Again and yet again, each time the terror growing deeper in their souls, came the two other shells, but they fell far behind.
“Oh, Fritzie,” remonstrated the driver, “that's rotten bad work. You'll have to do better than that.”
Again and again, in groups of four, the shells came roaring in, but the car had passed out of that particular zone of danger, and sped safely on its way.
“Do you have this sort of thing every night?” enquired Barry.
“Oh, no,” cheerfully replied the driver. “Fritzie makes a lot better practice than that, at times. Do you see this?” He put his finger upon a triangular hole a few inches above his head. “I got that last week. We don't mind so much going up, but it's rather annoying when you're bringing down your load of wounded.”
As they approached Ypres, the road became more and more congested, until at length they had to thread their way between two continuous streams of traffic up and down, consisting of marching battalions, transports, artillery wagons, ambulances, with now and then a motor or a big gun.
About a mile from the city, they came to a large red brick building, with pretentious towers and surrounded by a high brick wall.
“An asylum,” explained the driver. “Now used as a dressing station. We'll just run in for orders.”
At what seemed to Barry reckless speed, he whirled in between the brick posts, and turned into a courtyard, on one side of which he parked his ambulance.
“Better come inside, sir,” said the driver. “They sometimes throw a few in here, seeing it's a hospital.”
They passed down the wide stairs, the centre of which had been converted into a gangway for the passage of wheeled stretchers, into a large basement, with concrete floors and massive pillars, lit by flaring gasjets. Along the sides of the outer room were rows of wounded soldiers, their bandaged heads and arms no whiter than their faces, a patient and pathetic group, waiting without complaint for an ambulance to carry them down the line.
In an inner and operating room, Barry found two or three medical officers, with assistants and orderlies, intent upon their work. While waiting there for their driver, they heard overhead again that ominous and terrifying whine, this time, however, not long drawn, but coming in with terrific speed, and ending with a sharp and shattering crash. Again and again and again, with hardly a second between, there came the shells. It seemed to Barry as if every crash was fair upon the roof of the building, but no man either of the medical attendants or of the waiting wounded paid the slightest heed.