[CHAPTER XVII]
OVER THE FRONTIER
Six weeks of imprisonment had brought few changes to Bob, and those few were not of a pleasant sort. The only bright spot in the dark monotony of his life was Sergeant Cameron's companionship, for repeated requests had finally obtained it for him, in a qualified degree. His captors had no objection to the sergeant's waiting on the American officer in place of a German orderly, so after the usual hesitation and delay, Sergeant Cameron was allowed to visit Bob and attend to his simple wants in the short periods during which the doors remained unlocked. Bob still shared Bertrand's room, and most of Sergeant Cameron's ministrations were by now directed, together with Bob's, to making the unfortunate officer as comfortable as possible. The two or three weeks which were to elapse before his transfer to better quarters had lengthened to five, and still the fever came and went, each time leaving the patient sufferer thinner, weaker, and less able to fight for his life. As Bob knelt beside his cot one cold, dark morning, with a bowl of coffee in his hands, he turned a weary, anxious face to Sergeant Cameron, who was trying to blow the few sticks on the hearth into a lively blaze.
"It's no use, Sergeant," he said, sombrely. "I can't make him take anything. He won't be roused at all. Confound that doctor! He hasn't been near us in three days."
"He's off at another camp, sir, so I heard from the guard," said the sergeant, pausing in his work to look at Captain Bertrand's flushed and unconscious face as he lay heavily breathing. "I think he'll be along to-day. He has more to do than he can manage, but he seems a pretty good sort, for a Boche."
Bob gave a grunt of angry helplessness. "Then why doesn't he get this poor fellow moved? Can't he see that he's dying on his hands? I don't care if their hospitals are jammed with wounded—one Frenchman is worth a dozen of them!"
Bob spoke with a bitterness that was new to him, and his frowning brows did not unknit themselves as he rose from the floor, carefully drawing the blanket over Bertrand's shoulders. Sergeant Cameron finished mending the fire in thoughtful silence. The old soldier had suffered heavy disappointment in being captured and removed from the fighting line so early in the struggle, during a trifling raid on a bit of exposed German trench. Since then, too, he had known hard privation in the prison camp, but at least half of the anxiety and depression that had paled his ruddy face was for the son of his old Major, whose every word and gesture showed the strain of indignation, hunger, and rigid confinement unwillingly borne. He could not do much to alleviate Bob's misery, but stories of Major Gordon's old regiment, which had been honored by an early place in the first line trenches, were always welcome to Bob's ears, and even a little talk would sometimes cheer him, for he was too young to be gloomy all the time.
"They say there's been a big British advance, Lieutenant," he began, rubbing his blackened fingers against each other as he turned from the hearth. "There's a new lot of prisoners come in early this morning. They're in the next barrack to me, so I'll have a word with them if possible at dinner-time."
"What did you hear? Where was the push made?" Bob asked, his eager interest smoothing out the wrinkles in his forehead and giving him back his boyish look. He was standing by the table, stirring a bit of bread in his bowl of acorn coffee.
"It was near a place the French call Cam-berray, or something like that," said the sergeant, diffidently. "The advance was led by General Byng. I got that much last night through a knot-hole in the wall, from a Frenchman who's chummy with me and speaks a bit of English."