"It was a little nothing," the hunchback replied. "A German bird dropped a shell out of his beak on the munitions factory where I was working."
"And a splinter hit you?"
"Several."
"Why didn't you dodge?"
"I couldn't. You see," the hunchback continued, "there was a girl there."
"And then?" demanded the lad impatiently. "Don't stammer so, Croquier, tell the story!"
"It was a tiny nothing," his comrade repeated, somewhat shamefacedly. "It was this way. In the factory where I was working, there were many brave girls working also, brave girls, for the work was dangerous. It was especially dangerous, because there was a church on one side and a hospital near by. A Boche aviator always tries to hit a hospital when he can. The Red Cross to him is as it would be to a bull."
"I've noticed that," the boy agreed. "At the front, here, they shell the field hospitals every chance they get. But tell the story!"
"One foggy morning, then," the hunchback went on, "about a week before Christmas, an aviator who had escaped our air-sentries by reason of the mist, let fall a bomb. I feel sure it was meant for the hospital, but it hit us instead. I was working on the top floor. The bomb—it was quite a little one—came through the roof. I happened to be the one to see it coming and I saw, at once, that it would fall on the stone bench in front of which the girls were working.