The Search Part 20

So he sent for Cameron one day, and Cameron came. He did not want to come. He dreaded the interview worse than anything he had ever had to face before. But he came. He came with the same spirit he had gone out into the sh.e.l.l-fire after Wainwright. Because he felt that the Christ asked it of him.

He stood stern and grave at the foot of the little hospital cot and listened while Wainwright pompously thanked him, and told him graciously that now that he had saved his life he was going to put aside all the old quarrels and be his friend. Cameron smiled sadly. There was no bitterness in his smile. Perhaps just the least fringe of amus.e.m.e.nt, but no hardness. He even took the bandaged hand that was offered as a token that peace had come between them who had so long been at war. All the time were ringing in his heart the words: "With all your heart! With all your heart!" He had the Christ, what else mattered?

Somehow Wainwright felt that he had not quite made the impression on this strong man that he had hoped, and in an impulse to be more than gracious he reached his good hand under his pillow and brought forth an envelope.

When Corporal Cameron saw the writing on that envelop he went white under the tan of the battlefield, but he stood still and showed no other sign:

"When I get back home I'm going to be married," said the complacent voice, "and my wife and I will want you to come and take dinner with us some day. I guess you know who the girl is. She lives in Bryne Haven up on the hill. Her name is Ruth Macdonald. I've just had a letter from her.

I'll have to write her how you saved my life. She'll want to thank you, too."

How could Cameron possibly know that that envelope addressed in Ruth Macdonald's precious handwriting contained nothing but the briefest word of thanks for an elaborate souvenir that Wainwright had sent her from France?

"What's the matter with Cammie?" his comrades asked one another when he came back to his company. "He looks as though he had lost his last friend. Did he care so much for that Wainwright guy that he saved? I'm sure I don't see what he sees in him. I wouldn't have taken the trouble to go out after him, would you?"

Cameron's influence had been felt quietly among his company. In his presence the men refrained from certain styles of conversation, when he sat apart and read his Testament they hushed their boisterous talk, and lately some had come to read with him. He was generally conceded to be the bravest man in their company, and when a fellow had to die suddenly he liked Cameron to hold him in his arms.

So far Cameron had not had a scratch, and the men had come to think he had a charmed life. More than he knew he was beloved of them all. More than they knew their respect for him was deepening into a kind of awe.

They felt he had a power with him that they understood not. He was still the silent corporal. He talked not at all of his new-found experience, yet it shone in his face in a mysterious light. Even after he came from Wainwright with that stricken look, there was above it all a glory behind his eyes that not even that could change. For three days he went into the thick of the battle, moving from one hairbreadth escape to another with the calmness of an angel who knows his life is not of earth, and on the fourth day there came the awful battle, the struggle for a position that had been held by the enemy for four years, and that had been declared impregnable from the side of the Allies.

The boys all fought bravely and many fell, but foremost of them all pa.s.sing unscathed from height to height, Corporal Cameron on the lead in fearlessness and spirit; and when the tide at last was turned and they stood triumphant among the dead, and saw the enemy retiring in disorder, it was Cameron who was still in the forefront, his white face and tattered uniform catching the last rays of the setting sun.

Later when the survivors had all come together one came to the captain with a white face and anxious eyes:

"Captain, where's Cammie? We can't find him anywhere."

"He came a half hour ago and volunteered to slip through the enemy's lines to-night and send us back a message," he said in husky tones.

"But, captain, he was wounded!"

"He was?" The captain looked up startled. "He said nothing about it!"

"He wouldn't, of course," said the soldier. "He's that way. But he was wounded in the arm. I helped him bind it up."

"How bad?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't let me look. He said he would attend to it when he got back."

"Well, he's taken a wireless in his pocket and crept across No Man's Land to find out what the enemy is going to do. He's wearing a dead Jerry's uniform----!"

The captain turned and brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and a low sound between a sob and a whispered cheer went up from the gathered remnant as they rendered homage to their comrade.

For three days the messages came floating in, telling vital secrets that were of vast strategic value. Then the messages ceased, and the anxious officers and comrades looked in vain for word. Two more days pa.s.sed--three--and still no sign that showed that he was alive, and the word went forth "Missing!" and "Missing" he was proclaimed in the newspapers at home.

