BOB GORDON AND CAPTAIN BEATTIE
=ABOUT= nightfall of the same day Lucy left the hospital and crossed the
street to return to her bedroom. Miss Pearse had urged her to go early
to bed, though the truth was she did not feel so tired after a long
afternoon spent in helping unpack supplies, as she had done on the days
when she sat unoccupied, waiting for she knew not what. She picked her
way among the broken paving-stones slowly, burdened with many thoughts.
She had not told Miss Pearse a word about Bob’s coming, nor of her own
and Elizabeth’s intention. It was not that she was unwilling to confide
in her kind friend, but that she dreaded to face Miss Pearse’s doubts
and fears, weighed down as she was with plenty of her own. It seemed
much easier to go, as Elizabeth had planned, without causing anxiety or
alarm to any one. For, however difficult the way and severe the trial to
her courage, Lucy knew that the chance of seeing Bob, and of hearing
news of himself and of their mother, was enough to overcome all her
fears.
She lay down, dressed as she was, on her bed and promptly fell asleep,
for she had been up since five o’clock that morning. She set Miss
Pearse’s alarm clock before lying down and put it beside her pillow in
case she should sleep too long, but after an hour a prolonged burst of
firing roused her. She sat up and looked at the clock, but it was too
dark to see anything. She found some matches, and striking a light,
discovered that it was nine o’clock, just time for the alarm. Miss
Pearse did not come off duty till eleven. With fast beating heart Lucy
threw around her shoulders a little cape which she often wore on summer
evenings, for the night had grown damp and chilly. Breathing a fervent
prayer for the success of her expedition and for her brother’s safety,
she left the room, and closing her door, that Miss Pearse might think
her asleep when she came in, stole softly to the stairs and down into
the street.
It was a starlit night, and the figure of the sentry, patrolling the
square in front of the hospital, showed clearly, his bayonet touched
with a faint gleam as he shifted his gun on his shoulder. The handful of
French townspeople were all indoors, none of them being allowed by the
Germans on the streets after eight o’clock, unless on hospital duty. But
an occasional soldier passed by, with clumping boots or clinking spurs,
while Lucy stood hidden in the doorway. The lights of the hospital
windows twinkled now and then, as a hurrying figure passed in front of
them. A bat whizzed close by Lucy’s ear. She felt so lonely at that
moment that she welcomed the sound of its blundering wings. It was a
nice French bat, she thought, bent on some peaceful errand. But she had
not much longer to wait. In a moment quick, light footsteps sounded near
her, and Elizabeth’s little figure took shape out of the darkness.
“Here I am, Elizabeth!” Lucy whispered.
Elizabeth stepped inside the door, reaching out to touch Lucy’s arm, as
she caught her breath after her rapid walk.
“Then right away we start,” she said, panting a little. “So soon as we
get there, the better.”
“Do you think we can do it? Shan’t we be stopped?” asked Lucy fearfully.
“The most they can do is to send us back,” Elizabeth answered. “But I
think we get by all right. My room in the house of my friend is close to
the town’s edge. That far I go every night. And of the soldiers who are
here on guard I many know. Last autumn was this regiment in Petit-Bois.
Often have I seen that big sergeant now working at the hospital, when I
help in my nephew’s shop.”
While Elizabeth talked in a quick, nervous undertone, she had drawn Lucy
from the doorway and the two were making their way along the gloomy
street. Nothing more than an occasional lantern lighted the captured
town when the lights of the few occupied houses were put out, and
passers-by were left to find their way by the starlight, or by the
occasional bursting of a star-shell in the heavens.
“Oh, I wish the guns would not start again!” sighed Lucy, when a new
burst of explosions had shaken the air.
“No, Miss Lucy, it is better so,” Elizabeth objected. “With the guns
firing no one hears Mr. Bob’s machine.”
“Of course!” Lucy exclaimed, suddenly welcoming the vibrations of the
cannon against her ears. “Why didn’t I think of that! Oh, Elizabeth, I
can’t bear to think of the risk he runs. I wish he were not coming.”
