IN IT
Ploof! Ploof! Bang! P-ssst, wam! Zing, zing, zing! T-r-r-r-r-r--rip!
Ploooof! Something of this nature, if it can at all be conveyed by
words, came in waves, roars and spasms of sound to the ears of Don
and Billy, as their ambulance truck traversed part of the five or
six miles of cross-road between the evacuation hospitals near the
Amiens road, not twenty miles south of that shell-torn town, and the
front line of the Allied army where American troops, newly arrived
from training camps, were brigaded with the French soldiers; that
is, a number of regiments of one nation were included with those of
the other in the same sector, sometimes companies, even platoons, of
Americans and French fighting side by side against the savage attacks
of an enemy far superior in numbers.
“We’ve just sent a dozen or more to your people down there--nearly
all light cases--but there’s been some sort of a scrap over toward
the southeast. You can’t find a road, for the enemy holds that, but
you can turn in across the fields to your right, or follow an old
farm road; one of our men did so yesterday. It is just beyond, where
some reserves are digging in by the edge of a ruined farm; both the
house and barn have been struck by shells or sky bombs. If you can go
any farther from there you’ll have to ask your way, but probably the
P. C. beyond won’t let you go on. There are two dressing stations to
the west of some woods on a low hill; that will be still farther to
your right as you follow the new trail. Go to it!”
This was the all-too-brief order Don received from Major Little,
the hospital-chief when the lads reached the broad tents on the
cross-road early one morning. Without further words Don leaped into
his car and glided on along the narrow road for about two miles; then
he began dodging shell holes, one here that involved half of the
wheel tracks, another, farther on, which took in all of the road and
had been partly filled and partly bridged with timbers from an old
building near. Beyond this, small shell-holes had torn up the once
smooth surface here and there. After the ambulance had traversed
another mile, at the best speed possible over such a highway, it
overtook a string of ammunition trucks going into position, ready
for progress or retreat. Dodging around these and avoiding other
shell-holes was difficult for the half mile on to where the artillery
had debouched. Once, not two hundred feet ahead, a big shell came
over with a swish and snarl and landed in the field near the road,
sending up a cloud of sod, dirt and stones and sprinkling the
ambulance and its drivers with bits of gravel. One sizable stone
landed on the hood with a whang and bounced against the windshield
just hard enough to crack it, exactly in line with Billy Mearns’ face.
“Pal, we seem to be under fire,” remarked Don, and Billy, with a
grunt of relief, replied:
“Yes, and if that glass hadn’t been there I’d have bitten that stone
in half to show I didn’t care whether it came this way or not. But
say, if we’d been just where that shell landed we would have had to
sing Tosti’s ‘Good-bye.’ They’re rude things, aren’t they, the way
they mess up the landscape?”
Don glanced at his smiling companion. A fellow who could take such
matters so calmly, and jest over them, was a lad after his own heart.
The sound of fighting came to the boys now with increasing fury.
They were not experienced enough to tell whether it was a regular
battle, or merely a skirmish. Anyway, it was lively enough for an
introduction to green hands far from home.
They came to where the reserve regiment was digging in. Some of them
camped in the open, with a few little canopy tents spread. A few
fires were burning. A few officers stood or squatted around talking
and laughing. Sentries were pacing up and down. A sentinel stood in
the road and faced about toward them, but when he saw the Red Cross
on the front and side of the car and had scanned the faces of the
drivers he asked no questions but let them pass. Don slowed up enough
to hear him say:
“All right. Go find ’em, bo! There’s some down there.”
“Going to give your friends, the Limburgers, a warm reception after
while?” Billy called back and the soldier nodded briskly, smiling and
waving his hand.
Turning sharply and dashing along the old farm road between greening
fields, the little car gained a slight crest and, uncertain for the
moment which way to turn, Don stopped her. Billy leaned out and
looked around.
“Over there are the woods the Major spoke about,” he said.
“Sure is. We can cross this meadow, I guess.”
“Ooh! Hold on a bit, and look up, Don!”
Two airplanes were circling overhead. The boys could see a black
Maltese cross on the under side and near the end of each wing of
one plane; the other bore a broad tri-colored circle in similar
positions. The two soaring, roaring, vulture-like things were
approaching each other, suddenly little jets of white smoke burst
from each and long streaks of pale light, like miniature lightning,
shot from each flying-machine to the other.
“A Hun plane and a Britisher! It’s a fight!” Don remarked excitedly.
