"Ah, you don"t know. I have changed. I"ve grown up, suddenly. It couldn"t be otherwise," she answered very seriously. "At one time it looked a certainty that I should be sent to gaol, and the suspense was--well, almost unbearable. No one can tell what it meant to have to appear indifferent and confident, when I knew that any moment might be my last in freedom. That danger seemed to pa.s.s away, but only to give way to worse."
"You mean this----"
"Yes," she broke in with a quick nod. "I can"t bear even to hear his name mentioned. I soon knew what his real object was; he has a friend, a man like himself, who is in command of one of the concentration camps: the one at Krustadt: and--but you can guess. There was only one thing for me to do, and I prepared for it. I have the poison upstairs."
"Nessa!"
"No woman can go through such an ordeal and come out unchanged. I should have made a fight for it, of course. I told Rosa, and, although she was horrified at first, she saw it afterwards, and then she got Herr Feldmann to get me an identification card as Hans Bulich, and helped me get the disguise. I should have gone by now, if you hadn"t come. Oh yes, I"m changed; no one knows how much except myself."
The drawn intentness of her expression at the moment showed this so plainly that I was too much moved to find any words to reply. But she rallied quickly and laughed.
"And then when you came I was mad enough to believe you were a spy! I can"t think why I was such a fool. There was no excuse; not the slightest; and I don"t expect you ever to forgive me really."
"I don"t blame you. I don"t, on my honour."
"Well, I shall never forgive myself then. But--even now I can"t help staring at you."
"Stare away. I like it. But why?"
"You"re so--so utterly different."
"How?"
"In every way possible."
"Think so. Every way?" Our eyes met and she looked down.
"I wonder," she murmured under her breath; and then quickly in a louder tone: "Of course it"s your new life. Tell me about it."
We both understood; but that wasn"t the time to tell her she need not "wonder"; so I spoke about things at the Front.
"But I want your own experiences, Jack," she protested.
"I"m Herr La.s.sen, the man without a memory."
"You"re just as provoking as ever. You know that I"m dying to hear everything, and you won"t utter a word."
"Well, I"ll tell you one thing. It was all your doing."
She crinkled her forehead in a way I knew so well. "How?"
"Do you remember one day at Hendon--we were engaged then, by the by--how you ragged me about not having the pluck to go up and about cricket being so much safer a sport, and how I flung away in a huff and marched off and got a ticket at once and went up. That was the start."
"And I remember, too, what a fright it gave me when I saw you go. I watched the aeroplane with my heart in my mouth all the time in a sort of fascinated panic lest something should go wrong."
"And when I came to look for you I found you"d gone up too."
"You don"t suppose I meant you to crow over me, do you? And was that really the beginning?"
"Of course. I went up lots of times afterwards and got to like it; and when the trouble came, naturally I saw it was my job."
"Be a pal, and tell me all about what you did," she coaxed.
"All in good time, but not now. We"ve been alone together quite long enough to set tongues wagging as it is. I"d better be off;" and I rose.
"I suppose you"re right; but it"s been lovely. Like old times."
"Which old times?"
"Never mind. Don"t be inquisitive."
"All right. Well, look here. Go on with that boy part of yours. Get into the skin of it, and have the names of things pat on your tongue.
One never knows what may happen. And if you could persuade Rosa to persuade Feldmann to do for me what he did for you, do so."
"Sounds a bit mixed, doesn"t it?" and she laughed with such genuine merriment that it did one good to hear her.
"You must sort it out. So long. We"ll pull it off somehow or other."
"I think that"s the oddest thing about you. You manage somehow to make me feel absolutely confident that you"ll manage it. It"s like a miracle. Only a day or two ago I was right down in the depths, and here I am laughing as if it were just one of our old kiddish pranks."
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE THIERGARTEN
The confidence of success which Nessa had so frankly expressed, she had certainly imparted to me. The fact that she had already hit on the idea of playing a boy"s part in the attempt to escape, had obtained everything necessary for it, and had actually spent some time in rehearsing it, was a stroke of such luck, that I was more than half inclined to throw the other plans over and adopt that one at once.
If by any means the necessary identification card could be got, the hope of success was strong and full of promise. Nessa could speak German quite as well as I could, and her accent, when she had put that question to me about the f.a.g and her wonderful change of expression, had been done to the life.
She had always been a clever character actress, and there was no doubt that she could keep it up in any sort of emergency. That she liked the idea, there was no question; and as for myself--the thought of such a companionship with her in such a venture pulled like a 200 h.p. engine.
Her instinct was right, too, in chiming with her inclination. It was our best chance--failing old von Gratzen"s, of course. Ever so much better than risking any trouble for Rosa by using her pa.s.sport.
Feldmann must be made to see that, for it might induce him to get the card for me.
That night I went most carefully into all the details of the plan, trying to foresee all that might happen; and then I remembered the story which Gunter, my pal in the flying corps, had told me of his escape when engine trouble had brought him down inside the German lines.
"It"s only a matter of bluff, Jack," he said, "when one can jabber the lingo as we can, and a few simple precautions. Here"s one of "em. I never go up without it."
"What the d.i.c.kens is it?" I asked as he handed me what looked like a red flannel pad for his tummy.
"Looks innocent, doesn"t it? My "tummy pad," I call it. Just a protection against chills, eh? That"s what they thought when they searched me. But inside the flannel there"s a coil of silk cord long enough and strong enough to tie up a man"s arms, and his legs too at need. It"s my own notion; and since my little trip, I"ve added something more. Sewn up in the flannel there"s enough put-you-to-by-by stuff to keep a man or two quiet for as long as necessary. If I"d had that, I shouldn"t have had to risk knocking my guard on the head and choking the breath out of him."
"Tell me, d.i.c.k."
"Well, my chance came almost as soon as they"d got me. Of course I burnt the old bus and shoved my hands up, and after they"d made sure I wasn"t armed, they just put one chap in charge of me with orders to take me somewhere. It was quite dark then and, pretending that I was beastly uncomfortable after the search, I fiddled about with my clothes and managed to get my cord handy. Then I picked a suitable spot, asked him some fool question or other, and went for him. He was only a fat Landsturmer and hadn"t more than a few wriggles in him; but I had to bash him over the head to make sure--that"s where I wanted the dope, of course. Then I changed togs with him, trussed him up with my cord and started off on my own. Bluff did the rest, all right."