“Oh, dear me! I wish we hadn’t come,” Helen said, trembling. “Let us find a cave voûtée. I saw signs along the main street of this village as we drove through.”
“There is a bomb proof just back of the hospital,” said Ruth, and then another heavy explosion drowned what else she might have said.
Her two visitors dropped their teacups and started for the door. But Ruth did not turn from the window. She was trying to see—to mark the direction of the Boche bombing machine that was deliberately seeking to hit the hospital of Clair.
“Come, Ruthie!” cried Helen, looking back.
“I don’t know that I should,” the other girl said slowly. “I am in charge of the supplies. I may be wanted at any moment. The nurses do not run away from the wards and leave their poor blessés at such a time——”
Another thundering explosion fairly shook the walls of the hospital. Jennie and Helen shrieked aloud. They were not used to anything like this. Their months of war experience had been gained mostly in Paris, not so near the front trenches. A bombing raid was a tragedy to them. To Ruth Fielding it was an incident.
“Do come, Ruthie!” cried her chum. “I am frightened to death.”
“I will go downstairs with you——”
The sentence was never finished. Out of the air, almost over their heads, fell a great, whining shell. The noise of it before it exploded was like a knife-thrust to the hearts of the frightened girls. Jennie and Helen clung to each other in the open doorway of Ruth’s cell. Their braver companion had not left the window.
Then came the shuddering crash which rocked the hospital and all the taller buildings about it!