“See, they’re the illuminated bullets to tell just where they’re
shooting, like squirting a hose. Watch ’em, Billy; watch ’em! Oh, by
cracky!”
“Watch them? Do you think I’m taking a nap? Oooh! Look at that
gasoline swallow dive! And bring up, too!” The German plane had
done this to try to get around under the tail of its opponent before
the other could turn, but its calculation went amiss. The Englishman
instantly made a quick swerve around and then dived straight at his
enemy, sending a stream of bullets ahead, and as the boche had by
this time turned around and was coming back toward him, it looked
terribly like there would be a collision.
But not so. The superior maneuvering of the Britisher was too much
for his antagonist--the Hun plane swerved to the left, went on
straight for a moment, then began to tilt a little sidewise and to
spin slowly. As it sank it pitched from side to side, following a
spiral course, thus imitating perfectly the fall of a dead leaf; so
perfectly, indeed, that as it neared the earth and was not checked
nor righted it became evident that the engine had stopped and that
the airman could not control the plane. Then, when not more than
fifty feet above the ground it suddenly tilted over forward and
crashed to the ground in the field, about an eighth of a mile beyond
the boys.
Looking aloft, then, Don and Billy saw the victorious English plane
going straight away at high speed toward the enemy’s lines and
rising higher in air at every second.
“Work cut out for us right ahead there,” Don remarked, as he settled
back in his seat and began to speed up his motor. “We didn’t think
that our first ‘_blessé_’ would be a Hun, did we?”
“No. What’s a ‘_blessé_’?”
“Why, I think that’s what the French call a wounded man. I hear them
using it that way.”
“I know a little French, but very little; I hadn’t heard that
expression before. Many of these war-time French words bother me
muchly. Look out; another shell-hole! Say, this must be a regular
farm.”
They saw the house standing in a clump of trees. The roadway led
straight past it; with increased speed the ambulance flew by and in a
little while came to the fallen airplane.
The winged intruder, ‘winged’ also as a flying game bird is by the
accurate fire of a sportsman, lay twisted, beyond repair, its wings,
uprights and stays crushed and broken. Almost beneath the flattened
wheels on the other side, crumpled up on the ground, lay the
unconscious airman. He had either leaped at the last moment, landing
almost where the airplane had, or he had been jarred from his seat by
the impact.
The boys were out of the car and beside him at once. Observing that
he still breathed, they gently turned him over, trying to find where
he was injured; then they saw a mass of clotted blood on his shoulder
and discovered the bullet hole.
First Aid was in order. Don ran to the ambulance and returned with
a kit. Billy followed to unfasten a stretcher and a blanket. With
utmost care, yet moving swiftly, though both lads were admittedly
nervous over their first case, they got him on the stretcher, removed
his upper garments, bathed the wound, plugged it with antiseptic
gauze and then, covering him with the blanket, slid the stretcher
into the car.
What next to do? There was room for two or three more; why return
with but one? And just beyond here lay the dressing stations, which
they could reach in less than two minutes. Don made up his mind
quickly and drove the car farther down the narrow farm road and over
another field--a pasture. Half way across and toward them, four
men were walking in single file. The boys had just made out that
these were stretcher-bearers when suddenly the men stopped, ducked
down and the foremost one raised his arm signaling for the car to
stop. The next instant they were hidden from view by a fountain
of earth between them and the ambulance and not over seventy-five
feet from the car. The earth shook with the tremendous concussion
of the explosion. It was one of the largest shells. The ambulance
was stopped as though it had butted into a stone wall; Don felt a
mass of glass fly against him and the car lifted partly up and swung
aside. When he regained his senses and could see about him through
the settling cloud of dust, he discovered that the car had been flung
crosswise, that the windshield was smashed, and that the top was bent
back, and very much askew. Billy, not having a grip on a steering
wheel, as Don had, and having partly risen, was now on his back on
the bottom of the car, behind the seat, his long legs sticking out
over the back. He regained his normal position only by turning a back
somersault and climbing forward. That the lads were not hurt was
almost a miracle.
[Illustration: THE AMBULANCE WAS STOPPED AS THOUGH IT HAD BUTTED INTO
A STONE WALL.]
But strangest of all was the fact that the tail doors had been
blown open, the stretcher lifted out on the ground as neatly as
though human hands had done it and looking back Don saw the German
airman, shocked into consciousness, sitting up and gazing at him.