She breathed a prayer as the earth came up to meet her. Death----? Whatever came--Cyril, too.... She stared straight before her, feeling out the wind pressure on the planes, gliding as near the horizontal as she dared. An open field! Thank God! A gentle shock and the springs responded. The Yellow Dove rebounded slightly and ran along the ground smoothly upon its wheels--then stopped. She tried to get up, but could not. Her hands seemed fastened to the wheel. She heard the sound of men’s voices shouting and saw lights, but she could not seem to make a sound. She was shivering violently, also laughing a little, but she had no sense of being cold. She seemed very weak somehow, and very helpless. And then, just as the lights grew brighter--they went out. CHAPTER XXIII HEADQUARTERS “A woman!” she heard a man’s voice say at her ear. She was lying upon the ground, and strange faces were bending over her. “Well, I’m damned!” English! “And the other?” she heard again. “Dead as a ’errin’!” Doris sat up, staring at them wildly. “Wait! There’s a flutter ’ere yet.” She heard the other man say. “Come, Bill. Let’s have ’im over to the ’ouse.” Doris managed to find a whisper. “A surgeon--for _him_,” she said to the man supporting her. “He will not die. He is only wounded.” It was her obsession. It would not leave her. She saw them carrying Cyril toward the house, and when they wanted to take her, too, she said that she would walk. Though deathly weak, she managed to reach the house where they had carried Cyril. They gave her a drink of something and she revived. It was a Red Cross station, they told her, and the doctor would be here in a moment. But in the meanwhile first aid was administered, and at her place at his bedside she saw Cyril struggling faintly back to life. “He will not die,” she repeated quietly when the surgeon had examined him gravely. “I hope not--but he’s bled a good deal. We’ll see.” They cut away his coat and wanted to send her away, but she pleaded to remain and in a moment she heard Cyril’s voice whispering hoarsely--“Papers--coat pocket--Sir John French.” “All right,” said the surgeon cheerfully. “We’ll see to that.” “Doris.” “Here, Cyril.” “Rippin’ fine--of you--no mistake--old girl----” His whisper trailed off into silence and at the surgeon’s orders they led her away from his cot, but she would not leave the room until she got the papers out of the pocket of his jacket. An orderly led her to a young officer with his arm in a sling who sat at a table in another part of the building. He listened to her story attentively and read the documents carefully, his lips as he read emitting a thin whistle. He glanced at his watch and for a moment left the room.