“Be sure he comes not unless a good chance he has,” Elizabeth reassured
her. “He said only ‘I shall try.’”
They had covered half a mile, through streets leading to the town’s
outskirts by a more southerly direction than the way Lucy had taken the
day before. Now, at the corner of a street that remained quite
undamaged, a sentry stood out from the shadow of the wall. Elizabeth
gave a sharp glance at his tall, thin figure, and, as they drew nearer
and the man brought his gun to the challenge, she called out in German:
“Well, Hans Eberhardt, don’t you know me yet? You’re younger than I am,
and should have better eyes.”
[Illustration: “WHO’S THAT WITH YOU?”]
The soldier lowered his piece and said with a laugh, “It was your
footsteps I was going to challenge, Frau Müller. I couldn’t see you in
this murk.” Then, as the two approached him, he added, “But who’s that
with you?”
“Just a little girl who helps in the hospital. I’m going to take her
home to sleep.”
Lucy, trying to follow the rapid German speech, felt her heart pound at
these words. But the sentry offered no objection, inquiring sleepily of
Elizabeth as she paused close by him, “Isn’t it eleven o’clock yet,
Frau? I must have been on guard here almost a week.”
“It is nearly ten—you’ll soon get off,” said Elizabeth encouragingly.
“What sort of quarters have you here?”
“Pretty good. Better than those at Petit-Bois, though the French guns
haven’t left us many whole roofs to sleep under. And, Donnerwetter! We
need a little sleep.” He gave a weary sigh as Elizabeth, starting on
again at Lucy’s side, said with a friendly nod:
“Well, good-night to you, Hans.”
“Good-night,” said the sentry, shouldering his gun once more.
Lucy held fast to Elizabeth’s arm in an ecstasy of relief as they walked
quickly on through the starlit darkness.
“No others shall we meet inside the town,” Elizabeth said softly. “Once
outside we must be careful, and on the lookout keep.”
They were already near the border of Château-Plessis, but not among the
lanes, with which Lucy was familiar. They had come further south, making
an abrupt turn, after passing the sentry, away from the real route to
Elizabeth’s lodgings. She wished to give the German headquarters on this
side of the town a wide berth, as well as the field observation post in
the meadow. Bob’s probable landing-place she and Lucy had discussed that
morning, for Lucy had faith in Elizabeth’s shrewd judgment, sharpened by
months of experience on or near the battle line.
“Mr. Bob dares not to land now where three days ago you saw him, Miss
Lucy,” Elizabeth said with certainty. “Nor yet near the place where he
let fall to me the message. But there is a further meadow where
sometimes aviators have the landing made, and that is on the other side
of the old Frenchwoman’s house, and nearer to the wood. It is there I
look for him to come.”
Now, as they passed the scattered houses between them and the open
fields, Lucy guessed that they would come out about a quarter of a mile
south of Mère Breton’s cottage. Already she saw the safety of the way
Elizabeth had chosen, for this corner of Château-Plessis was the
farthest removed from the German front and the least frequented. The
fields it bordered on were too near the wood where the French batteries
had been hidden to have been tilled or cultivated. They lay neglected,
torn up by shell holes and overgrown with weeds.
The stars gave light enough to show the outline of Mère Breton’s cottage
among the trees at their left as they emerged at last from a
poplar-bordered lane into the grass of the nearest meadow. Lucy stumbled
a little as her feet met the rough clods of earth, and Elizabeth,
breathing fast after her anxious walk, said softly in her ear, “We can
sit down and rest a while, Miss Lucy. Too early is it yet for him to
come.”
“Where shall we go?” asked Lucy uncertainly. “Near to the cottage, I
think. Then we shall be safely hidden and can see around us.”
Elizabeth nodded, cautiously choosing her steps in the darkness, fearful
of the treacherous shell holes here and there. At Mère Breton’s back
gate they paused, and Lucy held her breath, listening with a shiver of
fear for she knew not what. But only the pounding of the cannon as the
bombardment fitfully continued broke the silence, while far to the west
on the battle line beyond the town, bursting shells threw a glaring
light against the sky.
Through the soft darkness near at hand a cricket by the gate-post made a
brave effort to chirp against the guns. Lucy and Elizabeth sat down on
the worn stone steps outside the gate and peered across the fields and
up at the sky in anxious expectancy.
“He may not come, Elizabeth. I almost hope he doesn’t!” Lucy said again,
the old dreadful fear for Bob clutching at her heart. Inside the gate
and drooping above it grew a big lilac bush, and as they sat there, the
night air shook the blossoms and floated over them laden with fragrance.
Lucy leaned back against the post and drank in the sweet air in deep
refreshing breaths. Never again, she thought, would she smell lilacs
without remembering this night.
After a long time of waiting she felt certain it must be late enough for
Bob to come. Out of many thoughts an idea had occurred to her, as she
sat gazing up into the sky. The most dangerous part of the descent would
be when Bob drew near enough to be seen against the stars. Once in the
black shadow of the wood he could land unseen, and Bob knew these
meadows well and would make use of such protection. This meant that he
would land at some distance from where they were, and she wanted to be
as near as possible, to save every precious minute. She waited a moment
for a good pause in the firing to tell her thoughts more easily to
Elizabeth, but before it came a sound made her suddenly clutch at her
companion’s arm. In the distance, between the scattering shots, she
heard the whir of an airplane. Silently Elizabeth nodded, pointing
upward toward the sky above the wood. A little dark speck showed for an
instant against the clear, starry blue, then before Lucy’s eager eyes
had more than caught it, sank swiftly down among the shadowy tree tops.
Lucy sprang to her feet, not speaking a word, all her energy and breath
reserved for that mad dash across the fields to Bob’s landing-place. But
Elizabeth’s hand caught hers and her voice entreated:
“Don’t run in the dark across there, Miss Lucy! Surely you will in the
holes fall. Mr. Bob will come this way himself to look for us.”
Only a little deterred by this warning, Lucy began running toward the
wood, searching every yard of ground ahead of her and narrowly avoiding
more than once a bad fall into a yawning shell hole close at hand.
Elizabeth was soon lost sight of but she could not stop to wait. Before
long her breath began to come hard and fast, and her back to ache
unbearably from leaning forward as she ran to watch for dangerous
ground. On she went until presently a wide field lay between her and
Mère Breton’s cottage. A hummock in the grass at one side made her dodge
a little to the left, uncertainly. It looked like an animal asleep, but
as she came closer it moved and up beside her sprang a tall figure. Two
strong arms were around her trembling shoulders, while a familiar voice
said quickly in her ear, “It’s Bob, Lucy dear—I’m not a Boche! That’s
what I took you for!”
“Oh, Bob—if I had been!” Lucy gasped as she caught tight hold of him and
glanced shivering into the darkness.
“Don’t worry—he wouldn’t have got me. I shan’t fall tamely into their
hands a second time.” Suddenly his fingers on Lucy’s arm stiffened.
“Who’s that?”
“It’s Elizabeth. I ran ahead of her. Where shall we go, Bob? Won’t you
be safer close by your machine?”
“We’re near enough. I can see all around me here. Elizabeth can tell me
where the guards are posted. I bet she knows them all. Oh, Lucy,” and
here Bob’s momentary cheerfulness collapsed with a dismal groan, “I
never thought this could happen—that you should be left here! They beat
us back with six full divisions. Jerusalem!—how many men they must have
lost, for we gave them a good fight, though we were outnumbered three to
one.”
“Don’t mind, Bob—we can’t help it, and I’m all right. Before long we’ll
surely get the town again.”
“That’s what we hope for. Is Father doing well? He must have been nearly
wild when he knew you couldn’t get away.”
“Yes, but you know how calm he is when things are really wrong. He’s
better, in spite of everything.”
