disclose the American flag. But the promise of its coming may buoy
him up while the preliminary episodes clog the narrative.

One afternoon we were chugging along in our Red Cross ambulance
coming down from the first aid posts where we had been talking to
some American Ambulance boys on the French Front, when we noticed
the arrives were landing regularly so we knew that the Germans were
after something in the neighbourhood--perhaps a big gun, perhaps an
ammunition dump. We were speculating upon the nature of the target
when we whirled around a corner and saw it. It was a cross-road.
Four roads forked there; the Germans, of course, had it marked. It
was getting its afternoon pour parler; for they believed that the
ammunition trains would be passing that cross-road at that time.
And as we looked out of the windows of the ambulance our hearts
jumped--at least Henry's and mine jumped--as we saw that between
us and the forks of the road a great French camion had skidded and
stalled, with two wheels over the embankment that raised the road
from the swamp about us, effectually blocking our way. "This,"
said Major Murphy, taking in the situation quickly, "is a mighty
dangerous place." As the word "place" escaped him he was on the
ground. He had slid through a window of the ambulance. The ambulance
drivers--Singer and Hughes--neglecting to unlock the ambulance
doors, ran up the road and began working with the drivers of the
camion to get the great van on the road again. The other occupants
of the ambulance also hurried to the camion--through the windows
of the ambulance; no one was left to unbutton the thing for Henry
and me. Henry insists that he was there alone; that he was afraid
to follow me through the window for fear of sticking in it. He had
not been avoiding fats, sugars and starches for a year and had no
girlish lines in his figure. And the arrives were certainly bouncing