“Ah, me b’y, if the bloody gobs in this here scrap had only had clubs--shillalahs--phw’at wud they done to each ither? If Oi was the ginral of this outfit, b’gorry, Oi’d sthart out a raidin’ party of all Irish from County Kerry, give ’em shillalahs an’ the war’d be over the next day! The kaiser wud call it inhuman, of coorse, an’ right he’d be, but we’d win jist the same.” “Now, what could clubs do against guns?” Don laughed. “They’d have you all shot dead before you got near enough to soak them.” “An wud they? Thin, me b’y, how come they to use bayonets? Tell me thot.” “Its a thing I can’t understand and I guess I never will; unless it’s after the ammunition on both sides gives out that they use them. Maybe if they’d do away with ammunition in wars shillalahs would be handier than guns and worse than bayonets.” “Oi’ll write the C. and C. about thot same,” said Tim. But whatever frightful atrocities and science had done to make this war a horror beyond the conception of those who could not witness it, the most terrible of all was the Hun bombing of hospitals. There was, as with many other things indulged in by the Germans, nothing gained by these acts--nothing but deeper exasperation and determination on the part of those who were forced to fight the Hun. He saw others through his own shade of yellow and imagined that he could frighten his foes and lessen their morale that way--but it produced exactly the opposite effect. The cross-roads evacuation hospital tents back of the Montdidier front suffered from German airmen, not many days after the great German push for Amiens had been stopped. Plainly an act of hatred, this bombing gained nothing for the Huns. They had lost thousands of men in killed, wounded and prisoners and wanted the Allies to suffer still more. Don and Tim had received but one wounded man from the dressing station back of the woods on the hill. Looking for additional wounded, who might be struggling in, they had run around the northern edge of the woods and a half-mile farther on, near the front line trenches, when a military policeman rode out from an old orchard and stopped them. “Too much noise from that motor of yours and the Heinies are very wide awake,” he said. “They’ll spot you and be pretty likely to get you.” “We hadn’t seen any Hun fliers and we thought they might be generally keeping quiet,” Don said. “They are quiet just now, but I reckon it’s just before a storm,” said the M. P. “That’s the way it usually is. If they suddenly start to put down a barrage before a drive or a raid you’ll be in for it. You know a good many of the bullets fly high and pretty nearly half of them ricochet. You fellows can’t get back of a tree as I and my horse can. Better go back.” Tim, who was driving the car, having now become rather proficient at it, had a word to say, as usual.