Part 23 (1/2)

”That is what I am going to do,” she said, as no one at first answered what had been a dramatic outbreak. ”Perhaps you will tell me best how to go about it,” and she turned to Tom and Jack. ”You know something of the German lines, and where I can best go to give myself up.”

”Why--why, you can't go at all!” burst out Tom.

”I can't go?”

”No, of course not. You mean all right, Nellie,” went on the young man, ”but it simply can't be done. To give yourself up to the Germans would mean for yourself not only--Oh, it couldn't be done!” as he thought of the cruelty of the Huns, not only to the soldiers of the Allied armies but to helpless women and children. ”You couldn't give yourself up to those brutes!' he cried.

”To save my brother I could,” said Nellie simply. ”I would do anything for him!”

”I know you would,” murmured Bessie.

”But it would just be throwing yourself away!” exclaimed Jack, coming to the help of his chum, who was gazing helplessly at him in this new crisis. ”Tell her, Mrs. Gleason,” he went on, ”that it is utterly impossible, even if the army authorities would let her. Even if she should give herself up to the Germans, they wouldn't keep any agreement they made to exchange her brother. They'd simply keep both of them.”

”Yes, I think they would,” said Mrs. Gleason. ”It is out of the question, my dear,” and gently she laid her hand on the girl's shoulder.

”That is very fine and n.o.ble of you, but it would be wrong, for it would not save your brother, and you would certainly be made a prisoner yourself. And of the horrors of the German prison--at least some where the infantrymen have been kept, I dare not tell you. I imagine it must be better where the airmen are captured,” she went on, for she feared that if she painted too black a picture of what Harry might suffer his sister would not be held back by anything, and might sacrifice herself uselessly.

”But what am I do?” asked Nellie, helplessly. ”I want Harry so much! We all want him! Oh, isn't there something? Can't you save him?” and she held out her hands appealingly to Torn and Jack.

There was a moment of silence, and then Tom burst out with:

”Well, I may as well speak now as later, and I'll tell you what I've made up my mind to do. Yes, it's a new plan I've worked out,” he went on, as Jack looked at him curiously. ”I haven't told even you, old man, as it wasn't quite ready yet. But it's a scheme that may succeed, now that we know definitely where Harry is, from what the German patrol said. He isn't so far away as when we dropped the packages in the prison camp, though we don't yet know that he was there at the time we did our stunt. However, if this new plan succeeds we may have a chance to find out.”

”How?” asked Nellie, eagerly.

”By talking to Harry himself.”

”How are you going to do that?” demanded Bessie.

”What kind of game have you been cooking up behind my back?” asked Jack.

”As desperate as the other, I guess you'll call it,” answered Tom. ”But something has to be done.”

”Yes, something has to be done,” agreed Jack. ”Now what is it?”

Tom arose and went to the door. He opened it, looked carefully up and down the hall, evidently to make sure no one was listening, and then came back to join the circle of his friends.

”I'm going to speak of something that very few know, as yet,” he said, ”and I don't want to take any chances of its getting out. There may be German spies in Paris, though I guess by this time they're few and scattering.

”I'm not going to tell you how I know,” he said, ”but I do know that soon there is to take place a big battle--that is, it will be big for the American forces that are to have part in it. There has been a conference among the Allied commanders, and it has been decided that it's time to teach the Germans a lesson. They've been despising the American troops, as they despised General French's 'contemptible little army,' and General Pers.h.i.+ng is going to show Fritz that we have a soldier or two that can fight.”

”You mean there's to be a big offensive?” asked Jack.

”No, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a general engagement like that.

It's to be kept within the limits, of the sector where the United States troops are at present,” said Tom. ”That is where you and I are located, Jack, and that, as you know, is almost opposite the prison where Harry and the others are confined.”

”I begin to see what you are driving at!” cried Nellie, her eyes s.h.i.+ning. ”But are you sure of this?”

”Yes,” went on Jack, ”how did you bear of this when it's supposed to be such a secret?”