The superintendent of the nurses, a splendid middle-aged woman from one of the big London hospitals, was also aware of Barbara Meade’s state of mind. For several days with all the other work she had to do she had been quietly watching her. Here at the last moment she had an impulse to tell Barbara to give up. After all, she was such a child and the strain might be too much for her. Then she concluded it would be best to let the girl find out for herself.
The contrast was odd between the two American girls who were answering this new call of war. Nona Davis did not seem nervous or alarmed. Not that she was unconscious either of the dangers or the difficulties. She seemed uplifted by some spiritual emotion. She was like a young Joan of Arc, only she went forth to carry not a sword but a nurse’s “Red Badge of Courage.”
A little after daylight the four girls and two of the hospital surgeons left for the front. The two new ambulances had been taken directly to the field hospital where they were to meet them.
The night before news had come that there had been fresh fighting and help was needed at once. So one of the hospital automobiles had been requisitioned to transport the little party.
“We will be back by tonight with the wounded,” Nona Davis said calmly as she kissed Mildred Thornton good-by. “You are not to worry about us. I don’t think we are going into any danger.”
Barbara made no attempt at farewells; she simply sat quietly on the back seat of the car with her hand clasped inside Nona’s, and her eyes full of tears. Had she tried to talk she might have broken down and she was painfully conscious that the two English girls, Lady Dorothy Mathers and Daisy Redmond, were staring at her in amazement. It was hard to appreciate why if she was afraid of the war nursing, she would not give it up.
The first part of the drive was through country like that surrounding the Sacred Heart Hospital. General Sir John French had given orders that in every place where it was possible the agriculture of France should be respected. The crops must not be trampled down and destroyed, for the rich and poor of France alike must live and also feed their army.
So all along the first part of their route the girls could see women and children at work. They wore the long, dark-blue blouses of the French working classes, at once so much cleaner and more picturesque than the old, half-worn cloth clothes of our own working people.
It was all so serene and sweet that for a little while Nona and Barbara almost forgot their errand.
Then the face of the countryside changed. There were no peasants’ huts that were not half in ruins, great houses occupied but a few months before by the wealthy landowners of northern France were now as fallen into disuse as if they had been ancient fortresses. Here and there, where the artillery had swept them, forests of trees had fallen like dead soldiers, and over certain of the fields there was a blight as if they had been devastated with fire.