“Dr. Milton, I entirely appreciate your feeling, but honestly I am not afraid. I don’t exactly know why, but I don’t believe anything will happen to me. If it does, why of course when one comes here for the Red Cross work, one expects to take chances.” Again Nona glanced toward Barbara, who still had not spoken. “Do you think there would be any danger if Miss Meade should walk back to the hospital alone?” she asked.
Really Nona had not the least idea of the insult her words implied to the other girl. Not for worlds would she have wounded or offended her! Neither did she believe Barbara a coward because she felt that the work ahead of them might be too much for her. This business of nursing is often a matter of sensibility. The people with the finest nerves and tenderest hearts are least fitted for the profession. So it had become almost a matter of course in the past few weeks for the three American Red Cross girls to regard the fourth of their number in this light.
But Barbara flushed so painfully that tears filled her eyes.
“So that is what you think of me, is it, Nona?” she queried. But she offered no further reproaches; only turning quietly toward the driver of the ambulance said, “Drive on, will you, please. I too am unwilling to go back now. We will, of course, be as careful as possible, since only in that way can we really help.”
Then nobody said another word for the next half an hour. Perhaps their hearts were too full for speech or their nerves on too terrible a tension. Also the noise of the firing as they approached nearer the line of the British trenches grew more appalling.
But along the way Nona slipped her hand inside Barbara’s and though her lips were not opened, her apology was made and accepted. Moreover, in a sub-conscious fashion Barbara appreciated that no distrust had been intended. For indeed, the two girls were daily becoming closer and closer friends now that their ambulance work gave them the chance for spending long hours in each other’s society. Unlike as they were they appreciated the very differences between them.
But now was not the time for thinking of themselves nor of their friendship.
The thought of what lay before them called only for brave silences.
With great skill and care the driver of their Red Cross ambulance moved in the direction of the battle. There could be no doubt in any mind of what was taking place. Therefore to approach even within the neighborhood of the little field hospital near the trenches required infinite caution and judgment.
Once the car stopped short. Thirty yards before them a giant shell tore through the air and fell, ripping a tunnel in the green earth. The big ambulance wagon felt the shock of the explosion, but was not sufficiently near to be endangered, except of course the thought would force itself: Next time would they escape so easily?