"Hello! Here comes one of our cars!" cried Don.
His sharp eyes had just caught sight of a small object enveloped in a cloud of dust swinging into view in the distance.
On and on it raced at terrific speed; larger and larger became the vehicle and its accompanying cloud of flying particles. A shaft of the early morning sunlight, shooting across the landscape, tinted it with a rosy glow; sharp lights gleamed and flashed on the polished surfaces. Then, with a rush—a clatter—a whirl of wheels—it bore down a gentle incline immediately in front of them. Now the red cross, the emblem of mercy, on the ambulance's side could be clearly discerned, and Don and Dunstan had a confused and momentary impression of a grim-faced driver, tense and alert, bending over the steering wheel and a companion by his side. Then the road ahead was clear.
"An urgent case!" murmured Don.
"I thought some of those shells were landing near the post," said Dunstan.
Number eight now turned another bend and began ascending a hill, with woods on either side of the road. The highway at this point became rather narrow and winding, and was in the midst of a neighborhood almost as much dreaded as the Chemin de Mort. At night, with the road shrouded in deep black shadows and barely room for vehicles to pass and the likelihood that careless driving might at almost any moment cause a car to topple into a shell-hole, the combination was one calculated to test the skill of the most expert drivers.
The forest was filled with guns of many calibers. And before the war it must have been a very beautiful forest; for pines, cedars, hemlocks, oaks and horse chestnuts, ages old, were growing in great profusion. But the German batteries on the opposite hills had sent veritable hurricanes of screaming shells into its midst. The withering blasts had stripped countless trees of their foliage—so shattered and blasted others that forlorn, ugly-looking stumps alone remained.
Yet the French batteries had withstood the bombardment, and many a time the ambulanciers driving along that narrow road in the forest had been almost deafened by the terrific concussions of the guns.
And as cannon must have ammunition numerous supply posts were situated near the winding road. Cleverly hidden from the eyes of German airmen stretched row after row of shells suitable for every gun, and enormous quantities of boxes containing cartridges and hand-grenades.
As the Red Cross car climbed the hills and descended into the valleys, with the sun's rays ever strengthening and sending slender shafts of pearly light between the trees and spotting their boughs and branches, the two Americans caught occasional glimpses of figures in the depth of the forest—artillerymen, ready for the day's work.