Chapter 5

As quickly as they could unload their men, and stuff them into the corridor, Hilda and the doctor and Woffington sped back down the line, and up to the thronged dressing-stations. Wounded men were not their only charge, nor their gravest. They took in a soldier sobbing from the shock of the ceaseless shell fire. The moaning and wasp-like buzz of the flying metal, then the earth-shaking thud of its impact, and the roar of its high explosive, had played upon nerves not elastic enough to absorb the strain, till the man became a whimpering child. And they carried in a man shaking from ague, a big, fine fellow, trembling in every part, who could not lift a limb to walk. That which had been rugged enough for a lifetime of work became palsied after a few weeks of this king's sport. This undramatic slaughter was slower than the work of the guns, but it was as thorough. A man with colic was put into the car.

"I'm bad," he said. The pain kept griping him, so that he rode leaning down with his face pointed at the footboard.

Working as Hilda worked, with her two efficient friends and a well-equipped dressing-station, their own hospital only seven miles to the rear of them, she had been able to measure up to any situation that had been thrust at her. It was buckle to it, and work furiously, and clean up the mess, and then on to the next. But here was a wide-spread misery that overwhelmed her. Dr. McDonnell was as silent as the girl. He had a sensitiveness to suffering which twenty years of London practice had not dulled.

The day wore along, with spurt after spurt to the front, and then the slower drive back, when Woffington guided the car patiently and skilfully, so that the wounded men inside should not be shaken by the motion. They had a snack of luncheon with them, and ate it while they rode. Their little barrel of water, swinging between the wheels, had long ago gone to fevered men.

"First ambulance I've seen in twenty-four hours," said Captain Davies, as he came on them out of the dusk of Hoogar wood. The stern and unbending organization of the military had found it necessary to hold a hundred or more ambulances of the Royal Army Medical Corps in readiness all day in the market place of Ypres against a sudden evacuation. So there were simply no cars, but their one car, to speed out to the front and gather the wounded.

It was strange, in the evening light, to work out along the road between lines of poplar trees. Dim forms kept passing them--two by two, each couple with a stretcher and its burden. An old farm cart came jogging by, wrenching its body from side to side as it struck invisible hummocks and dipped into shell holes. It was loaded with outstretched forms of men, whose wounds were torn at by the jerking of the cart. In companies, fresh men, talking in whispers, were softly padding along the road on their way to the trenches, to relieve the staled fighters. The wide silence was only broken by the occasional sharp clatter and ping of some lonely sniper's rifle.

It was ten o'clock of the evening, and the ambulance had gone out one mile beyond the hamlet of Hoogar. The Doctor and Hilda alighted at the thick wood, which had been hotly contended for, through the seven days. It had been covered with shell fire as thoroughly as a fishing-net rakes a stream. They waited for Woffington to turn the car around. It is wise to leave a car headed in the direction of safety, when one is treading on disputed ground.

A man stepped out of the wood.

"Are you Red Cross?" he asked.

"Yes," said Dr. McDonnell, "and we have our motor ambulance here."

"Good!" answered the stranger. "We have some wounded men in the Château at the other side of the wood. Come with me."

"How far?" asked Hilda.

"Oh, not more than half a mile."

They seeped along over the wet wood road, speaking not at all, as snipers were scattered by night here and there in the trees. They came to the old white building, a country house of size and beauty. In the cellar, three soldiers were lying on straw. Two of them told Hilda they had been lying wounded and uncared for in the trenches since evening of the night before. They had just been brought to the house. She went over to the third, a boy of about eighteen years. He was shot through the biceps muscle of his left arm. He was pale and weak.

"How long have you been like this?" asked the girl.

"Since four o'clock, yesterday," he whispered.

"Thirty hours," said Hilda.

Dr. McDonnell made a request to the officer for help. He gave four men and two stretchers. They put the boy and one of the men on the stretchers, and hoisted them through the cellar window. Woffington and McDonnell took the lantern and searched till they found a wheelbarrow. The third man, wounded in the shoulder, threw an arm over Dr. McDonnell, and Woffington steadied him at the waist. He stumbled up the steps, and collapsed into the barrow.

