Part 22

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.

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.