“The chances are we’d be rounded up in a hurry, and forced to turn back,” he told the eager comrade. “As it is I’m surprised we’ve been able to get as close as we have right now. It’s a part of our luck, I guess. But I was thinking that if we chose to go over to the field hospital perhaps after we’d made friends with some of the doctors and attendants, helped a little it might be, we’d find a chance to borrow a pair of binoculars from some one.”
“Bully for you, Rod; that sounds good to me!” exclaimed Josh; while Hanky Panky gave a little gasp, and was heard to say almost helplessly:
“Oh! my stars, do we have to run smack into that hospital business, when often the sight of blood gives me the creeps, and makes my knees wobble?”
“You can squat down right here, and stay if you want to, Hanky Panky,” volunteered Josh; whereat the other seemed to make a swift mental calculation, after which he shut his teeth firmly together, and went on to say resolutely:
“I’m game if you both are; besides, something might happen to me here, if that miserable Jules and his crowd came along the road back of us. Yes, I’ll go,” but it could easily be seen that Hanky Panky was not taking any great pleasure in the outlook.
They could use their machines for a short distance along the road; then it became necessary for them to dismount, break down a fence, and trundle the motorcycles across a field to where the temporary hospital had been established, in touch with the battle lines.
Motor vehicles were coming and going at speedy intervals. Rod noticed that they all used another road, which evidently must be the direct course to Paris, where the wounded heroes were being hurried after their injuries had received first care; because that is usually all a field hospital is intended to accomplish, staunching the flow of blood, and in other ways holding the spark of life until operations can be attempted further removed from the scene of action.
Every one inside the limits of the place seemed to be desperately busy. Men were rushing this way and that with stretchers, carrying wounded soldiers back and forth. Vehicles were coming and going, and these seemed of all descriptions, from the customary ambulance to big lorries run with a motor; and all of them bore the sign of the Red Cross on their sides, in order to protect them as much as possible from the fire of the enemy.
It was in this manner therefore that the three Motorcycle Boys found themselves entering a new phase of their extraordinary adventures, and one that would doubtless never be forgotten, even when they found themselves once again safe in their distant homes.