CHAPTER XIII

A Pilgrimage Into France’s Holy Land

It was natural that David Hale, one of the young American secretaries of the Peace Conference, should come frequently to the charming house filled with American girls at Versailles.

Having won both Mrs. Burton’s and Miss Patricia Lord’s favor, he had been cordially invited. He had also plenty of time as his duties by no means kept him constantly engaged.

It was during the first week of March and President Wilson having returned to the United States for a brief period, there was a temporary lull in the activities of the Peace Conference.

One morning, opening a note at the breakfast table, Miss Patricia Lord frowned and glanced over toward Mrs. Burton. At the same instant the Camp Fire guardian was reading a letter of her own, and although aware of Miss Patricia’s gaze, made no effort to return it, or reply in any fashion.

Under the present circumstances, which she chanced to understand, the first remark must emanate from Miss Patricia.

“Young David Hale has written me to say that if we like he has been able to obtain permission for us to make a day’s journey along the edge of one of the French battlefields. I presume this may be partly due to the fact that I told him the other evening it was my intention to devote the rest of my life and fortune toward helping with the restoration work in France. I also told him that it was probably my wish to erect a monument to the heroes who died for France near one of the battlefields, although I did not say what the character of the monument would be,” Miss Patricia declared, finally breaking the silence.

“Do you mean that it may be possible for any of the Camp Fire girls to make the journey with you?” Bettina Graham demanded impetuously and then subsided, observing that Miss Patricia was not in a mood at present to open a discussion with her.

“Yes,” Mrs. Burton returned quietly, “it sounds like a remarkable opportunity, Aunt Patricia. I have a letter from Senator Duval saying he has been pleased to use his influence to accomplish what Mr. Hale requested. And, although the French Government is not for the present permitting tourists to journey over her battlefields, a special concession has been made in view of your services and your desire to aid France. Senator Duval would like to travel with us, as it is necessary we should have a Frenchman of authority and influence as our companion. I suppose you do not mind, Aunt Patricia, as there is no danger from a German shell these days and I shall try to keep out of trouble?”

Refusing to reply to Mrs. Burton’s final remark, Miss Patricia arose.

“We are to leave Paris at five o’clock next Thursday morning and travel a number of hours by train. When we arrive at our first destination an automobile belonging to the French government will meet us. We will then motor to whatever portion of the battleground we are to be permitted to see. Our party can be made up of six persons. This will mean, besides Mrs. Burton and myself, four Camp Fire girls.

“Polly, kindly decide who the four girls are to be.”

And Miss Patricia Lord departed, leaving Mrs. Burton to a by no means simple task.

Notwithstanding, it was finally arranged that Bettina Graham, Peggy Webster, Yvonne Fleury and Marguerite Arnot should compose the number, two of them Americans and two French girls.

Six days later, in the darkness and cold of an early spring morning, the party of six women, accompanied by the French Senator and David Hale left Paris, arriving a little before noon at a French wayside station where the line of railroad communication direct from Paris had never been destroyed throughout the war. Awaiting them was not one but two motors, each containing a French officer as well as the chauffeur. Into one Miss Patricia Lord, Bettina Graham, Marguerite Arnot and David Hale entered and the other was filled by Mrs. Burton, Senator Duval, Yvonne Fleury and Peggy Webster.

By noon a little pale March sunshine had come filtering through the clouds, faintly warming the earth.

A curious scene surrounded the wayside station. Stacked in long lines down the road leading from it were broken and disused cannons and machine guns, German and French. There were also giant piles of steel helmets, pieces of shell, twisted and rusted bayonets, all the tragic refuse of a cleared battleground after the fury of war has passed.

The spectacle was too grim to inspire much conversation.

Further along there were open spaces which showed where the French and American camps had stood behind the fighting lines. But the tents themselves had been folded and the paraphernalia of life moved on with the Army of Occupation to the left bank of the Rhine.

In the present vicinity there were no birds to be seen, no trees, no signs of vegetation, only the desolation which follows on the heels of war.

Bettina Graham, who was sitting next David Hale in the rapidly moving French car, shivered and clasped her hands tightly together inside her fur muff.

“Is this your first visit to the devastated French country, Miss Graham? I wonder if you won’t regret the trip? It does not seem to me that girls and women should look upon such things as we may see today, except of course Miss Lord, who appears to have a special reason. Yet she insists as many Americans as possible should visit the French battleground later when peace is declared. Not until then can they realize what France has endured. I don’t know whether I agree with her.”

Bettina smiled, but not very gaily.

“After all you realize, Mr. Hale, that your opinion will not affect Aunt Patricia. And we of course have seen portions of the devastated French country in our work on the Aisne, but nothing like this.”

