe trouble out of all proportion to its size. Actually the duchy of Luxemburg is only nine hundred and ninety-nine square miles and has a population of three hundred thousand persons.

Just as surely as Germany tore up her treaty with Belgium as a "scrap of paper," when at the outbreak of the war it suited her convenience, as surely had she marched her army across Luxemburg in spite of the protest of its young Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide.

However, when Germany continued to use Luxemburg as an occupied province, the Grand Duchess was supposed to have changed her policy and to have become a German ally.

On the morning when the American Red Cross entered her capital, the grey swarm of German soldiers was hurrying rapidly homeward, broken and defeated, while the American army under General Pershing was hourly expected.

To make way for the more important reception and to give as little trouble as possible, the American Red Cross drove directly to the house which had been set apart for their use. The house proved to be a large, old fashioned place with wide windows and a broad veranda, and on the principal street of the city not far from the Grand Ducal Palace.

After a few hours of intensive work toward transforming a one-time private residence into a temporary hospital, the entire staff deserted their labors to gather on the broad veranda.

The news had reached them that General Pershing had entered the capital city of Luxemburg and would pass their headquarters on his way to the Grand Ducal Palace for his formal reception by the Grand Duchess.

Later a portion of the American army itself marched by.

From their balcony the American girls could see the stars and stripes mingling with the red, white and blue of the small principality.

Never in their past experience had they seen a welcome to equal the welcome given by the citizens of Luxemburg to the troops which General Pershing had led to victory. If the Grand Ducal family had been won over to the German cause, how deeply the people of Luxemburg had sympathized with the allies was proved by this single day's greeting.

Together with the people in the streets the Red Cross workers found they were shouting themselves hoarse. Yet the shouts were barely heard amid the blowing of whistles, the ringing of bells.

In the hearts of the inhabitants of the tiny duchy apparently there was a great love for the soldiers of the greatest democracy in the world.

From every window along their route of march flowers rained down upon the soldiers, children crowding close presented each American doughboy with a bunch of chrysanthemums; one of them carried a banner on which was inscribed, "The Day of Glory has Arrived."

Turning to speak to Mildred Thornton who stood beside her, Nona Davis found to her surprise that her cheeks were wet with tears. She had not been conscious of them until this instant.

"It pays almost, doesn't it, Mildred, for all the suffering we have witnessed in Europe in the past four years to see the rejoicing of the little nations of Europe over the victory of democracy? Even if the little Grand Duchess is pro-German in sentiment, it is plain enough that her people must have loathed the German occupation of their country. I would not be surprised if the passing of our soldiers may not mean a change of government in Luxemburg. Under the circumstances I wonder how long our Red Cross unit may remain?"

Mildred Thornton shook her head.

"Impossible to guess of course, Nona. And yet I am glad of the opportunity. We shall have nursed in one more country in Europe and perhaps even little Luxemburg will offer us new experiences and new friends."