Barney sat for a while staring out the window, scarcely seeing the quick rushing landscape, thinking what it would probably be like when the war was finally over, and the boys came back. What it would be like to have Stormy living over here perhaps. He remembered that Stormy had once said longingly that he wished he could go back home to America and live an old-fashioned normal life again. Good old Stormy! Would that ever be? Or had he already begun a heavenly life?
Then suddenly he noticed that the train was coming into Washington. There was the dome of the Capital, the sharp point of the Monument, and the distant outlines of the lovely Lincoln Memorial. He would be in time to see the cherry blossoms. He had seen them once, long ago, when he was a boy in high school and went with the high school crowd on that memorable trip to see his nation’s capital.
He grabbed his bag and hurried out. Would his admiral have arrived yet? Would he be able to see him today, or would there be a lot of tiresome waiting around, and then more waiting, and then maybe disappointment at last?
Meantime, back at his home in Farmdale, Roxy was having troubles of her own. She simply couldn’t get any work at all done because she was continually being called to the telephone.
Amelia, first, in great dismay. “Roxy, isn’t Barney there? Won’t you let me speak to him right away? He hasn’t gone anywhere yet, has he?”
“Yes, Miss Amelia,” answered Roxy pleasantly. “He went on the early train this morning.”
“Oh, do you mean he’s just gone to the city?”
“No, Miss Amelia, he’s gone to Washington.” There was satisfaction in Roxy’s tone as she announced this importantly.
“To Washington! My goodness! I thought he was invalided home and had to rest. Did he go sight-seeing? I shouldn’t think that was very restful.”
“No, Miss Amelia, I’m sure he’s not gone sight-seeing. I think he was under some sort of orders. You know he has to report to the government from time to time.” Roxy didn’t know this. She merely assumed it. She thought it would make her answers have more weight if they seemed to be official.
“Well, but—isn’t he coming back tonight?”
“He didn’t know when he would be back. He took a suitcase with him.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” exclaimed the dismayed Amelia. “I was having a party especially for him tonight, and I’ve got all the other people invited.”
“That’s too bad,” said Roxy sympathetically, “but he wouldn’t want you to stop on that. He said something about some invitations, but I thought he wrote notes to explain why he couldn’t be there.”
“Yes, I got a note, but I thought if he was coming back tonight I’d just tell him to come over anyway, no matter how late he was.”
“Yes?” said Roxy. “That’s kind of you. But I don’t think he is likely to come tonight. If he comes of course I’ll tell him, but I don’t think he’s expected to be back tonight.”
“Oh, how perfectly horrid!” said Amelia. “We certainly are having bad luck with Barney.”
“Well, you can’t count on servicemen, you know, these wartimes,” said Roxy sympathetically. “The government isn’t thinking about parties when they give orders. You have to expect things like that.”
“Mercy! You don’t suppose they’re going to send him back overseas right away, do you?”
“Well, I really wouldn’t know,” said Roxy serenely. “He hasn’t said anything about it, but then perhaps he wouldn’t know himself.”
“Heavenly days!” said the disappointed Amelia. “What are we coming to? Life isn’t really worth living anymore, is it, Roxy?”
“Well, that depends on what you think is really worthwhile, I guess, doesn’t it?”
“Worthwhile?” queried Amelia bewilderedly, and suddenly hung up.
From then on all day, Roxy was kept busy running to the telephone, always with a grin on her face. She really was enjoying this. It was one time when she had the situation well in hand and those “pesky young ones,” as she called the young people, couldn’t get the better of her.
And it wasn’t only the young would-be hostesses of the week that did the calling up. Several of the rest of the young gang called up in dismay to verify the rumor that was going around that Barney might have been ordered overseas right away again. So Roxy quite enjoyed her day. It was a chance to make that crowd of good-for-nothings understand that they weren’t the whole show in this world. She really was glad to see that crowd get their comeuppance for once. The very idea of their organizing parties enough to fill Barney’s whole time, when they knew he didn’t hold with a lot of their wild goings-on! Perhaps they couldn’t understand that a person could keep his principles, even when he was off with a whole army who could do as they pleased about such little matters as principles.
