"They're shelling the hospital, dear old man; we've got to get---- Great Scott, look out!"
Like the moan of a giant insect, the shrill whine came through the air, rising to an overwhelming scream. There was a deafening crash--a great hole was torn in the wall just by the window with the jagged pane, and the room filled with stifling black fumes. A sudden agonising stab, and the man, looking up, saw Molly in front of him. She was standing in the acrid smoke--beckoning.
"I'm coming, dear, I'm coming!" he cried; "it's good of you to have waited, girl of mine--so good."
"Are you hurt, sister?" The doctor, who had been crouching by the bed, stood up.
"Not touched, thank you." She was white and shaking. "Did you hear the bits whizzing through the room?"
"I did," remarked the doctor grimly, holding out an arm from which the blood already dripped. "And I felt one of them too. But there's no time to lose--I don't know what to do about him, poor old chap."
He turned once again to the bed, and even as he turned he knew that the decision had been made for him: and he thanked the Maker. Billy Saunders had also felt a bit--a jagged bit--through the heart.
My story--such as it is--concerns a camouflage tree and Bendigo Jones: both of which--or whom--will require a little more introduction. That Bendigo would indignantly repudiate any such necessity, I am fully aware; nevertheless, even at the risk of offending him, I propose to outline briefly his claims to greatness, before embarking on the incident in his military career which forms the subject of these pages.
First however--the camouflage tree. It is only meet that the material and sordid details of the stage properties should be given, before branching into any discussion of the capabilities of the actor. The phrase, then, does not imply--as the ignorant might possibly be led to believe--a new type of tree. It does not grow in the tropics amongst a riotous tangle of pungent undergrowth; it does not creak sadly in the north wind on the open hill. It shelters not the hibiscus anthropoid, it gives not lodging to the two-tailed newt. From a botanical point of view, the tree is a complete and utter frost. It is, in point of hard and bitter fact, not a tree at all.