CHAPTER VI

THE MYSTERY

Ruth Fielding's rising fear was quenched when she saw the faces of the newcomers more clearly. They were those of young men belonging to the American Expeditionary Forces, as their uniforms betrayed. And they were teasing Mother Gervaise in the free and easy way of American youth.

Nor was she anywhere near as angry as she a.s.sumed. They pushed her into the cottage and crowded in themselves before they saw Ruth standing at the end of the long table. Then, quite suddenly, their voices fell.

Not so Mother Gervaise. She fetched one of her tormentors a sharp smack with the palm of her hand.

"_Un vaurien_!" she cried, meaning, in the slang of the day, "good-for-nothing." "You would take my house by storm! Do you think it is a Boche dugout you charge when you come to Mother Gervaise?"

The silence of the rough and careless fellows was becoming marked.

Already the Frenchwoman was noticing it. She turned, saw their eyes fixed upon Ruth, and remarked:

"Ha! It's well they respect the mademoiselle. Come in, wicked ones, and shut the door."

Ruth, relieved, saw that all were young commissioned officers--a very, very young captain, two first lieutenants, and several subalterns.

They bowed rather bashfully to Ruth, and could not take their eyes off her.

One finally said: "You must be the lady at the Clair Hospital--Miss Fielding? You're the only American girl at that station."

"I am Miss Fielding," Ruth returned. Her eyes shone, her tone grew softer. She saw that he belonged to Tom Cameron's regiment. "I have a friend in your regiment--Mr. Cameron. Lieutenant Thomas Cameron. Is he on duty with you?"

Their respectful silence when they tumbled in and saw her was marked.

But the utter dumbness that followed this question was so impressive that Ruth could almost hear her own heart beat.

"What---- He is not _hurt_?" she cried, looking from one to the other.

"I believe not, Miss Fielding," the captain said. "He is not on duty with us. I can tell you nothing about Lieutenant Cameron."

The decision with which he spoke and the expression upon the faces of the others, appalled the girl. She could not find breath to ask another question.

Mother Gervaise bustled forward to set upon the napkin she had spread a plate of the ragout for Ruth. The latter sank into the chair. The young officers gathered upon the other side of the hearth. They were hopelessly dumb.

There was a noise outside--the chugging of a car. It was a welcome relief. The door opened again and Charlie Bragg and the other two boys entered.

"Well, the Boches didn't get us that time," said Charlie, with satisfaction. "Nor the old fliver, either. h.e.l.lo! Here's General Haig and all his staff. Or is it General Disorder? Hurry up with the Mulligan, Mother Gervaise--we've got to gobble and go."

He slipped into the seat next to Ruth, smiling at her. He was just a hungry, slangy boy. But those others----

Ruth could scarcely force the food down; but she determined to make a meal for her body's sake. She did not know what was before her--how much work, or how hard it would be, before she obtained another meal.

She managed to ask:

"Is the car all right again, Charlie?"

"You can't bust it!" he declared enthusiastically. "The Britishers make all manner of fun of 'em. Call 'em 'mechanical fleas' and all that. But with a hammer, a monkey-wrench, and some bale-wire, a fellow can perform major and minor operations on a fliver in the middle of a garageless wilderness and come through all right when better cars are left for the junk department to gather up and salvage."

The other two ambulance drivers to whom Ruth had been introduced came to the table and finished their suppers, Mother Gervaise grumblingly dishing up more hot stew for them.

"It is for you and such as you I slave and slave," she said. "And what thanks do I get?"

"For _la zozotte_ do you work, Mother," said one, laughing. "And who would want better thanks than money?"

But Ruth kissed the woman when she rose to depart. She believed Mother Gervaise was "tender under her rough skin," as is the saying.

The young officers had not come to the table while Ruth remained; nor did Charlie pay much attention to them. At least, he did not try to introduce them, and Ruth was glad of that.

There was something wrong. There was a mystery. Why should Tom Cameron's own a.s.sociates act so oddly when his name was mentioned?

She merely bowed to the officers, but shook hands with Charlie's brother _ambulanciers_. There seemed to her something very wholesome and fine about these youths who drove the ambulances. They had--most of them--come to France and enlisted in their present employment before the United States got into the war at all.

She suspected that many of them were of that cla.s.s known about their home neighborhoods as "that boy of Jones'," or "that Jackson kid." In other words, their overflow of animal spirits, or ambition, or whatever it was, had probably made them something of a trial to their neighbors, if not to their families.

Ruth began to see them in a sort of golden glow of heroism. They were the truer heroes because they denied this designation. Charlie grew red and gruff if she as much as suggested that he was doing anything out of the ordinary. Yet she knew he had written a book about his first year's experiences and his brother had found a publisher for it in New York. His share of the proceeds from that book was going to the Red Cross.

Into the ambulance they climbed, and again they were rolling over the dark and rough road. Ruth gathered together all her courage and asked:

"Do you know anything about Tom Cameron?"

"Tom Cameron?"

"Yes," she said. "I want to know what's happened to him, Charlie."

"For the love of Pete!" gasped the young fellow. "I didn't know anything had happened to him--again."

"I must know," Ruth told him, her voice quivering. "Some of those officers belonged to his battalion. _All_ were of his regiment. But when I asked about him they refused to answer."

"You don't mean it!" Plainly Charlie Bragg was nonplussed. "I thought they acted funny," he said, with a sudden grin, which she sensed rather than saw. "But I thought it was girlitis. It has a terrible effect upon these fellows that haven't seen a real American girl for so long."

"I am serious, Charlie," she told him. "Something has happened to Tom--or about him. It seems to me that those officers were afraid to speak of it. As though there was something--something disgraceful about it!"

"Oh, say!" murmured Charlie. "That's not sense, you know."

"Of course Tom could do nothing disgraceful. But why should those men be afraid to speak of him?" cried the shaken girl. "He can't be wounded again. That can't be it. Haven't you heard a word?"

She suddenly realized that her companion had grown silent. He made no comment now upon her speech. She waited a full minute before bursting out again:

"You _have_ heard something, Charlie! Something about Tom!"

"I--I don't know," he muttered. "I didn't know it was Tom."

"What is it?" she demanded with rising eagerness.

"I don't know that it's about Cameron _now_," he muttered. "I should hope not."

"Charlie Bragg! Do you want to drive me wild?" she demanded, clutching at his arm.

"Hold on! You'll have us in the ditch," he warned her.