But there was one girl who did not call up, and perhaps she was the one girl who had known that Barney was going away. But Roxy wasn’t even sure of that, for Sunny Roselle was a very quiet-mannered girl who didn’t go around running after boyfriends, even if they had been friends from very long ago. And even if he had taken her to church, and sung a solo for her in the service! This bit of news she had learned from more than one of her loquacious telephone callers that day. They hadn’t been there themselves, but others had told them about that song, and they were calling up to make sure it was true. But all they succeeded in doing was to make Roxy sorry she hadn’t been present, and she and Joel had a little time of mourning over it that evening when they again sat on the porch to enjoy the twilight.
“He mighta told us about it,” grumbled Joel.
“He wouldn’t,” said Roxy. “Did you ever hear him boast about anything yet?”
“Well, no, but Sunny mighta told us.”
“She didn’t have a chance,” said Roxy. “Besides, she probably thought we’d be at church.”
“Yes, I s’pose so,” mourned Joel.
“Well, we’ll likely have other chances. They’ll ask him again from all I hear, and if I don’t miss my guess, there’ll be an increase in the attendance of young people at next Sunday night’s service.”
“Yes, if he ain’t gone overseas by that time,” mourned Joel. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I gotta sow that south meadow in the morning, and I gotta get up early.”
Chapter 12
Stormy Applegate—escaped a pitifully short distance from the camp where he had been interned by the enemy for several weeks, half starved and ill treated—had found refuge in a broken shed in the rear of a decrepit dwelling that might have been at one time the remnants of someone’s home. It was isolated and desolate now, with outlying buildings and occasional other remains of houses for several miles around, as a result of being in occupied territory.
Watching stealthily for some hours, Stormy decided there was no one anywhere near. He could not even see a lagging guard, so far was he from the surrounding fence of the camp.
Toward evening, hungry and thirsty, weak with long fasting, he ventured forth toward what was left of an old garden behind the house. He was sure he had spotted a sickly looking leaf that might mean a possible vegetable or two. Even a frozen leaf might be edible, sickly looking though it was. It might serve to still the awful gnawing in the region of his stomach and enable him to keep on. Perhaps that woodland a mile or two away might shelter a stream where he could get water to hearten him for his adventurous journey.
The landscape was a blank desert. Not even a dog in sight. No birds even in the distance except a hovering hawk, circling, identifying prey from the sky, which might mean some prisoner had died and been cast forth for the elements to do their worst and save the trouble of burying him.
Stormy, in his weak state, shuddered and crept forward cautiously. Even if one had been watching with binoculars from a distance he could scarcely have been seen to move, so slow and steady was his progress. He was so nearly the color of the earth around him, so burned with the sun and rain to which he had been continuously exposed, that he was practically invisible, a ne
utral that would never be noticed. At least he hoped that might be so.
Lying thus in the old garden ruts he found a few frozen roots that he could gnaw on. There was not much sustenance to be had from them, but at least it helped the awful craving for food.
When the shadows were growing longer on the wide sullen ground and he was satisfied that there were no more roots to be found in that location, he crept on, keeping the old barn between himself and the camp from which he had come. And once he came to a sedgy place where tall grasses stood grimly in marshland, and when he went close enough he was able to reach down in and wet a corner of his grimy rag of a handkerchief, his one remaining remnant of a civilized life.
He was so weak that he lay for some time near this source of water, realizing that he ought to wash out that dirty handkerchief, for it might be a long time before he came near any water again, and to have one clean rag would be a comfort in all his squalor. But at last he roused himself and washed the rag as best he could, wiping his face with its wetness, licking his parched lips, washing the rag again and again, gaining new strength from the few drops of filthy water he was able to suck from the rag.
