They passed down the wide stairs, the centre of which had been converted into a gangway for the passage of wheeled stretchers, into a large basement, with concrete floors and massive pillars, lit by flaring gasjets. Along the sides of the outer room were rows of wounded soldiers, their bandaged heads and arms no whiter than their faces, a patient and pathetic group, waiting without complaint for an ambulance to carry them down the line.
In an inner and operating room, Barry found two or three medical officers, with assistants and orderlies, intent upon their work. While waiting there for their driver, they heard overhead again that ominous and terrifying whine, this time, however, not long drawn, but coming in with terrific speed, and ending with a sharp and shattering crash. Again and again and again, with hardly a second between, there came the shells. It seemed to Barry as if every crash was fair upon the roof of the building, but no man either of the medical attendants or of the waiting wounded paid the slightest heed.
At length there came a crash that seemed to break within the very room in which they were gathered. The lights flickered, some of them went out, there was a sound as if a tower had crashed down upon the roof. Dust and smoke filled the room.
“Light up that gas,” said the Officer Commanding. An orderly sprang to obey. The gasjets were once more lighted and the work went on.
“Rather near, wasn't that one?” asked Barry of a wounded man at his side.
“Yes,” he replied casually, “they got a piece that time,” and again he sunk into apathetic silence.
In a few moments the driver had obtained his orders and was ready to set forth.
“Better wait a bit,” said the sergeant at the door, “until their Evening Hate is over.”
“Oh, that's all right,” said the driver. “I guess Fritz is pretty well through. They are rather crowded there at the mill, and I guess we'll go on.”
In his heart, Barry earnestly hoped that the sergeant would interpose with a more definite command, but, inasmuch as the bombardment had apparently ceased, and as if it were all in a day's work, the driver, buttoning up his coat, said: