Bab a Sub-Deb Part 52

"I want to talk to you," he said. "Have you young Turks--I mean young Patriots any guns at this camp of yours?"

"Not yet."

"But you expect to, of course?"

I looked at him in a steady manner.

"When you have put on the Unaform of your Country" I said, "or at least of Plattsburg, I shall tell you my Milatary secrets, and not before."

"Plattsburg!" he exclaimed. "What do you know of Plattsburg?"

I then told him, and he listened, but in a very disagreeable way. And at last he said:

"The plain truth, Bab, is that some good-looking chap has filled you up with a lot of dope which is meant for men, not romantic girls. I'll bet to cents that if a fellow with a broken noze or a squint had told you, you'd have forgotten it the next minute."

I was exasparated. Because I am tired of being told that the defence of our Dear Country is a masculine matter.

"Carter" I said, "I do not beleive in the double, standard, and never did."

"The what?"

"The double standard," I said with dignaty. "It was all well and good when war meant wearing a kitchin stove and wielding a lance. It is no longer so. And I will show you."

I did not mean to be boastfull, such not being my nature. But I did not feel that one who had not yet enlisted, remarking that there was time enough when the Enemy came over, etcetera, had any right to criticise me.

12 MIDNIGHT. How can I set down what I have discovered? And having recorded it, how be sure that Hannah will not snoop around and find this record, and so ruin everything?

It is midnight. Leila is still out, bent on frivolaty. The rest of the Familey sleeps quietly, except father, who has taken cold and is breathing through his mouth, and I sit here alone, with my secret.

William is a Spy. I have the proofs. How my hand trembles as I set down the terrable words.

I discovered it thus.

Feeling somewhat emty at bed time and never sleeping well when hollow inside, I went down to the pantrey at eleven P. M. to see if any of the dinner puding had been left, although not hopeful, owing to the servants mostly finis.h.i.+ng the desert.

WILLIAM WAS IN THE PANTREY.

He was writing somthing, and he tried to hide it when I entered.

Being in my ROBE DE NUIT I closed the door and said through it:

"Please go away, William. Because I want to come in, unless all the puding is gone."

I could hear him moving around, as though concealing somthing.

"There is no puding, miss," he said. "And no fruit except for breakfast.

Your mother is very particuler that no one take the breakfast fruit."

"William," I said sternly, "go out by the kitchen door. Because I am hungry, and I am coming in for SOMTHING."

He was opening and closing the pantrey drawers, and although young, and not a housekeeper, I knew that he was not looking in them for edables.

"If you'll go up to your room, Miss Bab," he said, "I'll mix you an Eggnogg, without alkohol, of course, and bring it up. An Eggnogg is a good thing to stay the stomache with at night. I frequently resort to one myself."

I saw that he would not let me in, so I agreed to the Eggnogg, but without nutmeg, and went away. My knees tremble to think that into our peacefull home had come "Grim-vizaged War," but I felt keen and capable of dealing with anything, even a Spy.

William brought up the Eggnogg, with a dash of sherry in it, and I could hear him going up the stairs to his chamber. I drank the Eggnogg, feeling that I would need all my strength for what was to come, and then went down to the pantrey. It was in perfect order, except that one of the tea towles had had a pen wiped on it.

I then went through the drawers one by one, although not hopeful, because he probably had the incrimanating doc.u.ment in the heal of his shoe, which Spies usually have made hollow for the purpose, or sowed in the lining of his coat.

At least, so I feared. But it was not so. Under one of the best table cloths I found it.

Yes. I FOUND IT.

I copy it here in my journal, although knowing nothing of what it means.

Is it a scheme to blow up my father's mill, where he is making sh.e.l.ls for the defence of his Native Land? I do not know. With shaking hands I put it down as follows:

48 D. K.

48 D. F.

36 S. F.

34 F. F.

36 T. S.

36 S. S.

36 C. S.

24 I. H. K.

36 F. K.

But in one way its meaning is clear. Treachery is abroad and Treason has but just stocked up the stairs to its Chamber.

APRIL 13TH. It is now noon and snowing, although supposed to be spring. I am writing this Log in the tent, where we have built a fire.

Mademoiselle is sitting in the Adams's limousine, wrapped in rugs. She is very sulky.

There are but nine of us, as I telephoned the Quartermaster early this morning and summoned her to come over and discuss important business.

Her Unaform had come and so had mine. What a thrill I felt as she entered Headquarters (my chamber) in kakhi and saluted. She was about to sit down, but I reminded her that war knows no intimacies, and that I was her Captain. She therfore stood, and I handed her William's code.

She read it and said:

"What is it?"

"That is what the G. A. C. is to find out," I said. "It is a cipher."

"It looks like it," said Jane in a flutering tone. "Oh, Bab, what are we to do?"

I then explained how I had discovered it and so on.

"Our first duty," I went on, "is to watch William. He must be followed and his every movement recorded. I need not tell you that our mill is making sh.e.l.ls, and that the fate of the Country may hang on you today."