“I’m thankful for that. Here’s Elizabeth.” Bob took a few steps forward
and caught hold of the little German woman’s arm, as she came panting up
to them. “You’re a brick, Elizabeth,” he said with eager earnestness. “I
was so afraid you wouldn’t get the message or understand it—but I might
have known you would. I’ve hung over these meadows looking for you again
and again since the town was taken.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Bob, I understand the message all right,” nodded
Elizabeth, breathing fast. “It was just like you showed me. And you are
well—you don’t get hurt?” she asked, the same affectionate anxiety in
her voice as when she watched over Lucy’s welfare.
“I’m as fine as a fiddle. Look here, Elizabeth, where’s the nearest
outpost?”
“More than half a mile from here, Mr. Bob. Pretty safe you are here, and
I a good watch will keep while you say all you want to the little
sister.”
“Bob, I’m so frightened for you,” said Lucy, trembling afresh when any
pause in the firing made the little night noises audible around them.
“Why did you come?”
“Because I had to see you and know that you were safe. Father, too. You
can imagine how Mother and Cousin Henry have felt since Château-Plessis
was taken.”
“Oh, Bob, you’ve seen Mother? Where is she?” Lucy cried, in a burst of
relief and longing.
“She is near our line, about fifteen miles south-west of here. That’s
where the trains were blocked—except those carrying troops—so that she
couldn’t get on. She tried every possible way—horse, mule and
ambulance—and she would have made it on foot if the town had held out
another day. Come, let’s sit down on this bank. And stop shaking like
that! I’m all right.”
They dropped down beneath a ragged row of poplars which separated the
field from its neighbor as Bob continued:
“I was so thankful to have the good news of Father’s recovery for her at
the same time that she heard of the town’s capture. Now I can at least
tell her something of you. You’re in the hospital, Lucy? Do the Germans
let us run it as before? I know something of what goes on in
Château-Plessis—can’t stop now to tell you how—but I know that the town
is held by only a company, and that the enemy is too fagged out to do
more than care for their own wounded.”
“Make us care for them, you mean,” said Lucy. “But where can you get
news from? Never mind now, tell me more of Mother. Oh, how often I’ve
thought of her, and longed to tell her I was safe!”
“It’s Elizabeth being here with you that has comforted her most. Did you
find Elizabeth that day I told you she might still be here?”
“The day you landed over there on the meadow? You never told me,” said
Lucy, puzzled. Suddenly a light broke through her mind. “Was that what
you tried to tell me as you started off? I couldn’t hear a word with the
propeller whirling.”
Bob put his arm suddenly about her in the darkness and looked up into
the starry sky. “If only I could take you back with me,” he groaned. “It
seems too awful to leave you here! But I have to cross the German lines,
and their guns and scouts are fiendishly watchful. My little one-man
Nieuport can skim over their heads and dodge them. With a two-seater I
need a fellow in front of me pumping a machine gun for all he’s worth.”
He fell silent for a despairing moment, then said more calmly, “Never
mind, Lucy. Just be a plucky sport. I won’t leave you here long, if I
have to bring a squadron after you. If only we could force them out of
Argenton! That’s the place where they threaten to outflank us if we
advance.”
At the name Argenton Lucy all at once forgot the sickening fear and ache
of her own heart in a vivid recollection. That was the place where
Captain Beattie had been taken. “What makes it so hard to get through
there, Bob?” she asked eagerly. “You mean the enemy is too strong?”
“Not that—they don’t need a large force. There’s a long fortified ridge
in front of the town that keeps us from approaching. It’s a piece of
rolling ground about three miles long. Their trenches run through it,
and they have a collection of anti-aircraft guns and battle-planes. We
hang over the place day in and out, but we can’t fly low enough to get
sight of their batteries.”
“Would any one who had been in their trenches know what you want to
learn?” asked Lucy, peering into her brother’s face through the
darkness.
“Of course—if he wasn’t blind. But people who have reached their
trenches from our side haven’t come back to tell us. Look here, Lucy,
what I want more than anything to know is this: Do you get enough to
eat? If you don’t, I can manage to bring over supplies on nights when
things look quiet, and leave them in the wood.”
