“I know Captain Beattie’s plan of the batteries isn’t everything,” Lucy went on earnestly, “but he and Bob are so sure that Argenton is the key to an advance along this line. If the Allies can take Argenton they think Château-Plessis and the towns north toward Amiens will fall too. I don’t know about Montdidier.”
“Yes, so thinks Armand as well,” said Michelle, a trifle wearily. “But we cannot reach the other side to tell them what we know.”
Lucy fell into gloomy silence. Presently, with an effort at self-control, she raised her hands to smooth her loosened hair, and tried to recover some of her calmness. “You have enough to stand, without bearing my tantrums,” she said, looking at Michelle remorsefully. “I’ll behave now. Shall we go to the hospital? The convalescents are waiting for their work.”
“Yes,” Michelle nodded, “Clemence goes to the Commissariat now. I can stay at the hospital with you until she returns.”
Neither of the two felt much like talking as they crossed the town a few minutes later. Their spirits were heavily clouded, and the occasional sighs and ejaculations of the patient old Frenchwoman trudging beside them found an echo in their own hearts. On entering the hospital Lucy noticed an unusual stir and activity about the wards. That some of the faces turned toward her were sadder than an hour before did not at first strike her, because she was sad herself. But the next moment she met Miss Pearse, and, seeing the young nurse’s troubled face, asked anxiously:
“Is anything wrong, Miss Pearse? Anything more, I mean?”
“Only that they are sending some of our convalescents to prison camps to-day. The order came just after you left. Oh, Lucy, I hated so to tell them!” Her voice shook and tears started to her eyes, but she swallowed hastily to overcome her weakness. “I must go and help them get off. Come into the hall and try to cheer them up a bit.”
“Easier said than done!” Lucy thought wretchedly. She wanted to do nothing so much as to cry, but she had begun to learn the uselessness of that. Michelle caught her hand with a hard squeeze of angry understanding as they went on into the convalescents’ hall, where the men to be sent away were assembled.
One of the first that Lucy saw was the little Westerner, Tyler, whose cheerful spirit and jolly little clay images had done so much for the others in the past few days. She longed overwhelmingly to give all she had of help and sympathy to her unfortunate countrymen, for the ten or twelve soldiers, French and American, gathered there were the picture of despondency. The strength which might have upheld them was wanting, for they were scarcely recovered or able to be about. Their cheeks were pale and their bodies thin from suffering and fever. All the courage they could summon was only enough to give their set faces a look of grim endurance.
Of them all Tyler seemed to Lucy the most pitiful. His hopeful cockiness was almost gone, and the strain of getting ready and standing about, after the days spent in bed or in a chair, had nearly exhausted his wiry little frame. Major Greyson went here and there among them, giving what help or advice he could, cast down like them by the knowledge that another hour would see them beyond his power to aid.