Ambulancier Donald Richards, with Washington White beside him, but without his usual grin, drove his much battered car down the military road and across the scarlet-flowered fields in the direction of the battle sounds. From a rise of ground he could see advancing lines of men, some distance apart, moving rapidly for a short space and dropping on the ground; then arising and going forward to repeat the movement—all this carried out with wonderful precision. At one moment there were a thousand men thus spread out, moving swiftly. At the next moment they were all prone on the ground, in perfect unison.

Don understood this perfectly. He had witnessed the same tactics a few days before in the charge on Bouresches and they had won. But the attempt to win Belleau Wood had been frustrated for three days by the terrible machine-fire which greeted the determined Americans. Would it be possible to attain their object this time before they were all killed?

For he could see also, all over the field behind the charging soldiers, many men who had fallen. In spots the ground was strewn with bodies of the wounded and dead. As he gazed, horror-stricken yet fascinated by the spectacle, he could discern the thinning out of the charging lines, as they swept forward.

“We’ve got to get right down there, Wash, and bring some of those fellows out,” Don said.

“Down whar? On de groun’ whar dem sojers is kilt? Say, Mist’ Donal’, yu done that-a-way t’other day en’ yu-all knows how dis amberlance looked when hit come out. En’ yu kin see now how she looked. En’ hit wa’n’t no foolishness of ours dat we didn’t get sent to Kingdom Come. En’ ’tain’t always dese yer po’ white Heinies is gwine miss us. Boun’ tu git it some time.”

“Oh, forget it, Wash! You always think we’re going to get hurt. You see we haven’t been hurt yet and that’s as good as just starting out.”

On the ambulance went, dodging shell-holes, running around natural obstacles, rapidly nearing the ground across which the marines had charged not five minutes before. The boys overtook a light, active fellow, on foot and trotting, though now with lagging steps, and Don knew him for a messenger. Don slowed down and asked the lad to hop in for a lift. But this was only for a fourth of a mile, for they then soon came well within the edge of the zone of flying bullets and shells. Here they met the first brancardiers with a wounded man, so the ambulance came to a stop. Without a word the runner leaped out and dashed on. Don and Wash were filled with admiration for these nervy fellows, who seemed to have no thought of danger in carrying messages to officers in the field. Right here another runner came to Don.

“Captain Baston says tell you there are five men, all badly wounded, in a shell hole—over there, near those poplar trees—and they ought to be got out. It won’t do to carry them far, he said. Got the nerve to make it?”

Did he have the nerve? He saw that this first case was not a bad one and could stand a little jolting. He told the brancardiers to load on their man and hop in. Then he turned his car across in line with the German fire.

“I kin wait heah twill yuh come back. Yu ain’t got no special use fo’ me,” Wash began, but this time only a look from Don ended the negro’s protest. In three minutes he had reached the shell-hole by the trees. Half a dozen direct or ricocheting machine-gun bullets had hit the ambulance, but had done no more damage than to add to the holes and dents already in its sturdy sides.

It was the work of but a few minutes for the two brancardiers with their one stretcher, and Don and Wash with another, to get most of the wounded fellows into the ambulance, while shells and smaller calibre missiles flew and struck all round them. The last poor chap was suffering with a wound in the leg. Entirely out of his mind he fought against being moved, so Wash went back with the bearers to hold the soldier on the stretcher. As they started back, Don, who had been glancing at his carburetor, began to lower the hood over his motor.

The sound of an approaching shell; nothing can describe it; the long swish of a carriage whip, the rush of water at high pressure from the nozzle of a hose, the wind singing past a kite string—these might barely suggest it. Hearing it once it is never forgotten. Don looked when he noticed it; one must do that when it is near, though. Trying to dodge a shell is as useless as ducking at lightning. Then came the thud of the projectile and the almost simultaneous explosion. The boy’s eyes, just above the hood, had been upon the approaching stretcher. The next instant the group of four—the brancardiers, Wash and the raving man—had ceased to exist amidst a furious upheaval of flame and earth and stones. Innumerable flying pieces struck the engine hood and Don’s helmet. The wounded men were protected by the sides of the ambulance.

Don walked slowly over and looked down at the hole made by the shell; he glanced around at the torn and twisted bodies flung twenty feet away. Something like a sob choked him as he recognized the black face of his helper. Don had almost compelled him to come within this area of awful danger, else the poor fellow would have been living now. Flinging a suggestion of salt water from his eyes, the boy leaped to his seat and addressed the wounded men behind him:

“Where was the nearest dressing station set up?”

“Back of that low hill to the left,” a weak voice directed, and the car shot forward.

“Get ’em in here! You bring in the biggest loads, so keep at it!” said the field-surgeon. “Others of your crowd are getting them back to the evacuation hospital all right. Go to it, boy!”

And again Don went flying toward the fighting front, toward the level fields filled with crimson flowers, waving grass or ripening grain, stretched south and west from Belleau Wood.

Up the slopes of the hill he could now see the indomitable marines, still charging, overcoming all opposition, destroying the machine-gun nests, bayoneting the gunners, and defeating every attempt of the enemy to check their attack. On into the fields—to the very foot of the hill—Don drove his car, looking to the right and left for blessÉs. The bullets, as never before, sung around him, threshing out the grass and grain, and tearing up the blood-red poppies.

Here also the stretcher-bearers were more than busy. Two, with a wounded man, came running to Don. Another wounded man crawled and dragged himself toward the car, until the boy saw and helped him. The soldier could speak only in halting accents.

“There’s one—our corporal—down back—bush. Helped me—water—canteen. Fainted, then—good fellow—get him.”

Don, fishing in his pockets for his ammonia spirits and grabbing a water bottle, ran to the spot designated, a hundred feet away. The marine lay on his stomach, his face hidden in the crook of his left arm. Evidently he had come to. The other arm lay limp on the grass. A clot of blood stained the clothing on his left side.

“Ambulancier here. I’ll help you, or get a stretcher if you can’t—” Don began, stooping to lift the fellow. The wounded man twisted about, raised his head and once again Don Richards and Clement Stapley gazed into each other’s eyes. But the look of defiance was gone.

“Clem, poor chap, are you hurt much? Where?”

“Arm busted, Don. Side cut a little. Flesh wound, I think. If it’s worse, tell mother and dad.”

“I don’t believe it’s bad, Clem. Don’t you think it! We’ll see that it isn’t. My car—”

“I can walk to it, perhaps. Legs O. K. Use gun as crutch.”

“No; I’ll help you; carry you, if need be. Get your good arm over my shoulder.”

“That’ll bring you on the side where the bullets—”

“Well, what of that? I don’t—”

“No, you don’t care, but I do, Don. If I get another it’s only one—but you—”

“Never mind! Come on. You know I always have my way. Your arm around my neck.”

With painful laboriousness the two began to walk across. They had gone a dozen feet when Clem heard the sound of a bullet striking flesh. He had heard it too often not to know it. But Don did not hear it. He only sank to the ground. Clem struggled to maintain his footing but fell beside him.