“Oh, no, Bob; please!” Lucy entreated. “The hospital has a garden and
the place is so packed with German wounded that we get all there is to
be had. I know the danger you run to come here, and I don’t want you to
try it again, much as I long to see you.” As Bob sat in troubled,
helpless silence for the moment, she added quickly, “But if I should
learn anything that might help the Allies to retake the town, how could
I get news to you?”
“What could you learn, you foolish kid? There’s nothing about this town
we don’t know. And for heaven’s sake don’t put your finger into such a
risky business. Keep out of anything like spying, and be satisfied to
help where it is safe. Elizabeth might not get you out of trouble as she
did me.”
“Do you know of a place called the Old Prison somewhere in
Château-Plessis?” asked Lucy irrelevantly.
“Yes; it’s about a mile from here. It’s nothing but an old jail the
French used as a sort of town office, keeping one or two cells for an
occasional prisoner. We let out some French soldiers the Germans had
stuck there, when we took the town. Why, have they any one in there
now?”
“Yes, I heard of some one being put there,” said Lucy briefly. “I think
I remember the place now. Bob,” she added anxiously, “don’t you think
you’d better go? It seems as though the firing were much heavier. I’ll
be so horribly worried about your getting back.”
“Please don’t be. I’ll keep way over their heads and play safe. How I
wish I could leave you and Father some good news; but I can’t, except to
promise you that Château-Plessis won’t stay in German hands one second
after we can take it.”
Lucy choked down a sob and, thankful that the darkness hid her eyes
brimming with tears of lonely wretchedness, threw her arms about Bob’s
neck in a desperate embrace.
“Give Mother my dearest love,” she said huskily in his ear. “Tell her
I’m safe, and please go now. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, Elizabeth,” said Bob, having a hard time with his own
unsteady voice. “Take care of her, won’t you? And whenever you cross
that field keep a lookout for me.”
“Yes, Mr. Bob,” assented Elizabeth, patting the tall young aviator on
the shoulder with a loving hand. “Tell your mother she should not too
much worry over Miss Lucy. I do my best for her.”
“I know you will,” said Bob, with some relief in his heavy anxiety.
“Good-bye, Captain.”
Another moment and he was swallowed up in the shadows, while Lucy and
Elizabeth stood gazing after him with straining eyes, their ears on the
alert for every sound, though nothing could be heard around them just
then in the noise of the cannon.
Still silent and motionless they stood there after Bob had gone with
eyes lifted now to the sky above the wood. Within a quarter of an hour
the little Nieuport rose like a winged speck over the tree tops. Lucy
clutched Elizabeth’s arm, her heart pounding intolerably. “There he is!
There he is!” she whispered, her mind hovering between relief that Bob
had got safely away from German territory and dread of what he had still
to face. Another second and the little monoplane had disappeared in the
blue, and Elizabeth was tugging at Lucy’s arm and saying earnestly in
her ear:
“Come, Miss Lucy! We should go back quickly now!”
Lucy turned away from the wide starry spaces on which her eyes were
still fixed, and, obedient to Elizabeth’s urging began to retrace her
steps across the fields behind her old nurse’s cautious feet. She walked
mechanically, her eyes on possible shell holes, but her mind far
distant. Lucy’s moments of fear and weakness had one redeeming feature.
They were usually followed by a great scorn of herself in which her
courage and endurance rose to a high pitch. So it was with her now,
after the despairing terror which had made her hold fast to Bob, and
forget half she had to say to him at the moment of parting. At sight of
him flying back through the night to make his perilous way among the
swarming German planes above the trenches, all her courage returned to
her. She could do nothing toward Bob’s safety, but while he was in
danger she would do the one thing in her power which might be of some
distant help to the Allies.
“Elizabeth,” she said, as together they made a difficult way through a
tangle of bushes near Mère Breton’s cottage, “I’m going back by way of
the Old Prison.”
“But why, Miss Lucy? For what?” Elizabeth demanded in amazement,
stopping short to catch her breath.
