She was thankful she heard nothing more of this thing that night. Charlie and other men brought in the supplies. She could not arrange them then, for she was exhausted. She only waited to lock the door when all the supplies were placed, and then found the hut where the women of the Red Cross slept.
She had here a narrow cot, a locker and chair, and the privacy of a movable screen. Nothing else.
This was real "soldiering," as she soon found. Her experiences at Lyse and at Clair had been nothing like this. In one town she had lived at a pension, while at the latter hospital she had had her own little cell in the annex.
However, the girl of the Red Mill never thought of complaining. If these other earnest girls and women could stand such rough experiences why not she?
She slept and dreamed of home—of the Red Mill and Uncle Jabez and Aunt Alvirah Boggs, with her murmured, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" She was again a child and roamed the woods and fields along the Lumano River with Tom Cameron and Helen.
"I wish I were at home! I wish I were at home!" was her waking thought.
It was the first time she had whispered that wish since leaving the States. But never before had her heart been so sore and her spirit so depressed.
When, some weeks before, she had believed Tom Cameron seriously wounded, she had been frightened and anxious only. Now the whole world seemed to have gone wrong. There was nobody with whom she could confer about this awful trouble.
She arose, and, after making her toilet and before breakfast, went out of the hut. She beheld an entirely different looking landscape from that which she was used to about Clair.
Through the gateway of the compound she saw a rutted road, with dun fields beyond. Behind, the ridge rose abruptly between the hospital and the battle front.