CHAPTER V. The Double Cross

In the background lay a landscape that had once been beautiful. In the middle distance rotted a village that had once been alive. In the foreground stood an edifice that had once been a church. The once-beautiful landscape had the look of a gigantic pockmarked face, so scored was it by sh.e.l.l-scar and crater. Its vegetation was swept away.

Its trees were shattered stumps. Its farmsteads were charred piles of rubble.

The village was unlike the general landscape, in that it had never been beautiful. In spite of globe-trotters' sentimental gush, not all villages of northern France were beautiful. Many were built for thrift and for comfort and for expediency; not for architectural or natural loveliness.

But this village of Meran-en-Laye was not merely deprived of what beauty it once might or might not have possessed. Except by courtesy it was no longer a village at all. It was a double row of squalid ruins, zig-zagging along the two sides of what was left of its main street.

Here and there a cottage or tiny shop or shed was still habitable. The rest was debris.

The church in the foreground was recognizable as such by the shape and size of its ragged walls, and by a half-smashed image of the Virgin and Child which slanted out at a perilous angle above its facade.

Yet, miserable as the ruined hamlet seemed to the casual eye, it was at present a vacation-resort--and a decidedly welcome one--to no less than three thousand tired men. The wrecked church was an impromptu hospital beneath whose shattered roof dozens of these men lay helpless on makeshift cots.

For the mixed American and French regiment known as the "Here-We-Comes"

was billeted at Meran-en-Laye during a respite from the rigors and perils of the front-line trenches.

The rest and the freedom from risks, supposed to be a part of the "billeting" system, were not wholly the portion of the "Here-We Comes."

Meran--en--Laye was just then a somewhat important little speck on the warmap.

The Germans had been up to their favorite field sport of trying to split in half two of the Allied armies, and to roll up each, independently. The effort had been a failure; yet it had come so near to success that many railway communications were cut off or deflected.

And Meran-en-Laye had for the moment gained new importance, by virtue of a spur railway-line which ran through its outskirts and which made junction with a new set of tracks the American engineers were completing. Along this transverse of roads much ammunition and food and many fighting men were daily rushed.

The safety of the village had thus become of much significance. While it was too far behind the lines to be in grave danger of enemy raids, yet such danger existed to some extent. Wherefore the presence of the "Here-We-Comes"--for the paradoxical double purpose of "resting up" and of guarding the railway Function.

Still, it was better than trench-work; and the "Here-We-Comes" enjoyed it--for a day or so. Then trouble had set in.

A group of soldiers were lounging on the stone seat in front of the village estaminet. Being off duty, they were reveling in that popular martial pastime known to the Tommy as "grousing" and to the Yankee doughboy as "airing a grouch."

Top-Sergeant Mahan, formerly of the regular army, was haranguing the others. Some listened approvingly, others dissentingly and others not at all.

"I tell you," Mahan declared for the fourth time, "somebody's double-crossing us again. There's a leak. And if they don't find out where it is, a whole lot of good men and a million dollars' worth of supplies are liable to spill out through that same leak. It--"

"But," argued his crony, old Sergeant Vivier, in his hard-learned English, "but it may all be of a chance, mon vieux. It may, not be the doubled cross,--whatever a doubled cross means,--but the mere chance.

Such things often--"

"Chance, my grandmother's wall-eyed cat!" snorted Mahan. "Maybe it might have been chance--when this place hadn't been bombed for a month--for a whole flight of boche artillery and airship grenades to cut loose against it the day General Pershing happened to stop here for an hour on his way to Chateau-Thierry. Maybe that was chance--though I know blamed well it wasn't. Maybe it was chance that the place wasn't bombed again till two days ago, when that troop-train had to spend such a lot of time getting shunted at the junction. Maybe it was chance that the church, over across the street, hadn't been touched since the last drive, till our regiment's wounded were put in it--and that it's been hit three times since then. Maybe any one of those things--and of a dozen others was chance. But it's a cinch that ALL of them weren't chance. Chance doesn't work that way. I--"

"Perhaps," doubtfully a.s.sented old Vivier, "perhaps. But I little like to believe it. For it means a spy. And a spy in one's midst is like to a snake in one's blankets. It is a not pleasing comrade. And it stands in sore need of killing."

"There's spies everywhere," averred Mahan. "That's been proved often enough. So why not here? But I wish to the Lord I could lay hands on him! If this was one of the little sheltered villages, in a valley, his work would be harder. And the boche airships and the long-rangers wouldn't find us such a simple target. But up here on this ridge, all a spy has to do is to flash a signal, any night, that a boche airman can pick up or that can even be seen with good gla.s.ses from some high point where it can be relayed to the German lines. The guy who laid out this burg was sure thoughtless. He might have known there'd be a war some day. He might even have strained his mind and guessed that we'd be stuck here. Gee!"

He broke off with a grunt of disgust; nor did he so much as listen to another of the group who sought to lure him into an opinion as to whether the spy might be an inhabitant of the village or a camp-follower.

Sucking at his pipe; the Sergeant glowered moodily down the ruined street. The village drowsed under the hot midday. Here and there a soldier lounged along aimlessly or tried out his exercise-book French on some puzzled, native. Now and then an officer pa.s.sed in or out of the half-unroofed mairie which served as regimental headquarters.

Beyond, in the handkerchief-sized village square, a platoon was drilling. A thin French housewife was hanging sheets on a line behind a sh.e.l.l-twisted hovel. A Red Cross nurse came out of the hospital-church across the street from the estaminet and seated herself on the stone steps with a basketful of sewing.

