They had entered the town of Dixmude. Hilda had never seen so thorough a piece of ruin. Walls of houses had crumbled out upon the street into heaps of brick and red dust. Stumps of building still stood, blackened down their surface, as if lightning had visited them. Wire that had once been telegraph and telephone crawled over the piles of wreckage, like a thin blue snake. The car grazed a large pig, that had lost its pen and trough and was scampering wildly at each fresh detonation from the never-ceasing guns. "It's a bit warm," said Smith, as a piece of twisted metal, the size of a man's fist, dropped by the front wheel. "That is nothing," returned Dr. van der Helde. They had to slow up three times for heaps of ruin that had spread across the road. They reached the Hospital. It still stood unbroken. It had been a convent, till Dr. van der Helde commandeered it to the reception of his cases. He led them to the hall. There down the long corridor were seated the aged poor of Dixmude. Not one of the patient creatures was younger than seventy. Some looked to be over eighty. White-haired men and women, bent over, shaking from head to foot, muttering. Most of them looked down at the floor. It seemed as if they would continue there rooted, like some ancient lichen growth in a forest. A few of them looked up at the visitors, with eyes in which there was little light. No glimmer of recognition altered the expression of dim horror. "Come," said Dr. van der Helde, firmly but kindly, "come, old man. We are going to take you to a quiet place." The one whom he touched and addressed shook his head and settled to the same apathy which held the group. "Oh, yes," said Dr. van der Helde, "you'll be all right." He and Smith and Dr. McDonnell caught hold of the inert body and lifted it to the car. Two old women and one more aged man they carried from that hall-way of despair to the motor which had been left throbbing under power. "Will you come back?" asked Dr. van der Helde. "As soon as we have found a place for them," replied Dr. McDonnell. The car pulled out of the hospital yard and ran uninjured through the town. The firing was intermittent, now. Two miles back at the cross-roads, four army ambulances were drawn up waiting for orders. "Come on in. The water's fine," cried Hilda to the drivers. "_Comment?_" asked one of them. "Why don't you go into Dixmude?" she explained. "There are twenty-six old people in St. Jean there. We've got four of them here." The drivers received an order of release from their commanding officer, and streamed into the doomed town and on to the yard of the hospital. In two hours they had emptied it of its misery.