Tom Slade with the Boys Over There Part 4

"Maybe far north into Prussia. Maybe still in Alsace. All ze familees zey will separate so zey shall meex wiz ze Zhermans." Florette suddenly grasped his hand. "I am glad I see you. So now I can see all ze Americans come--hoondreds----

"Tomorrow in ze night I will bring you ze clothes," she whispered, "and more food, and zen you will be rested----"

"I feel sorry for you," Tom blurted out with simple honesty, "and I got to thank you. Both of us have--that's one sure thing. You're worse off than we are--and it makes me feel mean, like. But maybe it won't be so bad. And, gee, I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow night, too."

"I will bring ze sings, _surely_," she said earnestly.

"It isn't--it isn't only for that," he mumbled, "it's because I'll kind of look forward to seeing you anyway."

For another moment she lingered and in the stillness of night and the thickly roofed arbor he could hear her breath coming short and quick, as she tried to stifle her emotion.

"Is--is it a sound?" she whispered in sudden terror.

"No, it's only because you're scared," said Tom.

He stood looking after her as she hurried away under the ramshackle trellis until her slender figure was lost in the darkness.

"It'll make me fight harder, anyway," he said to himself; "it'll help me to get to France 'cause--'cause I _got_ to, and if you _got_ to do a thing--you can...."

CHAPTER V

THE VOICE FROM THE DISTANCE

"My idea," said Archer, when Tom returned, "is to break that stick about in half and prop the doorr just wide enough open so's we can crawl in.

Then we can spread the vines all overr the top just like it was beforre and overr the opening, too. What d'ye say?"

"That's all right," said Tom, "and we can leave it a little open tonight. In the morning we'll drop it and be on the safe side."

"Maybe we'd betterr drop it tonight and be on the safe side," said Archer. "S'pose we should fall asleep."

"We'll take turns sleeping," said Tom decisively. "We can't afford to take any chances."

"You can bet I'm going to get a sooveneerr of this place, anyway," said Archer, tugging at a rusty nail.

"Never you mind about souvenirs," Tom said; "let's get this door camouflaged."

"I could swap that nail for a jack-knife back home," said Archer regretfully. "A nail right fresh from Alsace!"

But he gave it up and together they pulled the tangled vine this way and that, until the door and the opening beneath were well covered. Then they crawled in and while Archer reached up and held the door, Tom broke the stick so that the opening was reduced to the inch or two necessary for ventilation. Reaching out, they pulled the vine over this crack until they felt certain that no vestige of door or opening could be seen from without, and this done they sat down upon the straw, their backs against the walls of the vat, enjoying the first real comfort and freedom from anxiety which they had known since their escape from the prison camp.

"I guess we're safe herre forr tonight, anyway," said Archer, "but believe _me_, I think we've got some job on our hands getting out of this country. It's going to be no churrch sociable----"

"We got this far," said Tom, "and by tomorrow night we ought to have a good plan doped out. We got nothing to do all day tomorrow but think about it."

"Gee, I feel sorry for these people," said Archer; "they'rre surre up against it. Makes me feel as if I'd like to have one good whack at Kaiser Bill----"

"Well, don't talk so loud and we'll get a whack at him, all right."

"I'd like to get his old double-jointed moustache for a sooveneerr."

"There you go again," said Tom.

Now that the excitement was over, they realized how tired they were and indeed the strain upon their nerves, added to their bodily fatigue, had brought them almost to the point of exhaustion.

"I'm all in," said Archer wearily.

"All right, go to sleep," said Tom, "and after a while if you don't wake up I'll wake you. One of us has got to stay awake and listen. We can't afford to take any chances."

Archibald Archer needed no urging and in a minute he was sprawled upon the straw, dead to the world. The daylight was glinting cheerily through the interstices of tangled vine over the opening when he awoke with the heedless yawns which he might have given in his own beloved Catskills.

"Don't make a noise," said Tom quickly, by way of caution. "We're in the wine vat in Leteur's vineyard in Alsace, remember." It took Archer a moment to realize where they were. They ate an early breakfast, finding the simple odds and ends grateful enough, and then Tom took his turn at a nap.

Throughout most of that day they sat with their knees drawn up, leaning against the inside of the great vat, talking in hushed tones of their plans. There was nothing else they could do in the half darkness and the slow hours dragged themselves away monotonously. They had lowered the door, but still left it open upon the merest crack and out of this one or the other would peek at intervals, listening, heart in throat, for the dreaded sound of footfalls. But no one came.

"I thought I hearrd a kind of rustling once," Archer said fearfully.

"There's a couple of cows 'way over in a field," said Tom; "they might have made some sound."

After what seemed to them an age, the leaves over the opening seemed bathed in a strange new light and glistened here and there.

"That crack faces the west," said Tom. "The sun's beginning to go down."

"How do you know?" asked Archer.

"I always knew that up at Temple Camp. I don't know _how_ I know. The morning sun is different from the afternoon sun, that's all. I think it'll set now in about two hours."

"I wonder when she'll come," Archer said.

"Not till it's good and dark, that's sure. She's got to be careful.

Maybe this place can be seen from the road, for all we know. Remember, we didn't see it in the daylight."

"Sh-h-h," said Archer. "Listen."

From far, far away there was borne upon the still air a dull, spent, booming sound at intervals.

"It's the fighting," whispered Tom.

"Wherre do you suppose it is?" Archer asked, sobered by this audible reminder of their nearness to the seat of war.

"I don't know," Tom said. "I'm kind of mixed up. That feller in the prison had a map. Let's see. I think Nancy's the nearest place to here.

Toul is near that. That's where our fellers are--around there. Listen!"

Again the rumbling, faint but distinctly audible, almost as if it came from another world.

"The trenches run right through there--near Nancy," said Tom.