As quickly as she could, Lucy told her of the encounter of two days ago
with the young Englishman, and of her hopes that he might have some of
the information Bob so sorely needed. Elizabeth listened with no
answering enthusiasm for the risky project, but the vigorous objections
which she launched when Lucy paused in her rapid explanation fell on
deaf ears.
“You needn’t come with me. I can find the place, and there are so few
sentries I know I can keep out of their way,” was the only answer
vouchsafed her. In her impulsive resolution Lucy forgot Elizabeth’s
larger share in the dangers of the expedition. She had only one thought
just then; to succeed in her undertaking. And this required such a
desperate keying up of her own courage as to make her thoughtless for
her kind and unselfish companion.
“Oh, Miss Lucy, I beg you not to go!” implored Elizabeth in a last
attempt to dissuade the determined girl from her purpose.
To this Lucy returned doggedly, “It’s all I can do for Bob, and I must
do it.”
Elizabeth sighed despondently, but her faithful affection answered
without hesitation on her own account, “Very well; if you must, I go
with you.”
“Oh, thank you, dear Elizabeth! I knew you’d help me,” cried Lucy with
genuine relief and gratitude. “Now come into Mère Breton’s garden till I
show you what I’m going to do.”
Along with Lucy’s mad eagerness to learn from Captain Beattie’s lips
what he knew of the defenses of Argenton—information which Bob himself
had told her might free Château-Plessis from German hands—was another
and more womanly motive for her visit to the prison. The sight of her
brother had reminded her of the young prisoner who had so aroused her
admiration and pity. She could not help Bob to safety, but could she not
do something for this other boy, now that chance had brought her within
possible reach of him? She thought to herself how she would despise an
English girl who could have seen Bob taken off to prison, as she had
seen Captain Beattie, without lifting a finger to ease his unhappy fate.
Somewhere this young officer’s family was waiting anxiously for news of
him, and hoping that one kind hand might be stretched out to offer him
help and comfort. While she thought this Lucy had entered Mère Breton’s
garden and, feeling for Elizabeth in the shadowy darkness, said softly,
“Gather some of whatever you can find. I know where the eggs are put
after they are collected in the evening. I’m going for some.”
The little hen-house was not far off, where the basket of eggs was
nightly placed inside the door. Lucy felt for the key upon the roof,
unlocked the door and putting in her hand, took out half a dozen eggs
and tied them in her handkerchief. She felt no compunction about making
off with the old Frenchwoman’s property. She and Mère Breton had talked
together in confidence and Lucy knew that this food was far better
destined in her eyes than if it had gone down the throats of the German
wounded. She hurried back across the garden and found Elizabeth
collecting a small supply of the only ripe vegetables to be had just
then.
“Got them?” she asked, breathing hard with uncontrollable excitement.
“All right, come on.”
They stole out of the gate into the meadow, and now Elizabeth, trying to
resign herself to the attempt since she could not prevent it, asked
anxiously:
“What shall we do there, Miss Lucy? Better we think of that now, while
there is time.”
“Well, first, how far from here is the prison?” Lucy hoped it was no
farther than Bob had said. She knew her courage would not last forever.
“Only a little way after we reach the town. I know the shortest way. But
always a guard there is, when in daylight I have passed the place. No
good it will do there that I am German, Miss Lucy, for I have not any
excuse to make him for us.”
Lucy thought for a minute. “I don’t believe there are many guards, do
you, Elizabeth?”
“No, only one, I think.”
“Because Bob said there were cells on just one side. If I can only get
to his window and talk with him for five minutes it will be enough. It
doesn’t seem as though they would watch the prisoners all the time.”
“No, more likely they very little watch; but, oh, Miss Lucy, I am not
sure how it will be, and I wish you do not go!”
“I must try, Elizabeth. Be nice and just think how to help the most
instead of worrying. I know we will be all right.”
“Very well. I help you all I can,” agreed Elizabeth with quiet
resignation. She spoke not another word of protest as, entering the
silent, abandoned streets, they stole cautiously along the town’s
outskirts, toward the south.