Woffington and the Doctor took turns in wheeling him through the mud. Hilda walked at their side. The wheel bit deeply into the road under the weight. They had to spell each other, frequently. After a few hundred yards, they met a small detachment of cavalry, advancing toward the house. The horses seemed to feel the tension, and shared in the silence of their drivers, stepping noiselessly through the murk. Woffington was forced to turn the barrow into the ditch. It required the strength of the two men, one at each handle, to shove it out on the road again.

The stretchers had reached the ambulance ahead of the wheelbarrow. They loaded the car hastily--there was no time to swing stretchers. They put the three wounded in on the long wooden seat. The boy with the torn biceps fainted on Hilda's shoulder. She rode in with him. At Hoogar dressing-station, she asked the military doctor for water for the boy. He had come to, and kept whispering--"Water, water."

"I have no water for you," said the Doctor.

A soldier followed her back to the car and gave the lad to drink from his bottle. There was only a swallow in it.

When they reached the Convent, the officer in charge came running out.

"I'll take this load, but that's all," he said. "Can't take any more, full up. Next trip, go on into the town, to Military Hospital Number Three."

They started back toward the wood.

"I've only got petrol enough for one trip, and then home again," said Woffington.

"All the way, then," said the Doctor, "out to the farthest trenches. We'll make a clean sweep."

They shot past Hoogar, and out through the wood, and on to the trenches of the Cheshires. Just back of the mounded earth, the reserves were sleeping in the mud of the road, and on the wet bank of the ditch. The night was dark and silent. A few rods to the right, a shelled barn was blazing.

"Have you any wounded?" asked Dr. McDonnell.

"So many we haven't gathered them in," answered the officer. "What is the use? No one to carry them away."

"I'll carry as many as I can," said the Doctor.

"I'll send for them," replied the captain. He spread his men out in the search. Three wounded were placed in the car, all of them stretcher cases.

"Room for one more stretcher case," said Dr. McDonnell; "the car only holds four."

"Bring the woman," ordered the officer.

His men came carrying an aged peasant woman, grey-haired, heavy, her black dress soggy with dew and blood.

"Here's a poor old woman," explained the captain; "seems to be a Belgian peasant. She was working out in the fields here, while the firing was going on. She was shot in the leg and fell down in the field. She's been lying on her face there all day. Can't you take her out of the way?"

"Surely," said Hilda.

The old woman was heavier than a soldier, heavier and more helpless.

"The car is full," said Hilda; "you have more wounded?"

The officer smiled.

"Of course," he answered; "here come a few of them, now."

The girl counted them. She had to leave twelve men at that farthest trench, because the car was full. On the trip back, she jumped down at the Hoogar dressing-station, and there she found sixteen more men strewed around in the straw, waiting to be removed. Twenty-eight men she had to ride away from.

For the first time in that long day, they went past the Convent-hospital, and on into the city of Ypres itself, down through the Grand Place, and then abruptly through a narrow street to the south. Here they found Military Hospital Number Three. The wounded men were lifted down and into the courtyard. Lastly, the woman.

"Yes, we'll take her," said the good-hearted Tommies, who lent a hand in unloading the car. But their officer was firm.

"We have no room," he said; "we must keep this hospital for the soldiers. I wish I could help you."

"But what am I to do with her?" asked Hilda in dismay.

"I am sorry," said the officer. He walked away.

"The same old story," said Hilda; "no place for the old in war-time. They'll turn us away from all the hospitals. Anyone who isn't a soldier might as well be dead as in trouble."

The old woman lay on the stretcher in the street. Her mouth had fallen open, as if she had weakened her hold on things. There was something beyond repair about her appearance, and something unrebuking, too. "Do with me what you please," she seemed to say, "I shall make no complaint. I am too old and feeble to make you any trouble. Leave me here in the gutter if you like. No one will ever blame you for it, surely not I."

"Lift her back," ordered the Doctor; "we'll go hunting."

