The boy waved his hand to a couple of mechanicians tinkering over an ambulance near by, threw in the clutch, and number eight, the center of a very strong smell of gasoline, slowly trundled over the cobbled paving, passed beneath the arching gateway and entered the street.
Even at that early hour soldiers billeted in the village were to be seen on every hand, and as the Red Cross car swung along in an easterly direction over the wide highway an occasional "Vive l'Amerique!" rose clearly above the hum of smoothly-working pistons and rumble of wheels.
Traveling at a rapid rate of speed, the ambulance soon reached a bend, and just beyond the road passed under the arch of an ancient porte, or gateway, which marked the limits of the town. Very picturesque and typical of other centuries it looked, looming up against the slowly-lightening sky.
Beyond the porte the ambulance passed a succession of hills and meadows. Everywhere the earth had been pitted, scarred and plowed up by high-explosive shells, and at frequent intervals there were huge yawning craters, meters in depth and width, some showing the earth freshly disturbed, others where it was hard and dry.
The guns still boomed away, and spurting columns of smoke rising here and there told where the shells from the German batteries were falling.
"I hope the Boche won't be tossing any of their property along the Chemin de Mort as we pass," exclaimed Dunstan.
"Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did," declared Don.
Dunstan glanced at his young companion curiously.
"By George, Don, your nerves are like your helmet—made of steel," he said, admiringly. "Don't you ever get the quiver, the shiver and the shakes like the rest of us?"
"You bet I do," laughed Don. "Hello!—Hear that!—seemed to be right in the direction for which we're bound."