Another and more terrifying explosion blew out the end of a building just a little way from the ward where Wardwell lay, and a flying timber, driven endwise, jabbed through the roof and stuck six feet of its length into the ward, right over a fellow's head, fourth bed to the left. Wardwell was sure he counted right. He would like to know who the poor fellow-- Now there came a continuous rock and roar that seemed to come right up out of the earth and turn to smash everything flat, and the popping of aircraft guns hurried up by cursing men began to announce the hideous truth of what was happening. A man whose cot lay foot to foot across from Wardwell's sat straight up. He was an oldish man, among the men here, with a good round face and a bald head. "God blast them blind!" he said soberly. "They're bombing the Red Cross right over our heads!" The wardmaster came walking up the line between the beds, speaking steadily through the roaring, splintering din. "Silence, boys," he was saying, "and keep the blankets up over you. It's all we can do. They're passing over now. It can't last long." Now Wardwell considered this thing, and his hands went slowly and craftily up to the bandages around his neck. He was fairly certain that if he loosened the bandages he would bleed and faint and die in a very short time. God! A man had _some_ rights in this business! He had stood out and lain out to be shot at from every angle with every kind of a gun that had been made. And he had not even complained at the gas. But to be butchered now, when he was lying here with a pain in his throat that would have made him cry if even the gentlest nurse's hand touched him! He would not have it! A man had _some_ rights! His hands found the bandages and began to tug at them, but a frightful crash up at the end of the ward, where the wardmaster had just walked, held his attention for a moment. In the tail light of the explosion he saw boards, and men, and a medicine chest, and beds, and the end of the building, erupting all together out into the night. And then, when he could look again he saw through the open space the low horizon stars shining gently in their places. The lights were gone now, and he could feel the fright rising in the men around him. They were afraid in the dark. They began to yell. Some swore queer oaths, original ones, with tears in their throats. Some called to God. And some yelled pitifully to somebody to bring a light. Wardwell began again to tug at the bandages. But just then, above the cursing, and some praying, and the frightful, tearing roar of death all about, he heard a girl, down near the end of the room that was still sound, a girl had come into the ward singing. He listened, and the words that he heard were these: "_Gyp, Gyp, me little horse?_" "_Gyp-Gyp, again, sir._" "_How many miles to Dublin?_" "_Four score an' ten, sir._"