The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  "Aggie!" I cried. "Where is Aggie?"

  It was then that the painful truth dawned on us. Aggie had not entered the church. She was still outside, perhaps wandering alone among a cruel and relentless foe. It was a terrible moment.

  I can still see the white and anxious faces round the candle, and Tish's insistence that a search be organized at once to find her. Mr. Burton went out immediately, and returned soon after to say that she was not in sight, and that the retiring Germans were sending up signal rockets and were probably going to rush the town at once.

  We held a short council of war then, but there was nothing to do but to retire, having accomplished our purpose. Even Tish felt this, and said that it was a rule of war that the many should not suffer for the few; also that she didn't propose losing a night's sleep to rescue Charlie Sands and then have him retaken again, as might happen any minute.

  We put out the candle and left the church, and not a moment too soon, for a shell dropped through the roof behind us, and more followed it at once. I was very uneasy, especially as I was quite sure that between explosions I could hear Aggie's voice far away calling Tish.

  We retired slowly, taking our prisoner with us, and turning round to fire toward the enemy now and then. We also called Aggie by name at intervals, but she did not appear. And when we reached the very edge of the town the Germans were at the opposite end of it, and we were obliged to accelerate our pace until lost in the Stygian darkness of the wood.

  It was there that I felt Tish's hand on my arm.

  "I'm going back," she said in a low tone. "Driveling idiot that she is, I cannot think of her hiding somewhere and sneezing herself into captivity. I am going back, Lizzie."

  "Then I go too," I said firmly. "I guess if she's your responsibility she's mine too."

  Well, she didn't want me any more than she wanted the measles, but the time was coming when she could thank her lucky stars I was there. However, she said nothing, but I heard her suggesting that we separate, every man for himself, except the prisoner, and work back, to our own side the best way we could.

  With her customary thoughtfulness, however, she held a short conversation with Mr. Burton first. I have not mentioned Captain Weber, I believe, since our first entrance into the church, but he was with us, and I had observed Mr. Burton eying him with unfriendly eyes. Indeed, I am quite convinced that the accident of our leaving the church without the captain, and finding him left behind and bolted in, was no accident at all.

  Tish merely told Mr. Burton that the prisoner was his, and that if he chose and could manage to present him to Hilda he might as well do it.

  "She's welcome to him," she said.

  "He's not my prisoner."

  "He is now; I give him to you."

  Finding him obdurate, however, she resorted to argument.

  "It doesn't invalidate an engagement," she said rather brusquely, "for a man to borrow the money for an engagement ring. If it did there would be fewer engagements. If you want to borrow a German prisoner for the same purpose the principle is the same."

  He seemed to be weakening.

  "I'd like to do it--if only to see her face," he said slowly. "Not but what it's a risk. He's a good-looking devil."

  In the end, however, he agreed, and the last we saw of them he was driving the German ahead, with a grenade in one hand and his revolver in the other, and looking happier than he had looked for days.

  Almost immediately after that I felt Tish's hand on my arm. We turned and went back toward V----.

  Military experts have been rather puzzled by our statement that the Germans did not reënter V---- that night, but remained just outside, and that we reached the church again without so much as a how-do-you-do from any of them. I believe the general impression is that they feared a trap. I think they are rather annoyed to learn that there was a period of several hours during which they might safely have taken the town; in fact, the irritable general who was married to the colonel's brother was most unpleasant about it. When everything was over he came to Paris to see us, and he was most unpleasant.

  "If you wanted to take the damned town, why didn't you say so?" he roared. "You came in with a long story about a nephew, but it's my plain conviction, madam, that you were flying for higher game than your nephew from the start."

  Tish merely smiled coldly.

  "Perhaps," she said in a cryptic manner. "But, of course, in these days of war one must be very careful. It is difficult to tell whom to trust."

  As he became very red at that she gently reminded him of his blood pressure, but he only hammered on the table and said:

  "Another thing, madam. God knows I don't begrudge you the falderals they've been pinning on you, but it seems to me more than a coincidence that your celebrated strategy followed closely the lines of a memorandum, madam, that was missing from my table after your departure."

  "My dear man," Tish replied urbanely, "there is a little military word I must remind you of--salvage. As one of your own staff explained it to me one perceives an object necessary to certain operations. If on saluting that object it fails to return the salute I believe the next step is to capture it. Am I not right?"

  But I regret to say that he merely picked up his cap and went out of our sitting room, banging the door behind him.

  To return. We reached the church safely, and from that working out in different directions we began our unhappy search. However, as it was still very dark I evidently lost my sense of direction, and while peering into a cellar was suddenly shocked by feeling a revolver thrust against my back.

  "You are my prisoner," said a voice. "Move and I'll fire."

  It was, however, only Tish. We were both despondent by that time, and agreed to give up the search. As it happened it was well we did so, for we had no more than reached the church and seated ourselves on the doorstep in deep dejection when the enemy rushed the village. I confess that my immediate impulse was flight, but Tish was of more heroic stuff.

  "They are coming, Lizzie," she said. "If you wish to fly go now. I shall remain. I have too many tender memories of Aggie to desert her."

