“The field hospital is to be moved, Barbara dear, and they wish all of us to go along with them. Eugenia and Mildred cannot leave, but you and I are to go back to our little house and pack up the things we actually must have. Everything and everybody connected with the hospital must be on the move in the next half hour. There is a chance that the French may retreat beyond the village, so as to force the enemy out of their trenches into the open fields. Come, we must run for it. I don’t see how we shall ever manage to get to our home and back in such a short time. But we can help to bring up the rear.”
Nona slipped her arm through Barbara’s and the two girls started back for “The House with the Blue Front Door.”
CHAPTER XIV
The Parting of the Ways
The two girls reached the farmhouse in a shorter time than they had believed possible and at once rushed upstairs to their rooms. There they dragged out their suit-cases, and Mildred’s and Eugenia’s as well, and began packing them with the clothes they felt to be absolutely necessary for their work.
They knew the wounded must first be removed from the field hospital, with only the nurse and doctors who would have charge of them. But there would also be other motor cars to transport the additional nurses, physicians and hospital assistants. Moreover, since all the tents and the supplies must afterwards be gotten away this would surely require a fair amount of time. So in case they were late and missed the first of the departing cars, they would certainly be stored away in one of the later ones.
“I do wish we had asked Eugenia and Mildred to wait until we returned to the hospital before they leave,” Barbara called from beneath the bed in Mildred’s room, where she was dragging out a pair of shoes.
“It wouldn’t have made any difference if we had asked,” Nona answered. “Mildred is to go in one of the first motor ambulances with the wounded, as she has charge of two critically ill soldiers. And of course Eugenia will do whatever she thinks wisest. Certainly she won’t wait for us if she thinks it best to go first.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Barbara replied, and then there was a silence lasting for several moments.
Afterwards Barbara and Nona wondered why they were not more frightened during this half hour. The fact is that they had not yet appreciated the seriousness of the French retreat, nor the great task of moving the field hospital beyond the present danger line.