“Couldn’t we go in and see, Don? It will be solemn enough, but we can be sure they’re all—they’re not suffering.”
The boys alighted and rounded the house once more, stepping over broken bits of stone and mortar and twisted framing. Billy was ahead and he took but one glance and turned about.
“Beyond doubt. They had at least their wish not to suffer.” He uttered the words like a funeral benediction, and followed Don back. As they were about to emerge from the trellised gateway the other Red Cross ambulance shot by, the occupants, no doubt, supposing those in the boys’ car had stopped here for a drink. Again Don caught sight of the driver of that car. Instantly it came to the boy who the fellow must be. The recognition was quite complete—and startling.
Don stood in the road, looking after the speeding car. Billy’s thoughts were upon other matters. The ambulance ran on until almost out of sight. Then suddenly, instead of turning across toward the dressing station at the western edge of the woods, it veered to the east across fields and ran down a slope to a clump of bushes and low trees where it stopped. The boy wondered if there could a dressing station at that spot.
“Don, if you can go on just this once without me, I’d like to stay and bury that poor old couple and the little girl. It seems horrible to let them lie there, exposed, uncared for, as though they had no friends. What do you say?”
“All right, Billy you stay. I can make the trip alone. They’ll help me with the blessés at the station and at the hospital too. If anything does happen to me—should I get hit—you couldn’t help much until you got the hang of running over such roads. And say, Billy, you can do something else: when you hear a car going back take a peep and if it’s those fellows that just went by, observe them, will you? If you see them coming, go out and stop them and ask who they are, you can let on you’re making a report. I’m just curious. Tell you why later. G’bye! I’ll stop for you on the next trip down.”
Don dashed on, reached the dressing station without mishap, took on two wounded poilus and one Yank; they sped back.
Billy quickly found a garden spade an went to work with all his might so as to complete his gruesome task. The ground was soft beneath a wide-spreading apple tree just showing signs of blossoming; a sweet-voiced bird sang the while in the branches above, and this was the only requiem the old couple and the little child should know, as, wrapped carefully in sheets rescued from the destroyed house, they filled the one grave.
The tender-hearted youth’s eyes were wet while he labored for the poor souls who deserved a better burial than this. When the grave was filled he made a rude cross of boards and wrote on it a simple inscription, a tribute from his own gentle heart.