She then disappeared and I heard her climbing the stairs with her usual agility. However, she returned considerably sooner than I had anticipated, and in a state of intense anger.
“There is another one up there,” she whispered. “I heard him sneezing. Why he didn’t shoot at me I don’t know, unless he thought I was the other one. But I’ve fixed him,” she added with a tinge of complacency. “It’s a rope ladder at the top. I reached up as high as I could and cut it.”
She then grew thoughtful and observed that cutting the ladder necessitated changing a part of her plan.
“What plan?” I demanded. “I guess my life’s at stake as well as yours, Tish Carberry.”
“I should think it would be perfectly clear,” she said. “We’ve either got to take this town or starve like rats in that cellar. They’ve got so now that they won’t even walk on the side next to the church, and some of them cross themselves. The frying pan seems to have started it, and when the knapsack disappeared—— However, here’s my plan, Lizzie. From what I have observed during the day pretty nearly the entire lot, except the sentries, will be in that beer cellar across in an hour or so. The rest will run for it—take my word—the moment I open fire.”
“I’ll take your word, Tish,” I said. “But what if they don’t run?”
She merely waved her hand.
“My plan is simply this,” she said: “I’ve been tinkering with that machine gun most of the day, and my conviction is that it will work. You simply turn a handle like a hand sewing machine. As soon as you hear me starting it you leave the church by that shell hole at the back and go as rapidly as possible back to the American lines. I’ll guarantee,” she added grimly, “that not a German leaves that cellar across the street until my arm’s worn out.”
“What shall I say, Tish?” I quavered.
I shall never forget the way she drew herself up.