  She then rose and went without haste into the church, which was sadly changed by shell fire in the last two hours, and I followed her. By the aid of the flashlight, cautiously used, we made our way to a break in the floor and Tish suggested that we retire to the cellar, which we did, descending on piles of rubbish. The noise in the street was terrible by that time, but the cellar was quiet enough, save when now and then a fresh portion of the roof gave way.

  I was by this time exceedingly nervous, and Tish gave me a mouthful of cordial. She herself was quite calm.

  "We must give them time to quiet down," she said. "They sound quite hysterical, and it would be dangerous to be discovered just now. Perhaps we would better find a sheltered spot and get some sleep. I shall need my wits clear in the morning."

  It was fortunate for us that the French use the basements of their churches for burying purposes, for by crawling behind a marble sarcophagus we found a sort of cave made by the debris. Owing to that protection the grenades the enemy threw into the cellar did no harm whatever, save to waken Tish from a sound sleep.

  "Drat them anyhow!" she said. "I was just dreaming that Mr. Ostermaier had declined a raise in his salary."

  "Tish," I said, "suppose they find Aggie?"

  She yawned and turned over.

  "Aggie's got more brains than you think she has," was her comment. "She hates dying about as much as most people. My own private opinion is and has been that she went back to our lines hours ago."

  "Tish!" I exclaimed. "Then why----"

  "I just want to try a little experiment," she said drowsily, and was immediately asleep.

  At last I slept myself, and when we wakened it was daylight, and the Germans were in full possession of the town. They inspected the church building overhead, but left it quickly; and Tish drew a keen deduction from that.

  "Well, that's something in our favor," she
said. "Evidently they're afraid the thing will fall in on them."

  At eight o'clock she complained of being hungry, and I felt the need of food myself. With her customary promptness she set out to discover food, leaving me alone, a prey to sad misgivings. In a short time, however, she returned and asked me if I'd seen a piece of wire anywhere.

  "I've got considerable barbed wire sticking in me in various places," I said rather tartly, "if that will do."

  But she only stood, staring about her in the semidarkness.

  "A lath with a nail in the end of it would answer," she observed. "Didn't you step on a nail last night?"

  Well, I had, and at last we found it. It was in the end of a plank and seemed to be precisely what she wanted. She took it away with her, and was gone some twenty minutes. At the end of that time she returned carrying carefully a small panful of fried bacon.

  "I had to wait," she explained. "He had just put in some fresh slices when I got there."

  While we ate she explained.

  "There is a small opening to the street," she said, "where there is a machine gun, now covered with debris. Just outside I perceived a soldier cooking his breakfast. Of course there was a chance that he would not look away at the proper moment, but he stood up to fill his pipe. I'd have got his coffee too, but in the fight he kicked it over."

  "What fight?" I asked.

  "He blamed another soldier for taking the bacon. He was really savage, Lizzie. From the way he acted I gather that they haven't any too much to eat."

  Breakfast fortified us both greatly, but it also set me to thinking sadly of Aggie, whose morning meal was a crisp slice of bacon, varied occasionally by an egg. I had not Tish's confidence in her escape. And Tish was restless. She insisted on wandering about the cellar, and near noon I missed her for two hours. When she came back she was covered with plaster dust, but she made no explanation.

  "I have been thinking over the situation, Lizzie," she said, "and it divides itself into two parts. We must wait until nightfall and then search again for Aggie, in case my judgment is wrong as to her escape. And then there is a higher law than that of friendship. There is our duty to Aggie, and there is also our duty to the nation."

  "Well," I said rather shortly, "I guess we've done our duty. We've taken a prisoner. I owe a duty to my backbone, which is sore from these rocks; and my right leg, which has been tied in a knot with cramp for three hours."

  "When," Tish broke in, "is a railroad most safe to travel on? Just after a wreck, certainly. And when, then, is a town easiest to capture? Just after it has been captured. Do you think for one moment that they'll expect another raid tonight?"

  "Do you think there will be one?" I asked hopefully.

  "I know there will."

  She would say nothing further, but departed immediately and was gone most of the afternoon. She came back wearing a strange look of triumph, and asked me if I remembered the code Aggie used, but I had never learned it. She was very impatient.

  "It's typical of her," she said, "to disappear just when we need her most. If you knew the code and could get rid of the lookout they keep in the tower, while I----"

  She broke off and reflected.

  "They've got to change the lookout in the tower," she said. "If the one comes down before the other goes up, and if we had a hatchet----"

  "Exactly," I said. "And if we were back in the cottage at Penzance, with nothing worse to fight than mosquitoes----"

  We had no midday meal, but at dusk Tish was lucky enough to capture a knapsack set down by a German soldier just outside the machine-gun aperture, and we ate what I believe are termed emergency rations. By that time it was quite dark, and Tish announced that the time had come to strike, though she refused any other explanation.

  We had no difficulty in getting out of the cellar, and Tish led the way immediately to the foot of the tower.

  "We must get rid of the sentry up there," she whispered. "The moment he hears a racket in the street he will signal for reënforcements, which would be unfortunate."

  "What racket?" I demanded.

