There was much work of a very serious nature during the next few hours and then a night of running back and forth. The first streaks of a murky dawn witnessed the evacuation hospital nearly empty and ready for new cases. Two lads in a rain-soaked and mud-bespattered ambulance, carrying a cheerful soldier whose only need was a week of rest, stopped by the roadside on the way to Paris—and, with their passenger’s consent, rolled up in blankets on floor and seat to sleep the sleep of the just fagged.
[CHAPTER XIII]
Wash
My boy, I want to commend you, for your aid when they bombed us last week. Haven’t had a chance to before. If all of the fellows had been as cool and as helpful as you and that little, red-headed Irishman we would have had less trouble straightening things out. I see he is running his own car now. Who is your helper?” So spoke Major Little, when he came out of the operating room to get a breath of fresh air, and said to Don.
“I guess I’ll get a colored chap, if I get any,” the boy replied. “A lot of new cars have come over and they want men. I can get along alone. Some of the fellows do.”
“Better to have company. Helps the morale. Gives a chance of aid if one fellow gets hit. Better all round. It is the policy of the service; but we can’t always get what we want.”
“Glad you didn’t have to move after all, Doctor.”
“No, but the expectation now is that the move will come farther north—against the British. Or it may be to the south. If so, some of you fellows will have to be transferred to that sector and it will give us a little rest here.”