In the few weeks of their acquaintance David Hale and Bettina had become fairly intimate friends. Indeed the young man had confided to Bettina his ambition for the future. It seemed that he had not a large fortune of his own, yet nevertheless wished to devote his time and energy not to the mere making of money, but to becoming as he expressed it, “a soldier of peace” serving his country in times of peace as a soldier serves her in war, for the honor rather than the material gain. He had been working in a diplomatic position in Washington before the entry of the United States into the war and because his work was considered of too great importance to resign, he had not been allowed to enter the army. Sent afterwards to France on a special mission he had been retained to serve as an under-secretary of the Peace Congress. At present David Hale believed that his future might depend upon the reputation he acquired among the older and more celebrated men with whom he was associated.

And for the first time in her life Bettina was enjoying an intimacy with a young fellow near her own age who was interested in the things in which she was interested.

Without being handsome David Hale had a fine strong face with interesting dark gray eyes and a smile which illuminated his entire expression.

During the next quarter of an hour he and Bettina talked but little, the greater part of the time listening to the French officer who was describing to Miss Patricia the fighting which had taken place in the neighborhood.

“It was here that the German troops broke through three times and three times the French with one half their number repelled them. It is possible, Madame, that the French government might be willing to allow a portion of this ground to be used for a monument should you or your countrymen and women desire so to honor France.”

But Miss Patricia answered nothing.

They were approaching a piece of ground which had once been a field, but now instead of the bare and upturned soil one saw little mounds and wooden and iron crosses set in long uneven rows. Springing up amid the crosses were crocuses, the first shoots of hyacinths, of narcissus and daffodils.

The Frenchmen and the young American removed their hats.

“A bit of France’s holy ground,” the French officer again explained to Miss Patricia. “Over in that field are buried the Allies, whom no difference of opinion, no unfaith can ever estrange, Americans, British and French are sleeping side by side.”

It must have been through Mrs. Burton’s request that at this moment her motor which was in advance halted and its occupants climbed down.

“Senator Duval wishes to see if a friend of his lies here, Aunt Patricia,” Mrs. Burton explained.

She then turned to Senator Duval:

“No, I would rather not look with you if you don’t mind. Some of the others in the party will wish to. I find it too saddening to see more than one must.”

Just beyond the hallowed ground there was a little hill, which by some strange freak of circumstance was covered with a group of young fruit trees which had escaped the surrounding devastation.

Mrs. Burton, Miss Lord, Yvonne Fleury and the two French officers moved over toward this hill and climbed to its summit.

The others followed Senator Duval upon his quest. Purposely Bettina Graham had separated herself from David Hale, allowing him to take charge of the young French girl, Marguerite Arnot. Several times Bettina had believed they seemed unusually interested in each other and it was not her idea in any way to demand too much of the young man’s attention.

“From here one has a surprising view of the French country,” Captain Lamont, who had been Miss Patricia’s guide, explained.

“Over there toward the southeast is Château-Thierry and not far off the Forest of Argonne. I wonder if you know that until the American soldiers fought so gallantly and so victoriously in this same forest of Argonne it had been thought throughout all French history an impossible place of battle. So you see you came, saw and conquered,” the French officer finished gallantly.

“Nonsense!” Miss Patricia returned in her fiercest manner. “The one thing I am most weary of hearing discussed is which of the allied nations won the war, as if one had a greater claim than the rest, save the claim that France has of having lost more of her men.”

“Polly Burton,” suddenly Miss Patricia seemed to have forgotten the rest of her audience, “I have been thinking not only today but for many days what character of monument I should like to be allowed to build in France. Probably the government may not permit me to do what I wish, but the idea I have been looking for has come to me, come from that resting place of the allied soldiers over there.”

And Miss Patricia waved her hand toward the burying ground.

“Here I should like on this very hill top to build a home for the children of the soldiers who have died in France, a home where they may live, play and work together, speaking the same languages, thinking the same thoughts. We are struggling for a better understanding, a deeper unity between the allied nations. It can come best through the children whose fathers have died for the same cause. After we grow old I fear many of us learn nothing and forget nothing. And I should like to inscribe above the door of the home I shall build ‘Glorious France, the Battleground of Liberty.’”

Then a little abashed of her outburst and scarcely conscious of the importance of her suggestion, Miss Lord turned and went her way apart from the others. She was not to know at that time how her idea spoken with such impulsiveness and with her usual generosity was later to bear richer fruit than she then dreamed.

However, neither Mrs. Burton, the two French officers, nor Bettina and Yvonne failed to realize the significance of her utterance.