Rainbow's End Part 33

"Do you know what I want for dinner?" Norine inquired. "Lamb chops with green peas, some nice white bread, a salad, and coffee."

The three men looked at her anxiously. Judson stirred uneasily.

"That's what I want. I don't expect to get it."

With a sigh of relief the captain exclaimed, "I thought you were giving your order."

"Goodness, no!" With a laugh the girl seated herself upon her one camp-chair, inviting her callers to dispose themselves on the ground about her. "If you can stand the food, I dare say I can. Now then, tell me what you've been doing since you left Cubitas. I've been frightened to death that some of you would be hurt. That's one reason why I've been working night and day helping to get the hospitals in shape. I can't bear to think of our boys being wounded."

"Not much chance of OUR getting shot," O'Reilly told her. "But Leslie--he needs a good talking to. He has gone into the hero business."

Branch uttered a disdainful grunt. "Nothing of the sort. I'm a sick man; if I'd rather get shot than suffer a slow death from neglect, it's my own business, isn't it? Imagine feeding an invalid on boiled bicycle tires! Gee! I'd like to have a meal of nice nouris.h.i.+ng ptomaines for a change. Hero? Humph!"

Norine eyed the complainant critically, then said: "The diet agrees with you. You look better than you did."

Branch turned a somber glance upon her and gave vent to a bitter, sneering laugh. It was plain that he believed she, too, was attempting to pull the wool over his eyes. "I wish I could find some poisonous toadstools. I'd eat 'em raw."

"Listen," Norine went on. "Let's play a game. We'll imagine this is Delmonico's and we'll all take turns ordering the best things to eat that we can think of. The one who orders best, wins. We'll call the game--" She frowned thoughtfully.

"Call it 'Vittles,'" O'Reilly suggested.

"'Vittles' it is. Maybe it will give us an appet.i.te for supper. Leslie, you begin. Come now, hand your hat to the hat-boy, then follow the head waiter. This way, sir. Table for one? Very good, sir. Here's a cool one, in front of the electric fan. We have an exceptional selection of cold dishes to-day, sir. Perhaps you would like a nice halibut salad--"

"No halibut salad," Branch answered, striving valiantly to enter into the spirit of Norine's pretending. "I had it for breakfast. And say, turn off that fan; I'm just back from Cuba. Now then, you may bring me some oysters--"

"Oysters are out of season," O'Reilly murmured, politely, "but our clams are very fine."

"Some oysters," Branch insisted, stubbornly. "After that, a cup of chicken broth, a grilled sweetbread, and toast Melba."

Joe Judson put an abrupt end to the invalid's meal by hurling a clod at him, crying: "You're in Delmonico's, not in Battle Creek. Let somebody order who knows how. We'll have steak and onions all around."

"I want strawberries!" Norine cried. "They're ripe now. Strawberries and cream--Oh-h! Think of it!"

There was a tense silence, which O'Reilly broke by saying, "I guess 'Vittles' isn't a very good game, after all."

"It doesn't seem to fill MY wants," the girl acknowledged. "Let's talk about something else."

Miss Evans did seem truly concerned for the welfare of her "boys," as she termed the little group of Americans whom she had met, and she showed, by asking numerous questions, that her interest was keen.

The men were glad to talk and she soon gained an insight into the peculiar, aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy--operations which served to keep the enemy constantly on guard, like a blind swordsman, and would, it was hoped, eventually wear down his patience and endurance. In her turn, Norine related something of what she was doing and how her labor of mercy progressed.

"I'm nearly discouraged," she confessed, finally. "Everything is so different to what I thought it would be, and I'm so weak and ineffective. The medical supplies I brought are nearly all gone, and I've learned what hard work it is fitting up hospitals when there's nothing to fit them up with. I can't teach these people to take care of themselves--they seem to consider precautions against disease as a confession of cowardice. Summer, the yellow-fever season, is here and--well, I'm getting disheartened. Disheartened and hungry! They're new sensations to me." She sighed. "I imagined I was going to work wonders--I thought I was going to be a Florence Nightingale, and the men were going to idolize me."

"Don't they?" Judson demanded.

"No. That is--not in exactly the way I expected."

"They all want to marry her," O'Reilly explained.

"Insolent bunch!" growled the captain. Then he swallowed hard and said, "But for that matter, so do I."

"Why, Joe!" Norine cast a startled glance at the big fellow.

"It's a fact," he a.s.serted, doggedly. "I might as well declare myself here and now. There's always a gang of eavesdroppers hanging around you."

"He means you, Leslie," O'Reilly said. "Hadn't you better take a walk?"

Branch rolled a hostile eye at the artilleryman, and his lip curled.

"I'll not move. When he gets through, I'll propose."

"How silly you boys can be!" Norine laughed. "I dare say the others are joking too, but--"

"Joking?" O'Reilly grinned. "Not at all. I'm the only single man in camp who isn't in love with you. When you arrived this morning there was a general stampede for the river. I'll bet the fish in this stream will taste of soap for years to come."

As if to point O'Reilly's words at the moment appeared Colonel Lopez, shaved blood-raw and clad in a recently laundered uniform which was still damp. The three Americans rose to salute him, but discipline was lax and he waved them back to their seats. Other eyes than his, too, had noted Miss Evans's reappearance after her siesta, for Major Ramos, Norine's escort from headquarters, soon joined the group, and he was followed by two Camagueyan lieutenants.

These latter were youths of some family standing. Before the war they had been dandies, and they still had an excellent opinion of their physical charms, but, unfortunately, they spoke no English and hence their attentions to Norine had been somewhat vague and pointless. They possessed eloquent eyes, however, and now they languished melting glances upon her, the meaning of which she had no difficulty in translating.

"We've been talking about food," Leslie Branch advised his commanding officer. "Miss Evans isn't a burning patriot like the rest of us, and so of course she can't share our ravenous appet.i.te for beef cooked and eaten on the hoof."

"So?" Lopez's handsome face clouded. "You are hungry, then?"

Norine confessed that she was. "I'm starving!" said she. "I haven't had a decent meal for a week."

"G.o.d be praised! I know where there is a goat, not two leagues away!"

said the colonel.

"But I don't want a goat," Norine complained. "I want--well, pickles, and jam, and sardines, and--candy, and--tooth-powder! Real boarding-school luxuries. I'd just like to rob a general store."

Lopez furrowed his brows and lost himself in thought. Later, while the others were talking, he drew Ramos aside and for a while they kept their heads together; then they invited Judson to join their council.

It was not until perhaps an hour later that O'Reilly had a chance for a confidential talk with Norine, for in the mean time other officers came to pay their respects. But when the last one had reluctantly departed he said:

"I've been talking to Joe about you, and I don't think it's right for you to be running around alone this way."

"You know how mad that sort of talk makes me," she warned him.

"Yes. Just the same, I'll never feel easy until you're safe home again.

And I'll never stop bothering you until--"

"In the first place, I'm not alone. I take a woman with me everywhere, a Mrs. Ruiz."

"Bah! She's no more of a chaperon than I am."

Norine uttered an impatient exclamation. "Is this a time to consider such things?"

"Oh, I dare say the nature of your work is unconventional and excuses a good deal, but you don't understand the Latin mind as I do. These Cubans have different standards than ours. They're very apt to think--"

"I don't care what they think," the girl declared, "so long as _I_ think I'm doing right. That's final."