Canteens (Establishments) -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1939-1945 -- Juvenile fiction
Her father got to his feet and faced the officer. “Well, Captain
Rogers, this is a bit of luck!”
The Captain laughed shortly, without shifting his gaze from Cary. “We
scarcely dared hope to catch him in the act.”
“I expect we’ll have to give credit for the catching to my daughter,”
replied Chief Carter, glancing proudly at Kitty.
“How did you manage it, young lady?” asked the severe-looking Captain.
Kitty thought how terrified she would be to face him at a trial. He had
the look of a man whose dealings with law-breakers had soured him on
the world.
“I must confess I didn’t do any managing,” Kitty admitted ruefully. “I
was sitting here waiting for Dad when in came Lieutenant Cary.”
“Waiting in the dark?” her father asked.
“I turned off the light to watch the storm—see what I could see
outside,” Kitty floundered.
“So—he didn’t realize anyone was in here?” asked the officer.
Kitty’s excited breath caught in her throat a moment before she could
explain, “He went straight to Dad’s desk with a flashlight, and picked
up those order sheets.” She pointed to the papers strewn over the
floor. “He stuffed them under his coat.”
“We must have come just as he did that,” surmised her father.
“No! It seemed an eternity. I told him not to move or I’d shoot.”
“But Kitty, you had no gun!” exclaimed her father. “Why do you take
such foolhardy chances, my child?”
“Then you came! I was going to try to get out the door while someone
was passing. I didn’t dare hope it was you.”
Though Captain Rogers hadn’t taken his eyes off Cary for a moment,
Kitty saw the shadow of a smile twitch around the straight lines of his
mouth. Then he spoke suddenly, “Mr. Carter, please phone Minger to come
up with some handcuffs. Our Lieutenant here looks like a volcano that
may erupt at any moment. No doubt it’s bitter for him to know he has
been caught by this alert young lady.”
Cary, at bay in the corner, seemed turned to stone. His baleful glances
had swept from one to the other as they spoke, but otherwise not a
muscle of his face changed to betray his real feelings. No doubt the
Nazis had trained him so well, that to die for the Fuehrer, in an
attempt to serve him, was a coveted sacrifice.
The Petty Officer with the handcuffs came up in an amazingly short
time, Kitty thought. He, too, was a stranger to her. When the irons had
been snapped over the physician’s wrists Captain Rogers said, “Take him
away, Minger. I’ll join you later.”
Lieutenant Cary’s head was held high as he walked out. His only act of
defiance was to step deliberately on the scattered order blanks.
Kitty could scarcely wait for the door to close before she asked, “Oh,
Dad, tell me about Brad. Is he going to be all right?”
“We hope so, Kitten,” her father replied gently. “The wound isn’t so
bad. The bullet was extracted without too much trouble, and no bones
were shattered.”
“He lost so much blood before I could do anything for him,” she said
with regret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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