“I don’t know. I can’t understand what all these people say; but they let me fetch water for them and attend to you; and to-day there has been a lot going on—troops marching past.”
“Yes,” said Pen; “that means there has been another fight.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have heard no firing. But hadn’t you better go to sleep again?”
Pen smiled, but he took the advice and lay back.
“Perhaps I had,” he said faintly; and as Punch watched him he fell into a restful doze.
So it was during the days that followed, each one bringing back more strength to the invalid, and likewise each day a further contingent of the wounded in the battle of a month before being passed as fit for service again and drafted to the front; while each day, too, Pen found that the strength that used to be his was returning little by little, and he listened eagerly one night when Punch bent over him and whispered something in his ear.
“You know I have been talking about it to you,” said the boy, “for several nights past; and when I wasn’t talking about it I was thinking of it. But now—now I think the time has come.”
“To escape?” cried Pen eagerly. “You mean it?”