“We must not stay here much longer,” she suggested, “yet I must tell you something. You remember all the things I said to you in New York about being useful and a girl having as much courage as a boy and the right to live her own life and all that?”
Dick nodded encouragingly. Nevertheless and in spite of their surroundings he had to pretend to a gravity he did not actually feel. For to him at least Barbara appeared at this moment enchantingly pretty and absurd.
If only she had not been so tiny and her eyes so big and softly blue! Of course, the short brown curls were now hidden under her nurse’s cap. But her lips were quivering and the color coming and going in her cheeks, which now held little hollows where the roundness had previously been.
She held her hands tight together across her knees.
“I have turned out a hopeless failure with my nursing, Dick. All the silly things I told you about myself were just vanity. Eugenia and Mildred and even Nona, who has had little experience, are doing splendidly. But the Superintendent and all the people in charge of our hospital want me to go home. You see, the trouble is I’m a coward. Sometimes I don’t know whether I am afraid for myself or whether it is because I am so wretched over all the pain around me. I try to believe it is the last, but I don’t know. When that cannon was fired I was frightened for us.”
Dick Thornton’s expression had changed. “Why, of course you were. Who isn’t scared to death all the time in such an infernal racket? Suppose you think I haven’t been frightened out of my senses all this week? I just go about with my knees shaking and scarcely know what I’m doing. The soldiers tell me they feel the same way when they first get into the firing line; after a while one gets more used to it. But see here, Barbara,” Dick’s brows knit and the lines about his handsome mouth deepened. “If you feel the way you say you do, in heaven’s name tell me what you mean by coming so near the battlefield? Whatever put it into your head to attempt this ambulance work? Why don’t you stay at the hospital and make yourself useful? That’s what Mildred is doing, isn’t she?”
Barbara nodded. “Yes, but I wasn’t useful at the hospital. So I decided to walk right up to the cannon’s mouth and see if I couldn’t conquer myself. If my nerves don’t go to pieces here I feel I can endure most anything afterwards.” Barbara glanced fearfully about her. Fortunately they were hidden from any sight of suffering. Then she got quietly up on her feet.
“I must go to my work now, I’m afraid I have already been shirking,” she said. “But please, Dick, you have not yet answered my question. What is it you are doing with the army? Have you enlisted as a soldier?”
Dick took off his cap. Already his skin had darkened from the week’s hardships and exposure, for a line of white showed between his hair and the end of his cap.
“No, I am not a soldier, Barbara. After all, you know I am an American and I don’t quite feel like killing anybody, German or no German. So I am trying to do the little I can to help the fellows who are hurt, just as you are, although in a different fashion. Remember I told you once that my real gift might be that of a chauffeur. Well, that’s what I am these days, a glorified chauffeur. I am running one of the field ambulances. You see, I am a pretty skilful driver. I go out over the fields with my car whenever the Deutschers give us a chance and with two other fellows pick up the wounded Tommies and try to rush them back to safety. It’s a pretty exciting business. But somehow in spite of being scared I like it.”