CHAPTER XXI
A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED
"Come!" the French officer whispered. "Now is our chance."
"Oh!" Ruth murmured, scarcely understanding.
"Haste! He will be back in a minute," the officer said.
He helped her over the dyke, and, stooping, they ran away from theabandoned house from which the puzzled American sentinel thought he hadseen a spy flashing a light signal to the enemy lines.
"Fortunately, I had a little mirror," murmured Major Marchand, as heand the girl hurried on through the dusk. "With it, you see, I flasheda reflection of the firelight upon the broken panes of that upperwindow. Our brave young American will discover his mistake before hisrelief comes. We could not wait for that. Nor could we easily explainto his top-sergeant why we wished to go forward."
"Oh!" murmured Ruth again. "In your work, Monsieur, I see you have totake chances with both sides."
"It is true. Our own friends must not suspect too much about us. Thebest spy, Mademoiselle, plays a lone hand. Come! This way. We mustdodge these other sentinels."
It was evident that he knew the vicinity well. Beyond the mesa theydescended through a grove of big trees, whose tops had been shot off bythe German guns.
They traveled through the lowland swiftly but cautiously. Ruth couldnot see the way, and clung to Major Marchand's hand. But she tried tomake no sound.
Once he drew her aside into a jungle of brush and they crouched there,completely hidden, while a file of soldiers marched by, their fileleader flashing an electric torch to show the way.
"The relief," whispered Major Marchand, when they had gone. "They maybe swarming down this hill after us in a few minutes."
The two hurried on. The keen feeling of peril and adventure grippedRuth Fielding's soul. It was not with fear that she trembled now.
At length they halted in a pitch-black place, which might have beenalmost anything but the sheepfold Major Marchand told Ruth it was. Heproduced an officer's trench whistle and blew a long and peculiar blaston it.
"Now, hush!" he whispered. "It is against usage to use these whistlesfor anything but the command to go over the top at 'zero.' Necessity,however, Mademoiselle, knows no law."
They waited. Not a sound answered. There was no stir on any side ofthem. Ruth's fears seemed quenched entirely. Now a feeling ofexultation gripped her. She was fairly into this adventure. It wastoo late to go back.
The major blew the whistle a second time and in the same way. Suddenlya dark figure loomed before them. There was a word In French spokenout of the darkness. It was not the password the Major had given theAmerican sentinel.
"Come, Mademoiselle," said the major. "Give me your hand again."
Ruth's warm hand slipped confidently into his enclosing palm. TheFrenchman's courtesy and unfailing gentleness had assured her that shewas perfectly safe in his care.
They left the sheepfold, the second man, whoever he was, moving aheadto guide them. Even in the open it was now very dark. There was nomoon, and the stars were faint and seemed very far away.
Finally Ruth saw that a ridge of land confronted them; but they did notclimb its face. Instead, they followed a winding path along its foot,which soon, to the girl's amazement, became a tunnel. It was dimly litwith an electric bulb here and there along its winding length.
"Where are we?" she whispered to the major.
"This is the first approach-trench," he returned. "But silence,Mademoiselle. Your voice is not--well, it is not masculine."
She understood that she was not to attract attention. A woman in thetrenches would, indeed, create both curiosity and remark.
The guide stopped within a few yards and sought out trench helmets thatthey all put on. When the strap was fastened under her chin Ruthalmost laughed aloud. What would Helen and Jennie say if they couldsee her in this brand of millinery?
She controlled her laughter, however. Here, at the first cross-trench,stood a sentry who let them by when the ghostly leader of the trio,whose face she could not see at all, had whispered the password. Ruthwalked between her two companions, and her dress was not noticed in thedark.
Soon they were out of the tunnels through the ridge. Later she learnedthat the ridge was honeycombed with them. The trench they entered wasbroader and open to the sky. And muddy!
She stepped once off the "duckboards" laid down in the middle of thepassway and dipped half-way to her knee in the mire. She felt that ifthe major had not pulled her up quickly she might have sunk completelyout of sight.
But she did not utter a sound. He whispered in her ear:
"I admire your courage, Mademoiselle. Just a short distance farther.Do not lose heart."
"I am just beginning to feel brave," she whispered in return.
Presently the leader stopped. They waited a moment while he fumbledalong the boarded side of the trench. Then a plank slid back. It wasthe door of a dugout.
"This way, Major," the man said in French.
The major pushed Ruth through the narrow opening. The plank door wasclosed. It was a vile-smelling place.
A match was scratched, a tiny flame sprang up, and then there flared acandle--one of those trench candles made of rolled newspapers andparaffin. It illumined the dugout faintly.
There were bunks along the walls, and in the middle of the planked cavewas a rustic table and two benches. Evidently the men who sometimesoccupied this trench had spent their idle hours here. But to RuthFielding it seemed a fearful place in which to sleep, and eat, and loafaway the long hours of trench duty.
"All ready for us, Tremp?" asked Major Marchand of the man who had ledthem to this spot.
The American girl now saw that the man was a squat Frenchman in thehorizon blue uniform of the infantry and with the bars of a sergeant.He was evidently one of the French officers assigned to teach theAmericans in the trenches.
In his own tongue the man replied to his superior. He drew from one ofthe empty bunks two bulky bundles. The major shook them out and theyproved to be two suits of rubber over-alls and boots together--agarment to be drawn on from the feet and fastened with buckled strapsover the shoulders. They enclosed the whole body to the armpits in awaterproof garment.
"A complete disguise for you, Mademoiselle--with the helmet," MajorMarchand suggested. "And a protection from the water."
"The water?" gasped Ruth.
"We have half a mile of morass to cross after we get out of thetrenches," was the reply. "I am unable to carry you over that,pickaback. You will have to wade, Mademoiselle."