He had seen a convent near the market square when they had gone through in the morning. They rode to the door, and pulled the hanging wire. The bell resounded down long corridors. Five minutes passed. Then the bolt was shot, and a sleepy-eyed Sister opened the door, candle in hand.

"Sister, I beg you to take this poor old peasant woman in my car," pleaded Hilda, "she is wounded in the leg."

The Sister made no reply but threw the door wide open, then turned and shuffled off down the stone corridor.

"Come," said Hilda; "we have found a home."

The men lifted the stretcher out, and followed the dim twinkling light down the passage. It turned into a great room. They followed in. Every bed was occupied--perhaps fifty old women sleeping there, grey hair and white hair on the pillows, red coverlets over the beds. To the end of the room they went, where one wee little girl was sleeping. The Sister spread bedding on the floor, and lifted the child from the cot. She stretched herself a moment in the chilly sheets, then settled into sleep, with her face, shut-eyed, upturned toward the light. Hilda sighed with relief. Their work was ended.

"Now for home," she said. "Fifteen and a half hours of work."

It was half an hour after midnight, when they drew up in Ypres market square and glanced down the beautiful length of the Cloth Hall, that building of massive and light-winged proportion. It was the last time they were ever to see it. It has fallen under the shelling, and cannot be rebuilt. They paused to pick their road back to Furnes, for in the darkness it was hard to find the street that led out of the town. They thought they had found it, and went swiftly down to the railway station before they knew their mistake. As they started to turn back and try again, a great shell fell into the little artificial lake just beyond them. It roared under the surface, and then shot up a fountain of water twenty feet high, with edges of white foam.

"It is time to go," said Hilda; "they will send another shell. They always do. They are going to bombard the town."

They spurted back to the square, and as they circled it, still puzzled for the way of escape, two shells went sailing high over them and fell into the town beyond.

"Jack Johnsons," said Woffington. This time, he made the right turn, back of the Cloth Hall into the safe country.

Never had it felt so good to Hilda to leave a place.

"I am afraid," she said to herself. Now she knew why brave men sometimes ran like rabbits.

* * * * *

"Go back to London, and report what we have seen," urged Dr. McDonnell. "We can set England aflame with it. The English people will rise to it, if they know their wounded are being neglected."

"It takes a lot to rouse the English," said Hilda; "that is their greatest quality, their steadiness. In our country we'd have a crusade over the situation, and then we'd forget all about it. But you people won't believe it for another year or so. When you do believe it, you'll cure it."

"You will see," replied the Doctor.

"I'll try," said Hilda.

* * * * *

It was one of those delightful mixed grills in Dover Street, London, where men and women are equally welcome. Dover Street is lined with them, pleasant refuges for the wives of army officers, literary women of distinction, and the host of well-to-do uncelebrated persons, who make the rich background of modern life. Dr. McDonnell's warm friend, the Earl of Tottenham, and his wife, were entertaining Hilda at dinner, and, knowing she had something to tell of conditions at Ypres, they had made Colonel Albert Bevan one of the party.

Hilda thought Colonel Bevan one of the cleverest men she had ever met. He had a quick nervous habit of speech, a clean-shaven alert face, with a smile that threw her off guard and opened the way for the Colonel to make his will prevail. He was enjoying a brilliant Parliamentary career. He had early thrown his lot with the Liberals, and had never found cause to regret it. He had been an under-secretary, and, when the war broke out, Kitchener had chosen him for his private emissary to the fighting line to report back to the Chief the exact situation. He was under no one else than K.; came directly to him with his findings, went from him to the front.

"My dear young lady," the Colonel was saying, "you've forgotten that Ypres was the biggest fight of the war, one of the severest in all history. In a day or two, we got things in hand. You came down on a day when the result was just balanced. It was a toss-up whether the other fellows would come through or not. You see, you took us at a bad time."

"How about the ambulances that weren't working?" asked Hilda. "The square was lined with them."