After a few moments’ walk, Elizabeth pointed to an open square ahead, at
one corner of which a low building gloomed against the sky. A church,
with the steeple shot away, rose opposite it. “There is the prison,”
Elizabeth said in Lucy’s ear. “The cells are on the other side.” Now
that they were near to danger Elizabeth seemed once more to take command
of things. “Miss Lucy, you must here in the shadow stay,” she continued
quickly, “while I go to see who is on guard. Better I some excuse can
make alone, if he should see me.”
Without waiting for an answer she was gone, and Lucy shrank close
against the brick wall of the house behind her, and stood there with
suddenly quaking heart, and ears listening vainly for any other sound
than the occasional bursts of shell fire. In five minutes Elizabeth was
back again, and the moment she spoke Lucy felt the joyful relief in her
voice.
“Oh, Miss Lucy,” she said, softly, “the best of luck we have! The guard
inside the house sits—where was the office. They are a couple of sleepy
fellows, leaning on their guns. I watch the door while you in back to
the barred windows go. So soon as the guard should move I come to warn
you. So in the dark we safely get away.”
“Elizabeth, you’re a brick!” Lucy whispered, squeezing her companion’s
hand in eager gratitude, as she followed her toward the dark wall of the
old building.
A square of light showed on the side toward the church, and here
Elizabeth took up her watch from the shadow of the corner, leaving Lucy,
carrying the little spoils of Mère Breton’s garden in her cloak, to make
her way to the right, or prison end of the building. With a hard clutch
at her already waning courage, Lucy felt with her free hand for the
angle of the corner on the rough stone wall, and stepping cautiously
around it, reached the side of the prison which opened on a narrow
courtyard.
She stared up at the wall, seeing no break at first in its dim outline,
but, as she looked, three windows detached themselves faintly from the
shadows. In another moment she could see that each was criss-crossed
with bars. Only one course of action suggested itself to her excited
mind, and whatever its drawbacks she dared not delay. She went close up
to the first window and, dropping her cape, stood on tiptoe and put her
face against the bars. She could see nothing inside the room but, making
a trumpet of her hands, she said, “Captain Beattie!”
She dared not call out, for as luck would have it, in the last five
minutes there had come a decided pause in the firing, and a loud voice
might very well carry between the shots. The occupant of the cell made
no response, only Lucy fancied that she heard some one sigh, and the
rustle of a straw mattress beneath a sleeper’s weight. With pounding
heart she stood a minute longer listening, then stepping back, crept on
to the next window. She reached up on tiptoe to grasp the bars, and as
she did so her fingers touched something soft inside—somebody’s
clothing. At the same moment a voice, speaking within a few inches of
her face, asked breathlessly in English, “Who’s that?”
Lucy’s heart gave a wild throb of triumph. “Captain Beattie?” she
stammered, clutching at the bars.
“Yes—who on earth——?” The voice was shaky with bewilderment. Lucy knew
she had not a second to lose. She said hastily:
“You remember the girl who translated the German questions for you, the
day the town was taken? I’m an American; my father is an
officer—wounded—and I came to see him from England and couldn’t get away
in time.”
“But what are you doing here now?” asked the amazed young Englishman. As
he spoke, his hand reached through the bars for Lucy’s, as though to
establish the comradeship of touch out of the darkness.
“I came to see you because I knew you’d be lonely—I had a brother in a
German prison—and for another reason too. But first,” she reached down
for her cape and gathered up the meager supplies it held, “do you get
enough to eat?”
“I should say not. But quite as much as I expected. How about yourself?”
“Oh, I’m all right. I’m in the hospital and there is always enough
there. Look here, I’ve brought you a few things. I know raw eggs are
horrid, but they’re nourishing. It’s all I could manage to-night. Do you
want them?”
“Do I want them!” The rest of the prisoner’s answer was to reach through
the bars and take the scanty provisions carefully from Lucy’s hands.
“You plucky little kid! I’m as hungry as a wolf. Don’t tell me you came
here all alone to-night?”
