"Open your eyes! Speak to us! Please!" The children said these words over and over again to the boy in the red shirt.
"Wet his ears with milk," Bobbie suggested. "When people faint, they use perfume. I think milk is just as good." So they wet his ears with milk.
It was very dark in the tunnel. Peter's candle was now really short, and not very bright.
"Oh, please open your eyes!" moaned Phyllis. "I believe he's dead."
"He isn't," insisted Bobbie. Peter shook the boy's arm.
Slowly the boy opened his eyes and sighed quietly.
"Oh, he's not dead," cried Phyllis. "I knew he wasn't." She began to cry.
"What's the matter? I'm all right," said the boy.
"Phyllis, please be quiet," Peter said. "Drink this."
"What is it?" the boy asked.
"It's milk," said Peter. "Don't worry, we will help you." So the boy drank and the children were quiet. "He'll be fine after the milk," Peter whispered to his sisters.
"I'm better now," the boy announced. He tried to move but started to groan. "I . . . I . . . think I've broken my leg," he said slowly.
"Did you fall over?" asked Phyllis.
"I tripped on a wire," the boy explained. "I couldn't stand, so I sat down. It does hurt, though. How did you all get here?"
"We saw all the boys go into the tunnel," Bobbie began.
"And we saw everyone come out of the tunnel—but not you. So we came to rescue you," Peter finished proudly.
"You're all brave, that's for sure!" said the boy.
"Oh, it's nothing," said Peter. "Can you walk if we help you?"
"I can try," said the boy. He tried, but he could only stand on one foot. "Oh, I must sit down, it hurts too much." He sat down again and went to sleep. The children looked at each other.
"Go and get help," said Bobbie. "I'll stay with him."
Peter looked worried. "Let me stay, and you and Phyllis go."
"No, you and Phyllis go," Bobbie said. "Lend me your knife and I'll cut his boot before he wakes up. Just be quick!"
Bobbie watched them disappear and put the little candle on the ground. "Now don't be a silly little girl!" she said to herself. Bobbie was always very angry if anybody called her a "silly little girl." But when she was angry with herself, she could say it.
Then she opened Peter's knife and used it to cut the boy's boot.
Bobbie tried to pull off his sock, but his leg was too swollen. It seemed the tunnel was getting darker. Nothing seemed quite real.
"Silly little girl," Bobbie said again. She looked at his broken leg. "It needs something soft under it," she thought. Then she remembered her petticoat. She took it off and carefully put it under the boy's leg. There was nothing else to do but wait.