“Your errand is more important than mine,” Don continued. “Besides, I’m glad, for Stapley and I would be sure to scrap on the way. I’d have to rub it in about his letting these men get away on the hill. And Stapley can’t take anything from me good-naturedly. He can explain to you later what he thinks of me. I know already and I don’t care a hoot. Come, Wash, climb out of there! We’ve got to see if we can make this ramshackle ambulance travel. So long, Duncan.”
The military court gave the spies short shrift. Duncan was one of the firing squad that did quick executions. The army ambulancier then went his way. Before morning he was again driving his own ambulance and Don Richards’ car had been turned over to him and the grinning Wash. Work on Hill 165 had been finished.
“The marines are going to try to take Bouresches and Belleau Wood to-day, I hear,” Don said to Duncan, as they met on the road.
“I wish I was in that bunch of real men,” Duncan replied and passed on. That was the last Don ever saw of the brave fellow, for Duncan was shifted north of the Oise River where another Hun drive seemed imminent, as they were short of ambulances in that sector.
Don’s orders were to run in close to the American fighting forces without too grave risk, and if there was an advance, to keep pretty near to it, as there would necessarily be many casualties. As the Germans had learned already to recognize the Yanks as their most formidable foes, they were sending some of their best troops to stop them.
The Red Cross was showing splendid efficiency now. From stretcher bearers to dressing stations, from its own evacuation hospitals to ideally equipped bases and convalescent camps, it was the model for all things humane in warfare. Eager were its men and women in doing their share of the arduous and dangerous work, and proud, indeed, those who were identified in any way with its glorious efforts.
“Drive the enemy from Bouresches and Belleau Wood!” was the order from headquarters. Again, as one man, the marines went forward. The Huns must be taught that their advance at the Château-Thierry front was at an end.
“Pound the enemy’s lines in Bouresches!” came the order to the artillery as a forerunner of the charge of the marines, and the artillery pounded. Across the grain and flowering fields marched the soldiers, advancing in thin lines, one after the other, the marines in the center and on either flank a battalion of doughboys, regulars of the United States army. This was the good old training in American fighting methods: Advance on a run and lie down, advance and lie down, the front rank shooting all the while, and when these fellows, who must bear the brunt of the strong defense that the enemy was making, were thinned out reinforcements were rushed from the rear to fill up the broken ranks.