“It is nearly ten—you’ll soon get off,” said Elizabeth encouragingly. “What sort of quarters have you here?”
“Pretty good. Better than those at Petit-Bois, though the French guns haven’t left us many whole roofs to sleep under. And, Donnerwetter! We need a little sleep.” He gave a weary sigh as Elizabeth, starting on again at Lucy’s side, said with a friendly nod:
“Well, good-night to you, Hans.”
“Good-night,” said the sentry, shouldering his gun once more.
Lucy held fast to Elizabeth’s arm in an ecstasy of relief as they walked quickly on through the starlit darkness.
“No others shall we meet inside the town,” Elizabeth said softly. “Once outside we must be careful, and on the lookout keep.”
They were already near the border of Château-Plessis, but not among the lanes, with which Lucy was familiar. They had come further south, making an abrupt turn, after passing the sentry, away from the real route to Elizabeth’s lodgings. She wished to give the German headquarters on this side of the town a wide berth, as well as the field observation post in the meadow. Bob’s probable landing-place she and Lucy had discussed that morning, for Lucy had faith in Elizabeth’s shrewd judgment, sharpened by months of experience on or near the battle line.
“Mr. Bob dares not to land now where three days ago you saw him, Miss Lucy,” Elizabeth said with certainty. “Nor yet near the place where he let fall to me the message. But there is a further meadow where sometimes aviators have the landing made, and that is on the other side of the old Frenchwoman’s house, and nearer to the wood. It is there I look for him to come.”
Now, as they passed the scattered houses between them and the open fields, Lucy guessed that they would come out about a quarter of a mile south of Mère Breton’s cottage. Already she saw the safety of the way Elizabeth had chosen, for this corner of Château-Plessis was the farthest removed from the German front and the least frequented. The fields it bordered on were too near the wood where the French batteries had been hidden to have been tilled or cultivated. They lay neglected, torn up by shell holes and overgrown with weeds.
The stars gave light enough to show the outline of Mère Breton’s cottage among the trees at their left as they emerged at last from a poplar-bordered lane into the grass of the nearest meadow. Lucy stumbled a little as her feet met the rough clods of earth, and Elizabeth, breathing fast after her anxious walk, said softly in her ear, “We can sit down and rest a while, Miss Lucy. Too early is it yet for him to come.”