“Which one of you sent that message, boys?” asked the surgeon, a young energetic man, who looked as though he knew his business; and as the other five scouts immediately turned their eyes toward Hugh, he understood, so he went on to say: “From another source news came in that many were seriously injured, and a few killed outright. Is that a fact?”
“So far as we have been able to find out, sir, there were no actual fatalities,” Hugh told him, “though several are badly hurt, having been shot in the back!”
“What’s that you say—shot in the back?” demanded the surgeon quickly. “That is a significant admission which may have considerable bearing on the finding of a coroner’s jury in case death results. But show me what you have been doing in this emergency, my boys.”
“We had hardly any facilities worth mentioning, you understand, sir,” remarked Arthur Cameron, “and a number of the patients had to be carried from the place where they were hurt to this amateur field hospital. We made a stretcher, you see, for that purpose.”
“And well done at that. I’ll be bound it answered the purpose as well as the up-to-date one connected with the ambulance!” cried the astonished Red Cross surgeon.
He went from one patient to another and examined the work of the scouts. Loud was his praise for the cleverness shown by Arthur Cameron. While doubtless in many things it was far from the finished product of a graduated surgeon, at the same time there was much about it to cause the surgeon to commend the boys.
“I want to tell you, my boy,” he said directly to the blushing Arthur, when Hugh informed him that most of the work had been done by that modest member of the scout troop, “you’ll make the mistake of your life if you fail to continue along this road, for you have it in you to accomplish wonders. Take my advice, and think very seriously before you commit the blunder of putting a square man in a round hole.”
Of course, that was very pleasant talk for Arthur, and his chums seemed to take quite as much delight in hearing him praised as though they themselves came within the scope of the surgeon’s flattery.
They watched how deftly he worked when examining the wounds that had been already treated, turning most of the ordinary cases over to the two nurses. Hugh learned, as he chatted with the other, that the young surgeon’s name was Doctor Richter, and the attendants of the ambulance were Nurse Arnold and Nurse Jones.
The former was a middle-aged woman who had doubtless had much experience in her line; but Nurse Jones, Hugh found, was rather young and with rosy cheeks, as well as bright eyes. As a rule the scout master paid very little attention to the looks of girls, but somehow, in this case, he found himself more or less interested in the two women whose sleeves bore the magic insignia of the Red Cross.