Dusk was coming down over the land again, and with it more comparative safety. He put his head down in the coolness among the tall grasses and prayed.
Oh, God, I’m going on now. You said You would go with me. Show me where and how to move. I am still Yours, but I’m very tired and weak. Do with me what You will for Christ’s sake. I’m Stormy, You know. Trusting to the end. Don’t let me fall before the enemy.
Then he crept on.
As evening began to come down, and there were no lights whatever to be seen except very far ahead, and no sounds of a living human being, nor even animal, no birds’ cries in the gray deserted sky, as if it were made of brass, Stormy steadied himself to his feet and managed to walk a few steps. It was a rest from the continual creeping and rolling he had been subjected to all day. But still he found he was very weary, for the weakness was growing upon him, and his hands and head felt hot. Was it fever coming on? Could it be poison from the stream where he had drunk? But no, there would have been no reason for even an enemy to poison a bit of sedge water so far from human habitation.
On and on he went, realizing that the night would be short at most for him to get away, counting up the mileage as he had calculated it, and what he had yet to go.
Now and again he would stretch himself for a moment on a bit of a grassy place or where there was some dry moss, but he dared not go to sleep lest morning would steal upon him and find him no farther out of danger. He must get on as far as possible tonight.
As the night progressed and his weary footsteps lagged, he began to wonder if perhaps God meant him to die here, on the way, without ever a chance to get the information he had bought at such a price back to his outfit. Was it all going to be of no avail? Had he taken this last trip for nothing after all? True, he had downed planes, he had done his part at driving the enemy back; but the needed information about conditions, that he had volunteered to get at all hazards, was still in his own mind. Even if he dared to write it, he would not dare to send it, here from an enemy-infested land. Here where every move of contact with his own world would be watched alertly and worse than death would be the retaliation.
As he lay down midway between midnight and dawning, the dizziness overcame him so that he almost lost consciousness for a little moment, and then his partly waking soul dazedly wondered if this was the end. The weakness and utter weariness seemed to submerge him again, strong man though he had been. Of course, he had been for weeks on very short rations and knew he was half starved, but strange visions began to swim across his rousing consciousness. A vision of a face—was that a girl he had seen sometime? Or could it be an angel come to conduct him Home? Was this then the end of his struggle? The end of his service to his country? Had he done all that God expected him to do in this great crisis?
The sweet face was smiling down at him. It seemed a girl who knew him. Was that what angels were like? Or if it was a girl, how did she get here, on the edge of a forest in a land he did not know?
As he came back to life again after that brief rest, he tried to clear his mind and think. Her face was clearer now, and she was somehow connected with his company. Some member of his company. Who was it? Surely he could remember! Mayberry, that was the name. Lieutenant Mayberry’s sister. She had visited her brother once at camp, and Mayberry had introduced her to him. A lovely girl! Gray eyes and dark hair, softly curled around her face. He looked again at the vision above him there in the edge of the forest. And now her name was coming. Cornelia! That was it. Cornelia Mayberry! A lovely name, and her brother had called her Cornie. She had a beautiful smile, too. She had smiled at him when he said good night to her before she left on the evening train. He hadn’t known her before that night, though he had seen her several times in the distance and admired her, she seemed so unspoiled. He had seen her picture, too, in her brother’s barracks. A face untarnished by the makeup of the world. She had made a deep impression upon him. Sometime when the war was over, if he came through alive, he would like to get to know a girl like that. That was what he had thought the night of the day he had met her, and then put the memory of her aside. Someday he might find a girl like that for himself. Would that ever happen? Or was he just dreaming of heaven? God, are You there? And is that vision one of Your angels, or was that Cornelia—girl come out of my heart to smile at me? Was it really that girl? And did You tell her to come? She doesn’t belong to me, You know. Her people belong to the rich of the earth, and I’m just plain Stormy Applegate, but I’m Your child! Oh, God, is there something wrong with my head? Things seem so strange! Help me! Don’t let me play out before I can get back and make my report.
