was inflicting wounds on foe;
here were our men attending to the German wounded and the Germans
attending to ours. Both sides were working so hard now to save life.
There was a human touch about that scene in the ruined village street
which filled one with a sense of mingled sadness and pleasure. Here
were both sides united in a common attempt to repair the ravages of
war. Humanity had at last asserted itself.

It was about eleven o'clock, I suppose, when the "padre" came up again
to my stretcher and asked me if I should like to get on, as there was
a berth vacant in an ambulance. The stretcher was hoisted up and slid
into the bottom berth of the car. The berth above was occupied by an
unconscious man. On the other side of the ambulance were four sitting
cases--a private, a sergeant, a corporal, and a rifleman, the last
almost unconscious. Those of us who could talk were very pleased with
life, and I remember saying: "Thank God, we're out of that hell,
boys!"

"What's wrong with him?" I asked the corporal, signifying the
unconscious man.

"Hit in the lungs, sir. They've set him up on purpose."

The corporal, pulling out his cigarette case, offered cigarettes all
round, and we started to smoke. The last scene that I saw in Hebuterne
was that of three men dressing a tall badly wounded Prussian officer
lying on the side of the road. The ambulance turned the corner out of
the village. There followed three "crashes" and dust flew on to the
floor of the car.

"Whizz-bangs," was the corporal's laconical remark.

We had passed the German road barrage, and were on our way to peace
and safety.

CHAPTER IV

TOLL OF ATTACK

We climbed the little white road which led through the battery
positions now almost silent, topped the crest, and dipped into
Sailly-au-Bois. The village had been very little shelled since the
night before, and appeared the same as ever, except that the intense
traffic, which had flowed into it for the past month, had ceased.
Limbers and lorries had done their work, and the only objects which
filled the shell-scarred streets were slow-moving ambulances, little
blood-stained groups of "walking wounded," and the troops of a new
division moving up into the line.

Though we were all in some pain as the ambulance jolted along through
the ruts in the side of the road, we felt rather sorry for those poor
chaps as they peered inside the car. Our fate was decided, theirs
still hung in the balance.