Down the gentle slope they went, soon discovering that the road, deeply shadowed in places by the thick woods on either hand, swung sharply around in a westerly direction. And not once during their journey through the great park could another glimpse of the Château de Morancourt be obtained.
The high ornamental wrought iron gate at the end of the carriage road was securely locked, but the ambulanciers, being both nimble and athletic, very easily climbed over the high stuccoed wall and lowered themselves into a rather narrow and dusty highway.
Dunstan promptly consulted his map, and having determined what route to follow, led the way.
To a stranger in the war zone that walk through the French countryside would undoubtedly have been a memorable one; for every now and again the booming of the artillery increased in violence, the sky flared with strange lights and more than once the ears of the ambulanciers caught the sinister scream of a shell; but familiarity with such things had served to dull the boys' sense of danger.
A battery to the north suddenly started into action, fired a number of rounds with tremendous rapidity, then relapsed into silence.
"We are living in a great age," declared Dunstan.
"It is certainly a little grating to some," said Chase.
A half hour's journey through a devastated country brought the Red Cross men to a little one-street village.
During their sojourn in northern France both Don and Dunstan had seen many ruined towns and villages, but in none was the destruction so complete as here. The pale moonlight streaming over this once peaceful little hamlet revealed indescribable havoc. Some buildings had been blown to pieces; of others but a few bits of jagged wall remained; almost everywhere piles of débris littered the ground and enormous shell-holes lined the disused road. This village was indeed a forlorn and melancholy-looking place. Not a sign of life! Not a sound to indicate the presence of other human beings. And yet, as the steady footfalls of the three Americans rang out on the cobbled pave, an animal scurrying into view from behind a wall dashed across their path. They had an instantaneous view of a pair of gleaming yellow eyes turned inquiringly toward them. Then the animal continued its wild course along the road, to disappear presently around the bend.
"Poor cat! What an eventful existence it must have had!" commented Dunstan. "Just think of the sensations the creature probably experienced when its intellectual superiors were pelting this place with shells!"