CHAPTER XV

IN THE SERVICE OF THE RED CROSS

“What’s this mean, Giraffe?”

That was the natural way in which Bumpus greeted his chum as he stared up into the smiling face of the ambulance driver.

“Where’ve you been, Bumpus?” demanded the other.

“Oh! it’s too long a story for me to try to spin right now, Giraffe, except to say I’ve had a truly _won_derful experience since I lost my way in the dark last night. But please tell me what you’re doing on this ambulance; and I declare if you haven’t got a Red Cross band around your sleeve in the bargain! Whee! this beats anything I’ve struck yet. Tell me about it, and are the other fellows working this same way too, Giraffe?”

“Nixey, Bumpus, I’m the only driver of the lot just now,” the other replied; “but all the same they’re doing something to help out. You see, while we were trudging along the road a bit ago this ambulance caught up with us. The driver had been struck with a piece of flying shell and was bleeding terribly, one of his arms being badly torn. He was getting white about the gills, too, from loss of blood, though gamely sticking to his job.”

“Oh! my stars!” commented the eager listener, filled with sympathy for the valiant man who had refused to leave his post on account of a wound.

“Well, he nearly fell from the seat when he brought the ambulance to a stop in front of us. Fact is, Thad and myself just managed to catch him in our arms as he toppled over. Here, you can see the mess he left. Well, Thad and Allan got busy right away. They’re fixing him up right now alongside the road a little ways on there. I knew it was up to me to get these poor chaps to the city, so I jumped at the chance. And now I oughtn’t to spend another second jawing here while they need so much attention. I’m coming back again, and Thad said to look for them at the field hospital. So-long, Bumpus; keep going straight on and you’ll find the boys.”

With that the energetic Giraffe once more started the ambulance ahead at a rapid pace. Fortunately he knew more or less about motors and doubtless would be able to handle the machine as well as the next one. And once in Paris he could easily find his way to a hospital by following some other vehicle that also carried wounded French heroes from the field of battle.

Bumpus, left there on the road, looked after him for a full minute.

“Shucks!” he was muttering to himself in evident bitter disappointment, “why didn’t I think quick enough to ask Giraffe to try and look my mother up while in the city so as to tell her I was safe? Just like my slow-moving wits, after all. But then that would be selfish in me, I guess, because think of the poor chaps who’d have to wait so much longer before they could receive proper medical attention. It’s just as well I didn’t ask him.”

With that conclusion Bumpus wheeled and once more started along the road. He increased his pace almost to a run, so eager was he to come upon Thad and Allan before they finished dressing the wounds of the unfortunate ambulance driver and put him aboard some passing van.

Shortly afterward Bumpus believed he glimpsed those whom he was yearning to see. At least he discovered figures at one side of the dusty road when passing vehicles allowed him the opportunity, and they seemed to be bending over some object which he could easily believe might be the driver. Yes, and now he made sure of it, because who else would be wearing that well-known khaki uniform with the equally familiar battered campaign hats?

It was with a lively sense of gratification that Bumpus hurried along, and presently saw Allan wave his hand in a way to testify that he had recognized the stout chum. Thad, too, looked up and gave him a welcoming smile.

“Well, stranger, where have you sprung from?” asked Allan, as the wheezing Bumpus joined them.

Apparently the scouts had managed to stop the flow of blood and had bound the injured arm of the driver with more or less skill. The poor chap looked white and weak, yet his eyes glowed with fire, and Bumpus believed there could be no doubt about his getting over his accidental wounding. It might have proven a fatal injury, though, if not taken just in time, for the man had lost a great deal of blood.

“Oh! I got lost, all right, just as Giraffe said I would,” replied Bumpus cheerfully, “and I’ve had a whole lot of queer adventures which I’ll tell you about later on. What are you meaning to do with this poor chap, fellows? I met Giraffe down the road and he told me how I’d find you here, so I hurried along.”

“Here’s a van coming,” explained Thad, “and we’ll put him aboard if they’ll make a little room. He can explain who he is and how one of our crowd has taken his place on the ambulance.”

Allan stopped the motor truck. It was a large affair which had probably carried ammunition to the front; now it was taking back the fruits of that sort of deadly business in the shape of grievously wounded soldiers; as Allan put it, “cause and effect.”

The man in charge happened to understand enough English to grasp what Allan attempted to tell him about the wounded driver. Upon examination it was found that there was not an inch of room inside the truck, for the injured men lay as thickly as they could be placed. But the driver told them he had a seat that might accommodate two in a pinch, and moreover, he could part of the time keep an arm around the other.

So they hastened to help the wounded Red Cross driver to climb aboard. He vainly tried to thank them for what they had done for him, but his smile was enough to satisfy those scouts. Then the big van pulled out and the three boys were left on the road.

