Ruth Fielding at the War Front | Page 9

Mighty glad to have regular Yankee rations.
But," he added, "we'll be too late to get chow when we come to the
hospital, I am afraid. We'll try Mother Gervaise."
"Who is Mother Gervaise?" asked Ruth, glad to have some topic of
conversation with the ambulance driver.
"She's an old woman who used to be cook at one of these chateaux here,
they say. She'll feed us well for four francs each."
"Four francs!"
"Sure. Price has gone up," said Charlie dryly. "These French folk are
bound to think that every American is a millionaire. And I don't know
but it is worth it," and he grinned. "Think of being looked on as a John
D. Rockefeller everywhere you go! I'd never rise to such a height in the
States."
"No, I presume not," Ruth admitted with a laugh. "But how is it that
this Mother Gervaise, as you call her, is not afraid to stay here?"
"She stays to watch the gold grow in her stocking," Charlie replied,
shrugging his shoulders almost as significantly as a Frenchman.
"Oh! Is she that much of a miser?"
"You've said it. She stayed when the Germans first came and fed them.
When they retreated she stayed and met the advancing British (the
French did not come first) with hot soup, and changed her price from
pfennigs to shillings. Get her to tell you about it. It is worth listening

to--her experience."
Charlie Bragg stopped the car suddenly and got out. Ruth looked ahead
with curiosity. The road seemed rather smooth and quite unoccupied.
There was a group of trees, tortured by gunfire, which hid a turn in the
track and what lay beyond. Charlie was tinkering with the engine of the
machine.
"What is the matter?" Ruth ventured to ask.
"Nothing--yet," he returned. "But we've got to get around that next turn
in a hurry."
"Why?"
"It's a wicked corner," said Charlie. "I might as well tell you--then you
won't squeal if anything happens."
"Oh! Do you think I am a squealer?" she demanded rather tartly.
"I don't know," and he grinned again. He was an imp of mischief, this
Charlie Bragg, and she did not know how to take him.
"You're not 'spoofing me,' as our British brothers put it?"
"It's an honest-to-goodness bad corner--especially at night," Charlie
returned quite seriously now. "Boches know we fellows have to use
it----"
"You mean the ambulances?"
"Yep. They spot us. We run without lights, you know; but every once
in a while they drop a shell there. They have the range perfectly. They
caught one of my bunkies there only a week ago."
"Oh, Charlie! An American?"
"No. Scotch. Only Scotty in this section, and a mighty nice fellow.
Well, he'll never drive that boat again."

"Oh!" gasped Ruth. "Was he killed?"
"Shucks! No!" scoffed Charlie. "But his ambulance was smashed to
bits. Luckily he hadn't any load with him at the time. But it would have
been all one to the Boches."
Bragg got in beside the girl again, tried out his levers, and suddenly
shot the car ahead.
"Hang on!" cried Charlie Bragg under his breath.
The ambulance shot down to the corner. It was all black shadow there,
and, as Charlie intimated, he dared use no lights. If there was an
obstruction they would crash into it!
The dusk had fallen suddenly. The sky was overcast, so not a star
flecked the firmament. Through the gloom the ambulance raced, the
young fellow stooping low over the steering wheel, trying to peer
ahead.
How many hundreds of times had he made similar runs? Ruth had
never before appreciated just what it meant to be driving an ambulance
through these roads so near the battle front.
For five minutes a heavy gun had not spoken. Suddenly the horizon
ahead lit up with a broad white flare. There came the resonant report of
a huge gun--so distant that Ruth knew it could be nothing but a German
Bertha.
Almost instantly the whine of a shell was audible--coming nearer and
nearer! Ruth Fielding, cowering on the seat of the automobile, felt as
though the awful missile must be aimed directly at her!
The car shot around the curve where the broken trees stood. With a yell
like that of a lost soul--a demon from the Pit--the shell went over their
heads and exploded in the grove.
The ambulance was spattered with a hail that might have been shrapnel,

or stones and gravel--Ruth did not know. The hood sheltered her. She
was on the far side of the seat, anyway.
And then, with a shout of warning, Charlie shut down and tried to stop
the car within its own length. Ruth saw a hole yawning before them--a
pit in the very middle of the road.
"They've dropped one