and whenever haste was the chief and perhaps deciding factor between life and death the patients could be taken to the field hospitals in from ten to twenty minutes. These hospitals were situated about six or seven kilometers from the front. Usually the base hospitals were placed much further away.

During the fierce fighting which had occurred a short time before, the ambulance section to which Don Hale belonged had carried over two thousand wounded inside of a week.

Over the brow of the hill, about a hundred paces from the poste de secours, the main road began to descend, leading in a rather zigzag fashion to a little one-street village which we shall designate as Montaurennes. Montaurennes, with its air of quiet, rustic beauty, well set off by age-mellowed stuccoed walls enclosing gardens, had, at one time, when viewed between the trees from the hilltop, made a charming picture. Not so now, however. Scarcely a whole house was left standing—the majority had been reduced to disordered heaps of bricks and stones, and of the little spired church which once graced its center only a few pieces of jagged walls remained.

Three times the little village had changed hands, and its streets and lanes had witnessed some of the most terrible hand-to-hand conflicts, when steel met steel, and bayonets—not guns—became the deciding factor.

The Germans, however, were finally dislodged, and now the French trenches cut squarely across the eastern end of the highway. Beyond, though not so very far beyond, running in an irregular fashion across the ridges of the opposite hills, stretched another line of trenches—those held by the Germans.

So the eight who had just entered the abri were very close indeed to the scene of actual warfare.

The underground shelter, the air of which was faintly impregnated with the odor of antiseptics, in the glare of the electric light became revealed as a roomy and comfortable retreat. The principal object which struck the eye on entering was an operating table in the center. There were also several stools, a couple of benches ranged alongside the walls and cots for the surgeons.

The ambulanciers who, during their forty-eight hours of duty at the outpost, always remained fully dressed, were content to get what rest they could on the stretchers. Pictures clipped from newspapers and magazines adorned the walls, and Dunstan had also contributed his talent toward making the place pleasant and cheerful by 

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