"A little water, comrade," he murmured, the ghost of his old graciousness of manner lingering in his feeble voice.
Bob rejoiced at his words, his first sensible utterance in many hours, and hastened to obey his request. As he bent over the bed, raising the Frenchman's thin frame with one arm to hold the water to his hot lips, Bertrand whispered, "You have been a friend, mon garçon,—many thanks, while I have breath to say it!" He panted as he spoke, but his bright eyes turned to Bob's with a glance of affectionate gratitude, and their intelligence was for the moment unclouded. "If I must die in prison—in an enemy's country—it is something, comrade, to have your friendly face so near at hand. We are true Allies,—France and America."
He fell back gasping, while Bob, his own eyes blurred with quick tears of pity and understanding, dipped a handkerchief in the cold water and laid it over Bertrand's burning forehead.
"You're not going to die," he said, doggedly, though his voice was choked as he spoke and his grim face belied his hopeful words. "I'm going to get that doctor now, if I have to storm the Commandant in his own den." This he announced with a determination that took no thought as yet of ways and means.
He rose from beside the cot, where Bertrand lay exhausted after his battle for breath to speak with, and strode toward the door. Outside he could hear the prisoners marching toward the kitchen and the German guard was unlocking the officers' rooms for dinner. Bob waited for his own door to open, his purpose unwavering to demand attention for Bertrand's desperate need, no matter what retribution any violence might bring upon himself. He did not intend to wait for a word with Sergeant Cameron, but rapidly pieced together his German to address the guard as soon as the door opened. But when it did open, Bob's set face wavered almost to a smile with the quick relief of it. He would not have to engage just then, anxious and hungry as he was, on the doubtful struggle with the powers above him, for behind the guard stood the short, alert figure of the doctor, wrapped in a gray uniform overcoat, his face reddened by the frosty air.
Bob felt almost as though the German were a friend as he stepped eagerly forward, fearful lest he should somehow escape him, saying, "Doctor, thank Heaven you've come! Captain Bertrand is very ill. Why haven't you had him taken away?"
The touch of indignation in his last words was acknowledged by the German with a slight shrug of the shoulders as he stepped inside the room and laid his medicine case on the table. "I cannot perform the impossible," he said shortly, giving a keen glance in Bertrand's direction. "He is not the only sick man in Germany."
Bob checked his resentment at this cool retort, and gave all his attention to helping the doctor make the sick man more comfortable. It was evident to both of them that there was little to be done, for the medicine case was not able to furnish the doctor with what he wanted, and Bertrand, sunk again into feverish slumber, gave no answer to the questions put to him. At last the German put on his gloves and prepared to take leave, but before doing so he forestalled Bob's obvious intention of protesting against Bertrand's remaining any longer in the prison by saying irritably:
"Yes, yes! He shall be moved. Soon, too—he has been here far too long already." He glanced at Bob with a look of angry dissatisfaction, whether at the young American himself, the sick man, or the German medical staff's mismanagement, Bob did not know; but after a curt nod he departed, leaving Bob in a state of painful uncertainty during the few moments he passed alone with Bertrand before Sergeant Cameron brought in his meagre noonday meal.