"What colonel does he mean?" asked Alfred. "The colonel commanding the battery, or his brother?"
"Both, of course," suggested Ralph.
The van started, the boys mounting their wheels and following.
"We are going back to the base camp, and put him in the hospital there," said the doctor.
"That is where his brother, the colonel, is in command," remarked Ralph.
"Yes," answered the doctor.
During the foregoing period of time there was not a moment when the firing on both sides of the lines had ceased. As the boys turned to the right to reach the road, they saw hundreds of soldiers rushing across to reach the third line, and it seemed as though the firing had grown heavier than when they had come out the road an hour before.
"Something unusual is going on," remarked Ralph. "Why are they gathering the machine guns behind those trenches? That is the third line; the second line cannot be more than three hundred yards behind us."
They were about to turn to the east and west road, when the most intense shell fire was opened up on their right.