"We're off!" exclaimed Don, in a low voice, as he threw in the clutch.
A loud warning blast of the horn went over the air, and ambulance Number Eight began to move slowly forward.
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE CHEMIN DE MORT
As the Red Cross car rolled under the archway the driver supplemented the work of the horn with a lusty yell.
Even to join the line of moving convoys was a mighty difficult task, and would have been almost impossible but for the fact that ambulances had practically the right of way.
Don Hale, alert, watchful, with a firm hand on the steering wheel, guided Number Eight slowly out into the roadway. The darkness was so intense that he could not see even the wagons passing directly in front—everything, indeed, was swallowed up in a void of blackness, but he knew by the sounds and the shouts of the drivers that an effort was being made to find a place in the line for the Red Cross car.
And then, just at that instant, there came a vivid flash of lightning. Another storm was approaching. And that particular glare served a good purpose. It enabled the boy to discover an opening, and without the slightest hesitation he increased the speed of the car. It swung past the foremost camion, the wheels grazing the front as it passed. Then an abrupt turn, and Ambulance Number Eight, splashing streams of water and mud in every direction, was in the middle of the road, hemmed in by vehicles.
It was risky, nerve-racking work. Now and again wagons lurched unpleasantly close, and horses, rendered skittish and hard to manage by the storm, swung directly in the path of the machine. Then, the young driver was ever mindful of the fact that cars coming from the poste de secours might be encountered at any minute hastening with all speed between the moving walls of vehicles. Don had the prime requisite of a good driver—a cool head and steady nerves—but these were only an aid, and by no means a passport to safety; for in the human element all about him were tired, overworked drivers, and men who sometimes combined recklessness with a lack of skill.