“Because I had to see you and know that you were safe. Father, too. You can imagine how Mother and Cousin Henry have felt since Château-Plessis was taken.”
“Oh, Bob, you’ve seen Mother? Where is she?” Lucy cried, in a burst of relief and longing.
“She is near our line, about fifteen miles south-west of here. That’s where the trains were blocked—except those carrying troops—so that she couldn’t get on. She tried every possible way—horse, mule and ambulance—and she would have made it on foot if the town had held out another day. Come, let’s sit down on this bank. And stop shaking like that! I’m all right.”
They dropped down beneath a ragged row of poplars which separated the field from its neighbor as Bob continued:
“I was so thankful to have the good news of Father’s recovery for her at the same time that she heard of the town’s capture. Now I can at least tell her something of you. You’re in the hospital, Lucy? Do the Germans let us run it as before? I know something of what goes on in Château-Plessis—can’t stop now to tell you how—but I know that the town is held by only a company, and that the enemy is too fagged out to do more than care for their own wounded.”
“Make us care for them, you mean,” said Lucy. “But where can you get news from? Never mind now, tell me more of Mother. Oh, how often I’ve thought of her, and longed to tell her I was safe!”
“It’s Elizabeth being here with you that has comforted her most. Did you find Elizabeth that day I told you she might still be here?”
“The day you landed over there on the meadow? You never told me,” said Lucy, puzzled. Suddenly a light broke through her mind. “Was that what you tried to tell me as you started off? I couldn’t hear a word with the propeller whirling.”
Bob put his arm suddenly about her in the darkness and looked up into the starry sky. “If only I could take you back with me,” he groaned. “It seems too awful to leave you here! But I have to cross the German lines, and their guns and scouts are fiendishly watchful. My little one-man Nieuport can skim over their heads and dodge them. With a two-seater I need a fellow in front of me pumping a machine gun for all he’s worth.” He fell silent for a despairing moment, then said more calmly, “Never mind, Lucy. Just be a plucky sport. I won’t leave you here long, if I have to bring a squadron after you. If only we could force them out of Argenton! That’s the place where they threaten to outflank us if we advance.”
At the name Argenton Lucy all at once forgot the sickening fear and ache of her own heart in a vivid recollection. That was the place where Captain Beattie had been taken. “What makes it so hard to get through there, Bob?” she asked eagerly. “You mean the enemy is too strong?”