“No, not a bit. I’ve heard Franz sing, but it was Deutschland über Alles, and that’s not gay.”
“Nor true, either. The orderly’s got ahead of us. We’d better hurry.”
They approached the spring, where the soldier had unlocked the bottling apparatus and was already unloading his hand-cart of bottles. The three set to work and in twenty minutes had completed the task. The orderly put things to rights and began trundling off his load while Lucy and Alan still lingered by the stone basin, watching the clear, bright water, into which the sunbeams twinkled through the forest boughs.
“I wonder where the children are,” said Lucy, looking toward the cottage.
“Gone wood-cutting with the old man,” Alan suggested.
“No, he never takes them along.”
“Here he is, I fancy,” said Alan, nodding toward the open.
Two or three notes of a clear whistle sounded from among the trees at the opposite side of the clearing. Alan got up and looked through the pines with sudden curiosity.
“It’s not Franz at all,” said Lucy, by his side. “It’s Herr Johann, and I don’t know who else.”
The Whistle had been once repeated but, on receiving no answer, the whistler and his companion emerged from the forest and began walking quickly across the snow-covered clearing to Franz’ cottage. Herr Johann was dressed as when Lucy had last seen him. His companion looked like a German farmer. He was tall and burly, and wore a thick jacket, woolen mittens, and boots, below patched grey soldier’s trousers. Herr Johann hammered on the cottage door.