"You mustn't detain me----" "You shall not go outside----" "I've got to.

Be reasonable, dear.

My sick are under fire." The bugle was sounding now; his arms fell from her waist; she smiled at him, stepped outside, and started to run; and found him keeping pace between her and the west.
"You should not do that!" she panted, striving to pass him, but he kept his body in line with the incoming missiles.

Suddenly he seized her and dropped flat with her as a shell plunged downward, exploding in a white cloud laced with flame through which the humming fragments scattered.
As they rose to their knees in the dust they saw men gathering--soldiers of all arms, infantry, dismounted cavalrymen, hospital guards, limping convalescents, officers armed' with rifles, waggon drivers, negroes.
"They're attacking our works at Cedar Springs," said an officer wearing one hand in a sling.

"This hospital is in a bad place." Ailsa clapped both hands over her ears as a shell blew up at the angle of an outhouse and the ground rocked violently; then, pale but composed, she sprang inside the hospital door and ran for her ward.
It was full of pungent smoke; a Parrott shell had passed through a window, carrying everything away in its path, and had burst, terrifying the sick men lying there, but not injuring anybody.
And now a flare of light and a crash outside marked the descent of another shell.