That was a bad night for Ruth. She lay in her cot awake, but with her eyes closed, breathing deeply and regularly so that those about her thought she was asleep.
In the morning the matron said:
"You are really quite wonderful, Miss Fielding, to sleep through all that. I wish I could do the same."
And all night long Ruth had been praying—praying for the safety of the boys that had gone over the top, not for herself. That she was in danger did not greatly trouble her. She thought of the soldiers. She thought particularly of Tom Cameron—wherever he might be!
The flurry of gunfire was over by dawn. After breakfast Ruth went down to the gate. She had heard the ambulances rolling in for hours, and now she saw the stretcher-bearers stumbling into the receiving ward with the broken men. Here they were operated upon, when necessary, and sorted out—the grands blessés sent to the more difficult wards, the less seriously wounded to others.
Curiosity did not bring Ruth to the gate. It was in the hope of seeing Charlie Bragg that she went there. Nor was she disappointed.
His shaky old car rolled up with three men under the canvas and one with a bandaged arm sitting on the seat beside him. Charlie was pale and haggard. Half the top of the ambulance had been shot away since she had ridden in it, and the boy had roughly repaired the damage with a blanket. But he nodded to Ruth with his old cheerful grin. Nothing could entirely quench Charlie Bragg.
"Got tipped over and holed up in a marmite cave for a couple of hours during the worst of it last night," he told Ruth. "Never mind. It gave me another chapter for my new book. Surely! I'm going to write a second one. They all do, you know. You rather get the habit."
"But, Charlie! Is—is there any news?" she asked him, with shaking voice and eyes that told much of her anxiety.
He knew well what she meant, and he looked grim enough for a minute, and nodded.