ten o'clock
It was loaded with outstretched forms of men , whose wounds were torn at by the jerking of the cart . In companies , fresh men , talking in whispers , were softly padding along the road on their way to the trenches , to relieve the staled fighters . The wide silence was only broken by the occasional sharp clatter and ping of some lonely sniper 's rifle . It was ten o'clock of the evening , and the ambulance had gone out one mile beyond the hamlet of Hoogar . The Doctor and Hilda alighted at the thick wood , which had been hotly contended for , through the seven days . It had been covered with shell fire as thoroughly as a fishing-net rakes a stream . They waited for Woffington to turn the car around .