Part 13

"Six, two in the second story of the house, and four in the station opposite."

"Six ought to be enough to rake the road."

"Yes, but they won't come down the road," explained Jost; "they will come across the flooded field on rafts, with machine guns on the rafts. They can come down on both sides of the trench, and rake the trench. What can fifty men do against four or five machine guns? They will have to run like hares, or else be shot down to a man. They can rake the trenches for two miles on each side."

"What will happen if the Germans get on top of the trenches?" asked Mrs. Bracher.

"The very first thing they will do--they will place a gun on top of the trench, and rake this whole town. They can rake the road that leads to Furnes. It would cut off your retreat to Furnes."

That meant the only escape for the women would be through the back-yard, and over fields knee-deep in mud, where dead horses lie loosely buried in hummock graves.

"What do you think we had better do?" asked Hilda. "To leave now seems like shirking our job."

"There'll be no job for you, if the enemy come through to-night," returned the Commandant; "they'll do the job. But listen, you'll have a little time. If you hear rifle fire or mitrailleuse fire on the trenches, then go, as fast as you can run. If you hear as few as only four soldiers running down this road, take to your heels after them. That will be your last chance."

The bell tinkled again. The orderly called the Commandant into the hall. Jost returned with a message. He read it, and pulled out a note-book from his pocket. He consulted it with care. He sat down at the table, wrote his reply, and gave it to the messenger. He returned, shrugged his shoulders, and went silent. All waited for him to speak. Finally he roused himself.

"The mitrailleuse have only 3500 rounds left to each gun," he said, "and there are no cartridges in the trenches."

"That means," prompted Hilda.

"Four hundred cartridges a minute, those guns fire," he said, "that means eight or nine minutes, and then the Germans."

A pounding came at the front door. A captain entered, throwing his long cape over his shoulder.

"We have no ammunition," he said--"the men have nothing. I've just come from the Colonel."

The Captain was excited, the Commandant silent.

"Shall we evacuate?" Hilda pressed her question with him.

"I cannot answer for you," the Captain said. "If the enemy attack, there's nothing to hold them. They'll come through. If they come, they'll take you women prisoners or kill you. You'll have to make your choice now. There will be no choice then."

"Furnes isn't so prosperous, you know," said Hilda, "even if we did run back there."

Only the day before, Furnes had received a long-distance bombardment that had killed thirty persons and wounded one hundred.

At a word from the Commandant, the orderly left the room. The women heard him drive their ambulance out from shelter, crank up the engine, and run it for five minutes to get it thoroughly heated. Then he turned the engine off, and put a blanket over the radiator, tucking it well in to preserve the heat.

"Let's put what we need into the car," suggested Mrs. Bracher.

They picked up their bags, and went toward the ambulance.

It was pleasant to do something active under that tension. They stepped out into a night of chill and blackness. They could not see ten feet in front of them. It was moon-time but no moon. Heavy clouds were in possession of the sky, weaving a thick texture of darkness.

"There they start," said the Commandant.

Shell fire was beginning from the north, from the direction of the sea.

"They are covering their advance," he went on.

"Those are 21 or 28 Point shells. They are falling short about 1800 yards, but they are coming straight in our direction."

They walked past their car and down the road. They looked across the fields into the black night. Straight down the road a lamp suddenly shone in the gloom. It moved to and fro, and up and down. There was regularity in its motion. A great shaft of answering white light shot up into the night from the north.