"My friend, you must take back your blanket," he said earnestly, as Bob approached the cot and sat down beside him. "I did not think last night when you so generously left it."
Bob reassured him on that score, and hastily told of his interview with the doctor, and of the hope he felt of being allowed to sleep in Bertrand's room. This seemed to afford the sick man great comfort. He silently shook Bob's hand with a grateful look that told more than words of the lonely misery he had suffered. His fever had gone down, though his thin face was still flushed and his eyes over-bright. Bob heated over the fire the coffee left from breakfast and made him drink it, though he could not be persuaded to eat the hard bread. Bob's own stores of herring and pumpkin-seed marmalade were alike useless. He resolved to ransack the canteen again for something palatable, for Bertrand was rapidly losing strength on his meagre diet.
Bob did not dare lead him to count on having his company at night until permission was assured. But he felt, when he left him, that even the hope had brought a little cheerfulness into the unfortunate officer's long day, which he must pass lying spent with fever in his lonely prison. Bob wanted to ask him if his letters had been answered, and what chance there was of receiving news from home or of sending it there, but he was afraid of awakening unhappy thoughts, and decided to postpone his questions until Bertrand's fever should have entirely gone.
He sat down at his own table, after the doors were locked again, and slowly took up the indelible pencil lying on the paper before him, with a sad look coming over his face. Longings for home and freedom wrenched his heart now as he thought of what to write, and the hopelessness of trying to say anything, since all must pass under the eyes of the Commandant, made him lay down his pencil almost in despair. But to assure his family that he was alive and well was his greatest wish, and he felt a reasonable hope of having this much sent on.
At last he chose the post-cards, and writing the brief news that he was well, a prisoner in Germany, and sent his love to all at home, he addressed three of them to his mother, his father and to Lucy, hoping that one of the three might find its way in time to Governor's Island. Considering the difficult and roundabout means of transportation, coupled with little willingness on the part of his captors to fulfil the prisoners' wishes, he saw, as he thought it over again, that the chances were slim.
As he wrote Lucy's name her face came before him, as she had looked when he said good-bye to her three months before. Her eyes were bright with tears, but she was bravely smiling, and he could hear her voice again, gay and cheerful, but with a world of tender affection behind it as she said, "We'll never stop thinking of you!"
He knew she never had, and the constant thoughts of those who waited for him were the source of more courage than they knew, now that Bob in his loneliness had such need of courage. But he felt, just then, he would give anything on earth for the sight of one familiar face among the strangers about him, of whom only Bertrand and the French soldier prisoner had given him the grateful tribute of a friendly glance. Few wishes were granted in that prison camp, but at this time of strange happenings Bob's wish was nearer fulfilment than he dreamed.
Dinner was no more substantial than yesterday's, but Bob helped it out with a pickled herring. While he was eating it without enthusiasm, a vision of Karl's cream-puffs, as they had so often come, at Bob's special request, puffy, round and inviting, to the Gordons' table, made him smile with a touch of irony. It would be hard work persuading Karl to make him any now, supposing the two met again.
In the afternoon, the sergeant brought him the welcome news that he would be permitted to sleep in Bertrand's room. Eager to make sure of the privilege, Bob asked to have his cot moved immediately, and two soldiers carried it into the next room at the sergeant's orders. Bob stood in his doorway while this was going on, looking curiously at a little group of what he guessed, from the numerous guards about them, to be newly-arrived prisoners, though they were too far off to be distinguished. He asked his guard who they were, without expecting a satisfactory answer, for the soldier was always non-committal, whether from natural sullenness or in obedience to orders, Bob could not decide. But this time his eyes brightened at the question, and after glancing down toward the further barracks which the men had entered, he gave Bob a queer look and said, "American prisoners."
"What!" Bob's self-control was gone for a moment. He stared at the man in blank amazement.