“There is no telling,” said Tom “Sometimes it's a week before their airmen get a chance to fly over our lines. It all depends.”
“On what?”
“On how the battle goes,” answered Tom. “If there is much fighting, and many engagements in the air, the Boches don't get a chance to fly over and drop tokens of our men they may have shot down. We do the same for them, so it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. Often for a week we don't get a chance to let them know about prisoners we have, because the fighting is so severe.”
“Will it be that way now?” the girl went on.
“Hard to say—we don't have the ordering of battles,” replied Jack. “But it's been rather quiet for a few days, and it's likely to continue so. If it does one of their men may fly over to-morrow, or the next day, and drop something your brother wore—or even a note from him.”
“Oh, I hope they do the last!” she murmured. “If I could have a note from him I'd be the happiest girl alive I I'd know, then, that he was all right.”
“He may be,” said Tom, trying to be hopeful. “You see Du Boise, who was with Harry when the fight took place, is himself wounded, so he can't tell us much about it.”
“Yes, they told me that my brother's companion reached here badly hurt. He is so brave! I wish they would let me help take care of him. I understand a great deal about wounds, and I'm not at all afraid of the sight of blood. It was silly of me to faint just now, but—I—I couldn't help it. I'd been counting so much on seeing Harry, and when they told me he was gone—”
She covered her face with her hands, and endeavored to repress her emotion.
“You're not Harry's little sister, are you?” asked Jack, hoping to change the current of talk into other and happier channels.