CHAPTER XVII THE SCOUTS UNDER FIRE
“Oh! there comes another shell! Duck; fellows; duck, quick!” almostshrieked Bumpus, as a strange and terrifying sound was heard in the airabove them.
Then followed a second frightful crash. The very ground seemed quakingunder the feet of the boys. They could see the havoc this German missilehad wrought almost alongside one of the operating tables. Bumpus turnedas white as a ghost and looked as though ready to collapse.
Immediately consternation bordering on a panic took possession of all inthat unlucky field hospital. No one could understand why the Germangunfire had been so suddenly raised and sent in this quarter. Thadglanced hurriedly toward the little rise. The big white flag with itscrimson cross still floated there, and each successive waft of thepassing breeze opened its folds, so that surely it could be readily seenmiles away when glasses were used.
Whether it came about through some misunderstanding or confusion oforders on the part of the enemy mattered little to those who were thusexposed to death by the change in the bombardment.
The head surgeon grasped the situation at once. He knew that to remainthere longer was simple folly. The field hospital must move back half amile or so to the second position that had been selected, and that whileunder fire.
Meanwhile, even as he was trying to give orders to this effect, othershells continued to drop all around them. Some of them fell outside theconfines of the camp, which was a most fortunate thing; but there wereothers not so merciful, and again and again did terrible damage follow.
All was excitement and apparent confusion. In vain did the surgeons tryto assuage the wild fear that possessed the attendants. More than a fewhad already been mowed down by those mighty engines of destruction thatin bursting knew neither friend nor foe, patient, doctor or nurse.
Vans were being hastily loaded and driven away in mad haste, as if theruling passion in each and every heart just then was to get beyond rangeof those constantly falling shells. There were several French femalenurses in the camp. These brave women seemed ready to sacrifice theirown 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 ofduty. French chivalry could not stand for such a sacrifice, and,accordingly, they were actually seized, and struggling still againstgoing, thrust into a van that was just starting. The last the wonderingboys saw of them those nurses of the Red Cross were still endeavoring tomake their captors let them get out of the van so as to make room forpoor wounded privates of the line. Certainly Thad and his mates wouldnever be able to get that wonderful picture out of their minds, for itseemed the crowning act of fidelity, well worth mentioning in history.
Of course the three boys were not unmindful of the fact that it behoovedthem 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 thestruggling vehicles, where every bit of space was needed for others farless able to get on than themselves. So long as their legs wereserviceable he believed it to be their duty to make use of them. Surelythey would have about as much chance of escaping those dropping shellsas any who took to the road in vehicles.
Already many had gone, the surgeons lingering despite the increasingperil, so as to see the very last of their patients on the way beforethey would consent to departing. Some of them might stay too long, forat any moment a shell was apt to explode directly over headquarters andannihilate the entire staff.
“We had better be on the jump!” was what Thad shouted in the ear ofAllan, after they had watched these thrilling sights for several minutesand twice narrowly escaped dire injuries when explosions occurred closeby.
“That’s right,” echoed the other, also plainly unnerved by what he waswitnessing; “but where is Bumpus?”
His words gave Thad a strange sinking in the region of his heart. Trueenough, their stout chum had mysteriously vanished; and yet he couldremember 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 ofthe corpulent figure of his most beloved chum. It was always possible,he figured, that poor Bumpus might have been hurled far to one side bythe shock, but though he strained his eyes to the utmost to discover hisform he met with no success whatever.
It was a mystery. Surrounded by such a mad clamor, with men dashing thisway and that as though temporarily out of their minds, it was notstrange that Thad should feel faint with apprehension. He seemed to seehimself telling the poor mother how her gallant boy had yielded up hisyoung 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?” Allanwas calling close to his ear.
Thad hardly knew at first what to answer. He despised himself for evenallowing a thought to come into his mind as to deserting a comrade intime of peril, and yet in a measure it seemed sheer madness to remainwhile that tempest of iron was being hurled upon the spot.
As in a dream he saw the American surgeon up there on the rise gatheringthe Red Cross flag in his arms, as though he meant to carry it away withhim to the new quarters. It was an act of daring that gave Thad a littlethrill; but then at that moment so much was going on that bordered alongthe heroic that he could only take passing notice of this particulardeed.
As a last resort, which perhaps might be called an inspiration on hispart, 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 andAllan were thrilled to catch a reply.
“Here I am, Thad!” shouted a high-pitched voice, and with the words ahead appeared above the edge of a deep shell crater not thirty feetaway, as Bumpus commenced to laboriously crawl on hands and knees out ofthe hole.
Of course it looked as though he had dropped down there with the ideathat by so doing he might better escape the danger of being caught inthe rain of iron splinters following each explosion. Really it was notsuch a bad scheme on the part of Bumpus, and had they been compelled tostay there longer the others might have copied his example with profitto themselves.