“Come, tell us what you’ve been doing, Bumpus,” urged Allan, doubtless fairly consumed with boyish curiosity, after hearing the returned wanderer say what he had about meeting with strange adventures.

“First, what about yourselves—from what Giraffe flung at me as he was starting off again I reckon you’ve got some plan or other afoot, and that it’s connected with this same field-hospital work.”

“Oh! well, that’s about the size of it,” returned Allan, seeing that Bumpus, who was very stubborn, would not budge an inch until he had complied with this reasonable request. “We’re here and want to see more of what’s going on, and as scouts always expect to make themselves useful as well as ornamental, why we fixed it up to offer our services to the Red Cross, if so be they’d take us on.”

“Oh! then that accounts for Giraffe taking the place of the injured driver, eh?” Bumpus went on to say. “Well, it’s a funny coincidence, but do you know as I walked along the road even before I met Giraffe I was thinking of that very same thing. I guess it must have struck me because those old monks were so benevolent, and, as I understand it, spend most all their time trying to help suffering humanity along.”

“Monks!” ejaculated Allan in astonishment, “what under the sun do you mean by saying that, Bumpus? Is it apes or men you’re talking about?”

“Oh! that’s part of my story, you see,” came the quick reply; “and while we’re on our way toward the front in search of a field hospital I’ll tell you all that happened to me since we separated last night.”

This he proceeded to do, and the boys were of course deeply interested in the recital. On the whole, they considered that Bumpus had a very remarkable experience. And no doubt they could appreciate his feelings when, upon being awakened by that weird chant in the courtyard below, he looked from his window and witnessed the strange burial procession of the departed monk.

“I’m glad you found a chance to tell those good Brothers something about the success of the scout movement over in America,” Thad observed after the other had come to where he met Giraffe so unexpectedly on the road driving an ambulance in the direction of distant Paris. “I say this, because from what I’ve heard, the people over on this side of the water don’t understand what we’re doing along the lines of our work. In my mind it goes away ahead of anything they dream of here, where the scouts are only a minor military organization.”

“Still, the movement was started in England, we’ve got to remember, by Baden-Powell, the hero of the Boer war,” suggested Allan. “And then again, conditions are altogether different over here. We have no cause to fear our neighbors north or south, and two oceans separate us from other really powerful nations. If we had near neighbors who envied us our wealth, perhaps scouts in our country would have a connection with the military authorities too.”

Talking in this strain they continued to push on. And all the while that stream of laden vehicles kept going and coming, for no van was allowed to speed back to the city without its full quota of injured soldiers aboard.

“I wonder where in the wide world they’ll ever find room to accommodate them in the hospital beds of Paris?” Bumpus exclaimed, appalled by this never-ceasing string of ambulances and vans and lorries of every description that passed them by.

“Oh! they’ve been opening up temporary hospitals in lots of places, I should say,” Thad explained. “And, besides, many will go beyond Paris. The trains for the south of France that have carried troops to the capital to assist in its defense will take wounded men back to Boulogne, Lyons and all those places.”

It was no easy task talking with all that clamor going on; and, really, as the minutes passed it seemed to be growing steadily in volume with fresh batallions and batteries coming into action. Never in any known war were such monster guns used, and as to number, they outclassed all previous records by ten or twenty to one. Even at that this was but the beginning. Two years later, when the struggle along the trenches of the Aisne carried through a whole summer, this number was destined to be multiplied many times over.

No wonder, then, that the very air throbbed and pulsated under the almost continuous blasts. No wonder that a strange halo surrounded the sun the live-long day as sulphurous fumes continued to rise in ever-increasing volume.

There did not seem to be five seconds at a stretch when they could not observe some monster shell bursting over the entrenchments of the French or throwing up those dirt geysers where it lodged in the earth before exploding. And all the while the French batteries were also sending out their compliments toward the German lines, trying to ferret out the places where the Teuton regiments were lying in wait for the order to attack.

Thad knew just where he was going. He was not the one to enter into a thing blindly, and doubtless before the injured driver of the ambulance was sent on his way he had told the scout leader just where to come upon the field hospital from which he had taken his load.

“We must turn off the road here,” Thad informed the others. “You can see that only the vans from Paris keep on beyond this point with their loads of ammunition and supplies. The ambulances and those vehicles used as such are coming out of this lane. It leads to the hospital, so come on, and we’ll soon be there.”

Both Allan and Bumpus increased their pace. They looked deeply interested, but at the same time there was a sort of peaked expression about the face of the stout boy which Thad, noticing, caused him to say, as he smiled into the eyes of Bumpus:

“Now be sure and keep a stiff upper lip, old chum, because like as not we’ll run across some pretty gruesome sights here.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Thad,” Bumpus hastened to tell him; “I’ve got considerable grit when it comes down to standing things, and I mean to go through with this business no matter how it pulls. You’ll find me game, all right, boys, I promise you.”