Young Hilda at the Wars
village is shot full of metal. There's a battery of seven Belgian guns spitting away in our back-yard. But we don't call it hot, because we hate to exaggerate."

"I'll have to come out and see you," he said, with a smile.

He became a frequent visitor at Pervyse.

"Rollo is wonderful," exclaimed Hilda.

"How wonderful?" asked Mrs. Bracher.

"Only to-day," explained Hilda, "he showed me his field-glasses, which he [75]had taken from the body of a German officer whom he killed at Alost."

[75]

"That's true," corroborated Scotch, "and once in his room at the hospital he showed me a sable helmet. Scarlet cloth and gold braid, and the hussar fur all over it. It's a beauty. I wish he'd give it to me."

"How did he get it?" asked Mrs. Bracher.

"He shot an officer in the skirmish at Zele."

"He must have been a busy man with his rifle," commented Mrs. Bracher.

"He was. He was," said Hilda. "Why, he's shot fifty-one men, since the war began."

"Does he keep notches on his rifle?" queried Mrs. Bracher.

"I think it's a privilege to have a man as brave as he is going out with us," replied Hilda. "We must bore him frightfully."

"He's peaceful enough now, isn't he,"[76] observed Mrs. Bracher, "trotting around with a Red Cross Ambulance Corps. I should think he'd miss the old days."

[76]

Hilda and Mrs. Bracher were having an early morning stroll.

"It's a little too hot up by the trenches," said the nurse; "we'll take the Furnes road."

"It was a wet night, last night," commented she, after they had trudged along for a few minutes.

"Are you going to walk me to Furnes?" asked Hilda.


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