“Where shall we go?” asked Lucy uncertainly. “Near to the cottage, I think. Then we shall be safely hidden and can see around us.”
Elizabeth nodded, cautiously choosing her steps in the darkness, fearful of the treacherous shell holes here and there. At Mère Breton’s back gate they paused, and Lucy held her breath, listening with a shiver of fear for she knew not what. But only the pounding of the cannon as the bombardment fitfully continued broke the silence, while far to the west on the battle line beyond the town, bursting shells threw a glaring light against the sky.
Through the soft darkness near at hand a cricket by the gate-post made a brave effort to chirp against the guns. Lucy and Elizabeth sat down on the worn stone steps outside the gate and peered across the fields and up at the sky in anxious expectancy.
“He may not come, Elizabeth. I almost hope he doesn’t!” Lucy said again, the old dreadful fear for Bob clutching at her heart. Inside the gate and drooping above it grew a big lilac bush, and as they sat there, the night air shook the blossoms and floated over them laden with fragrance. Lucy leaned back against the post and drank in the sweet air in deep refreshing breaths. Never again, she thought, would she smell lilacs without remembering this night.
After a long time of waiting she felt certain it must be late enough for Bob to come. Out of many thoughts an idea had occurred to her, as she sat gazing up into the sky. The most dangerous part of the descent would be when Bob drew near enough to be seen against the stars. Once in the black shadow of the wood he could land unseen, and Bob knew these meadows well and would make use of such protection. This meant that he would land at some distance from where they were, and she wanted to be as near as possible, to save every precious minute. She waited a moment for a good pause in the firing to tell her thoughts more easily to Elizabeth, but before it came a sound made her suddenly clutch at her companion’s arm. In the distance, between the scattering shots, she heard the whir of an airplane. Silently Elizabeth nodded, pointing upward toward the sky above the wood. A little dark speck showed for an instant against the clear, starry blue, then before Lucy’s eager eyes had more than caught it, sank swiftly down among the shadowy tree tops.
Lucy sprang to her feet, not speaking a word, all her energy and breath reserved for that mad dash across the fields to Bob’s landing-place. But Elizabeth’s hand caught hers and her voice entreated:
“Don’t run in the dark across there, Miss Lucy! Surely you will in the holes fall. Mr. Bob will come this way himself to look for us.”
Only a little deterred by this warning, Lucy began running toward the wood, searching every yard of ground ahead of her and narrowly avoiding more than once a bad fall into a yawning shell hole close at hand. Elizabeth was soon lost sight of but she could not stop to wait. Before long her breath began to come hard and fast, and her back to ache unbearably from leaning forward as she ran to watch for dangerous ground. On she went until presently a wide field lay between her and Mère Breton’s cottage. A hummock in the grass at one side made her dodge a little to the left, uncertainly. It looked like an animal asleep, but as she came closer it moved and up beside her sprang a tall figure. Two strong arms were around her trembling shoulders, while a familiar voice said quickly in her ear, “It’s Bob, Lucy dear—I’m not a Boche! That’s what I took you for!”
“Oh, Bob—if I had been!” Lucy gasped as she caught tight hold of him and glanced shivering into the darkness.
“Don’t worry—he wouldn’t have got me. I shan’t fall tamely into their hands a second time.” Suddenly his fingers on Lucy’s arm stiffened. “Who’s that?”