That night there was a lull in the sector where Cameron's company was located. No one could guess what was going on across the wide dark s.p.a.ce called No Man's Land. The captain sent anxious messages to other officers, and the men at the listening posts had no clue to give. It was raining and a chill bias sleet that cut like knives was driving from the northeast. Water trickled into the dugouts, and sopped through the trenches, and the men shuddered their way along dark pa.s.sages and waited.

Only scattered artillery fire lit up the heavens here and there. It was a night when all h.e.l.l seemed let loose to have its way with earth. The watch paced back and forth and prayed or cursed, and counted the minutes till his watch would be up. Across the blackness of No Man's Land pock-marked with great sh.e.l.l craters, there raged a tempest, and even a Hun would turn his back and look the other way in such a storm.

Slowly, oh so slow that not even the earth would know it was moving, there crept a dark creature forth from the enemy line. A thing all of spirit could not have gone more invisibly. Lying like a stone as motionless for s.p.a.ces uncountable, stirring every muscle with a controlled movement that could stop at any breath, lying under the very nose of the guard without being seen for long minutes, and gone when next he pa.s.sed that way; slowly, painfully gaining ground, with a track of blood where the stones were cruel, and a holding of breath when the fitful flare lights lit up the way; covered at times by mud from nearby bursting sh.e.l.ls; faint and sick, but continuing to creep; chilled and sore and stiff, blinded and bleeding and torn, sh.e.l.l holes and stones and miring mud, slippery and sharp and never ending, the long, long trail----!

"Halt!" came a sharp, clear voice through the night.

"Pat! Come here! What is that?" whispered the guard. "Now watch! I'm sure I saw it move----There! I'm going to it!"

"Better look out!" But he was off and back with something in his arms.

Something in a ragged blood-soaked German uniform.

They turned a shaded flash light into the face and looked:

"Pat, it's Cammie!" The guard was sobbing.

At sound of the dear old name the inert ma.s.s roused to action.

"Tell Cap--they're planning to slip away at five in the morning. Tell him if he wants to catch them he must do it _now_! Don't mind me! Go quick!"

The voice died away and the head dropped back.

With a last wistful look Pat was off to the captain, but the guard gathered Cameron up in his arms tenderly and nursed him like a baby, crooning over him in the sleet and dark, till Pat came back with a stretcher and some men who bore him to the dressing station lying inert between them.

While men worked over his silent form his message was flas.h.i.+ng to headquarters and back over the lines to all the posts along that front.

The time had come for the big drive. In a short time a great company of dark forms stole forth across No Man's Land till they seemed like a wide dark sea creeping on to engulf the enemy.

Next morning the newspapers of the world set forth in monstrous type the glorious victory and how the Americans had stolen upon the enemy and cut them off from the rest of their army, wiping out a whole salient.

But while the world was rejoicing, John Cameron lay on his little hard stretcher in the tent and barely breathed. He had not opened his eyes nor spoken again.

XX

A nurse stepped up to the doctor's desk:

"A new girl is here ready for duty. Is there any special place you want her put?" she asked in a low tone.

The doctor looked up with a frown:

"One of those half-trained Americans, I suppose?" he growled. "Well, every little helps. I'd give a good deal for half a dozen fully trained nurses just now. Suppose you send her to relieve Miss Jennings. She can't do any harm to number twenty-nine."

"Isn't there any hope for him?" the nurse asked, a shade of sadness in her eyes.

"I'm afraid not!" said the doctor shortly. "He won't take any interest in living, that's the trouble. He isn't dying of his wounds. Something is troubling him. But it's no use trying to find out what. He shuts up like a clam."

The new nurse flushed outside the door as she heard herself discussed and shut her firm little lips in a determined way as she followed the head nurse down the long rows of cots to an alcove at the end where a screen shut the patient from view.

Miss Jennings, a plain girl with tired eyes, gave a few directions and she was left with her patient. She turned toward the cot and stopped with a soft gasp of recognition, her face growing white and set as she took in the dear familiar outline of the fine young face before her. Every word she had heard outside the doctor's office rang distinctly in her ears. He was dying. He did not want to live. With another gasp that was like a sob she slipped to her knees beside the cot, forgetful of her duties, of the ward outside, or the possible return of the nurses, forgetful of everything but that he was there, her hero of the years!