  But she did not reply. Instead she moved into the recess below the tower and stood looking up thoughtfully. I joined her, and we could make out what seemed to be a platform above, and we distinctly saw a light on it, as though the lookout had struck a match. I suggested firing up at him, but Tish sniffed.

  "And bring in the entire regiment, or whatever it is!" she said scornfully but in a whisper. "Use your brains, Lizzie!"

  However, at that moment the sentry solved the question himself, for he started down. We could hear his coming. We concealed ourselves hastily, and Tish watched him go out and into a cellar across the street, where she said she was convinced they were serving beer. Indeed, there could be no doubt of it, she maintained, as the men went there in crowds, and many of them carried tin cups.

  Tish's first thought was that he would be immediately relieved by another lookout, and she stationed herself inside the door, ready to make him prisoner. But finally the truth dawned on us that he had temporarily deserted his post. Tish took immediate advantage of his absence to prepare to ascend the tower, and having found a large knife in the knapsack she had salvaged she took it between her teeth and climbed the narrow winding staircase.

  "If he comes back before I return, Lizzie," she said, "capture him, but don't shoot. It might make the rest suspicious."

  She then disappeared and I heard her climbing the stairs with her usual agility. However, she returned considerably sooner than I had anticipated, and in a state of intense anger.

  "There is another one up there," she whispered. "I heard him sneezing. Why he didn't shoot at me I don't know, unless he thought I was the other one. But I've fixed him," she added with a tinge of complacency. "It's a rope ladder at the top. I reached up as high as I could and cut it."

  She then grew thoughtful and observed that cutting the ladder necessitated changing a part of her plan.

  "What plan?" I demanded. "I guess my life's at stake as well as yours, Tish Carberry."

  "I should think it would be perfectly clear," she said. "We've either got to take this town or starve like rats in that cellar. They've got so now that they won't even walk on the side next to the church, and some of them cross themselves. The frying pan seems to have started it, and when the knapsack disappeared---- However, here's my plan, Lizzie. From what I have observed during the day pretty nearly the entire lot, except the sentries, will be in that beer cellar across in an hour or so. The rest will run for it--take my word--the moment I open fire."

  "I'll take your word, Tish," I said. "But what if they don't run?"

  She merely waved her hand.

  "My plan is simply this," she said: "I've been tinkering with that machine gun most of the day, and my conviction is that it will work. You simply turn a handle like a hand sewing machine. As soon as you hear me starting it you leave the church by that shell hole at the back and go as rapidly as possible back to the American lines. I'll guarantee," she added grimly, "that not a German leaves that cellar across the street until my arm's worn out."

  "What shall I say, Tish?" I quavered.

  I shall never forget the way she drew herself up.

  "Say," she directed, "that we have captured the town of V---- and that they can come over and plant the flag."

  I must profess to a certain anxiety during the period of waiting that followed. I felt keenly the necessity of leaving my dear Tish to capture and hold the town alone. And various painful thoughts of Aggie added to my uneasiness. Nor was my perturbation decreased by the reëntrance of the lookout some half hour after he had gone out. Concealed behind debris we listened to his footsteps as he ascended the tower, and could distinctly hear his ferocious mutterings when he discovered that the rope had been cut.

  But strangely enough he did not call to the other man, cut off on the platform above.

  "I don't believe there was another," I whispered to Tish. But she was confident that she had heard one, an
d she observed that very probably the two had quarreled.

  "It is a well-known tendency of two men, cut off from their kind," she said, "to become violently embittered toward each other. Listen. He is coming down."

  I regret to say that he raised an immediate alarm, and that we were forced to retire behind our sarcophagus in the cellar for some time. During the search the enemy was close to us a number of times, and had not one of them stepped on the nail which had served us so usefully I fear to think what might have happened. He did so, however, and retired snarling and limping.

  I believe Tish has given nine o'clock in her report to G. H. Q. as the time when she opened fire. It was therefore about eight forty-five when I left the church. For some time before that the cellar across had been filling up with the enemy, and the search for us had ceased. By Tish's instructions I kept to back ways, throwing a grenade here and there to indicate that the attack was a strong one, and also firing my revolver. On hearing the firing behind them the Germans in the advanced trenches apparently considered that they had been cut off from the rear, and I understand that practically all of them ran across to our lines and surrendered. Indeed I was almost run down by three of them.

  I was almost entirely out of breath when I reached our trenches, and had I not had the presence of mind to shout "Kamerad," which I had heard was the customary thing, I dare say I should have been shot.

  I remember that as I reached the trenches a soldier called out: "Damned if the whole German Army isn't surrendering!"

  I then fell into the trench and was immediately caught in a very rude manner. When I insisted that he let me go the man who had captured me only yelled when I spoke, and dropped his gun.

  "Hey!" he called. "Fellows! Come here! The boches have taken to fighting their women."

  "Don't be a fool!" I snapped. "We've taken V----, and I must see the commanding officer at once."

  "You don't happen to have it in your pocket, lady, have you?" he said. He then turned a light on me and said: "Holy mackerel! It's Miss Lizzie! What's this about V----?"

  "Miss Carberry has taken V----," I said.