I shall be glad when this awful business is over.
I knew it was bad enough before, but after what you have told me about
the women and children, I shall never think of anything else, and I will
gladly help you in any way I can. There can't be any treason in trying to
prevent children from starving to death. What do you want me to do?"
"What would do the children more good than anything, the women say, would
be milk. If I could get a keg that would hold two or three gallons--and a
watertight box with about twenty pounds of bread, I could swim back with
them just as I came. I would show you the exact spot where I landed, and
would come out again in four days. If you could put a supply ready for
me, every fourth night, among the bushes at the mouth of the river, with
a little lantern to show me the exact spot, I could come down with the
tide, get the things, and float back again when the tide turns."
"I could do that, easily enough," Walter said. "The mouth of the river is
quite beyond our lines. But it is very risky for you, John. You might get
shot, if a sentry were to see you."
"I do not think that there is much fear of that," John said. "Just
floating along as I do, without swimming at all, there is only just my
face above water, and it would be hardly possible for a sentry to see me;
but if I were shot, I could not die in a better cause.
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