Sitting under the hanging lamp, with an orderly making coffee at a stove
in the corner, they talked it over. Henri was there, silent before his
elders, but intently listening. And at last they turned to him.
"I can go and find out," he said quietly. "It is possible, though I do
not see how." He smiled. "They are, I think, only drying themselves at
our expense. It is a bit of German humor."
But the cry of "Calais in a month!" was in the air, and undoubtedly there
had been renewed activity along the German Front near the sea. The
second question to be answered was dependent on the first.
Had the Germans, as Henri said, merely shifted the water, by some clever
engineering, to the Belgian trenches, or was there some bigger thing on
hand? What, for instance, if they were about to attempt to drain the
inundation, smash the Belgian line, and march by the Dunkirk road to
Calais?
So, that night while Henri jested about Pierre's right elbow and watched
Sara Lee for a smile, he had difficult work before him.
Sometime near midnight he slipped away. Jean was waiting in the street,
and wrung the boy's hand.
"I could go with you," he said rather wistfully.
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