CHAPTER XVII

THE SCOUTS UNDER FIRE

“Oh! there comes another shell! Duck; fellows; duck, quick!” almost shrieked Bumpus, as a strange and terrifying sound was heard in the air above them.

Then followed a second frightful crash. The very ground seemed quaking under the feet of the boys. They could see the havoc this German missile had wrought almost alongside one of the operating tables. Bumpus turned as white as a ghost and looked as though ready to collapse.

Immediately consternation bordering on a panic took possession of all in that unlucky field hospital. No one could understand why the German gunfire had been so suddenly raised and sent in this quarter. Thad glanced hurriedly toward the little rise. The big white flag with its crimson cross still floated there, and each successive waft of the passing breeze opened its folds, so that surely it could be readily seen miles away when glasses were used.

Whether it came about through some misunderstanding or confusion of orders on the part of the enemy mattered little to those who were thus exposed to death by the change in the bombardment.

The head surgeon grasped the situation at once. He knew that to remain there longer was simple folly. The field hospital must move back half a mile or so to the second position that had been selected, and that while under fire.

Meanwhile, even as he was trying to give orders to this effect, other shells continued to drop all around them. Some of them fell outside the confines of the camp, which was a most fortunate thing; but there were others not so merciful, and again and again did terrible damage follow.

All was excitement and apparent confusion. In vain did the surgeons try to assuage the wild fear that possessed the attendants. More than a few had already been mowed down by those mighty engines of destruction that in bursting knew neither friend nor foe, patient, doctor or nurse.

Vans were being hastily loaded and driven away in mad haste, as if the ruling passion in each and every heart just then was to get beyond range of those constantly falling shells. There were several French female nurses in the camp. These brave women seemed ready to sacrifice their own lives in order to leave room in some of the vans for the wounded. But they were not allowed to thus immolate themselves on the altar of duty. French chivalry could not stand for such a sacrifice, and, accordingly, they were actually seized, and struggling still against going, thrust into a van that was just starting. The last the wondering boys saw of them those nurses of the Red Cross were still endeavoring to make their captors let them get out of the van so as to make room for poor wounded privates of the line. Certainly Thad and his mates would never be able to get that wonderful picture out of their minds, for it seemed the crowning act of fidelity, well worth mentioning in history.

Of course the three boys were not unmindful of the fact that it behooved them to depart from that dangerous section as fast as they were able.

Thad could not find the heart to try to take up room aboard any of the struggling vehicles, where every bit of space was needed for others far less able to get on than themselves. So long as their legs were serviceable he believed it to be their duty to make use of them. Surely they would have about as much chance of escaping those dropping shells as any who took to the road in vehicles.

Already many had gone, the surgeons lingering despite the increasing peril, so as to see the very last of their patients on the way before they would consent to departing. Some of them might stay too long, for at any moment a shell was apt to explode directly over headquarters and annihilate the entire staff.

“We had better be on the jump!” was what Thad shouted in the ear of Allan, after they had watched these thrilling sights for several minutes and twice narrowly escaped dire injuries when explosions occurred close by.

“That’s right,” echoed the other, also plainly unnerved by what he was witnessing; “but where is Bumpus?”

His words gave Thad a strange sinking in the region of his heart. True enough, their stout chum had mysteriously vanished; and yet he could remember seeing Bumpus near by only a brief time before.

Had some cruel missile from one of the bursting shells cut him down? Look as he might, this way and that, Thad failed to discover any sign of the corpulent figure of his most beloved chum. It was always possible, he figured, that poor Bumpus might have been hurled far to one side by the shock, but though he strained his eyes to the utmost to discover his form he met with no success whatever.

It was a mystery. Surrounded by such a mad clamor, with men dashing this way and that as though temporarily out of their minds, it was not strange that Thad should feel faint with apprehension. He seemed to see himself telling the poor mother how her gallant boy had yielded up his young life in the effort to alleviate suffering on the part of others.

“What ought we do, Thad, go, or stick it out and hunt for Bumpus?” Allan was calling close to his ear.

Thad hardly knew at first what to answer. He despised himself for even allowing a thought to come into his mind as to deserting a comrade in time of peril, and yet in a measure it seemed sheer madness to remain while that tempest of iron was being hurled upon the spot.

As in a dream he saw the American surgeon up there on the rise gathering the Red Cross flag in his arms, as though he meant to carry it away with him to the new quarters. It was an act of daring that gave Thad a little thrill; but then at that moment so much was going on that bordered along the heroic that he could only take passing notice of this particular deed.

As a last resort, which perhaps might be called an inspiration on his part, Thad raised his voice and shouted as loud as he could:

“Bumpus! Bumpus! Bumpus!”

Three separate times did he launch that name, and then both Thad and Allan were thrilled to catch a reply.

“Here I am, Thad!” shouted a high-pitched voice, and with the words a head appeared above the edge of a deep shell crater not thirty feet away, as Bumpus commenced to laboriously crawl on hands and knees out of the hole.

Of course it looked as though he had dropped down there with the idea that by so doing he might better escape the danger of being caught in the rain of iron splinters following each explosion. Really it was not such a bad scheme on the part of Bumpus, and had they been compelled to stay there longer the others might have copied his example with profit to themselves.

Thad hurriedly beckoned in order to hasten the coming of the other scout.

“We’re going to cut and run for it, don’t you see?” he bellowed.

