It was all plain enough, Dick Thornton was engaged in the work of rescue. He must have driven his field ambulance back into the danger line and be again returning with wounded men.
Barbara got quickly on her feet. Some instinct drove her forward, or was it the inspiration of that careening wagon with its load of human freight?
Dick must have had a forewarning of danger, for never had he attempted reaching safety with a more reckless effort at speed. Yet the disaster came when he had about ceased to look for it. They were nearing the hospital, there were no guns trained in their direction. Yet possibly a mistake was made somewhere at this moment. The German gunners may have thought that they had located a position where British officers were giving their commands.
Unexpectedly, and of course without warning, Barbara saw a cloud of smoke surrounding the field ambulance, heard the noise of an exploding shell and before the car overturned, Dick Thornton, with his arms outspread, pitch forward and land with his face and half his body buried in the earth.
Nor did the firing cease in the place where he lay.
CHAPTER XX
A Girl’s Deed
It may be just as well that there are crises in human life when one acts without thinking.
So it was now with Barbara Meade. She did not consider her own danger, nor perhaps the foolishness of her deed. All she saw was that Dick Thornton was lying defenseless upon the ground with a rain of shrapnel descending about him.
It may have been that he was dead and that nothing could further injure or aid him, but Barbara did not contemplate this. She did not cry for help nor even turn back for a moment toward the hospital. Quick as a flash, with the swift movement and decision characteristic of the girl, she darted from her own place of comparative safety out into the open field.