At that she could restrain herself no longer.
‘Keith,’ she exclaimed, flagrantly interrupting a Medical Authority with a passion for cars, ‘why are those unfortunate men kept hanging about in this noisy place? Can’t we get four of them away?’
But Medical Authority checked her impatience in a tone of mild reproof.
‘Those fellows are all right where they are, Lady Forsyth,’ he said. ‘They’re not fit to be moved off their stretchers. So we’re waiting for the trams. If you like to back into the station, you may pick up some milder cases who’ll be glad of a lift.’
They backed in accordingly and picked up two maimed men and a remarkably cheerful subaltern with his left arm in a sling and a bandage across one eye. As they passed out, Keith offered to return for another load; and, to Helen’s disgust, the offer was politely declined.
By the time they reached the field hospital—a collection of marquees, fitted up with electric light—it was nearly ten o’clock.
‘Quite early; but as we don’t seem to be wanted, I suppose we must go to bed,’ Helen remarked with doleful emphasis, as they re-settled the car. ‘I feel distinctly snubbed. Four out of three hundred! What’s that?’
‘A beginning—and no bad one!’ Keith answered placidly, filling his pipe. ‘Fanshawe says if we report ourselves at Boulogne we shall get all the work we want. There’s heavy fighting on the north—a big battle developing for Ypres and Calais.’
To Boulogne they returned accordingly, and had no cause this time to feel either snubbed or superfluous. There was still a famine of cars at the Base and the wounded were arriving in thousands: their bodies mangled and mutilated; their spirits, in the main, unquenched.
Macnair and his party drove up to their hotel at noon, and their greeting from the Red Cross Authority was very much to the point.