Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/106

 April Fools' Day. I was sent out here exactly nineteen hours ago to find Ray Eaton. He had gone to Post Three two hours before that, on a special call and hadn't been heard of since he left there with a load of couchés. Now Bois d'Avocourt is divided into innumerable little squares by dozens of military roads which lead from battery to battery and from one cantonment to another. Some of them are in a frightful condition and we figured that Ray had strayed into one of these and gotten stuck. It was just by chance that I found him. I came to a crossroads, turned to the right when I should have kept straight ahead and discovered his car at the foot of a steep hill. He explained what had happened in a few words. His clutch had given out completely when he started up the hill and after backing down to the bottom in neutral, he found his reverse wouldn't pull at all. And furthermore it would have been extremely difficult to have turned around in the dark upon this muddy, narrow road, especially with the load of blessés which he had. Several times during his long wait he had walked back to the main road, thinking