It was almost dawn when he awoke again with a start. His head was clearer, but when he tried to sit up he was still very dizzy and he had to wait a few minutes before he dared to struggle to his feet again. Even then he had to grope ahead with his hands from tree to tree, almost ready to topple over. Unsteady from now on he was going to be, and yet he must go on as long as there was breath in his body. This was the job he had undertaken to do, and he must get back with his information or the whole expedition was a failure. He must not climax his life by failure at the end. If he could only find something edible.
Finally he heard the babbling of a little brook, and he slid down to his knees and drank deeply.
Somewhat refreshed, he crept along through the rough ground of the woods, crawling on hands and knees, stopping now and again to lay his head down on his big dirty hands and close his eyes. It seemed to make it more possible for him to get a deeper breath again. If he could only get plenty of deep breaths he could go on.
But at last he came to the edge of the woods, and a wide, lonely hillside stretched down before him. No gardens anywhere. Or was that a little patch farther on? He strained his eyes to see and then struggled on. Finally, when a smooth stretch of hillside developed, he lay down and tried his old trick of rolling. But when presently he came to a rise in the ground, that stopped his progress. Then he was quite dizzy again and wondered how he was to go on, but lying still awhile he took a new lease on life and looked around carefully, searching for something green he might dare to eat. If only there were a stream that might have fish, yet how could he catch fish? No line, no hook. Only his bare hands, no longer strong enough to be deft, alert. If only there were hens somewhere that might leave an egg about in this stark land. If only there were a cow he could try to milk. But there seemed to be no living inhabitants in the few dilapidated houses that dotted the bleak landscape ahead of him.
It was growing dark again. If he only could walk, really walk, there was no reason why he couldn’t make time now, with no danger of being seen.
The thought gave him a new spurt of courage. He drew a deep breath and tried to pretend that he was only a little way from his destination, although he well knew that was far from true. It was more t
han the middle of the night when he came to a group of rough houses.
Cautiously he stole from one to the other, peering into the dusty windows, studying the closed doors. Somehow those houses looked uninhabited, yet he dared not presume. He was only thankful that his mind was still sharp enough to realize that he must be careful. Yet he bungled on slowly, from one building to another, and at the very last one he found the door an inch ajar.
Carefully listening, peering into every side of the small sordid edifice, revealed no inhabitant.
With fear and trembling he ventured to shove the door wider open and look inside. Nobody around. Utter silence in the small dim precincts. He crept within and let his trembling hands feel his way. If he only had a match or a flashlight, but he had been a long time away from such amenities. He began to feel his way again cautiously, slowly. It was evident that there were no householders here, for surely if there were he would at least hear the sound of breathing. His senses seemed to have grown sharper since he had entered a place with four walls. He must be very careful! If he could only find something to eat, or a drink of water! Would there perhaps be two dry sticks he could rub together to make a light? But no, he must not dare do that. There might be a dweller somewhere about or approaching. They would see and come. Or the enemy might be hidden watching. There were so many things to be thought of on this strange journey.
Then his hand came into contact with a tin basin. He felt cautiously inside. Something was rolling around in there. Two smooth round objects. Eggs. They were eggs! Could that be true? Or were his senses deceiving him?
He was sure now that this little group of buildings must be a place from which the dwellers had departed in haste before the approach of the enemy. That might explain the open door. They had hurried away and left those two eggs. How long ago? How old were those two
eggs? Would even a rotten egg keep life in his body? He slipped them in the pockets of his ragged shirt and moved on. He must not venture to stay here too long. The owner could be returning. After daylight he could tell more about things. What was that on the floor that his foot had touched? He stooped to feel. A pair of shoes and a tin can, still unopened. There might be something eatable there. Then he came upon a few more cans, some on a shelf above his head, three on the floor as if dropped in a hurry. Surely this spoke of sudden flight. Wasn’t that right reasoning?
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