Part 7

"That's true enough," assented Barkleigh. "But what I mean is, this is reckless; you are in danger, without really knowing it."

"So are the men in danger," returned Hilda. "The soldiers come in here, hungry, and we have hot soup for them. They come from the trenches, with a gunshot wound in the hand, or a piece of shell in a leg, and we fix them up. That's better than travelling seven or eight miles before getting attention. Why it was only a week ago that Mrs. Bracher here--"

"Now none of that," broke in the nurse sternly.

"Hush," said Hilda, "it isn't polite to interrupt when a gentleman is asking for information."

She turned back to the correspondent.

"Last week," she took up her story, "a young Belgian private came in here with his lower lip swollen out to twice its proper size. It had got gangrene in it. A silly old military doctor had clapped a treatment over it, when the wound was fresh and dirty, without first cleaning it out. Mrs. Bracher treated it every two hours for six days. The boy used to come right in here from the trenches. And would you believe it, that lip is looking almost right. If it hadn't been for her, he would have been disfigured for life."

"Very good," admitted the correspondent, "but it doesn't quite satisfy me. Wait till you get some real hot shell fire out here, then you'll make for your happy home."

"Why," began Scotch, rising slowly but powerfully to utterance.

"It's all right, Scotch," interposed Hilda, at a gallop, "save the surprise. It will keep."

Scotch subsided into a rich silence. She somehow never quite got into the conversation, though she was always in the action. She was one of those silent, comfortable persons, without whom no group is complete. Into her ample placidity fell the high-pitched clamor of noisier people, like pebbles into a mountain lake.

"Now, what do you women think you are doing?" persisted the correspondent. "Why are you here?"

"You really want to know?" queried Hilda.

"I really want to know," he repeated.

"I'll answer you to-morrow," said Hilda. "Come out here to-morrow afternoon and we'll go to Nieuport. We promised to go over and visit the dressing-station there, and on the way I'll tell you why we are here."

* * * * *

Next day was grey and chilly. A low rumble came out of the north. The women had a busy morning, for the night had been full of snipers perched on trees. The faithful three spread aseptics and bandaged and sewed, and generally cheered the stream of callers from the Ninth and Twelfth Regiments, Army of the King of the Belgians. In the early afternoon, the buzz of motors penetrated to the stuffy cellar, and it needed no yelping horn, squeezed by the firm hand of Smith, to bring Hilda to the surface, alert for the expedition. Two motor ambulances were puffing their lungs out, in the roadway. Pale-faced Smith sat in one at the steering-gear--Smith, the slight London boy who would drive a car anywhere. Beside him sat F. Ainslie-Barkleigh, bent over upon his war map, studying the afternoon's campaign. In the second ambulance were Tom, the Cockney driver, and the leader of the Ambulance Corps, Dr. Neil McDonnell.

"Jump in," called he, "we're off for Nieuport."

She jumped into the first ambulance, and they turned to the north and took the straight road that leads all the way from Dixmude to the sea. Barkleigh was much too busy with his glasses and his map to give her any of his attention for the first quarter hour. They speeded by sentinel after sentinel, who smiled and murmured, "Les Anglais." Corporals, captains, commandants, gazed in amazement and awe at the massive figure of the war-correspondent, as he challenged the horizon with his binoculars and then dipped to his map for consultation. Only once did the party have to yield up the pass-word, which for that afternoon was "Charleroi." Finally Barkleigh turned to the girl.

"We had a discussion last evening," he began, "and you promised to answer my question. Why are you out here? Why isn't a hospital good enough for you, back in Furnes or Dunkirk?"

"I remember," returned Hilda. "I'll tell you. I could answer you by saying that we're out to help, and that would be true, too. But it wouldn't be quite the whole truth, for there's a tang of adventure in Pervyse, where we can see the outposts of the other fellows, that there isn't in the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg, let us say. Yes, we're out to help. But we're out for another reason, too. For generations now, you men have had a monopoly of physical courage. You have faced storms at sea, and charged up hills, and pulled out drowning children, and footed it up fire-ladders, till you think that bravery is a male characteristic. You've always handed out the passive suffering act to us. We had any amount of compliments as long as we stuck to silent suffering. But now we want to see what shells look like. As long as sons and brothers have to stand up to them, why, we're going to be there, too."

"But you haven't been in the thick of it," objected Barkleigh. "When the danger is so close you can see it, a woman's nerve isn't as good as a man's. It can't be. She isn't built that way."

"That's the very point," retorted Hilda, "we're going to show you."

"Damn quick," muttered Smith.

In the pleasant heat of their discussion, they hadn't been noticing the roadway. It was full of soldiers, trudging south. The rumble had become a series of reports. The look of the peaceful day was changing. Barkleigh turned from his concentration on the girl, and glanced up the road.

"These troops are all turning," he said.

"You are right," Hilda admitted.

"Can't you see," he urged, "they're all marching back. That means they've given the place up."

"Oh, hardly that," corrected Hilda; "it simply means that Nieuport is hot for the present moment."