“Of course. I’m going to leave it here with you, anyway. It’s the first chance I’ve had.”
Michelle glanced keenly toward the windows, across which calico curtains were drawn, as Lucy raised the hem of her dress and, ripping a few stitches, drew out a folded slip of paper. The two girls sat down at the table on which the flickering candle burned, and Lucy spread the paper out before them.
“I’ve hardly done more than peek at it myself,” she remarked. “You’ve made me so cautious, Michelle, I don’t do anything without stopping to think if it is safe.”
“I am glad of that,” said Michelle, soberly. “It is better you should be too careful than to forget once that the Boches are always listening. Oh, see; he has drawn it like a picture, that the danger may not be so great for you.”
Lucy remembered the Englishman’s brief explanation as she bent over the little sketch, and repeated it to Michelle. The drawing was cleverly but roughly made with quick strokes of the pen, and, to her eye at least, would have suggested nothing suspicious. Beneath it were scrawled the words, “Changing the Guard.” The six groups of German soldiers, leaning lazily on their guns as they awaited their orders to relieve the various out-posts, might have been seen any day from Captain Beattie’s prison window. As for the curving line of the road as he had drawn it, only an observing eye would notice that the road behind the prison had really far less width and fewer windings. The flower-beds sketched in beyond completed the zigzag outline. Lucy saw it all now, with a rush of comprehension. The carefully measured lines behind the lounging figures of the guard were the bastions of the great fortified ridge at Argenton. The soldiers were the hidden batteries whose locations had been the object of such deadly and ineffectual search.
“Oh, Michelle,” she sighed, filled with eager and helpless longing, “I’d do anything—anything—to get this over to our lines.”
“And I, too,” exclaimed the French girl with flashing eyes. “But what can we do? We can only wait.”
Lucy frowned in bitter rebellion as she folded the paper once more and slipped it carefully into her pocket.
“I must return to Maman,” said Michelle, picking up the candle. “Perhaps she is awake again.”
Lucy followed her friend up the narrow, dingy stairs, and, as she did so, her exasperation began to give place to a pleasanter and more helpful feeling. She looked forward to spending the night in the de la Tours’ little house. Though they were in enemy hands this house still kept some of the elements of home. Its neat, simple interior, and the united affection of the three who made up the family—for Clemence was one of them by virtue of hardships long shared in common—meant much to Lucy after her days in the crowded hospital and nights in the half-furnished house across the street.