cousin. Pass the
tobacco."

CHAPTER XIX

THE CAPTURE

There was considerable excitement when the ambulance returned. Part of
the roof had been torn away, the doors were gone, the interior wrecked
and not a pane of glass remained in the sides; yet Ajo drove it to the
dock, the motor working as smoothly as ever, and half a dozen wounded
were helped out and put into the launch to be taken aboard the hospital
ship.

When all were on deck, young Jones briefly explained what had happened.
A shell had struck the ambulance, which had been left in the rear, but
without injuring the motor in any way. Fortunately no one was near at
the time. When they returned they cleared away the rubbish to make room
for a few wounded men and then started back to the city.

Doctor Gys, hatless and coatless, his hair awry and the mask making him
look more hideous than ever, returned with the party and came creeping
up the ship's ladder in so nervous a condition that his trembling knees
fairly knocked together.

The group around Ajo watched him silently.

"What do you think that fool did?" asked the boy, as Gys slunk away to
his room.

"Tell us," pleaded Patsy, who was one of the curious group surrounding
him.

"We had gone near to where a machine gun was planted, to pick up a
fallen soldier, when without warning the Germans charged the gun. Maurie
and I made a run for life, but Gys stood stock still, facing the enemy.
A man at the gun reeled and fell, just then, and with a hail of bullets
flying around him the doctor coolly walked up and bent over him. The
sight so amazed the Germans that they actually stopped fighting and
waited for him. Perhaps it was the Red Cross on the doctor's arm that
influenced them, but imagine a body of soldiers in the heat of a charge
suddenly stopping because of one man!"

"Well, what happened?" asked Mr. Merrick.

"I couldn't see very well, for a battery that supported the charge was
shelling the retreating Allies and just then our ambulance was hit. But
Maurie says he watched the scene and that when Gys attempted to lift the
wounded man up he suddenly turned weak as water. The Germans had
captured the gun, by this time, and their officer himself hoisted the
injured man upon the doctor's shoulders and attended him to our
ambulance. When I saw the fight was over I hastened to help Gys, who
staggered so weakly that he would have dropped his man a dozen times on
the way had not the Germans held