Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine

“What do you mean?”

“That it is not Frau Schmidt, but Frau Gray.”

“I did not tell you my name was Schmidt, for it is not. I am an American, not a Hun, nor do I admit that my name is Gray. The carrier pigeon was late in arriving this morning, eh?” Grace grinned broadly as she saw that the shot had gone home, for both showed their amazement. “Ah! I observe that the Herr Colonel understands English after all. A precious pair of enemy agents. What do you think will be done to you when my people find out about this – and about the pigeons?”

“Nothing! They will never know,” retorted the woman savagely.

“Do not be deceived. I have arranged that they shall, no matter whether I go back or do not go back.” She reasoned that no more pigeons would be used, now that the American army was nearing the river. Grace did not know that the army already had arrived. “It will not help your cause to detain me. It will have the opposite effect. Am I to go or stay?” continued Grace.

“You are to – ”

An orderly rapped on the door and saluted as the colonel wheeled on him.

“What is it?” demanded the officer.

“Orders, Herr Colonel. The enemy has heard that a woman is being detained here. Unless she is released and given safe conduct to the bridge before twelve o’clock to-day they threaten to come and get her.”

Grace understood every word of the conversation, but not so much as the flicker of an eyelash indicated that she did. She was not yet out of her difficulties and a slip, even in the face of that order, might prove her undoing.

“What shall you do, Herr Colonel?” demanded the German woman.

The colonel shrugged his shoulders.

“They would not dare to do it,” added the Frau.

“You do not know. They eagerly await the chance, the schweinhunde! See that she has safe conduct, but it must not be known that we have detained her here,” he said, turning to the orderly. “We shall have to give up our quarters and go elsewhere. Tell them, when the woman is turned over, that she was taken in seriously hurt, and that she was held only until she could safely go away. Tell them that she would have died had she been left uncared for. No names are to be mentioned. Understand?”

“Yes, Herr Colonel. I will go with her. Is she to go now?”

“Yes.” He turned savagely to Grace. “Frau Gray,” he announced in English that was quite broken, “had I known yesterday who you were you would not now be here. There are those who would not treat you as we have treated you, were they to know who you are. Do not presume to come to Germany again, intentionally or unintentionally. If you do you may not go back. That is all.” The Herr Colonel strode from the room, and the woman hurried after him. Then the orderly beckoned to Grace to follow him, after discovering that she “could not understand German.” Grace smiled and nodded and dutifully followed the soldier down the stairs.

It was quite a distance down, but not once during their journey to the outer air did Grace see a person. The old castle might have been deserted, and probably was. There was a difference when they got into the village. The streets were filled with chattering, gesticulating men, women and children. Some appeared to know who she was so far as her arrival in a parachute was concerned; others saw or had heard that she was an American.

That was not a pleasant walk for Grace Harlowe Gray, though it was an interesting one to her. The sidewalks were lined with spectators, some stolid and sullen, others quite the opposite. The latter were in the majority and the American girl frequently was jeered at and poked at with fingers. A woman slapped her, but, though Grace’s face burned, she did no more than look at the woman calmly, unemotionally. Several times she heard the word “spy” hurled at her in German and smiled to herself. It was an interesting study in psychology to Grace Harlowe, even if she were the object of the demonstration.

“Isn’t she pretty?” demanded a male voice in German.

Grace flashed a look in that direction to see who had uttered the words. She saw a German officer and an attractive-looking young woman backed up against a store front.

“Pretty? How can you say that of an American?” demanded the young woman. “She is as hideous and as ugly as no doubt her soul is black.”

“You are a true German, Fraulein,” exclaimed the German officer enthusiastically.

Grace grinned, though the characterization hurt her more than she cared to admit to herself. With every step after that she expected to encounter violence, but it was not until she neared the bridge that she did. Some one threw a stone. It was a small stone, but the thrower, as Grace concluded later when thinking over the occurrence, must have been a member of a Hun bomb squad. It hit and knocked the Overton girl down.

Grace got up dizzily. Blood was trickling down her cheek. Her escort appeared to be wholly indifferent to her plight, and did not even rebuke the one who threw the stone. Fortunately for Grace it was a small stone, else she would not have gotten up quite so readily.

“This is a sample of Hun ‘kultur,’ I presume?” she said in German, addressing her conductor.

The orderly glanced at her inquiringly.

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he demanded.

“No, I wouldn’t speak the language if it were the only language in the world,” she retorted, again in German, but refused to utter another word in the language.

“The woman is to pass,” directed the orderly, presenting a pass to the sentry on duty at the bridge; then he turned abruptly and left Grace to get along as best she might.

“Courtesy appears to have been neglected in the education of these people,” muttered Grace. “However, I should not be amazed at that, knowing the Boches as I do after my many months on the western front. Thank goodness I am free, I hope, for good and all. Now I suppose I shall have a hard time getting into our lines.”

Grace did have a hard time. She was promptly halted by an American sentry, who, calling the corporal of the guard, turned her over to him. Grace demanded to be taken before Captain Boucher of the Intelligence Department, which was done because orders had been given to that effect.

Captain Boucher gazed at the ragged figure for a few seconds, his gaze traveling up to the face, from which the blood had not all been wiped away. He was on his feet in an instant.

“Mrs. Gray!” he exclaimed. “You are wounded!”

