The Brighton Boys at Chateau-ThierryDriscoll, James R.
General
The Brighton Boys at Chateau-Thierry
Driscoll, James R.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- France -- Juvenile fiction
No answer; a blank stare. Billy comprehended and at once got some
fun out of the incident. It was a funereal affair that didn’t have a
humorous side for him. He held his spread hand, palm down, over his
head, moved it about like the flying of an airplane, pointed to it
and to the Hun with his other finger; then making the hand take a big
drop through the air and double up on the ground again pointed to the
airman. The latter understood at once and scowled at his combined
rescuers and captors; then flopped back on the stretcher. The boys
restored him to his place in the car and turned to meet the men
from the dressing-station. They all looked fagged out, tired beyond
endurance. As a matter of fact, they were to keep on many more hours
longer. Their conversation was brief, but to the point.
“Red Cross? Get these men back as quickly as you can and return at
once. We are in an _abri_ there by the woods. Tell Major Little that
the lieutenant wants more ambulances right away. We have eleven
wounded; two ‘going West.’”
“All right, I’ll put the juice to her, Sergeant?” Don saw the three
bent stripes on the man’s sleeve. The four shifted the wounded, one
of whom was unconscious, to the unfolded white stretchers of the car,
strapped them down, folded their own brown army stretchers and turned
back.
“What does he mean by ‘going West’?” Billy whispered, as they got
under way.
“Dying,” replied Don. “Guess it’s an Indian phrase--‘toward the
setting sun.’ Poor chaps!”
“O my! I’m afraid one of these,” Billy pointed his thumb over his
shoulder, “won’t stay ‘East’ long. I hope he does, but you see, I
really ought to study medicine. I get hunches about that sort of
thing, you know.”
They flew over the even ground, and moved slowly over the rough.
Again in the farm road they were swiftly passing the house when a cry
from one of their passengers arrested their attention. It was a cry
for water.
Don pressed down his brake and turned to Billy. “That canteen--” he
began.
“I think that a real cold drink,” suggested the young man, “would do
more good. Oughtn’t they to have a well here? Suppose I see.”
“We’ll both go and get a pull, too; then bring some back. Come on!”
Don said.
The quaint little half-stone domicile, in the very midst of this
shell-torn area, faced directly east; the rear was, therefore, away
and thus somewhat sheltered from the enemy’s lines. There had been a
French or American dressing station in the front room, but a German
77-m. shell had come along and demolished the wall and a portion of
the interior. The boys quickly passed under the newly leafing fruit
trees, where bird arrivals were singing, and reached the rear of the
house. Here, in the mellowing spring-time warmth, an old woman and an
old man were sitting; the one on the door step, the other, upon an
ancient stone seat, leaning his head on his cane. By the side of the
old woman’s knee a little child of about four years gazed up at the
visitors with wide-open, blue eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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