Chapter III

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

　　The first thing that struck Sara Lee was the way she was saying hernightly prayers in all sorts of odd places. In trains and in hotels and,after sufficient interval, in the steamer. She prayed under these novelcircumstances to be made a better girl, and to do a lot of good overthere, and to be forgiven for hurting Harvey. She did this every night,and then got into her narrow bed and studied French nouns—because shehad decided that there was no time for verbs—and numbers, which puther to sleep.

　　"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq," Sara Lee would begin, and go on, rockinggently in her berth as the steamer rolled, "Vingt, vingt-et-un,vingt-deux, trente, trente-et-un—" Her voice would die away. Thebook on the floor and Harvey's picture on the tiny table, Sara Lee wouldsleep. And as the ship trembled the light over her head would shine onHarvey's ring, and it glistened like a tear.

　　One thing surprised her as she gradually met some of her fellowpassengers. She was not alone on her errand. Others there were onboard, young and old women, and men, too, who had felt the call of mercyand were going, as ignorant as she, to help. As ignorant, but not sofriendless. Most of them were accredited somewhere. They had definiteobjectives. But what was more alarming—they talked in big figures.Great organizations were behind them. She heard of the rehabilitationof Belgium, and portable hospitals, and millions of dollars, and RedCross trains.

　　Not once did Sara Lee hear of anything so humble as a soup kitchen. Thewar was a vast thing, they would observe. It could only be touched bygreat organizations. Individual effort was negligible.

　　Once she took her courage in her hands.

　　"But I should think," she said, "that even great organizations depend onthe—on individual efforts."

　　The portable hospital woman turned to her patronizingly.

　　"Certainly, my dear," she said. "But coördinated—coördinated."

　　It is hard to say just when the lights went down on Sara Lee's quietstage and the interlude began. Not on the steamer, for after three daysof discouragement and good weather they struck a storm; and Sara Lee'sfine frenzy died for a time, of nausea. She did not appear again untilthe boat entered the Mersey, a pale and shaken angel of mercy, not atall sure of her wings, and most terribly homesick.

　　That night Sara Lee made a friend, one that Harvey would have approvedof, an elderly Englishman named Travers. He was standing by the railin the rain looking out at the blinking signal lights on both sides ofthe river. The ship for the first time had abandoned its policy ofdarkness and the decks were bathed in light.

　　Overhead the yardarm blinkers were signaling, and directly over SaraLee's head a great white searchlight swept the water ahead. The windwas blowing a gale, and the red and green lights of the pilot boat swungin great arcs that seemed to touch the waves on either side.

　　Sara Lee stood beside Mr. Travers, for companionship only. He hadpreserved a typically British aloofness during the voyage, and he hadnever spoken to her. But there was something forlorn in Sara Lee thatnight as she clutched her hat with both hands and stared out at theshore lights. And if he had been silent during the voyage he had notbeen deaf. So he knew why almost every woman on the ship was makingthe voyage; but he knew nothing about Sara Lee.

　　"Bad night," said Mr. Travers.

　　"I was wondering what they are trying to do with that little boat."

　　Mr. Travers concealed the surprise of a man who was making hisseventy-second voyage.

　　"That's the pilot boat," he explained. "We are picking up a pilot."

　　"But," marveled Sara Lee rather breathlessly, "have we come all the waywithout any pilot?"

　　He explained that to her, and showed her a few moments later how thepilot came with incredible rapidity up the swaying rope ladder and overthe side.

　　To be honest, he had been watching for the pilot boat, not to see whatto Sara Lee was the thrilling progress of the pilot up the ladder, butto get the newspapers he would bring on with him. It is perhapsexplanatory of the way things went for Sara Lee from that time on thathe quite forgot his newspapers.

　　The chairs were gone from the decks, preparatory to the morning landing,so they walked about and Sara Lee at last told him her story—theladies of the Methodist Church, and the one hundred dollars a month shewas to have, outside of her traveling expenses, to found and keep goinga soup kitchen behind the lines.

　　"A hundred dollars a month," he said. "That's twenty pounds. Humph!Good God!"

　　But this last was under his breath.

　　Then she told him of Mabel Andrews' letter, and at last read it to him.He listened attentively. "Of course," she said when she had put theletter back into her bag, "I can't feed a lot, even with soup. But if Ionly help a few, it's worth doing, isn't it?"

　　"Very much worth doing," he said gravely. "I suppose you are not, byany chance, going to write a weekly article for one of your newspapersabout what you are doing?"

　　"I hadn't thought of it. Do you think I should?"

　　Quite unexpectedly Mr. Travers patted her shoulder.

　　"My dear child," he said, "now and then I find somebody who helps torevive my faith in human nature. Thank you."

　　Sara Lee did not understand. The touch on the shoulder had made herthink suddenly of Uncle James, and her chin quivered.

　　"I'm just a little frightened," she said in a small voice.

　　"Twenty pounds!" repeated Mr. Travers to himself. "Twenty pounds!"And aloud: "Of course you speak French?"

　　"Very little. I've had six lessons, and I can count—some."

　　The sense of unreality which the twenty pounds had roused in Mr. Travers'cautious British mind grew. No money, no French, no objective, just agreat human desire to be useful in her own small way—this was a new typeto him. What a sporting chance this frail bit of a girl was taking! Andhe noticed now something that had escaped him before—a dauntlessness,a courage of the spirit rather than of the body, that was in the verypoise of her head.

　　"I'm not afraid about the language," she was saying. "I have a phrasebook. And a hungry man, maybe sick or wounded, can understand a bowl ofsoup in any language, I should think. And I can cook!"

