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Red Cross Girls in Belgium

<h2>CHAPTER III A Secret Mission</h2> On the same afternoon of Dick Thornton's coming into Belgium Eugenia started out alone on her unexplained errand. She left her recently acquired family in charge of the little French girl, Nicolete. Nicolete seemed happier with the children than she had been since her removal from France. Indeed, the three American girls had sometimes wondered over her unfriendliness toward them and her unusual quiet. At their first meeting she had appeared such a gay, gypsy-like person. But Eugenia did not walk to her engagement. By making a tremendous effort she had managed to hire an old horse and buggy. Then, after she felt sure the other three Red Cross girls had departed on the road toward Brussels, she set out. Inside the wagon she carefully hid out of sight her[Pg 36] bag of Red Cross supplies, although she did not wear her nurse's uniform. Earlier in the day Barbara had brought down her suitcase, so that she could appear in an ordinary street dress. Driving along the road Eugenia hoped to suggest that she was only off on an ordinary errand which could not interest any one who chanced to observe her. She was looking rather plain and tired and was unusually nervous, but this it would have been difficult to guess from her quiet manner. The country through which she passed was one of queer contrasts. There were many houses that had been destroyed by fire, but others that had not even been touched. In these places people were evidently making an effort to lead an ordinary, everyday existence. But they were all listless and discouraged. Eugenia thought that the children must have forgotten how to play in this last year, when their land had suffered such sorrow. She wished that she might gather them all together in one great circle that should[Pg 37] extend all over Belgium and set them to laughing and playing once more. However, Eugenia soon left the populated part of the neighborhood. She and her old horse wound their way along a stream and then came to a gate. There was no house in sight from the gate, but just as if she had been there before, Eugenia got down and opened it. Then she tied her horse behind a clump of trees inside the woods and with her bag of nursing supplies in her hand crept along on foot up a narrow path. Every once and a while she would stop and glance cautiously about her. But no one was in sight to be interested in her proceedings. Moreover, where could she be going? She seemed to have some end in view, and yet there was no place or person in the vicinity. Any one familiar with the neighborhood could have explained that Eugenia must be bent upon an utterly ridiculous errand. There was an old house about half a mile farther along, but it had been deserted long before the Germans had ever set foot on conquered Belgium. A tragedy had occurred in the house[Pg 38] ten or fifteen years before, and ever afterwards the place had been supposed to be haunted. No one believed such nonsense, of course, since intelligent persons do not believe in ghosts. But the house was too far from the village, and was in too bad a state of repair to be a desirable residence. Indeed, there were dozens of reasons why, after its owners moved, no one else cared to rent it. Moreover, the house had also escaped the interest of the German invaders of the land. So why in the world should it be of so great interest to Eugenia that she was making this lonely pilgrimage, without taking any one of the three Red Cross girls into her confidence? The house was of brick and a large one. Every outside shutter was closed in front and the vines had so grown over them that they were half covered. There was a porch also in front, but the boards of the steps had long since rotted away. At first only a large toad appeared to greet Eugenia. He eyed her distrustfully[Pg 39] for a second, his round eyes bulging and his body rigid with suspicion. Then he hopped behind his stone fortress, which chanced to be a large stone at the end of the path before the house. However, Eugenia did not see him. Neither did she attempt to go up the rickety steps. How absurd it would have been anyhow to have battered at the door of a mansion that had been uninhabited for years! Instead she marched deliberately around the house and knocked at a door at the side. A few seconds after, this door was opened by a woman of middle age. She looked very worn and unhappy, but her face brightened at the sight of her guest. "I was so afraid you wouldn't, couldn't get here," she said. "I suppose you know you are taking a risk." Eugenia nodded in her usual matter of fact fashion. "I promised your friend I would do my best," she returned. "Will you please[Pg 40] take me up to the room. You must make up your mind to get more air into this house. I don't think you need fear you will be suspected, if you managed to arrive here without being detected." "I am afraid," the older woman answered. She was leading the way up a pair of back stairs that were in almost total darkness. "You see, I know I have been accused of sending information to my husband who is supposed to be at the front with the Belgian army. I was about to be arrested and tried by a military court. I should have been sent to prison and I could not be separated from my family at such a time!" The last few words were whispered. Because at this moment the woman's hand had touched a door knob which she was gently turning. The next she and Eugenia were entering a large