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.