“Of course you did—­and why shouldn’t you?  I hope I can take a beating in a sporting way!  I think I made them ashamed of themselves.  Fair play and no favoritism is the tradition of this school, and I mean to have no nasty cliquey feeling in it so long as I’m Games Captain, or my name’s not Winona Woodward!  That’s the law of the Medes and Persians!”

CHAPTER XX

The Red Cross Hospital

Winona received constant letters from Percy in the trenches “somewhere in France,” all, of course, carefully censored.  They had arranged a cryptogram before he left England, however, and by its aid he was able to tell her the name of the place near which he was fighting.  It was a tremendous excitement for her when his letters arrived to fetch her key to the cryptogram and reckon out the magic little word that let her know his whereabouts.  She would find the spot on the big war-map that hung in the dining-room and would mark it with a miniature flag, feeling in closer touch with him now she knew exactly where he was located.  She kept a special album in which she placed photos of him in khaki, all his letters and postcards, and any newspaper cuttings that concerned his regiment.  The book was already half full; she looked it over almost daily, and kept it as, at present, her greatest treasure.

She sent parcels regularly to Percy.  Campaigning had not destroyed his boyish love for sweetstuff, and he welcomed cakes, toffee and chocolate.  “I share it with the other chaps,” he wrote, “and they give you a vote of thanks every time.  You wouldn’t believe what larks we have in our dug-out!”

Percy’s letters were in his old gay style, but every now and then Winona noticed a more serious vein running through them.  He had sad news to tell sometimes.  Two of his special chums were killed in action, the young doctor was shot while attending to the wounded, and their chaplain had been injured.  “We never know when our turn will come,” he finished, and Winona shivered as she kissed the letter and put it away.

She looked up sometimes at the calm clear globe of the full moon and thought how it was shining down alike on the far-away trenches of France and the great Minster towers of Seaton.  How many battles had it seen in the earth’s history, and how many still forms lying stiff and straight under its pale beams?  Men fought and died, and the moon and the stars passed on their way, uncaring—­but God cared, and at the back of it all His Hand was guiding the world, and even from seeming chaos would bring good out of evil at His own time.  “God bless Percy, and bring him safe home!” prayed Winona passionately, but she felt in her heart of hearts that if the Great Captain called him, she could bend her head in the knowledge that He knew best.