Ruth Fielding at the War Front Part 8

"I am not afraid that even torture would make Tom do anything mean,"

she said, with a little sob. "But these officers back there at that cottage must actually believe that he has gone over to the enemy."

"If Cameron is the fellow I heard about this morning," Charlie said gloomily enough, "it is generally believed that he has been two days beyond the lines--and he didn't _have_ to go."

"Oh! Impossible!"

"I'm repeating what I heard. This flurry during the afternoon is an outcome of his disappearance. The German guns caught a train of ammunition camions and smashed things up pretty badly. Many tricks like that pulled off will make us mighty short of ammunition in this sector. Then Heinie can come over the top and do with us just as he pleases. Naturally, if the boys believe Cameron is at fault, they are going to be as sore on him as a boil."

"It would be utterly impossible for Tom to do such a thing!" the girl declared with finality.

Her a.s.surance made the matter no less terrible. Ruth had no belief at all in Tom's willingly giving himself up to the enemy. Had there been a hundred witnesses to see him go, she would have denied the possibility of his being a traitor.

But she was very silent during the rest of that wild ride. Now and then they were stopped by sentinels and had to show their papers. At least, the Red Cross girl had to show hers. Charlie was pretty well known by everybody in this part of the war zone.

They would come to a dugout in the hillside, or a half-hidden hut, and be challenged by a sentinel, or by one of the military police. A pocket lamp would play upon Ruth's face, then upon her pa.s.sport, and the sentinel would grunt, salute, and the car would plunge on again.

It seemed to Ruth as though this went on for hours.

All the time her brain was active with the possibilities surrounding Tom Cameron's disappearance. What could really have happened to him?

Should she write to Helen in Paris, or to his father in America, of the mystery? Indeed, would the censor let such news pa.s.s?

Once she had believed Tom seriously wounded, and for several days had hunted for him, expecting to find him mutilated. Fortunately her expectations at that time had been unfounded.

It seemed now, however, as though there could be no doubt but something very dreadful had happened to her friend. Added to his peril, too, was this awful suspicion that others seemed to hold regarding Tom's faithfulness.

It was going to be very hard, indeed, for Ruth Fielding to keep her mind on her work in the Red Cross while this uncertainty regarding Lieutenant Cameron remained.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHOCOLATE PEDDLER

There was the flash of a lamp ahead.

"Here we are!" cried Charlie Bragg, in a tone of relief, bringing the car to a rocking stop.

Ruth Fielding could see but little as she looked out from under the hood of the ambulance. Yet she imagined there was a ridge of land behind the compound at the entrance to which they had halted.

Charlie got out and helped her down. A second man appeared in the gateway of the stockade beside the sentinel. The girl approached with the ambulance driver, who said:

"Here she is, Doc. And a load of stuff she says you'll need. This is Miss Fielding--and she's a regular good fellow. Doctor Monteith, Miss Fielding."

"I am glad to see you," the surgeon said warmly, taking the bag from Ruth and seizing her cold hand in his warm clasp. "We are very busy here and very short of supplies. Our stores were utterly destroyed when----"

He did not finish his statement, but ushered her into the compound.

There were a few twinkling lights. She saw that there were a number of huts within this enclosure, each being, of course, a ward.

They left Charlie Bragg and an orderly to remove the supplies from the ambulance while the surgeon took Ruth to the hut that was to be her own. On the way they pa.s.sed a crushed and shapeless ma.s.s that might once, the girl thought, have been another hut.

"Is that----?" she asked, pointing.

"Yes. The sh.e.l.l dropped squarely on it. We got her out from under the wreckage after putting out the fire. She was killed instantly," said the surgeon. "You are not frightened, Miss Fielding?"

"Why--yes," she said gravely. "I have, however, been frightened before. We have had night air raids at Clair. But, as Charlie Bragg says, 'I have not been killed yet.'"

"That is the way to look at it," he said cheerfully. "It's the only way. Back in all our minds is the expectation of sudden death, I suppose. Only--if it _is_ sudden! That is what we pray for--if it is to come."

"I know," Ruth said softly. "But let us keep from thinking of it. Who is this lady?" she asked a moment later.

"Ah!" said the gentlemanly surgeon, seeing the figure in the doorway of the new supply hut. "It is our matron, Mrs. Strang. A lovely lady. I will leave you to her kindness."

He introduced the girl to the elderly woman, who examined Ruth with frank curiosity as she entered the hut.

"You are a real American, I presume," the woman said, smiling.

"I hope so."

"Not to be frightened by what has happened here already?"

"We expect such sad happenings, do we not?"

"Yes. We must. But this was a terrible thing. They say," the matron observed, "that it was the result of treachery."

"Oh! You do not mean----?"

"They say a man has sold a map of this whole sector to the Boches. A _man_--faugh! There are such creatures in all armies. Perhaps there are more among our forces than we know of. They say many of foreign blood among the Expeditionary Force are secretly against the war and are friends of the enemy."

"I cannot believe that!" cried Ruth. "We are becoming tainted with the fears of the French. Because they have found so many spies!"

"We will find just as many, perhaps," said Mrs. Strang, bitterly.

"France is a republic and the United States is a republic. Does freedom breed traitors, I wonder?"

"I guess," Ruth said gently, "that we may have been too kind to certain cla.s.ses of immigrants to the United States. Unused to liberty they spell it l-i-c-e-n-s-e."

"There are people other than ignorant foreigners who must be watched in these awful times," the matron said bitterly. "There are teachers in our colleges who sneer at patriotism just as they sneer at religion.

Whisper, Miss Fielding! I am told that the very man they suspect in this dreadful thing--the American who has sold a map of this sector to the Germans--came from one of our foremost colleges, and is an American bred and born."

Ruth could not speak in answer to this. Her heart throbbed painfully in her throat. To so accuse Tom Cameron of heartless and dastardly treachery!

She could not defend him. To defend was to accuse! If everybody believed this awful thing----

Ruth was just as sure of Tom Cameron's guiltlessness as she was of her own faithfulness. But how d.a.m.ning the circ.u.mstantial evidence must be against him!

She was thankful she heard nothing more of this thing that night.

Charlie and other men brought in the supplies. She could not arrange them then, for she was exhausted. She only waited to lock the door when all the supplies were placed, and then found the hut where the women of the Red Cross slept.

She had here a narrow cot, a locker and chair, and the privacy of a movable screen. Nothing else.