room at the back of the apparently deserted house. A window had been opened and an attempt made to clean this room. On the bed, with a single scanty cover over[Pg 41] them, two persons were lying. One of them was a young boy and the other a man. Both of them were extremely ill. Eugenia realized this at a glance, but paid little attention to the man at first. For she suddenly had a complete understanding of Madame Carton's last words. The boy was such an exquisite little fellow of about ten years old. He had straight golden hair and gray eyes with darker lashes. There was the same high-bred, delicate look that one remembers in the picture of "The Two Little Princes in the Tower." Through a peculiar source Eugenia had already learned a portion of Madame Carton's story. She was a Belgian woman whose home was one of the handsomest in the city of Brussels. But after the city had been forced to surrender to the Germans, Madame Carton had refused to give up her home unless the authorities expelled her by force. This for some reason they had appeared unwilling to do. However, a short time after the German[Pg 42] occupancy of Brussels, reports accusing Madame Carton of treason and rebellion began to be circulated. It was said that she was sending secret information to her husband, who was a colonel in the Belgian army and on the personal staff of King Albert. Finally Madame Carton learned that her arrest was only a matter of a few hours. Then it was that she had managed to escape to this deserted house with her family. So far it looked as if her whereabouts had remained undiscovered. One hour after Eugenia's arrival she and Madame Carton were once more at the foot of the stairs. They had opened the side door to let in a tiny streak of light and air. "But, Madame Carton, I don't think it is possible," Eugenia announced with her usual directness. "I am willing to do whatever I can to help nurse your little boy and the other patient, but I can come to you very seldom without being discovered. You see, I may be ordered to nurse in any part of Belgium and I must[Pg 43] do what I am told. Is there any one here to assist you?" Madame Carton nodded. She had once been a very beautiful woman with the gray eyes and fair hair of her son. But the last year of witnessing the desolation of her people and her country had whitened her hair and made many lines in her face. "Yes, I have an old family servant with me. I should never have been able to make the journey without her help. She and my little girl, who is six years old, are in hiding in another room in the attic of this house. Years ago when I was a child I used to come here to play with friends who then owned this place. I suppose that is why I thought of our hiding here when the crisis came," Madame Carton explained quietly. "Now if I return to Brussels perhaps Paul may be cared for. But you know what else would happen. It would be inevitable! Even if I were not shot I must go to prison. Can't you help me? Can't you think of some way to save us all?" [Pg 44] The older woman took hold of Eugenia's hands and clung to them despairingly. "I know I am asking what looks like an impossible thing of you, and you a complete stranger! Yet you look so strong and fine," Madame Carton's voice broke, but Eugenia's touch was reassuring. "If only a doctor could come to us, perhaps with your advice I might manage the nursing myself," she continued. Eugenia shook her head. "When Dr. Le Page asked me to see you and gave me the directions, he said it was only because he dared not visit you himself," Eugenia explained kindly, but with her usual avoidance of anything but the truth. "He insists that, although he is an American, he is suspected of feeling too much sympathy for the Belgians. After warning you to escape he was questioned and believes he is still being watched. That is why he confided you to me, asking me to do the little I can to aid you. So if he should attempt to reach you out here, it would mean his arrest as well as yours. I am sorry," the girl ended. [Pg 45] Her words were simple enough in the face of so great a calamity. Yet there was no mistaking their sympathy. Madame Carton appeared to surrender her judgment and her problem to Eugenia for solution. "Tell me, Miss Peabody, what do you think I should do?" she asked. "It is not worth while for me to say that I care little what becomes of me. Shall I return to Brussels and give us all up to the authorities?" Eugenia did not answer immediately. When she spoke again she offered no explanation of her own meaning. "Please wait a while, Madame Carton, if possible, until I can see you again?" she asked. "In case you are not discovered before then I may have a plan to suggest that will help you. But I cannot be sure. Good-by and a good courage." Then Eugenia marched deliberately back to the place where her old horse was in waiting. She then drove unmolested to the tiny house that was sheltering Nicolete and the three stray children. [Pg 46] But on her way she was repeating to herself a phrase she had learned years before as a girl at the High School: "Quorum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae," said Cæsar nearly twenty centuries ago. "The bravest of all these are the Belgians." Eugenia thought the same thing today and for the same reason Cæsar did. "Because they are nearest to the Germans, who dwell across the Rhine, with whom they do continually wage war." <hr /> [Pg 47] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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