CHAPTER XIX
A SCARLET FEATHER
DEAR SIS:
I’m going to cease setting down the big stuff for a space, while I write to you. I’m just back with a whole skin from spending the night up a tree watching this man’s army pull off a great stunt in the way of a surprise for the enemy. I’ve sent off my stuff for my paper and am now resting up--but a letter is due you, and I’ve found a way to get it to you by special delivery. The messenger starts in half an hour by motorcycle for your sector, and vows he’ll put it in your hands as soon as he’s handed over his dispatches to the C. O. So I can let myself go a bit--if I scrawl fast.
I’ve had great luck this last month in meeting up with at least three people whom you’ll like to hear about. First:--R. M. B.--by the merest chance, for an hour later I’d have missed him. I simply turned a corner in a little French town where I’d stopped with an officer who was taking me with him up to the Front, and ran square into a black-eyed chap with a cross on his collar who was so tanned and so husky I didn’t snap to for a full minute. He did, though--and had me gripped with a grip like a steel trap. “Cary Ray!” he shouted. I knew the voice--I couldn’t forget that voice in a hurry--and of course instantly then I knew the man. Jolly! Jane, you ought to see him.
Well, he hadn’t a minute to spare for me, unless I’d go with him. “Sure thing,” I agreed. “I’ve got an hour to spare while Major Ferguson checks up with G. H. Q. here. What’s your little party?”
“It’s a burial party,” said he, looking me in the eye, same as usual. “If you haven’t had that particular experience, it won’t hurt you, and on the way we can talk things over.”
As it happened I’d passed up the funerals, thus far, being occupied exclusively with the living and those on the other side I wanted to see dead. Anyhow, it was worth it to have an hour with this particular chaplain, whatever job he was at. So I went along. I haven’t time to describe it to you here, but you can bet it rated a special half column for my paper. It was a mighty simple little affair, no frills, just a group of sober doughboys, a flag, some wooden crosses, and a firing squad--_and_ R. M. B. reading the service. But don’t you think “the Resurrection and the Life” didn’t get over to us!
On the way to the field and back I heard a great piece of news. R. M. B.’s regiment had been sent back into rest billets, about a fortnight before, and a group of entertainers had come through the little town one evening and put on a show for them. It was some show, and the bright particular star was--oh, you never could guess if you hadn’t a clue, any more than I could. Well, it was Fanny Fitch! Yes, sir--over here with a bunch of vaudeville people, going around the leave areas and cheering up the boys before the next bout. You should have heard the chaplain describing the song and dance; I never should have thought it! Fanny can’t sing a whole lot--just enough to get by, I judge; but dance she can, and jolly she does, and the boys fall for it like rows of tenpins. The best of it, according to R. M. B., is that she’s happy as a summer cloud doing her bit. Why, she’s just plain got into the game, Sis, as I told her to do, and I don’t know what more you can ask of anybody. You’re nursing, and the chaplain’s preaching--and burying--and if he isn’t fighting before he gets through I’ll be surprised, knowing how pugilistic he can be. And I’m skirmishing on the edge of things with my fountain pen, and Fanny Fitch is making eyes at the boys and warming the cockles of their tired hearts--bless her heart! And why isn’t her job as good as any of ours, since it helps the morale as it’s bound to do? All I know is I’m going to tear things loose and get to see her as soon as I can make it, lest some nervy shave-tail lieutenant get a line on her while my back is turned.
Time’s up. The third meet-up? You’d say it couldn’t happen, but it