“Oh, no. A—a friend from the hospital came with me. But, Captain
Beattie, please listen now while I tell you something.” She paused for a
second and a sudden thought prompted her to preface her words by asking,
“Are you quite sure I’m all right and that you trust me? You can put out
your hand and feel my hair and face if you like, so you’ll see I’m
really who I said.”
“I believe you!” said the Englishman, and his voice sounded as though he
were smiling. “What’s your name? You haven’t told me.”
“Lucy Gordon. My brother is Lieutenant Robert Gordon of the American
Aviation Corps.”
“No! Is he? I’ve seen him fly.” From inside the barred window Lucy heard
a deep sigh as though the young prisoner had suddenly realized again his
hopeless captivity.
She went on quickly. “He came here to see me to-night.”
“What? Here?”
“Yes. He got word to me that he was going to try to land behind the
town, and I came out to meet him.” She plunged into the story of Bob’s
coming, repeating all he had told her of the difficulties in the way of
the Allied advance, and her own new-found hope, at mention of Argenton,
that the young Englishman might have some of the information so vital
for the recovery of Château-Plessis and the adjoining ground.
“Oh, if I could only have seen him for one moment! What a chance in a
thousand!” her listener broke in with desperate eagerness.
“Then you do know about Argenton? You could have told him?” Lucy panted.
“Didn’t I walk all through their trenches and wait for hours in the
broiling sun above their beastly batteries? But I had no hope of getting
news of it to our lines. If I could have seen Gordon for five minutes!”
“I never thought of it in time. I always do things too late,” moaned
Lucy, almost in despair. “Couldn’t you tell me anyhow, Captain Beattie?
So that if he does come again—he’s going to try to—I won’t fail a second
time?” Her voice shook with the sobs that rose uncontrollably in her
throat. To have been so near success and to have missed it! A weight of
disappointment settled on her heart.
“I couldn’t explain the defenses to you now,” said Captain Beattie
doubtfully. “You wouldn’t remember them accurately enough to do any
good. Anyhow, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to make the trip again.”
“Never mind—he might.”
“Well, I have paper and pencil, and I’ll draw a sketch—a camouflaged
one. You could tell him, of course, what it is. But I don’t think you
ought to come here a second time.”
“I’m coming. I’ll bring you things to eat. Didn’t I tell you Bob had
been in a German prison? Anyway, I’ve made such a mess of this I’m going
to try to succeed in the end.”
“Don’t feel bad,” said the young officer, concealing his disappointment.
“It would have been a horrible risk to bring your brother here—though so
far as I can see the town is empty and deserted as a tomb. I wish you’d
go now yourself, though. I’m awfully anxious about you. Where is your
friend?”
“She’s watching to see that your guard doesn’t come out. All right, I’m
going; but you’ll see me soon again.”
“Good-night—God bless you.” The young captain reached quickly through
the bars and took Lucy’s hands in a warm clasp. “You don’t know what
it’s meant to talk English again—and with a friend.”
Lucy sprang down from her foothold in the wall, and, with one swift
glance about her through the darkness, picked up her cape and stole
around the corner of the building. Elizabeth was still standing by the
shadow of the wall, but as Lucy came up she reached out and caught her
arm, leading the way swiftly down the narrow street.
“Oh, Miss Lucy,” she exclaimed, “I thought you never come! I have prayed
for you every moment you were gone! The soldiers stay there, but I feel
so afraid they change the guard, and I have no time to get to you!”
“I’m sorry. I know I stayed too long—but I found him!” Now that her
disappointment was not so sharp, Lucy was glad that at least she had
accomplished half her mission. “I’ll tell you all about it, Elizabeth.
Where are we going—to the hospital?”
“No, indeed, Miss Lucy. I take you to my room, and there we can sleep a
little while. By four o’clock we will back to the hospital go. So you
will get there as soon as the others.”
“All right,” said Lucy faintly. “I don’t know whether I’m sleepy or not,
but I think we started out to find Bob about a week ago.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------