That nerved Bumpus to new exertions, so that he speedily emerged from the pit, little the worse for his experience. Later on he candidly admitted that it had not been wholly a clever idea of his own. In fact, he had been blasted into the hole by the sudden concussion of air when a shell burst near by, and, finding himself prone at the bottom, hugged the ground until he could feel himself all over and ascertain whether he were still sound of body and limb.

By that time the field hospital was pretty well deserted, of the living, that is to say. Looking around for the last time Thad could see numerous still forms on the ground, and he knew that death had reaped a heavy harvest. Just then he hated the German gunners most violently, although later on, when he cooled down, he realized that it must have all been a terrible mistake, for surely they would never think of bombarding a field hospital, always held sacred between honorable foes.

When the three boys hurried out of the camp the shells were still falling as if they meant to honeycomb that sector thoroughly for some reason. Perhaps a signal had gone wrong, and it was believed that one of the most dangerous batteries of the French lay concealed under branches at this point.

Thad never knew the truth about it; in fact, no one could learn the reason why. Just then the one main object they had in view was to put as great a distance between themselves and that harried ground as possible.

Amidst a jumble of wagons, vans, ambulances, motor lorries and ordinary cars, all striving to push along that one narrow thoroughfare, the three scouts pressed on. One shell had dropped squarely in the road and made such a yawning gap that it was necessary for each vehicle to go around the aperture. A van had also been wrecked at the same time, for the boys could see dreadful signs of this whichever way they turned their eyes.

Presently, however, they seemed to be getting beyond the curtain of fire which the big German guns had established. That would mean the danger was over. Bumpus began to get back a little of his lost color when he discovered this pleasing fact; and for that matter, both of the other boys felt better. It was certainly anything but a laughing matter, running the gantlet of those fearful explosives and amidst such desolating scenes in the bargain.

Half a mile and more they had gone when Thad made a discovery.

“I think we’re coming to the new camp at last!” he called out, pointing as he spoke; and as Bumpus was all out of breath on account of their hurry he heard this latest news with considerable relief.

As they drew still nearer they could see that already the energetic medical staff had started to work erecting their shelters under which the operating tables would be placed as fast as they arrived, when the emergency field hospital might be said to be ready for business again.

The brave nurses were there, attending to the sorely wounded as fast as they could be taken from conveyances; yes, and just back of the boys came the head surgeon, bag in one hand, doubtless containing his instruments, and the Red Cross banner thrown over his left shoulder. Thad felt like giving the palm to this valiant soul, that could not be daunted by any personal peril, but had stuck to his self-imposed duty through shot and shell.

Again the work went on as though there had not been any interruption. The men with the stretchers had further to go, bearing their burdens, which made it so much the harder; but most of them looked on these things as the fortunes of war. It is of little use to complain when a battle is on. Conditions and not theories are what confront men then, and it becomes necessary to make the best of a bad situation.

Once again Thad and his two mates found abundant ways for making themselves useful. And although they might be haunted a long time by the things they were compelled to gaze upon, not one of them would ever regret coming as they did to the assistance of the Red Cross unit at that fiercely contested Battle of the Marne.

It was in the midst of all this that a strange thing happened to Thad and his two comrades. Just why it should come their way instead of to any other worker in the field hospital was one of those inscrutable mysteries that can never be explained, but then those boys had always been fortunate in the past about monopolizing things of importance, and perhaps their luck still held good over here in a strange land.

It chanced that they were rushed at the near-by operating table when a man wearing the French blue was brought in terribly injured. Thad could see that he had not been wounded by shell-fire, or through a bayonet thrust; in fact, he presented the appearance of one who had been caught in a collision of some sort, so that his arms were broken and his head badly lacerated.

Having nothing else on his hands just then, Thad felt constrained to see what he could do in order to alleviate the intense suffering which the poor fellow he felt sure must be enduring.

Up to then the man had been senseless, but his eyes opened as soon as Thad commenced to examine his broken arms. The boy believed he had never seen such mental agony as was depicted on that seamed and blood-stained face of the soldier, who bore the marks of a subordinate officer.

He started to say something in French, and while Thad could not understand its full import, he caught a significant word here and there that alarmed him. One of these was “dispatches,” and another phrase plainly stood for “Life and death!” These things excited the boy. He started across to speak to the American surgeon about it, leaving his comrades beside the officer.

“I wish you would step this way for a minute, sir,” Thad called out, after he had succeeded in catching the busy surgeon’s eye.

“What is it all about, my boy?” demanded the other, laying down his instrument as a patient was lifted from the table and taken in charge by attendants, who proceeded to bandage his wounds.

“There’s an officer just brought in, sir, badly hurt,” explained Thad. “I think he must have been caught in a collision, for he has both arms broken and his head is badly lacerated in the bargain. But he seems to have something terrible on his mind. I imagine he must have been carrying some sort of important papers at the time he was caught, for he speaks of dispatches and acts so wild I thought you ought to know about it.”

The surgeon looked intensely interested.

“Show him to me, please, and I’ll quickly find out what he wants,” he told the scout, who immediately led him over to where the man was lying, waiting his turn at the surgeon’s hands.

The weary doctor bent down and spoke in excellent French. Thad listened, and what little he managed to hear pass between the two gave him a new thrill. Hence he was not as surprised as Allan and Bumpus when the surgeon, rising to his feet, hastened to say:

“You were correct in your diagnosis, son; he is a dispatch-bearer. Even now he has a most important paper intended for the hands of General Joffre himself. He tells me that if it fails to be delivered immediately the most dire results may follow for the whole French army. He begs me most piteously to send some reliable person forward with this dispatch. I hardly know to whom I can entrust it unless you brave scouts will undertake the mission.”