　　It was a perplexed and thoughtful Mr. Travers who sipped hisScotch-and-soda in the smoking room before retiring, he took the problemto bed with him and woke up in the night saying: "Twenty pounds!Good God!"

　　In the morning they left the ship. He found Sara Lee among the K's,waiting to have her passport examined, and asked her where she wasstopping in London. She had read somewhere of Claridge's—in a novelprobably.

　　"I shouldn't advise Claridge's," he said, reflecting rather grimly onthe charges of that very exclusive hotel. "Suppose you let me make asuggestion."

　　So he wrote out the name of a fine old English house on TrafalgarSquare, where she could stay until she went to France. There would bethe matter of a passport to cross the Channel. It might take a day ortwo. Perhaps he could help her. He would give himself the pleasure ofcalling on her very soon.

　　Sara Lee got on the train and rode up to London. She said to herselfover and over: "This is England. I am really in England." But it didnot remove the sense of unreality. Even the English grass, bright greenin midwinter, only added to the sense of unreality.

　　She tried, sitting in the strange train with its small compartments, tothink of Harvey. She looked at her ring and tried to recall some ofthe tender things he had said to her. But Harvey eluded her. She couldnot hear his voice. And when she tried to see him it was Harvey of thewide face and the angry eyes of the last days that she saw.

　　Morley's comforted her. The man at the door had been there for fortyyears, and was beyond surprise. He had her story in twenty-four hours,and in forty-eight he was her slave. The elderly chambermaid motheredher, and failed to report that Sara Lee was doing a small washing inher room and had pasted handkerchiefs over the ancient walnut of herwardrobe.

　　"Going over, are you?" she said. "Dear me, what courage you've got,miss! They tell me things is horrible over there."

　　"That's why I'm going," replied Sara Lee, and insisted on helping tomake up the bed.

　　"It's easier when two do it," she said casually.

　　Mr. Travers put in a fretful twenty-four hours before he came to see her.He lunched at Brooks', and astounded an elderly member of the House byputting her problem to him.

　　"A young girl!" exclaimed the M. P. "Why, deuce take it, it's no placefor a young girl."

　　"An American," explained Mr. Travers uncomfortably. "She's perfectlyable to look after herself."

　　"Probably a correspondent in disguise. They'll go to any lengths."

　　"She's not a correspondent."

　　"Let her stay in Boulogne. There's work there in the hospitals."

　　"She's not a nurse. She's a—well, she's a cook. Or so she says."

　　The M. P. stared at Mr. Travers, and Mr. Travers stared back defiantly.

　　"What in the name of God is she going to cook?"

　　"Soup," said Mr. Travers in a voice of suppressed irritation. "She'sgot a little money, and she wants to establish a soup kitchen behindthe Belgian trenches on a line of communication. I suppose," hecontinued angrily, "even you will admit that the Belgian Army needs allthe soup it can get."

　　"I don't approve of women near the lines."

　　"Neither do I. But I'm exceedingly glad that a few of them have thecourage to go there."

　　"What's she going to make soup out of?"

　　"I'm not a cooking expert. But I know her and I fancy she'll manage."

　　It ended by the M. P. agreeing to use his influence with the War Officeto get Sara Lee to France. He was very unwilling. The spy question waslooming large those days. Even the Red Cross had unwittingly spread itsprotection over more than one German agent. The lines were beingdrawn in.

　　"I may possibly get her to France. I don't know, of course," he said inthat ungracious tone in which an Englishman often grants a favor whichhe will go to any amount of trouble to do. "After that it's up to her."

　　Mr. Travers reflected rather grimly that after that it was apparently upto him.

　　Sara Lee sat in her room at Morley's Hotel and looked out at the life ofLondon—policemen with chin straps; schoolboys in high silk hats andEton suits, the hats generally in disreputable condition; clerks dressedas men at home dressed for Easter Sunday church; and men in uniforms.Only a fair sprinkling of these last, in those early days. On the firstafternoon there was a military funeral. A regiment of Scots, in kilts,came swinging down from the church of St. Martin in the Fields, tall andwonderful men, grave and very sad. Behind them, on a gun carriage, wasthe body of their officer, with the British flag over the casket and hissword and cap on the top.

　　Sara Lee cried bitterly. It was not until they had gone that sheremembered that Harvey had always called the Scots men in women'spetticoats. She felt a thrill of shame for him, and no amount oflooking at his picture seemed to help.

　　Mr. Travers called the second afternoon and was received by August atthe door as an old friend.

　　"She's waiting in there," he said. "Very nice young lady, sir. Verykind to everybody."

　　Mr. Travers found her by a window looking out. There was a recruitingmeeting going on in Trafalgar Square, the speakers standing on themonument. Now and then there was a cheer, and some young fellowsheepishly offered himself. Sara Lee was having a mad desire to goover and offer herself too. Because, she reflected, she had been inLondon almost two days, and she was as far from France as ever. Notknowing, of course, that three months was a fair time for the slowmethods then in vogue.

　　There was a young man in the room, but Sara Lee had not noticed him.He was a tall, very blond young man, in a dark-blue Belgian uniform witha quaint cap which allowed a gilt tassel to drop over his forehead. Hesat on a sofa, curling up the ends of a very small mustache, his legs,in cavalry boots, crossed and extending a surprising distance beyondthe sofa.

　　The lights were up now, beyond the back drop, the stage darkened. Anew scene with a vengeance, a scene laid in strange surroundings, withmen, whole men and wounded men and spying men—and Sara Lee and thisyoung Belgian, whose name was Henri and whose other name, because ofwhat he suffered and what he did, we may not know.