Young Hilda At The Wars Part 11

They seeped along over the wet wood road, speaking not at all, as snipers were scattered by night here and there in the trees. They came to the old white building, a country house of size and beauty. In the cellar, three soldiers were lying on straw. Two of them told Hilda they had been lying wounded and uncared for in the trenches since evening of the night before. They had just been brought to the house. She went over to the third, a boy of about eighteen years. He was shot through the biceps muscle of his left arm. He was pale and weak.

"How long have you been like this?" asked the girl.

"Since four o'clock, yesterday," he whispered.

"Thirty hours," said Hilda.

Dr. McDonnell made a request to the officer for help. He gave four men and two stretchers. They put the boy and one of the men on the stretchers, and hoisted them through the cellar window. Woffington and McDonnell took the lantern and searched till they found a wheelbarrow.

The third man, wounded in the shoulder, threw an arm over Dr. McDonnell, and Woffington steadied him at the waist. He stumbled up the steps, and collapsed into the barrow.

Woffington and the Doctor took turns in wheeling him through the mud.

Hilda walked at their side. The wheel bit deeply into the road under the weight. They had to spell each other, frequently. After a few hundred yards, they met a small detachment of cavalry, advancing toward the house. The horses seemed to feel the tension, and shared in the silence of their drivers, stepping noiselessly through the murk.

Woffington was forced to turn the barrow into the ditch. It required the strength of the two men, one at each handle, to shove it out on the road again.

The stretchers had reached the ambulance ahead of the wheelbarrow. They loaded the car hastily--there was no time to swing stretchers. They put the three wounded in on the long wooden seat. The boy with the torn biceps fainted on Hilda's shoulder. She rode in with him. At Hoogar dressing-station, she asked the military doctor for water for the boy.

He had come to, and kept whispering--"Water, water."

"I have no water for you," said the Doctor.

A soldier followed her back to the car and gave the lad to drink from his bottle. There was only a swallow in it.

When they reached the Convent, the officer in charge came running out.

"I'll take this load, but that's all," he said. "Can't take any more, full up. Next trip, go on into the town, to Military Hospital Number Three."

They started back toward the wood.

"I've only got petrol enough for one trip, and then home again," said Woffington.

"All the way, then," said the Doctor, "out to the farthest trenches.

We'll make a clean sweep."

They shot past Hoogar, and out through the wood, and on to the trenches of the Ches.h.i.+res. Just back of the mounded earth, the reserves were sleeping in the mud of the road, and on the wet bank of the ditch. The night was dark and silent. A few rods to the right, a sh.e.l.led barn was blazing.

"Have you any wounded?" asked Dr. McDonnell.

"So many we haven't gathered them in," answered the officer. "What is the use? No one to carry them away."

"I'll carry as many as I can," said the Doctor.

"I'll send for them," replied the captain. He spread his men out in the search. Three wounded were placed in the car, all of them stretcher cases.

"Room for one more stretcher case," said Dr. McDonnell; "the car only holds four."

"Bring the woman," ordered the officer.

His men came carrying an aged peasant woman, grey-haired, heavy, her black dress soggy with dew and blood.

"Here's a poor old woman," explained the captain; "seems to be a Belgian peasant. She was working out in the fields here, while the firing was going on. She was shot in the leg and fell down in the field. She's been lying on her face there all day. Can't you take her out of the way?"

"Surely," said Hilda.

The old woman was heavier than a soldier, heavier and more helpless.

"The car is full," said Hilda; "you have more wounded?"

The officer smiled.

"Of course," he answered; "here come a few of them, now."

The girl counted them. She had to leave twelve men at that farthest trench, because the car was full. On the trip back, she jumped down at the Hoogar dressing-station, and there she found sixteen more men strewed around in the straw, waiting to be removed. Twenty-eight men she had to ride away from.

For the first time in that long day, they went past the Convent-hospital, and on into the city of Ypres itself, down through the Grand Place, and then abruptly through a narrow street to the south.

Here they found Military Hospital Number Three. The wounded men were lifted down and into the courtyard. Lastly, the woman.

"Yes, we'll take her," said the good-hearted Tommies, who lent a hand in unloading the car. But their officer was firm.

"We have no room," he said; "we must keep this hospital for the soldiers. I wish I could help you."

"But what am I to do with her?" asked Hilda in dismay.

"I am sorry," said the officer. He walked away.

"The same old story," said Hilda; "no place for the old in war-time.

They'll turn us away from all the hospitals. Anyone who isn't a soldier might as well be dead as in trouble."

The old woman lay on the stretcher in the street. Her mouth had fallen open, as if she had weakened her hold on things. There was something beyond repair about her appearance, and something unrebuking, too. "Do with me what you please," she seemed to say, "I shall make no complaint.

I am too old and feeble to make you any trouble. Leave me here in the gutter if you like. No one will ever blame you for it, surely not I."

"Lift her back," ordered the Doctor; "we'll go hunting."

He had seen a convent near the market square when they had gone through in the morning. They rode to the door, and pulled the hanging wire. The bell resounded down long corridors. Five minutes pa.s.sed. Then the bolt was shot, and a sleepy-eyed Sister opened the door, candle in hand.

"Sister, I beg you to take this poor old peasant woman in my car,"

pleaded Hilda, "she is wounded in the leg."

The Sister made no reply but threw the door wide open, then turned and shuffled off down the stone corridor.

"Come," said Hilda; "we have found a home."

The men lifted the stretcher out, and followed the dim twinkling light down the pa.s.sage. It turned into a great room. They followed in. Every bed was occupied--perhaps fifty old women sleeping there, grey hair and white hair on the pillows, red coverlets over the beds. To the end of the room they went, where one wee little girl was sleeping. The Sister spread bedding on the floor, and lifted the child from the cot. She stretched herself a moment in the chilly sheets, then settled into sleep, with her face, shut-eyed, upturned toward the light. Hilda sighed with relief. Their work was ended.

"Now for home," she said. "Fifteen and a half hours of work."

It was half an hour after midnight, when they drew up in Ypres market square and glanced down the beautiful length of the Cloth Hall, that building of ma.s.sive and light-winged proportion. It was the last time they were ever to see it. It has fallen under the sh.e.l.ling, and cannot be rebuilt. They paused to pick their road back to Furnes, for in the darkness it was hard to find the street that led out of the town. They thought they had found it, and went swiftly down to the railway station before they knew their mistake. As they started to turn back and try again, a great sh.e.l.l fell into the little artificial lake just beyond them. It roared under the surface, and then shot up a fountain of water twenty feet high, with edges of white foam.

"It is time to go," said Hilda; "they will send another sh.e.l.l. They always do. They are going to bombard the town."