"You're not going in?" continued Barkleigh. "It is foolish to go into the town, when the troops are coming out of it."

"True enough," a.s.sented Hilda, "but it's a curious fact that the wounded can't retreat as fast as the other men, so I'm afraid we shall have to look them up. Of course, it would be a lot pleasanter if they could come to meet us half-way."

Smith let out his motor, and turned up his coat collar, a habit of his when he antic.i.p.ated a breezy time. They pounded down the road, and into the choice old town.

They had chanced on the afternoon when the enemy's guns were reducing it from an inhabited place into a rubbish heap. They could not well have chosen a brisker hour for the promised visit. The sh.e.l.ls were coming in three and four to the minute. There was a sound of falling masonry. The blur of red brick-dust in the air, and the fires from a half dozen blazing houses, filled the eyes with hot p.r.i.c.kles. The street was a mess over which the motor veered and tossed like a careening boat in a heavy seawash. In the other car, their leader, brave, perky little Dr.

McDonnell, sat with his blue eyes dreaming away at the ruin in front of him. The man was a mystic and burrowed down into his sub-consciousness when under fire. This made him calm, slow, and very absent-minded, during the moments when he pa.s.sed in under the guns.

They steamed up to the big yellow Hotel de Ville. This was the target of the concentrated artillery fire, for here troops had been sheltering.

Here, too, in the cellar, was the dressing-station for the wounded. A small, spent, but accurately directed obus, came in a parabola from over behind the roofs, and floated by the ambulance and thudded against the yellow brick of the stately hall.

"Ah, it's got whiskers on it," shouted Hilda in glee. "I didn't know they got tired like that, and came so slow you could see them, did you, Mr. Barkleigh?"

"No, no, of course not," he muttered, "they don't. What's that?"

The clear, cold tinkle of breaking and spilling gla.s.s had seized his attention. The sound came out from the Hotel de Ville.

"The window had a pane," said Hilda.

"The town is doomed," said Barkleigh.

"Can't we get out of this?" he insisted. "This is no place to be."

"No place for a woman, is it?" laughed Hilda.

"Don't let me keep you," she added politely, "if you feel you must go."

"Listen," said the war-correspondent. About a stone's throw to their left, a wall was crumpling up.

Dr. McDonnell had slowly crawled down from his perch on the ambulance.

His legs were stiff from the long ride, so he carefully shook them one after the other, and spoke pleasantly to a dog that was wandering about the Grand Place in a forlorn panic. Then he remembered why he had come to the place. There were wounded downstairs in the Town-hall.

"Come on, boys," he said to Tom and Smith, "bring one stretcher, and we'll clear the place out. Hilda, you stay by the cars. We shan't be but a minute."

They disappeared inside the battered building. Barkleigh walked up and down the Grand Place, felt of the machinery of each of the two ambulances, lit a cigarette, threw it away and chewed at an unlighted cigar.

"It's hot," he said; "this is hot."

"And yet you are shaking as if you were chilly," observed Hilda.

"We should never have come," went on Barkleigh. "I said so, away back there on the road. You remember I said so."

"Yes, the first experience under fire is trying," a.s.sented Hilda. "I think the sh.e.l.ls are the most annoying, don't you, Mr. Barkleigh? Now shrapnel seems more friendly--quite like a hail-storm in Iowa. I come from Iowa, you know. I don't believe you do know that I come from Iowa."

"They're slow," said Barkleigh, looking toward the Town-hall. "Why can't they hurry them out?"

"You see," explained Hilda, "there are only three of them actively at work, and it's quite a handful for them."

In a few moments Smith and Tom appeared, carrying a man with a bandaged leg on their stretcher. Dr. McDonnell was leading two others, who were able to walk with a little direction. One more trip in and out and the ambulances were loaded.

"Back to Pervyse," ordered Dr. McDonnell.

At Pervyse, Scotch and Mrs. Bracher were ready for them. So was an English Tommy, who singled out Ainslie-Barkleigh.

"Orders from Kitchener, sir," said the orderly. "You must return to Dunkirk at once. No correspondent is allowed at the front."

Barkleigh listened attentively, and a.s.sented with a nod of his head. He walked up to the three ladies.

"Very sorry," explained he. "I had hoped to stay with you, and go out again. Very interesting and all that. But K. is strict, you know, so I must leave you."

He bowed himself away.

"Oh, welcome intervention," breathed Mrs. Bracher.

A few weeks had pa.s.sed with their angry weather, and now all was green again and sunny. Seldom had the central square of Poperinghe looked gayer than on this afternoon, when soldiers were lined up in the middle, and on all the sides the people were standing by the tens and hundreds.

High overhead from every window and on every pole, flags were streaming in the spring wind. Why shouldn't the populace rejoice, for had not this town of theirs held out through all the cruel winter: refuge and rest for their weary troops, and citadel of their King? And was not that their King, standing over yonder on the pavement, higher than the generals and statesmen on the steps of the Town-hall back of him? Tall and slender, crowned with youth and beauty, did he not hold in his hand the hearts of all his people? And to-day he was pa.s.sing on merit to two English dames, and the people were glad of this, for the two English dames had been kind to their soldiers in sickness, and had undergone no little peril to carry them comfort and healing. Yes, they were glad to shout and clap hands, when, as Chevaliers of the Order of Leopold, the ribbon and star pendant were pinned on the breast of the st.u.r.dy Mrs.

Bracher, and the silent, charming Scotch. The band bashed the cymbals and beat the drum, and the wind instruments roared approval. And the modest young King saluted the two brave ladies.

In a shop door, a couple of hundred yards from the ceremony, Hilda was standing quietly watching the joyous crowds and their King. Pushing through the throng that hemmed her in, a ma.s.sive man came and stood by her.

"Ah, Mr. Barkleigh," said Hilda, "this is a surprise."

"It's a shame," he began.

"What's a shame?" asked Hilda.

"Why aren't they decorating you? You're the bravest of the lot."

"By no means," said Hilda; "those two women deserve all that is coming to them. I am glad they are getting their pretty ribbon."

With a sudden nervous gesture, Barkleigh unfastened the bright decorations on his chest, and placed them in Hilda's hand.

"Take them and wear them," he said, "I have no heart for them any more.

They are yours."

"I didn't win them, so I can't wear them," she answered, and started to hand them back.

"No, I won't take them back," he said harshly, brushing her hand from him, "if you won't wear them, keep them. Hide them, throw them away. I'm done with them. I can't wear them any more since that afternoon in Nieuport."

Hilda pinned the ribbons upon his coat.

"I decorate you," she said, "for, verily, you are now worthy."