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 theaid 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 wouldanswer,” 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 confidencein 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,” shewhispered. “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. Tishtook 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 nextto 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 theperiod 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, and 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 capturedme 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.
“I believe you,” was all he said; and we started for headquarters.
I recall distinctly the scene in the general’s headquarters when we got there. The general was sitting, and both Charlie Sands and Mr. Burton were there, looking worried and unhappy. At first they did not see me, and I was too much out of breath to speak.
“I have already told you both that I cannot be responsible for three erratic spinsters. They are undoubtedly prisoners if they returned to V——.”
“Prisoners!” said Charlie Sands. “If they were prisoners would they be signaling from the church tower for help?”
“I have already heard that story. It’s ridiculous.Do you mean to tell me that with that town full of Germans those women have held the church tower since last night?”
Mr. Burton drew a piece of paper from his pocket.
“From eight o’clock to nine,” he said, “the signal was ‘Help,’ repeated at frequent intervals; shortly after nine there was an attempt at a connected message. Allowing for corrections and for the fact that the light was growing dim, as though from an overused battery, the message runs: ‘Help. Bring a ladder. They have cut the——’ I am sorry that the light gave out just there, and the message was uncompleted.”
How terrible were my emotions at that time, to think that our dear Tish had cut off Aggie’s only hope of escape.
The general got up.
“I am afraid you young gentlemen are indulging in a sense of humor at my expense. Unfortunately I have no sense of humor, but you may find it funny. Captain Sands to continue under arrest for last night’s escapade. As Mr. Burton is a member of a welfare organization I do not find him under my direct jurisdiction, but——”
“Then I shall go to V—— myself!” Mr. Burton said angrily. “I’ll capture the whole damned town single-handed, and——”
I then entered the cellar and said: “Miss Carberry has captured V——, general. She asks me to tell you that you may come over at any time and plant the flag. The signaling is being done by Miss Pilkington, who is at present holding the tower. I am acting as runner.”
I regret to say that I cannot publish the general’s reply.
As the remainder of the incident is a matter of historical record I shall not describe the advance of a portion of our Army into V——.
They found the garrison either surrendered, fled or under Tish’s fire in the beer cellar, and were, I believe, at first seriously menaced by that indomitable figure. It was also extremely difficult to rescue Aggie, as at first she persisted in firing through the floor of the platform the moment she heard any one ascending. In due time, however, she was brought down, but as any mention of the tower for some time gave her a nervous chill it was several weeks before we heard her story.
I doubt if we would have heard it even then had not Mr. Burton and Hilda come to Paris on their wedding trip. We had a dinner for them at the Café de Paris, and Mr. Burton told us that we were all to have the Croix de Guerre. Heinsisted on ordering champagne to celebrate, and Aggie had two glasses, and then said the room was going round like the weather vane on the tower at V——.
She then went rather white and said: “The ladder was fastened to it, you know.”
“What ladder?” Tish asked sharply.
“The rope ladder I was standing on. And when the wind blew——”
Well, we gave her another glass of wine, and she told us the tragic story. She had fallen behind me, and was round a corner, when she felt a sneezing spell coming on. So seeing a doorway she slipped in, and she sneezed for about five minutes. When she came out there was nobody in sight, and after wandering round she went back to the doorway and closed the door.
There were stairs behind her, and when the counter attack came she ran up the stairs. She knew then that she was in the church tower, but she didn’t dare to come down. When the firing stopped in the streets a soldier ran down the stairs and almost touched her. A moment later she heard him coming back, so she climbed up ahead and got out on a balcony above the clock. But he started to come out on the balcony, and just as she was prepared to be shot her handtouched a rope ladder and she went up it like a shot.
“It was dark, Tish,” she said with a shudder, “and I couldn’t look down. But when morning came I was up beside the weather vane, and a sniper from our lines must have thought I didn’t belong there, for he fired at me every now and then.”
Well, it seems she hung there all day, and nobody noticed her. Luckily the wind mostly kept her from the German side, and the sentry couldn’t see her from the balcony. Then at last, the next evening, she heard him going down, and she would have made her escape, but he had cut the rope ladder below. She couldn’t imagine why.
Tish looked at me steadily.
“It is very strange,” she said. “But who can account for the instinct of destruction in the Hun mind?”