“Nothing to speak of, sir. Merely a little memento of Boche ‘kultur.’ In other words I was stoned out of Germany.” Grace smiled that winning smile that always won people to her. “I am quite all right, but my clothing and my hair are simply impossible. I wish it were dark, for I do dread to go through the streets here in my present disgraceful condition.”

“This is an outrage. Were I the general in command of this army I’d have those hounds down on their knees!” raged the captain.

“That is what they need, sir. Those people need to have the arrogance beaten out of them. I am not saying this in any spirit of revenge, nor for what they did to me.”

“I understand – I understand. I will call a car to take you to your billet. Your signal from the castle was seen by one of our agents before the army got here. Then later Major Colt escaped and swam the Rhine, and he too reported it. He saw your Morse message just as he reached the bank on this side. When you are able I shall wish you to tell me what occurred over there.”

“I will tell you now, if I may.” Grace took up the narrative from the time of her landing in the vineyard, giving him only such information as she knew to be of military interest. The Intelligence officer listened with close attention.

“You should be in the secret service,” he declared after she had finished. “By what means do you think the Germans got information about you?”

“Pigeon or spy, sir. Pigeon most likely. You have not found the guilty one, have you, sir?”

“We have not.” The captain pinched his lips together. “I think we shall have to ask you to run this spy matter down, Mrs. Gray.”

CHAPTER XVI

ELFREDA HAS A SUSPICION

THE billet to which Grace had been assigned was the home of a German doctor, where she had a comfortable, large room extending all the way across the rear of the house. The owner, as she later learned, occupied a large front room with a small communicating room on the left-hand side of the house, a similar apartment on the other side of the house being occupied by some one else.

Elfreda Briggs was busy getting her hand in at canteen work when Grace arrived at the billet with her credentials, without which no one could obtain lodgings in Coblenz, now that the Americans had taken possession of the place and were at work setting it in order. The Overton girl found her belongings already there, including her mail. There was mail from home, but a letter from Emma Dean got first reading and put Grace in a happy frame of mind.

“My Darling Grace (This goes for all of the Overton Unit),” wrote Emma:

“We haven’t had a letter from you in so long I don’t believe we should recognize your handwriting. There isn’t a thing new in Paris except military news that I hear over the wire, which of course I can’t tell you. By the way, I did hear that William the First had been called before a court-martial for insubordination and ungentlemanly language to a superior officer. My! what a narrow escape I did have. Think what a terrible mistake I should have made had I married him. Thank heaven my present William is not that sort of a fighter. By the way, I learned over the wire only yesterday that he too is on his way to Coblenz. I am glad of that, for, you being a married woman, I can trust you to chaperon him and see that he doesn’t fall in love with one of those rosy-cheeked Gretchens on the Rhine. I am told that they are inclined to favor the American doughboys. They’d better not favor my William.

“By the way, that daughter of yours surely has made a place for herself at Madame Duchamp’s school. They will spoil that child. We had Yvonne over to stay all night with us and spend Sunday last week. The yellow cat was with her. If I am well informed the yellow cat is a lady-mouser, so you can imagine how shocked we were when Yvonne told us that she had named the cat Tom Gray after her adopted father, but that she called her Tom for short. I know your Tom will be delighted with the great honor that has come to him. It’s up to your Tom to give his namesake a handsome present. Might send on a shell-case of mice. I understand they have plenty of them out near the front. What a lovely present to send to a young ladies’ boarding school. What?

“Arline Thayer, Mabel Ashe, Ruth Denton and the rest of this Overton unit are simply expiring to see you. Ruth thinks she is in love with a Y secretary. For myself I prefer a fighting man – I don’t mean one that will fight me – leave that to the Huns – but who will fight another man when he crowds me off the walk. I heard a story over the wire the other day about Hippy Wingate. It seems that one of those secretary fellows – I don’t know what organization he belonged to – got quite friendly with Nora Wingate, all in the nicest possible way. But you know Hippy. Hippy heard of it, so one day he dropped in on the Salvation hut and found Nora singing for the secretary. She said he wanted to try her voice. Well, Hippy he – as I was saying, Hippy invited the fellow to take a flight with him – a hop, I believe they call it – the secretary wasn’t permitted to refuse and up they went. It seems they have some sort of telephone arrangement between the pilot and the observer, and after a little the secretary discovered that he had no safety belt on and he called Hippy’s attention to it rather anxiously. Hippy, according to the reports I got over the wire, said he was sorry, for he was going to do some loops, to see how many he could do. One of his squadron had done thirty-seven, but Hippy was of the opinion that he could do at least thirty-seven and a half. ‘But I’ll fall out,’ protested the secretary. ‘Sure you will,’ agreed Hippy, ‘but I’ll turn the loops right over the Salvation hut. When you fall out, if my wife thinks you’re worth saving she’ll catch you.’ Well, the secretary begged, and finally Hippy relented and said he would let his passenger out before he looped. They landed. The secretary took the hint and ‘beat it,’ as the doughboys would say. I understand he hasn’t been seen around the Salvation canteen since. Isn’t that just like Hippy?

“Now that the war is over I suppose we all will soon be on our way to the good old United States. I know I shall die if I have to go back before my William does. I have been afraid that he might be appointed on the Peace Commission, for I know he must stand very high with the President, even if he is only a lieutenant. Well, good-bye. Remember me to Tom, and tell him I hope that when he gets home he will make it his business to see that his most attractive wife stays home and washes the dishes rather than go scouting all over America and half of Europe driving ambulances and things.