him up. They were laughing, as if the
whole thing was a joke, when crack! came a volley of bullets and with a
great shout back rushed the French and Belgians in a counter-charge. I
admit I ducked, crawling under the ambulance, and the Germans were so
surprised that they beat a quick retreat.

"And now it was that Gys made a fool of himself. He tore off his cap and
coat, which bore the Red Cross emblem, and leaped right between the two
lines. Here were the Germans, firing as they retreated, and the Allies
firing as they charged, and right in the center of the fray stood Gys.
The man ought to have been shot to pieces, but nothing touched him
until a Frenchman knocked him over because he was in the way of the
rush. It was the most reckless, suicidal act I ever heard of!"

Uncle John looked worried. He had never told any of them of Dr. Gys'
strange remark during their first interview, but he had not forgotten
it. "I'll be happier when I can shake off this horrible envelope of
disfigurement," the doctor had declared, and in view of this the report
of that day's adventure gave the kind-hearted gentleman a severe shock.

He walked the deck thoughtfully while the girls hurried below to look
after the new patients who had been brought, not too comfortably, in the
damaged ambulance. "It was a bad fight," Ajo had reported, "and the
wounded were thick, but we could only bring a few of them. Before we
left the field, however, an English ambulance and two French ones
arrived, and that gave us an opportunity to get away. Indeed, I was so
unnerved by the dangers we had miraculously escaped that I was glad to
be out of it."

Uncle John tried hard to understand Doctor Gys, but the man's strange,
abnormal nature was incomprehensible. When, half an hour later, Mr.
Merrick went below, he found the doctor in the operating room, cool and
steady of nerve and dressing wounds in his best professional manner.

Upon examination the next morning the large ambulance was found to be so
badly damaged that it had to be taken to a repair shop in the city to
undergo reconstruction. It would take several weeks to put it in shape,
declared the French mechanics, so the Americans would be forced to get
along with the smaller vehicle. Jones and Dr. Kelsey made regular trips
with this, but the fighting had suddenly lulled and for several days no
new patients were brought to the ship, although many were given first
aid in the trenches for slight wounds.