SO fast do events move at the front, with the wonderfully organized war machine, that six hours after the doctor’s unit finally detrained at a little station somewhere in France, near the Argonne forest, they found themselves closely following up an American regiment. The regiment was engaged in that most nerve-racking and hazardous undertaking of routing out machine-gun nests in a heavily wooded sector. Even before they left the train they could hear the continuous cannonading away to the northeast. It was like the constant rolling of heaviest thunder dotted with many quick staccato explosions. The fire from the heavy artillery was also visible along the horizon.
At first they went forward through open[91] country, undulating and broken, but soon entered intermittent woods, with deep ravines and sharp ridges, just the sort of country for hard fighting.
Much of this region was so rough that the ambulances could not penetrate it, and the wounded had to be brought out for leagues on stretchers; but most of them lay where they fell and the surgeons and Red Cross men gave them first aid there, and trusted to luck to get them out later.
The region had been the scene of heavy fighting for two days, and the signs of war’s horrible devastation were on every hand. Shrapnel had stripped the trees of much of their foliage. Many of them were down while others were torn and broken, with limbs hanging or strewed on the ground. The whole face of nature was scarred and furrowed, seamed and made hideous by the passing of the hurricane of battle.
How beautiful was the fair face of France in peace, yet how terrible in war.
But now the heaviest fighting had rolled away to the north and the immediate work was that of the regiment in front of them[92] which was clearing out the hornet’s nest of machine-guns that the Boche had left behind.
But the doctor was a man of courage, deeply absorbed in his profession, and he soon found himself cutting out proud flesh and bandaging up gaping wounds, with the bullets whistling through the treetops above him, just as unconcerned as though he were still in the hospital at Brest. From point to point these brave men followed in the wake of battle, here and there snatching a desperately wounded man from the very mouth of hell. No bands played to divert them. There was no glitter of uniforms, or bright flag to inspire them, only the call of duty and the pathetic gratitude of the poor fellows whom they succored.
Just at dusk the doctor found himself alone in a narrow gulch. Deep shade was overhead, and a little brook babbled softly through the gulch, but now its cool waters were red with blood and roiled with the passing of many feet. In this gulch the surgeon found several dead and wounded men, and it was while binding up the wounds[93] of a Tennessee mountaineer who had been shot through the hip that a stray bullet found the surgeon and stretched him beside the man whom he was trying to save.
At first he was not in great pain, only paralyzed, but as the hours passed and the stars appeared up among the tops of the trees, fever mounted in his veins and finally delirium seized him and he talked incoherently to a dead man beside him of home and friends far away.
Meanwhile faithful Pep still galloped on to the northeast, obedient to the strong magnet that pulled him, the call of his master’s heart to his own loving dog heart, which knew but this one strong passion.
All through that night he galloped, only occasionally slowing down for a few kilometers to rest. He did not know to what place he was going, or what it would be like when he arrived, but he did know that at the end of the long road his master was calling for him. By noon of the day following his escape from the hospital he was so foot-sore he sometimes had to stop to lick his paws. They were stone bruised and bleeding at the[94] roots of the nails. But he did not pause for long, he could not with his master calling.
By evening he had reached the small station where his master had deployed with his unit at noon the day before. He immediately struck into the partly wooded undulating country. The sight of trees and woods pleased Pep. All the way he had been fearful that some one would catch him and carry him back to the hospital before he should find his master. In the woods he felt more secure for here he could hide, besides something told him that somewhere here in the forest he would find the doctor.
It was now ten o’clock at night, and the Boche had decided that they did not want the enemy to bring up fresh troops and occupy the woods, so they were sweeping the thickets and gulches with shrapnel and shells. Pep was terrified with the deafening noise and the bright flashes all about him. Occasionally he would stop and whimper and crouch close to the ground. The earth was friendly. It would not let these fierce bolts of lightning or the terrible thunder get him.[95] Occasionally he would stand uncertain for several seconds and whimper softly.
Instinctively he knew that these sounds were full of danger to himself. He had seen what desolation such sounds could make the night the Boche bombed the hospital. He wanted to go back, but he could not for his master was still calling. To him there was but one law, and that was obedience to the voice which he loved. So after a short time he would again creep forward.
At last after a more fearful explosion than usual, which rained small particles all about him, he found himself in the narrow gulch, by the little stream near which his master lay. He stopped for a moment to cool his burning feet in the water and to lick up some of the refreshing liquid, then, joy of joys, he discovered the doctor’s footprints in the sand close to the brook. He sniffed excitedly and then with a glad yelp sprang forward eagerly keeping his nose close to the ground in order not to miss the trail. It wound in and out for several rods. Once it stopped by the side of a dead soldier. Pep sniffed at the man’s cold face, then hurried[96] on. Would his master be like that when he found him? He missed the trail for a few feet where the doctor had stepped on some stones, but he soon recovered it again. Then joy unyelpable, he took the body scent and abandoned the trail. Three or four bounds carried him to the spot where the surgeon lay, prone upon the ground and very still.
Pep sniffed at his master’s face eagerly. It was not cold like the soldier’s. He licked the face frantically and whimpered pitifully. He sought the hand and thrust his muzzle into it. That, too, was warm, but very limp.
Again Pep began washing the dear face and something in the familiar touch penetrated to the surgeon’s slumbering consciousness, bringing him partly out of his swoon.
Pep noted with delight that the limp fingers closed gently over his muzzle and he registered his joy with a glad bark. Had his master been fully possessed of his senses he would have warned him that it was very dangerous to bark in the enemy’s country,[97] but the doctor was only partly conscious. The gentle pressure did not mean as much as the dog imagined.
It was partly an involuntary movement. He was so used to squeezing the dog’s muzzle that it was something that he did instinctively. Then the hand lay still for a long time and the faithful watcher became very anxious. He returned to the face and showered it with dog kisses. But his master did not respond, so he went back to the hand.............