Mahan's half-shut eyes rested critically on the drilling platoon--amusedly on the woman who was so carefully hanging the ragged sheets,--and then approvingly upon the Red Cross nurse on the church steps across the way.

Mahan, like most other soldiers, honored and revered the Red Cross for its work of mercy in the army. And the sight of one of the several local nurses of the Order won from him a glance of real approbation.

But presently into his weather-beaten face came an expression of glad welcome. Out of the mairie gate and into the sleepy warmth of the street lounged a huge dark-brown-and-white collie. The don stretched himself lazily, fore and aft, in true collie style, then stood gazing about him as if in search of something of interest to occupy his bored attention.

"h.e.l.lo!" observed Mahan, breaking in on a homily of Vivier's. "There's Bruce!"

Vivier's leathery face brightened at sound of the collie's name. He looked eagerly in the direction of Mahan's pointing finger.

"Ce brave!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "I did not know even that he was in the village. It must be he is but new-arriven. Otherwise he would, of an a.s.suredly, have hunted up his old friends. Ohe, Bruce!" he called invitingly.

"The big dog must have gotten here just a few minutes ago," said Sergeant Mahan. "He was coming out of headquarters when I saw him. That must mean he's just struck the town, and with a message for the K.O. He always goes like greased lightning when he's on dispatch duty, till he has delivered his message. Then, if he's to be allowed to hang around a while before he's sent back, he loafs, lazy-like; the way you see him now. If all the courier-dogs were like him, every human courier would be out of a job."

At Vivier's hail the great collie had p.r.i.c.ked his ears and glanced inquiringly up and down the street. Catching sight of the group seated in front of the estaminet, he began to wag his plumy tail and set off toward them at a trot.

Ten minutes earlier, Bruce had cantered into Meran-en-Laye from the opposite end of the street, bearing in his collar a dispatch from the corps commander to the colonel of the "Here-We-Comes." The colonel, at the mairie, had read the dispatch and had patted its bearer; then had bidden the dog lie down and rest, if he chose, after his long run.

Instead, Bruce had preferred to stroll out in search of friends.

Top-Sergeant Mahan, by the way, would have felt highly flattered had he chanced to get a glimpse of the dispatch Bruce had brought to the colonel. For it bore out Mahan's own theory regarding the presence of spies at or near the village, and it bade the "Here-We-Come" colonel use every means for tracing them.

It added the information that three troop-trains with nine engines were to pa.s.s through the village that night on their way to the trenches, and that the trains were due at the junction at nine o'clock or shortly thereafter. The mairie was on the other side of the street from the estaminet. Incidentally, it was on the shady side of the street--for which reason Bruce,--being wise, and the day being hot,--remained on that side, until he should come opposite the bench where his friends awaited him.

His course, thus, brought him directly past the church.

As he trotted by the steps, the Red Cross nurse, who sat sewing there, chirped timidly at him. Bruce paused in his leisurely progress to see who had accosted him whether an old acquaintance, to be greeted as such, or merely a pleasantly inclined stranger.

His soft brown eyes rested first in idle inquiry upon the angular and white-robed figure on the steps. Then, on the instant, the friendly inquiring look left his eyes and their softness went with it--leaving the dog's gaze cold and frankly hostile.

One corner of Bruce's lips slowly lifted, revealing a tiny view of the terrible white fangs behind them. His gayly erect head was lowered, and in the depths of his furry throat a growl was born. When a dog barks and holds his head up, there is little enough to fear from him. But when he lowers his head and growl--then look out.

Mahan knew dogs. In stark amazement he now noted Bruce's strange att.i.tude toward the nurse. Never before had he seen the dog show active hostility toward a stranger--least of all toward a stranger who had in no way molested him. It was incredible that the wontedly dignified and sweet-tempered collie had thus returned a greeting. Especially from a woman!

Mahan had often seen Red Cross nurses stop to caress Bruce. He had been amused at the dog's almost protective cordiality toward all women, whether the French peasants or the wearers of the bra.s.sard of mercy.

Toward men--except those he had learned to look on as friends--the collie always comported himself with a courteous aloofness But he had seemed to regard every woman as something to be humored and guarded and to be treated with the same cordial friendliness that he bestowed on their children--which is the way of the best type of collie. Yet Bruce had actually snarled at this woman who had chirped to him from the steps of the church! And he showed every sign of following up the challenge by still more drastic measures.

"Bruce!" called Mahan sharply. "BRUCE! Shame! Come over here! Come, NOW!"

At the Sergeant's vehement summons Bruce turned reluctantly away from the foot of the church steps and came across the street toward the estaminet. He came slowly. Midway he halted and looked back over his shoulder at the nurse, his fangs glinting once more in a snarl. At a second and more emphatic call from Mahan the dog continued his progress.

The nurse had started back in alarm at the collie's angry demonstration. Now, gathering up her work, she retreated into the church.

"I'm sorry, Miss!" Mahan shouted after her. "I never saw him that way, before, when a lady spoke to him. If it was any dog but old Bruce, I'd give him a whaling for acting like that to you. I'm dead-sure he didn't mean any harm."

"Oh, I was going in, anyway," replied the nurse, from the doorway. "It is of no consequence."

She spoke nervously, her rich contralto voice shaken by the dog's fierce show of enmity. Then she vanished into the church; and Mahan and Vivier took turns in lecturing Bruce on his shameful dearth of courtesy.

The big dog paid no heed at all to his friends' discourse. He was staring sullenly at the doorway through which the nurse had gone.