Doctor Herschall stretched his bared arms above his head, working his fingers spasmodically.
"Ho, ho! Soh! It's over? We may as well pack our kits, brothers. The order to move will soon come."
He expressed boldly the thought they all had. This army corps was being forced back. The territory gained for a few short weeks would soon be lost to the German line. The hospital station would become untenable.
They had not come into this part of France, after all, to remain!
Belinda fled from the operating ward the moment the work there stopped. The sentinel at the gate knew she now lodged outside the hospital enclosure and allowed her to pass.
She observed, yet without the fact making any deep impression upon her anxious mind, that the soldiers she passed, as well as the civilians, wore a hurried and harried air.
She had seen the rout of the French; now was she about to behold the falling back of a more sullen and more broken army?
From a soldier whose face she recognized she learned that Major von Brandenburg retained his headquarters at the château. A part of her cousins' regiment was still detailed there and she might find Paul or Carl near by.
Through them she might be able to learn something about Frank. If he was merely being detained at the instance of the Herr Doktor, with no serious accusation made against him, she hoped to reach the aviator. It seemed to Belinda as though she must see and speak to him. The several days that had passed since they had parted had been a nightmare.
Nobody sought to interfere with Belinda on the road. Her Red Cross uniform protected her even when she reached the château.