“I’m half drowned. And there’s a man here.”
The first voice then said in an aggrieved manner: “This is my puddle, you know, lady. And if my revolver wasn’t wet through I’m afraid there would be one mermaid less, or whatever you are.”
The Germans at that moment sent up one of their white lights, which resemble certain of our Fourth of July pieces, which float a long time and give the effect of full moonlight.
“Down,” said Mr. Burton, and we all fell flat on our faces. Before doing so, however, we had a short glimpse of Aggie’s head and another above the water in the shell hole, and realized that her position was very uncomfortable.
When the light died away the two men emerged, and with some difficulty dragged her out. It was while this was going on that Tish caught my arm and whispered: “Lizzie, I have heard that voice before.”
Well, it had a familiar sound to me also, and when he addressed the other man as Grogan I suddenly remembered. It was the man we had thrown from the ambulance in Paris the night Tish salvaged it! I told Tish in a whisper, and she remembered the incident clearly.
“You sure gave me a scare,” he said to Aggie. “For if you were a German I was gone, and if you were an officer of the A. E. F. I was gone more. Bill and I just slipped out to take a look round the town behind those woods, account of our captain being a prisoner there.”
“Who is your captain?” Tish asked.
“Name’s Weber. We pulled off a raid last night, and he and a fellow named Sands got grabbed.”
“Weber?” said Mr. Burton, forgetting to whisper.