When, half an hour later, Mr.
Merrick went below, he found the doctor in the operating room, cool and steady of nerve and dressing wounds in his best professional manner.
Upon examination the next morning the large ambulance was found to be so badly damaged that it had to be taken to a repair shop in the city to undergo reconstruction.

It would take several weeks to put it in shape, declared the French mechanics, so the Americans would be forced to get along with the smaller vehicle.

Jones and Dr.Kelsey made regular trips with this, but the fighting had suddenly lulled and for several days no new patients were brought to the ship, although many were given first aid in the trenches for slight wounds.
So the colony aboard the _Arabella_ grew gradually less, until on the twenty-sixth of November the girls found they had but two patients to care for--Elbl and Andrew Denton.

Neither required much nursing, and Denton's young wife insisted on taking full charge of him.

But while the hospital ship was not in demand at this time there were casualties day by day in the trenches, where the armies faced each other doggedly and watchfully and shots were frequently interchanged when a soldier carelessly exposed his person to the enemy.