Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/166

 Ruth went sick when she saw them. She thought of Hubert, her gentle-minded, sensitive Hubert, now helping to handle men so hurt. She thought of Agnes Ertyle when she saw English women, as well as English men, receiving the forms from the ambulances at the great casualty clearing stations where new rows of tents hastily were going up. She thought, of course, of Gerry Hull. She believed that he was far removed from this zone of battle; but she did not yet know—no one yet knew—how far the fighting front was extending. He might be flying at this moment over a front most heavily involved; she knew that he would wish to be; and how he would fight—fight as never before and without regard of himself to check disaster due, as he would believe, to the tardiness of his country.

She saw a boy in the uniform of the Royal Flying Corps lying upon a stretcher in the sunshine; he was smoking, but he took his cigarette from his lips to smile at her as she gazed down at him.

British troops—strong, young, uninjured men—marching in battalions; English guns and ammunition lorries; more English infantry and guns poured into the streets of the city, passed through them and on to the front and more came. The wounded from the front and the French folk from the farms and villages passed on their way to the rear; but no one else came back.

"The line is steadying itself; it's holding," the rumor ran in Ham during the afternoon. "The Boche gained at first—everyone on the offensive gains at first—but now we're holding them; we're slaughtering them as they come on." Then more alarming reports spread.