"How was I to know about that?"
"There must have been a terrific row," said Harry. "Close by, too."
"If I'd known I'd have been out like a shot, you bet. But I guess how it was. I must have got fair worn out with traipsing round and round, and fallen asleep at last, and when you go to sleep like that, nothing on earth 'ud wake you. 'Specially being used to the sound of guns in the trenches. Anyway, when I woke up, I was so mad for food that I said to myself I'd get out somehow and chance it. I went to the staircase; there was a light above, so I knew it was night, and I began to crawl up. But there was a footstep on the passage, and down I went again, but not into the cellar; that gave me the horrors. I sat in the dark at the foot of the staircase, in the hope there'd be quiet above in time.
"Well, I waited hours, it seemed. I heard laughing and talking, and knives and forks going, and that made me mad. I was just going to make a dash for it when I heard the Germans going along to the door. I didn't hardly dare to hope they'd all clear out, but I waited a bit, and all was quite still, and I crawled up on hands and knees so the stairs shouldn't creak. What I was afraid was that the servants were in the kitchen, but there wasn't a sound; and I crept along the passage.
"There was two doors, one on each side, open. On the right was the room where the officers had been dining. The sight of that table was too much for me, famished as I was. I must eat if I died for it. I was just a-going to begin when a little sound almost made me jump out of my skin. I snatched up a carving knife and whipped round, and there, across the passage, in the room opposite, was an officer writing at a table, with his back to me. Quick as lightning I thought if I could only get into his uniform I'd have a chance of getting through their lines in the dark. I listened: the house was quiet as a graveyard: and with the carving knife in my hand I stole across the passage."
He described his brief operations with the German lieutenant and his subsequent proceedings.
"And all I want now," he concluded, "is a photo of that Frenchwoman to send to the missus, and I hope she've come to no harm."
"You're a trump, Ginger," cried Harry, clapping him on the back. "You've certainly won that Iron Cross."
"It'll do for the kids to play with," remarked Ginger. "Myself, I wouldn't wear the thing the Kaiser gives away by the ton. Ah! I said I only wanted one thing, but there's another."
"What's that?"