“Captain Beattie!” she said again, imploringly.
Some one stirred on a rustling straw bed and footsteps sounded on the stone floor. Then the Englishman’s voice from just inside the bars asked uncertainly, “Is that you, Lucy Gordon?”
Then with a little more of its natural energy the voice out of the darkness added, “But you poor child, what a night to be out! Why did you come again?”
“I told you I would,” said Lucy, peering through the bars in a vain attempt to see beyond them. “This sort of night is the safest to come. The rain doesn’t hurt me. I have something for you, Captain Beattie. I can’t get the basket through the bars. Will you hold out your hands?”
“You’ve brought me some grub, you little friend in need!” exclaimed the prisoner with a sudden shake in his low voice. “Can you honestly spare it? I bet you can’t.”
“Oh, yes indeed; I have plenty. Here, I’ll put the things into your hands. They are only two baked potatoes, some bread and eggs and a little chocolate. Be careful—all right, I see now where your hand is.”
“I hate to be a funker, but I’m horribly hungry,” admitted the young officer, as his careful hands drew in the contents of the little basket. “They give us the most beastly food. I’m all right, though—I get along. But it’s jolly to have a friend like you.”
The attempt at cheerfulness in his sad voice struck at Lucy’s heart. “I’ll come often, Captain Beattie. I’ll bring you all I can,” she promised eagerly.
“No you won’t, Lucy. You mustn’t. You don’t mind if I call you Lucy? I’ll tell you why I like to. I have a little sister named Lucy—at least she was a kid like you before the war, when we used to be together. Now she’s eighteen, and learning to be a nurse; but I always think of her as a little girl.”
“Of course you may call me that. I’m so glad if I can cheer you up the least bit. Didn’t I tell you that my brother Bob was in a German prison?”