Was Dick wounded? Barbara had no chance to ask. Her friend did not look toward her—was apparently not aware of her presence. A surgeon had come forward to assist him, and finding an empty cot he put his burden down upon it. The next instant he had gone.
To Barbara’s credit she did not let the basin in her hands tremble for even the slightest instant, neither did she falter in body or spirit. She closed her lips tight together, stiffened her body and went on with her work.
But when her task was finished perhaps she showed the passing of an unusual strain. Anyhow the doctor whom she had been helping chanced to glance at her.
“I say, Miss Meade,” he said kindly, “you are overdoing things. Nothing to be gained by that. Go out in the fresh air, get away from this if you can and rest ten or fifteen minutes. You should know when you feel better.”
The girl hesitated.
“Do as I tell you,” the surgeon continued more sternly. “We haven’t time to have you on our hands, and you look like you might keel over after a little more of this.”
Then wearily Barbara crept out into the fresh air, feeling all of a sudden that her knees did not belong to her and that she was nearly unable to stand.
But once outside and with no duty before her, she managed to walk for some little distance. In truth she did long to escape for a while from the sorrow about her. But of course at such a time and in such a place this was impossible. Between her and the battleground were only a few meadows and fields. Nevertheless, the girl sank thankfully down upon the earth, closing her eyes. At least she need see no more terrors of battle for a little time.
How long she kept her eyes closed Barbara did not know, but when she opened them she stared ahead of her with nothing definite in her mind, as she was too fatigued to think.
What she saw, however, was a small field ambulance waving a Red Cross flag tearing across a space at no great distance away from her. It traveled so fast that the car shook from its own vibrations, and in the chauffeur’s seat Barbara had an instantaneous vision of the same stained face she had recognized a short while before.