She held her breath, listening to his footsteps until they receded to nothing—which didn’t take long. Wide-eyed, she looked to Tom, watching the rope unspool at Luke’s pace.
He chuckled. “He’s a former fighter pilot, Elsa. And before that, he drove ambulances over rough terrain, often under enemy fire. I don’t do tunnels, but he doesn’t mind them. He won’t abort the mission.”
Elsa had been joking when she’d referred to it as a mission. She certainly wasn’t Luke’s commanding officer. “But this was meant to be a lark,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
A small smile curled on Tom’s lean face. “It mattered to you. You going to eat that?”
She still clutched the forgotten sandwich. “I’ll take my lunch break here.”
The rope was still feeding into the tunnel when she finished. With nothing else to do, she turned back to the expedition log she’d just discovered and searched for relevant data.
It did not make the time go any faster.
“Long tunnel,” Tom muttered. Sweat beaded his brow. “He’s still going. Man, I really hate tunnels. I’m trapped in a tunnel almost every night in my dreams. Well, not a tunnel exactly. It’s a trench, but I know that if I were to go over the top to get out of it, my head would be blown clean off. So I just run back and forth between bomb blasts that get closer and closer together.”
“In your nightmare?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t too far from what happened.”
Elsa stayed quiet for a moment, out of reverence for what Tom and his fellow soldiers suffered, and for the loss of peace that haunted them still. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”
“Good. Don’t try. And don’t worry. If the rope stops moving, I would figure out a way to get to Luke if I had to.”
“For both of your sakes, I sincerely hope that won’t be necessary.”
“You and me both.” He grinned, and then the rope went slack.
Tom paled, then turned his blue eyes on Elsa. He tugged the rope a little, and there was no resistance on the other end. “Where is he?” he whispered. The tremor in his hand grew worse.
Elsa left the desk and came alongside him. “You reached the end of the rope, and so did he. He untied himself, just as he said.”
But her gentle reminder seemed to gain no purchase. The young man dropped to a knee at the opening and called into the darkness for Luke.
No response. That was no surprise, given the length of rope used. But Tom called again, a note of desperation edging his voice.
Standing, he whirled away and paced the den, twisting his hands. “He could be hurt. He could have fallen and the fall jerkedthe knot loose and pulled the rope from his body. I can’t leave him. But I can’t—how can I go in there?” He whispered as if he’d forgotten Elsa was still there.
She met him where he was and grasped both of his hands. “Tom. Remember what you told me. He was a fighter pilot. He can handle a tunnel. You saw that knot he tied around his waist. It wouldn’t come loose with a hard jerk, it would get tighter. So there’s no reason to believe he fell. We have no reason not to believe that he did what he said he would do. He reached the end of the rope and untied himself. He’ll come back.”
Tom squeezed her hands until they hurt, though she knew he had no intention of bruising her. Oh, where was Barney when Tom needed him?
“Do you think I should go after him?” He cast a sidelong glance at the dark opening.
She definitely did not. “I think he’s on his way back to us right now. Shall we wait here or go outside and see if we can find where he’ll come out?” Maybe they’d spot Barney while they were at it.
“Wait here.” Tom seemed rooted to the floor.
So be it. She would stay rooted with him. Surely Luke would reappear in a matter of minutes.
“Say, this is a prime opportunity for me to hear some of your stories,” she said. “What’s your earliest memory of Luke?”
“My ... what? My earliest memory of him?” Tom’s brow furrowed as if trying to call it forth.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “It must have been the day he found me in his father’s stable. I was six years old, and he was fourteen. The groom was ready to take a switch to my hide, but Luke stopped him. He said that I had come to the stable for my first riding lesson.”
“And had you?”
