Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/189

 smashed closer; a third followed. Gerry felt blood flowing inside his clothes and he knew that he had been hit. But now the German gunner was satisfied or had other targets for his shells; at any rate, the shells ceased. Gerry was about a mile away from the gun, he figured; he had flown perhaps half a mile beyond the Jaeger patrols when he came down. The road, upon which he had seen the travel, ran just on the other side of a slope upon which he lay; he could see a stretch of it before it passed behind the rise of ground and he noticed a black motor car—possibly the same which he had seen from overhead a few minutes before—drive toward him. He saw the car halt and a khaki-clad figure get down from the driver's seat; it was a skirted figure and small beside the car; it was a girl!

The German gunner, who had been giving Gerry attention, also saw the car; and, evidently, he had the range of that visible stretch of the road. A shell smashed close; and Gerry saw the girl leap back to her seat and run the car on while a second shell followed it. The rise hid the car from Gerry and, also, from the German gunners, for again the shelling shifted.

The next shell smashed on the other side of the slope where the road again came into sight; the car had not yet reached that part of the road, so Gerry knew that the German artillerymen were merely "registering" the road to be ready when the car should run into the open. But the car did not appear; instead, the girl crept about the side of the slope and advanced toward Gerry. She had lost her hat and the sun glowed and glinted upon glorious yellow hair. The pointer of the 77 did not see her or he