CHAPTER XX
RUNNING THE GANTLET OF SHELLS
“Hello! there, want to get aboard, Giraffe!” called out Bumpus, assuming all the airs of a millionaire owner of a palatial car upon meeting a less fortunate friend on the highway.
Already Giraffe had jumped from the seat of the ambulance. His face told of the wonder that filled his soul upon thus discovering his three comrades occupying a commodious high-priced car, and speeding along as though apparently bound for Paris.
The ambulance started up again, and passed them by in a cloud of dust. Giraffe lost no time in getting aboard.
“We’re in a desperate hurry, you see, Giraffe,” Bumpus assured him, even going to the extent of reaching forward and trying to help drag the elongated chum into the rear seat of the car, which he had been occupying alone up to then, Allan being in front alongside the driver.
Thad hardly waited until Giraffe had tumbled aboard than he was off again. The new addition to their ranks gasped for breath.
“Well, I should say you were in a big hurry to get somewhere,” he remarked, rubbing his forehead where it had come against the back of the seat with a bump when the car started so suddenly. “Are the Germans coming so fast as that, tell me?”
He looked backwards rather anxiously, as though half expecting to see some band of Uhlans charging along in the rear.
Bumpus being closer than either of the others took upon himself the task of putting the newcomer in possession of the main facts. There was no time to elaborate, and make a stirring story of their late adventures, nor was Bumpus especially gifted in that way. He did manage to explain how they had reached the field hospital and were making themselves useful in lots of ways when the injured dispatch bearer was brought in.
When Giraffe began to understand what a strange mission his chums had undertaken he showed the most intense interest. Perhaps up to then he had thought he held the palm for undertaking a remarkable exploit, when he drove that Red Cross ambulance, with its load of wounded soldiers, all the way to Paris, safely delivered them at one of the hospitals, and then turned over his charge to another pilot.