Part 28 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXII

ALICE DOES WELL

Long rows of wounded men lay stretched out on white cots in the hospital. Some wore bandages over their heads all but concealing their eyes. Others were so entwined with white wrappings that it was hard to say whether they were men or oriental women. Still others raised themselves on their elbows, spasms of pain corrugating their brows, while red cross nurses held to their lips cooling drinks.

Here at the bedside of one stood a grave surgeon, slowly shaking his head as he came to the melancholy conclusion that a further operation was useless. Over there they were carrying out a motionless form on a stretcher, a sheet mercifully draped over what was left. At the entrance to the hospital other bearers were carrying in those who came from the scene of the distant firing.

The boom of big guns shook the frail shack that had been turned into a hospital. Now and then, as the wind blew in fitful gusts, there was borne on it the acrid smell of powder. And again, in some dark corner of that building of suffering, there could be seen through the cracks, left by hasty builders, the flash of fire that preceded the booming crash of the cannon.

A sad-faced woman in black moved slowly down the line of cots led by a sympathetic nurse. She came to one bed, stopped as though in doubt, pa.s.sed her hand over her face as if she did not want to admit that what she saw she did see, and then she fell on her knees in a pa.s.sion of weeping, while the surgeons turned away their heads. She had found what she had sought.

From the farther door there entered a man, limping on crutches improvised from the limbs of a tree. Stained bandages were about one arm and another leg. His head, too, was wrapped so that only half his face showed. A hurrying orderly met him.

”You can't come in here!” he cried.

”Why not, I'd like to know. Ain't this the horspital?”

”Of course it is.”

”Then why can't I come in here. I'm hurt, and hurt bad, pardner. Shot through leg and arm, and part of my jaw gone. Why can't I come in?”

”'Cause you can't. Didn't we just carry you out for dead? What'll the audience think if they see you walking again? Git on out of here!”

”I will not! I've wrapped this bandage around my head on purpose so they won't know me. Let me come in, will you? That's real lemonade them pretty nurses is givin' out to drink, and I'm as dry as a fish. I've been firin' one of them guns until I've swallowed enough smoke to play an animated cannon ball. Let me in the horspital.”

”Yes, let him in!” called Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. He was at the far end of the shack that had been hastily erected on Oak Farm as a hospital, for the last big scenes of the war play, ”A Girl in Blue and A Girl in Gray.”

”All right, just as you say,” answered the orderly. ”Come on in, Bill.

Are you going to die this time?”

”I am not! I'm going to be one of them converts, and get chicken sandwiches and jelly.”

”You mean convalescent.”

”Um. That's it! Lead me to me bed, will you, for I'm a sadly wounded old soldier--that's what I am.”

Amid laughter he was led to a cot, where a smiling nurse tucked him in between the yellow sheets. For, as has been said, yellow takes the place of white in inside scenes.

And this was an inside scene, powerful electric lights dispelling all shadows so the cameras could film every motion and expression.

”Now remember!” called Mr. Pertell when the ”wounded man,” one of the extra players, had been comfortably put to bed, ”remember no smiling or laughing when we begin to make the picture. This is supposed to be serious.”

The rehearsal went on and finally the director announced that he was satisfied. Then the scenes were enacted over again, but with more tenseness and with a knowledge that every motion was being filmed with startling exactness.

”Now, Ruth, you come on!” called Mr. Pertell. ”We've made a little change from the original scenario. You're to relieve Miss Dixon, who has been on this case. He's one of the Northern officers, you remember, and he has with him papers that the Confederacy would do much to get.

”They are under the officer's pillow, you know. He is afraid to let them out of his possession. You must humor him, though you know that the papers will soon have to be taken away as he is to be operated on. It is here that Alice, as the spy, gets her chance. She pretends to be one of the nurses of this hospital, dons the uniform, and comes in here to get the papers. Are you ready?”