"I know," responded the Colonel, "but the city was likely to be evacuated at any hour. As a matter of fact, those ambulances were used all night long after the bombardment began, emptying the three military hospitals, and taking the men to the train. We sent them down to Calais. You were most fortunate in getting through the lines at all. I shouldn't have blamed Captain Fitzgerald if he had ordered you back to Furnes."

"Captain Fitzgerald!" exclaimed Hilda. "How did you know I was talking with him?"

"I was there that day in Ypres," said the Colonel.

"You were in Ypres," repeated Hilda, in astonishment.

"I was there," he said; "I saw the whole thing. You came down upon our lines as if you had fallen out of a blue moon. What were we to do? A very charming young American lady, with a very good motor ambulance. It was a visitation, wasn't it? If we allowed it regularly, what would become of the fighting? Why, there are fifty volunteer organizations, with cars and nurses, cooling their heels in Boulogne. If we let one in, we should have to let them all come. There wouldn't be any room for troops."

"But how about the wounded?" queried Hilda. "Where do they come in?"

"In many cases, it doesn't hurt them to lie out in the open air," responded the Colonel; "that was proved in the South African War. The wounds often heal if you leave them alone in the open air. But you people come along and stir up and joggle them. In army slang, we call you the body snatchers."

"What you say about the wounded is absurd," replied Hilda.

"Tut, tut," chided the Colonel.

"I mean just that," returned the girl, with heat. "It is terrible to leave men lying out who have got wounded. It is all rot to say the open air does them good. If the wound was clean from a bullet, and the air pure, and the soil fresh as in a new country, that would be true in some of the cases. The wound would heal itself. But a lot of the wounds are from jagged bits of shell, driving pieces of clothing and mud from the trenches into the flesh. The air is septic, full of disease from the dead men. They lie so close to the surface that a shell, anywhere near, brings them up. Three quarters of your casualties are from disease. The wound doesn't heal; it gets gangrene and tetanus from the stale old soil. And instead of having a good fighting man back in trim in a fortnight, you have a sick man in a London hospital for a couple of months, and a cripple for a lifetime."

"You would make a good special pleader," responded the Colonel with a bow. "I applaud your spirit, but the wounded are not so important, you know. There are other considerations that come ahead of the wounded."

"But don't the wounded come first?" asked Hilda, in a hurt tone.

"Certainly not," answered the Colonel. "We have to keep the roads clear for military necessity. This is the order in which we have to regard the use of roads in war-time." He checked off his list on his fingers--

"First comes ammunition, then food, then reinforcements, and fourth, the wounded."

IN RAMSKAPPELE BARNYARD

Thirteen dead men were scattered about in the straw and dung. Some of them were sitting in absurd postures, as if they were actors in a pantomime. Others of them, though burned and shattered, lay peacefully at full length. No impress of torture could any longer rob them of the rest on which they had entered so suddenly. I saw that each one of them had come to the end of his quest and had found the thing for which he had been searching. The Frenchman had his equality now. The German had doubtless by this time, found his God "a mighty fortress." The Belgian had won a neutrality which nothing would ever invade.

As I looked on that barnyard of dead, I was glad for them that they were dead, and not as the men I had seen in the hospital wards--the German with his leg being sawn off, and the strange bloated face of the Belgian: all those maimed and broken men condemned to live and carry on the living flesh the pranks of shell fire. For it was surely better to be torn to pieces and to die than to be sent forth a jest.

VI

THE CHEVALIER

Hilda's friends in England had prepared a "surprise" for her. It was engineered by a wise and energetic old lady in London, who had been charmed with the daring of the American girl at the front. So, without Hilda's knowledge, she published the following advertisement:--

"'HILDA'--Will every Hilda, big and little, in Great Britain and Ireland, send contributions for a 'Hilda' motor ambulance, costing £500, to be sent for service in Pervyse, to save wounded Belgian soldiers from suffering? It will be run by a nurse named Hilda. 'Lady Hildas' subscribe a guinea, 'Hildas' over sixteen, half-guinea, 'Little Hildas', and 'Hildas' in straightened circumstances, two-shillings-and-sixpence."