Thad hurriedly beckoned in order to hasten the coming of the otherscout.
“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 fromthe pit, little the worse for his experience. Later on he candidlyadmitted 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 ashell burst near by, and, finding himself prone at the bottom, huggedthe ground until he could feel himself all over and ascertain whether hewere 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 numerousstill forms on the ground, and he knew that death had reaped a heavyharvest. Just then he hated the German gunners most violently, althoughlater on, when he cooled down, he realized that it must have all been aterrible mistake, for surely they would never think of bombarding afield hospital, always held sacred between honorable foes.
When the three boys hurried out of the camp the shells were stillfalling as if they meant to honeycomb that sector thoroughly for somereason. Perhaps a signal had gone wrong, and it was believed that one ofthe most dangerous batteries of the French lay concealed under branchesat this point.
Thad never knew the truth about it; in fact, no one could learn thereason why. Just then the one main object they had in view was to put asgreat a distance between themselves and that harried ground as possible.
Amidst a jumble of wagons, vans, ambulances, motor lorries and ordinarycars, all striving to push along that one narrow thoroughfare, the threescouts pressed on. One shell had dropped squarely in the road and
madesuch a yawning gap that it was necessary for each vehicle to go aroundthe aperture. A van had also been wrecked at the same time, for the boyscould see dreadful signs of this whichever way they turned their eyes.
Presently, however, they seemed to be getting beyond the curtain of firewhich the big German guns had established. That would mean the dangerwas over. Bumpus began to get back a little of his lost color when hediscovered this pleasing fact; and for that matter, both of the otherboys felt better. It was certainly anything but a laughing matter,running the gantlet of those fearful explosives and amidst suchdesolating 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, pointingas he spoke; and as Bumpus was all out of breath on account of theirhurry he heard this latest news with considerable relief.
As they drew still nearer they could see that already the energeticmedical staff had started to work erecting their shelters under whichthe operating tables would be placed as fast as they arrived, when theemergency field hospital might be said to be ready for business again.
The brave nurses were there, attending to the sorely wounded as fast asthey could be taken from conveyances; yes, and just back of the boyscame the head surgeon, bag in one hand, doubtless containing hisinstruments, and the Red Cross banner thrown over his left shoulder.Thad felt like giving the palm to this valiant soul, that could not bedaunted by any personal peril, but had stuck to his self-imposed dutythrough 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 thesethings as the fortunes of war. It is of little use to complain when abattle 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 makingthemselves useful. And although they might be haunted a long time by thethings they were compelled to gaze upon, not one of them would everregret coming as they did to the assistance of the Red Cross unit atthat fiercely contested Battle of the Marne.
It was in the midst of all this that a strange thing happened to Thadand his two comrades. Just why it should come their way instead of toany other worker in the field hospital was one of those inscrutablemysteries that can never be explained, but then those boys had alwaysbeen fortunate in the past about monopolizing things of importance, andperhaps their luck still held good over here in a strange land.
It chanced that they were rushed at the near-by operating table when aman wearing the French blue was brought in terribly injured. Thad couldsee that he had not been wounded by shell-fire, or through a bayonetthrust; in fact, he presented the appearance of one who had been caughtin a collision of some sort, so that his arms were broken and his headbadly lacerated.
Having nothing else on his hands just then, Thad felt constrained to seewhat he could do in order to alleviate the intense suffering which thepoor fellow he felt sure must be enduring.
Up to then the man had been senseless, but his eyes opened as soon asThad commenced to examine his broken arms. The boy believed he had neverseen such mental agony as was depicted on that seamed and blood-stainedface of the soldier, who bore the marks of a subordinate officer.
He started to say something in French, and while Thad could notunderstand its full import, he caught a significant word here and therethat alarmed him. One of these was “dispatches,” and another phraseplainly stood for “Life and death!” These things excited the boy. Hestarted across to speak to the American surgeon about it, leaving hiscomrades 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 hisinstrument as a patient was lifted from the table and taken in charge byattendants, 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 armsbroken and his head is badly lacerated in the bargain. But he seems tohave something terrible on his mind. I imagine he must have beencarrying some sort of important papers at the time he was caught, for hespeaks of dispatches and acts so wild I thought you ought to know aboutit.”
The surgeon looked intensely interested.
“Show him to me, please, and I’ll quickly find out what he wants,” hetold 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 newthrill. Hence he was not as surprised as Allan and Bumpus when thesurgeon, rising to his feet, hastened to say:
“You were correct in your diagnosis, son; he is a dispatch-bearer. Evennow he has a most important paper intended for the hands of GeneralJoffre himself. He tells me that if it fails to be delivered immediatelythe most dire results may follow for the whole French army. He begs memost piteously to send some reliable person forward with this dispatch.I hardly know to whom I can entrust it unless you brave scouts willundertake the mission.”