Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/186

 had meant; and a bit of pride—tingling, burning pride for his people—flared up where the moment before had been only condemnation and despair. For this girl was no mere driver; she was in charge of the French—a cool, clear-headed competent commander of these foreign peasants from a village evacuated under her direction. She had, lying in the hay upon the floor of the truck, children injured by shell fire and English wounded whom she had found by the road. She had been under fire; and, as soon as she could get these people a little farther to the rear, she was going back under fire to guide away more people. She was entirely unheroic about it; why, that was the best thing she could do this day. Did he know something better for her to do?

"No," Gerry said. "Are there many more American girls here?" he asked, gazing toward the German advance.

"We're each—or two of us together are taking a village to get the people out," the girl said; and she named, at Gerry's request, some of the girls and some of the villages.

"Do you know Cynthia Gail?" he asked.

"She was going back, the last I heard of her, to Mirevaux."

Gerry jerked. "Mirevaux must be taken now."

"I heard guns that way. That's all I know," the girl said. She raced her engine; Gerry knew she must go on. He left his prisoner in charge of a wounded English soldier who was able to walk and he returned to the machines in the middle of the field. The captured German airplane was too damaged to remove; so he set it afire and mounted in his own.