At Some Disputed Barricade Read Online Free PDF

only as far as the entrance flap of the tent when she heard the shots. This time there was no question that they were rifle fire and much closer than the German line. The next moment she saw them: a dozen German soldiers running toward her out of the gloom, rifles in front of them, bayonets fixed.
    Wil Sloan dropped to the ground and she felt almost as if she had been hit herself. She stood frozen. A bullet tore into the canvas and she dived forward and ran to Wil, falling almost on top of him. It was idiotic to try to save him—they would all be dead in minutes—but still she grasped his shoulders to turn him over, needing to see where he was hit.
    “Get off me, you fool!” he growled. “I need to get the gun up!”
    She wanted to slap him out of sheer relief. “What gun?” she demanded furiously. “If you’ve got a gun, don’t bloody lie there, shoot someone!”
    “I’m trying to! Let go of me!”
    She obeyed immediately and he hunched up onto his elbows and knees. There was far more gunfire now. The other ambulance driver was firing back and there were more shots from the far side beyond the tent.
    “Get the ambulance started,” Wil told her. “We’ll get everyone out that we can. It’ll be a hell of a crush, but we’ll get most of them, with two vehicles. Hurry. Don’t know how long we can hold them. This could be just the first of bloody thousands!”
    She obeyed and, bending low, ran back to the tent. Half the wounded were gone already. All those who could stand had rifles. Cavan was at the operating table, still working. A man lay on it bleeding heavily, his belly ripped open. The anesthetist held the ether, but he was shaking so badly the mask seemed to jiggle in his hand.
    “You’ve got to get out!” Judith shouted at them. “We’ve got two ambulances. We’ll get everyone in. Just hurry! There are at least a dozen Germans broken through and only five or six of us with guns. We can’t hold them off much longer.”
    Cavan did not look up from his work of stitching. “We can’t go yet, Miss Reavley,” he said steadily. “If I leave this man, he’ll die. So will the others who have just been operated on. The journey under fire will tear their sutures open. Tell the men to stand fast. Then come back and help me. I’m afraid my orderly is dead.”
    It was only then that Judith noticed the body on the floor. When she had turned to go outside five minutes ago he had been assisting Cavan. The bullets that had torn through the canvas had struck him in the chest.
    “Be quick,” Cavan added. “I need you back here. I can’t keep on much longer without help.”
    “Yes, sir.” She swiveled and went out, almost bumping into a lance corporal with a heavily bandaged leg. He was kneeling against a packing case firing round after round at the raiding party. One moment they were visible through the drifting rain only by the flicker of their rifle fire, then suddenly the wind gusted and they could see them clearly, more than a dozen of them pressing forward.
    “Captain Cavan says to stand fast,” she said loudly. “Tell the ambulance drivers we’ve got to fight.”
    He looked at her incredulously, his face slack with disbelief.
    “You heard me, Corporal,” she replied. “We’ve got wounded men to defend.”
    He swore under his breath, but he did not argue. “You’ll ’ave ter tell ’em yerself, miss. Oi can’t move. Oi don’t mean Oi won’t. Oi can’t!”
    “Sorry,” she apologized, and bending low again she scrambled over to Wil and repeated Cavan’s order to him.
    “Stand fast?”
he repeated incredulously. “You English!” He aimed the rifle again. “Remember the Alamo!” he shouted, and fired. In the distance someone fell.
    She gave him a pat on the shoulder and went back to the tent to help Cavan. She knew enough about field surgery to pass him the implements he asked for, even though she could not keep her hands steady. When she tried to thread the needle for him it was