That was the "Personal" on the front page of the London _Times_, which had gone out over the land.

Hilda's life at the front had appealed to the imagination of some thousands of the Belgian soldiers, and to many officers. The fame of her and of her two companions had grown with each week of the wearing, perilous service, hard by the Belgian trenches. Gradually there had drifted out of the marsh-land hints and broken bits of the life-saving work of these Pervyse girls, all the way back to England. The Hildas of the realm had rallied, and funds flowed into the London office, till a swift commodious car was purchased, and shipped out to the young nurse.

And now Hilda's car had actually come to her, there at the dressing-station in Pervyse. The brand new motor ambulance was standing in the roadway, waiting her need. Its brown canopy was shiny in the sun. A huge Red Cross adorned either side with a crimson splash that ought to be visible on a dark night. The thirty horse-power engine purred and obeyed with the sympathy of a high-strung horse. Seats and stretchers inside were clean and fresh for stricken men. From Hilda's own home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had come a friendship's garland of one hundred dollars. She liked to fancy that this particular sum of money had passed into the front wheels, where the speed was generated.

"My car, my very own," she murmured. She dreamed about it, and carried it in her thoughts by day. She had fine rushes of feeling about it, too. It must do worthy work, she said to herself. There could be no retreating from bad pockets with that car. There must be no leaving the wounded, when the firing cuts close, no joy-riding.

She could not help feeling proud of her position. There was no other woman out of all America who had won through to the front. And on all the Western battle-line of four hundred miles, there were no other women, save her and her two friends, who were doing just this sort of dangerous touch-and-go work. With her own eyes she had read the letters of more than two hundred persons, begging permission to join the Corps. There were women of title, professional men of standing. What had she done to deserve such lucky eminence? Why was she chosen to serve at the furthest outpost where risk and opportunity went hand in hand?

Dr. Neil McDonnell, leader of the Ambulance Corps, had brought a party of her friends from Furnes, to celebrate the coming of the car. Dr. McDonnell was delighted with every success achieved by his "children." When the three women went to Pervyse, and the fame of them spread through the Belgian Army, the Doctor was as happy as if a grandchild had won the Derby. He was glad when Mrs. Bracher and "Scotch" received the purple ribbon and the starry silver medal for faithful service in a parlous place. He was now very happy that Hilda's fame had sprung to England, taken root, and bloomed in so choice a way. He had a curiously sweet nature, the Doctor, a nature without animosities, absent-minded, filmed with dreams, and those dreams large, bold and kindly.

"Your car is better than a medal," he said; "a medal can't save life, but this car will. This is as good as an endowed hospital bed. It's like the King's touch; it heals everyone who comes near. May its shadow never grow less."

"I hope they won't shoot away its bonnet," said Hilda; "there's nothing so dead-looking as a wrecked ambulance. I saw one the other day on the Oestkirke road. It looked like a summer-resort place in winter."

"No danger," replied the Doctor, who was of a buoyant cast; "you are born lucky. You're one of the Fortunate Seven. You know there are Seven Fortunate born in each generation. All the good things come to them without striving. You are one of the Fortunate Seven."

"We shall see," responded Hilda.

The Doctor was just starting back to Furnes, when he remembered what he had come for.

"By the way," he called to Hilda, "what driver do you want?"

"Smith, of course," she answered. "Whom could I want but Smith? He is quite the bravest man I have met in the twenty weeks out here."

"He's only a chauffeur," remarked one of the Corps.

"Only a chauffeur," echoed Hilda; "only the man who runs the car and picks up the wounded, and straps in the stretchers. Give me Smith, every time--" she ended.

"He looks like a hero, doesn't he?" said the same member of the Corps.

"No, he doesn't," laughed Hilda, "and that's the joke."

* * * * *

Smith reported for duty early next morning.

"We must christen the car in some real way," she said. "How shall it be, Smith?"

"Dixmude," he answered. He generally dealt in replies of one word. He was a city lad, slight in frame, of pale, tired face.

"Yes, there is always work at Dixmude," Hilda agreed.

They started on the six-mile run.