t least. Mind you, now, that's an order. I may not be a
general, but I'm jolly well in charge of this hospital!"

And the medical captain meant exactly what he said. Both Dave and Freddy
begged and pleaded to be allowed to get up. They had found that the
hospital was terribly short handed, and they were both anxious to do
what they could to help. Besides, staying in bed thinking and talking,
and talking and thinking was slowly driving them crazy. Regardless of
what the General had said each nursed the tiny fear that they had
arrived too late with their information. They now knew how far the
German hordes really had smashed through toward the coast of France and
Belgium, and even to their untrained minds it held horrible and terrible
significance.

But the medical captain stuck to his order, and would not let them go.
On the second day after the visit by General Caldwell they were allowed
to get up and wander about the hospital wards at will. It was then they
discovered that every one in the hospital had learned of their brave and
courageous work, and the wounded soldiers heaped praises upon them from
all sides. Yet, underneath the praise and the attempts by the soldiers
to be cheerful, there was a note of worry, and strain, and a sort of
breathless waiting. Dave and Freddy caught the feeling at once and it
served to add to the doubt and fears in their own minds that all they
had done, and all they had suffered had gone for nought.

Everybody was waiting, waiting. Waiting for what, they did not know. Or
if they did they kept it to themselves. News of the battles sifted
gradually into the hospital wards. Some of it was true, and a lot of it
was false. But all of it rasped nerves and cut deep into the tortured
minds of men.

And then, on the third day, it happened!

The news flew from lip to lip, and a pall of misery and bitterness hung
over the entire hospital. Belgium has quit! The Belgians have thrown
down their guns and given up! The whole left side of the British Army is
now exposed to the Germans racing down out of Holland! On the south the
French and the British have been split by a German wedge driven straight
across France to Abbeville on the Channel coast. The entire British
Army, and part of the French, is surrounded on three sides. There is
only one door of escape left open. That door is Dunkirk!

The instant they heard the news Dave and Freddy rushed to the office of
the medical captain. They found there