When the news reached the two nurses, Miss Crawford said to Miss Cody, "Now I can get back to my own hospital in Hanyang, to all the women and children who are waiting for me." But for many weeks they stayed to nurse the men who could not be moved.
One day they received a command from General Li Yuan Hung, vice-president of the new republic, to come to Wuchang, which was thronged with people from many nations, England, France, America, Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. There the Vice-President presented to them bronze medals "in recognition of their bravery and self-sacrifice, in caring for the wounded during the revolution."
"I have almost forgotten the noise of battle and those days in the hospital," said Jennie Crawford as they went back to Hanyang. "But I can never forget that Chinese soldier who looked up at us one night as we tried to ease his pain, and said, 'You are like God to us.'
"'Oh, no,' I answered at once.
"'Well,' said he, as I smoothed his pillow of straw, 'you are the ones who make us know about God.'
"Now I can answer you that I'm still glad I came to China."
VIII
SIXTY-SIX DAYS WITH BANDITS
On a cold November morning a group of girls stood beside two mules in front of a house in Batang on the border of Tibet. Two were Americans, and the others, Tibetans.