"That's what we're here for," said Dr. McDonnell.
"Thank you," said the Belgian quietly. "Shall we not leave the lady?" he suggested, turning to Hilda.
"Try it," she replied with a smile.
Dr. van der Helde jumped aboard.
"And you mean to tell me you couldn't get hold of an army car to help you out, all this time?" asked Dr. McDonnell, in amazement.
"Orders were strict," replied the Belgian; "the military considered it too dangerous to risk an ambulance."
They had entered the town of Dixmude. Hilda had never seen so thorough a piece of ruin. Walls of houses had crumbled out upon the street into heaps of brick and red dust. Stumps of building still stood, blackened down their surface, as if lightning had visited them. Wire that had once been telegraph and telephone crawled over the piles of wreckage, like a thin blue snake. The car grazed a large pig, that had lost its pen and trough and was scampering wildly at each fresh detonation from the never-ceasing guns.
"It's a bit warm," said Smith, as a piece of twisted metal, the size of a man's fist, dropped by the front wheel.
"That is nothing," returned Dr. van der Helde.
They had to slow up three times for heaps of ruin that had spread across the road. They reached the Hospital. It still stood unbroken. It had been a convent, till Dr. van der Helde commandeered it to the reception of his cases. He led them to the hall. There down the long corridor were seated the aged poor of Dixmude. Not one of the patient creatures was younger than seventy. Some looked to be over eighty. White-haired men and women, bent over, shaking from head to foot, muttering. Most of them looked down at the floor. It seemed as if they would continue there rooted, like some ancient lichen growth in a forest. A few of them looked up at the visitors, with eyes in which there was little light. No glimmer of recognition altered the expression of dim horror.