"He is here, in the next ward. I will surely tell him about you."
At the hospital the boys saw every sort of wound, and soon learned to distinguish between the gunshot and the shrapnel wounds.
"Why is it that the shrapnel make such awful holes?" he asked one of the nurses one day.
"Well, you know, shrapnel does not go through the air as fast as the bullets from the rifles, and it has been shown that the greater the velocity the smaller the size of the wound. The bullets from the Mausers and the Mannlichers, which have such a high velocity, seem to go through so quickly that they sear the flesh, and thus form an antiseptic path which aids the wound in healing. But the shrapnel bullets are larger and this causes such terrible wounds."
"But they seem actually to tear the flesh," said Alfred.
"That is caused, not by the bullets which are in the shrapnel, but by the shell itself. If the shell bursts near the soldiers it often strikes the poor fellows and sometimes tears them to pieces."
It would be too sickening to go over the many details that came to the notice of the boys. They were kept at their duties daily for over two weeks, when something happened which made them decide to effect their escape, if possible.
"Let us get away," said Alfred, after they had been on duty for a week. "I think we can easily do it," he added. Ralph hesitated, for a moment.
"Yes, by all means if we can," responded Ralph. "But I don't mind this work, and do you know they intend to pay us for it?"