Tom and Jack bowed. In fact, so great was their surprise at first that this was all they could do. Then they stared first at Bessie and then at the other girl—the sister of Harry, their chum, who was somewhere, dead or alive, behind the German lines.
“Well, aren't you glad to see her?” demanded Bessie. “I thought I'd surprise you.”
“You have,” said Jack. “Very much!”
“Glad to see her—why—of course. But—but—how—”
Tom found himself stuttering and stammering, so he stopped, and stared so hard at Nellie Leroy that she smiled, though rather sadly, for it was plain to be seen her grief over the possible death of her brother weighed down on her. And then she went on:
“Well, I'm real—I'm not a dream, Mr. Raymond.”
“So I see—I mean I'm glad to see it—I mean—oh, I don't know what I do mean!” he finished desperately. “Did you know she was going to be here? Was that the reason you asked me to come?” he inquired of Jack.
“Hadn't the least notion in the world,” answered Jack. “I'm as much surprised as you are.”
“Well, we'll take pity on you and tell you all about it,” said Bessie. “Mother, here are the boys,” she called; and Mrs. Gleason, who had suffered so much since having been saved from the Lusitania and afterward rescued by air craft from the lonely castle, came out of her room to greet the boys.
They were as glad to see her as she was to meet them again, and for a time there was an interchange of talk. Then Mrs. Gleason withdrew to leave the young people to themselves.
“Well, go on, tell us all about it!” begged Tom, who could not take his eyes off Nellie Leroy. “How did she get here?” and he indicated Harry's sister.
“He talks of me as though I were some specimen!” laughed the girl. “But go on—tell him, Bessie.”
“Well, it isn't much of a story,” said Bessie Gleason. “Nellie started to do Red Cross work, as mother and I are doing, and she was assigned to the hospital where we were.”
“This was after I heard the terrible news about poor Harry at your escadrille,” Nellie broke in, to say to Tom and Jack. “I—I suppose you haven't had any—word?” she faltered.
“Not yet,” Jack answered. “But we may get it any day now—or they may, back there,” and he nodded to indicate the air headquarters he and Tom had left. “You know we're going to be under Pershing soon,” he added.
“So you wrote me,” said Bessie. “I'm glad, though it's all in the same good cause. Well, as I was saying, Nellie came to our hospital-I call it ours though I have such a small part in it,” she interjected. “She was introduced to us as an American, and of course we made friends at once.”
“No one could help making friends with Bessie and her mother!” exclaimed Nellie.
“Don't flatter us too much,” warned Bessie. “Now please don't interrupt any more. As I say, Nellie came to us to do her share in helping care for the wounded, and, as mother and I found she had settled on no regular place in Paris, we asked her to share our rooms. Then we got to talking, and of course I found she had met you two boys in her search for her brother. After that we were better friends than ever.”
“Glad to know it,” said Tom. “There's nothing like having friends. I hadn't any notion that I'd meet any when I started out with him tonight,” and he motioned to Jack.
“Well, I like that!” cried Bessie in feigned indignation. “I like to know how you class my mother and me?” and she looked at Tom.
“Oh,—er—well, of course—you and your mother, and Jack. But he and you—”
“Better swim out before you get into deep water,” advised Jack quickly, and he nudged Tom with his foot.
Then the boys had to tell about their final experiences before leaving the Lafayette Escadrille with which many trying, as well as many happy, hours were associated, and the girls told of their adventures, which were not altogether tame.
Since Mrs. Gleason had been freed from the plotting of the spy, Potzfeldt, she had lived a happy life—that is as happy as one could amid the scenes of war and its attendant horrors. She and Bessie were throwing themselves heart and soul into the immortal work of the Red Cross, and now Nellie bad joined them.
“It's the only way I can stop thinking about poor Harry,” she said with a sigh. “Oh, if I could only hear some good news about him, that I might send it to the folks at home. Do you think it will ever come—the good news, I mean?” she asked wistfully of Tom.
“All we can do is to hope,” he said. He knew better than to buoy up false hopes, for he had seen too much of the terrible side of war. In his heart he knew that there was but little chance for Harry Leroy, after the latter's aeroplane had been shot down behind the German lines. Yet there was that one, slender hope to which all of us cling when it seems that everything else is lost.
“He may be a prisoner, and, in that case, there is a chance,” said Tom, while Jack and Bessie were conversing on the other side of the room.
“You mean a chance to escape?”
“Hardly that, though it has been done. A few aviators have got away from German prison camps. But it's only one chance in many thousand. No, what I meant was that—well, it's too small and slim a chance to talk about, I'm afraid.”
“Oh, no!” she hastened to assure him. “Do tell me! No chance is too small. What do you mean?”
“Well, sometimes rescues have been made,” went on Tom. “They are even more rare than escapes, but they have been done. I was thinking that perhaps after Jack and I get in with Pershing's boys we might be in some big raid on the Hun lines, and then, if we could get any information as to your brother's whereabouts, we might plan to rescue him.”
“Oh, do you think you could?”
“I certainly can and will try!” exclaimed Tom, earnestly.
“Oh, will you? Oh, I can't thank you enough!” and she clasped his hand in both hers and Tom blushed deeply.
“Please don't count too much on it,” Tom warned Nellie. “It's a desperate chance at best, but it's the only one I can see that we can take. First of all, though, we've got to get some word as to where Harry is.”
“How can you do that?”
“Some of the Hun airmen are almost human, that is compared to the other Boche fighters. They may drop a cap of Harry's or a glove, or something,” and Tom told of the practice in such cases.
“Oh, if they only will!” sighed Nellie. “But it is almost too much to hope.”
And so they talked until late in the evening, when the time came for Nellie, Bessie and her mother to report back for their Red Cross work. The boys returned to their hotel, promising to write often and to see their friends at the next opportunity.
“I won't forget!” said Tom, on parting from Nellie.
“Forget what?” asked Jack, as they were going down the street together.
“I'm going to do my best to rescue her brother,” said Tom, in a low voice.
“Good! I'm with you!” declared Jack.
The stay of the two boys in Paris was all too short, but they were anxious to get back to their work. They wanted to be fighting under their own flag. Not that they had not been doing all they could for liberty, but it was different, being with their own countrymen. And so, when their leaves of absence were up, they took the train that was to drop them at the place assigned, where the newly arrived Americans were beginning their training.
“The American front!” cried Tom, as he and Jack reached the headquarters of General Pershing and his associate officers. “The American front at last!”
“And it's the happiest day of my life that I can fight on it!” cried Jack.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg