Half a mile and more they had gone when Thad made a discovery.
“I think we’re coming to the new camp at last!” he called out, pointing as he spoke; and as Bumpus was all out of breath on account of their hurry he heard this latest news with considerable relief.
As they drew still nearer they could see that already the energetic medical staff had started to work erecting their shelters under which the operating tables would be placed as fast as they arrived, when the emergency field hospital might be said to be ready for business again.
The brave nurses were there, attending to the sorely wounded as fast as they could be taken from conveyances; yes, and just back of the boys came the head surgeon, bag in one hand, doubtless containing his instruments, and the Red Cross banner thrown over his left shoulder. Thad felt like giving the palm to this valiant soul, that could not be daunted by any personal peril, but had stuck to his self-imposed duty through shot and shell.
Again the work went on as though there had not been any interruption. The men with the stretchers had further to go, bearing their burdens, which made it so much the harder; but most of them looked on these things as the fortunes of war. It is of little use to complain when a battle is on. Conditions and not theories are what confront men then, and it becomes necessary to make the best of a bad situation.
Once again Thad and his two mates found abundant ways for making themselves useful. And although they might be haunted a long time by the things they were compelled to gaze upon, not one of them would ever regret coming as they did to the assistance of the Red Cross unit at that fiercely contested Battle of the Marne.
It was in the midst of all this that a strange thing happened to Thad and his two comrades. Just why it should come their way instead of to any other worker in the field hospital was one of those inscrutable mysteries that can never be explained, but then those boys had always been fortunate in the past about monopolizing things of importance, and perhaps their luck still held good over here in a strange land.
It chanced that they were rushed at the near-by operating table when a man wearing the French blue was brought in terribly injured. Thad could see that he had not been wounded by shell-fire, or through a bayonet thrust; in fact, he presented the appearance of one who had been caught in a collision of some sort, so that his arms were broken and his head badly lacerated.
Having nothing else on his hands just then, Thad felt constrained to see what he could do in order to alleviate the intense suffering which the poor fellow he felt sure must be enduring.
Up to then the man had been senseless, but his eyes opened as soon as Thad commenced to examine his broken arms. The boy believed he had never seen such mental agony as was depicted on that seamed and blood-stained face of the soldier, who bore the marks of a subordinate officer.