The road lay between double rows of once noble trees, centuries old, with the first delicate green of spring softening their bare outlines.

Now, splintered, twisted, broken, their wounds showing white in the darkening light through the delicate green, they stood silently eloquent of the terrific force of the H. E. shell.

As they went speeding along the shell-marked road they came upon a huge trunk of a mighty elm, broken clear from its stump, lying partially cross their track, which soldiers were already busy clearing away.

Without an instant's pause, the driver wheeled his car off the 'pave', crashed through the broken treetops, and continued on his way.

Barry looked upon the huge trunk with amazement.

"Did a single shell break that tree off like that?" he asked.

"You bet," was the reply, "and all these you see along here. It's the great transport road for our front line, and the boches shell it regularly. Here comes one now," he added, casually.

There was a soft woolly "whoof" far away, a high, thin whine, as from a vicious insect overhead, with every fractional second coming nearer and yet nearer, ever deepening in tone, ever increasing in volume, until, like an express train, with an overwhelming sense of speed and power, and with an appalling roar, it crashed upon them. In the field on their left, there leaped fifty yards into the air a huge mass of earth and smoke. Then a stunning detonation.

Insensibly Barry and Cameron both crouched down in the car, but the driver held his wheel, without the apparent quiver of a muscle.

"There'll be three more, presently, I guess," he said, putting on full speed.

His guess proved right. Again that distant woolly "whoof," the long-drawn whine, deepening to a scream, the appalling roar and crash, and a second shell fell in the road behind them.

"Two," said the driver coolly. "There will be a couple more."

Again and yet again, each time the terror growing deeper in their souls, came the two other shells, but they fell far behind.

"Oh, Fritzie," remonstrated the driver, "that's rotten bad work. You'll have to do better than that."

Again and again, in groups of four, the shells came roaring in, but the car had passed out of that particular zone of danger, and sped safely on its way.

"Do you have this sort of thing every night?" enquired Barry.

"Oh, no," cheerfully replied the driver. "Fritzie makes a lot better practice than that, at times. Do you see this?" He put his finger upon a triangular hole a few inches above his head. "I got that last week.

We don't mind so much going up, but it's rather annoying when you're bringing down your load of wounded."

As they approached Ypres, the road became more and more congested, until at length they had to thread their way between two continuous streams of traffic up and down, consisting of marching battalions, transports, artillery wagons, ambulances, with now and then a motor or a big gun.

About a mile from the city, they came to a large red brick building, with pretentious towers and surrounded by a high brick wall.

"An asylum," explained the driver. "Now used as a dressing station.

We'll just run in for orders."

At what seemed to Barry reckless speed, he whirled in between the brick posts, and turned into a courtyard, on one side of which he parked his ambulance.

"Better come inside, sir," said the driver. "They sometimes throw a few in here, seeing it's a hospital."

They passed down the wide stairs, the centre of which had been converted into a gangway for the passage of wheeled stretchers, into a large basement, with concrete floors and massive pillars, lit by flaring gasjets. Along the sides of the outer room were rows of wounded soldiers, their bandaged heads and arms no whiter than their faces, a patient and pathetic group, waiting without complaint for an ambulance to carry them down the line.

In an inner and operating room, Barry found two or three medical officers, with assistants and orderlies, intent upon their work. While waiting there for their driver, they heard overhead again that ominous and terrifying whine, this time, however, not long drawn, but coming in with terrific speed, and ending with a sharp and shattering crash.

Again and again and again, with hardly a second between, there came the shells. It seemed to Barry as if every crash was fair upon the roof of the building, but no man either of the medical attendants or of the waiting wounded paid the slightest heed.

At length there came a crash that seemed to break within the very room in which they were gathered. The lights flickered, some of them went out, there was a sound as if a tower had crashed down upon the roof.

Dust and smoke filled the room.

"Light up that gas," said the Officer Commanding. An orderly sprang to obey. The gasjets were once more lighted and the work went on.

"Rather near, wasn't that one?" asked Barry of a wounded man at his side.

"Yes," he replied casually, "they got a piece that time," and again he sunk into apathetic silence.

In a few moments the driver had obtained his orders and was ready to set forth.

"Better wait a bit," said the sergeant at the door, "until their Evening Hate is over."

"Oh, that's all right," said the driver. "I guess Fritz is pretty well through. They are rather crowded there at the mill, and I guess we'll go on."

In his heart, Barry earnestly hoped that the sergeant would interpose with a more definite command, but, inasmuch as the bombardment had apparently ceased, and as if it were all in a day's work, the driver, buttoning up his coat, said:

"We'll go, sir, if you are ready."

A few minutes' run brought them to the gate of the ruined city. As the car felt its way through the ghostly town, Barry was only vaguely conscious in the darkness of its ghostly skeletonlike ruins. Fifteen minutes brought them to the Menin gate.

"Sounds rather hot out there," remarked the driver. "Well, Fritzie, I guess we won't join your party this time. We prefer to wait, if you don't mind, really."

He ran the car into the lee of the ramparts, by the side of the gateway, waited there half an hour or so, until the "Evening Hate" was past; then onward again to the Menin Mill.

They lifted the blanket covering the sandbagged entrance, passed through a dark corridor and came into a cellar, lit by lanterns, swinging from the roof, and by candles everywhere upon ledges or upon improvised candlesticks.

No sooner had they come into the light, than Barry saw across the room his friend, Dr. Gregg, his coat off, and his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows.

"Hello, Dunbar," said the doctor, coming forward. "I guess I won't shake hands just now. Sit down. Won't you have a cup of coffee? Jim," turning to an orderly, "give Captain Dunbar a cup of coffee."

Barry presented Cameron to his friend, and together they sat down and waited. When the doctor was through with his patient, he came and sat down with them.

"We came up to see a young chap named McPherson. I think you sent a note down about him to-day."

"McPherson," said the doctor. "I don't remember, but I will see."

He turned to a desk and turning over the pages of a record, apparently found the name, and returned to Barry.

"I am sorry to say that McPherson died this afternoon," he said.

"Dead," said Barry. He turned to Cameron. "I'm awfully sorry, Duncan."

"Was there anybody with him?" he enquired of the doctor. "He was Lieutenant Cameron's very close friend, and college companion."

"Oh, awfully sorry," replied the doctor. "Yes, I think Captain Winter, the chaplain of the --th, was with him at the last. He's not here just now. I can tell you where to get him. To-morrow is his day here."

"Is--is--is his body still here?" enquired Cameron, after a few moments'

silence.

"Yes, it's in the next room. Do you want to see it? He was pretty badly smashed up, I'm afraid."