Mollie dreaded the time when the town hospital would be shut up, and she might be forced to go to the hospital at Intombi. This, for many reasons, she did not at all wish to do. The discomforts there were indescribable. The dust lay like a thick layer over everything. The noise of the firing was even more incessant than in the town of Ladysmith. The place was low, too, and damp, and in no possible sense of the word a fit situation for a hospital for men down with enteric or with gunshot wounds. Nevertheless at that moment there were nine hundred patients down with enteric at Intombi. Mollie hoped that her work might keep her in the town itself.
All the beds in the Town Hall hospital were now full. She ministered to the sick and dying as calmly and gently as though this were just an ordinary hospital in London or any other part of England. Her nerve was little short of marvellous. Mollie took complete control of the surgical ward; the enteric ward she did not often enter—she had not time. Kitty did not return to the hospital.
Captain Keith was much better, and went back to his usual work. Mollie was glad of that. After Kitty's revelation and her unreasonable jealousy, she felt that she must see as little as possible of Gavon Keith. Major Strause came early to the hospital. He looked anxious. There was an expression in his eyes which Mollie did not care to meet. He looked at her, but did not speak to her. He went straight into the enteric ward. He was coming to be regarded as quite a power among the nurses and doctors, and more than one poor fellow breathed his last and uttered his farewell words into the major's ears. The man was changed in spite of himself, and it was Mollie's doing.
"But I cannot marry him," thought the poor girl, "even to relieve Kitty's fears. That is quite impossible."
And then she was angry with herself for having any personal thoughts in those fateful days.
On this special day the dust was terrible. It came in thick showers through the windows, and disturbed the patients as much as the screams of Long Tom. About half-past five p.m. came the climax to all their woes. A shell burst into the roof of the hospital. It flung its bullets far and wide over the sick and wounded. One bullet hit one poor fellow right on the chest, went through his heart, and killed him immediately. Nine others were hit, and many were seriously wounded. The shock to the patients was terrible. There was no doubt whatever that the Boer gunners had deliberately aimed at the Red Cross flag, which, flying from the turret of the Town Hall, was visible for miles.
Mollie was standing close to the part of the hospital over which the shell burst, but, wonderful to relate, she was not hurt. Major Strause, however, was badly injured in the thigh. From being a help and support to the overworked nurses, he was now himself one of the wounded. It was no longer safe to remain in the Town Hall hospital, and the sick and wounded were conveyed to the Congregational Chapel, which was hastily turned into a hospital. Major Strause found himself here, and in the surgical ward.
"You are bound to see me now," he said to Mollie, and he smiled up into her face.
"I will do my best for you," she answered. "You are a very brave man."
A surgeon removed the splinters from the wound, and Major Strause bore the agonies without having recourse to chloroform. Alas! the supplies of chloroform were getting terribly short, and it was now only used for extreme cases. Mollie bent over the major when the operation was at an end, and did her best to make him comfortable. She was holding a refreshing drink to his lips, when he suddenly seized her hand.