But night brought them into the famous Russian capital.
CHAPTER XII
Petrograd
ON their arrival Barbara and Nona went with the wounded soldiers to a Red Cross hospital in Petrograd.
There, to her consternation, a few days later Nona Davis became ill. The illness was only an attack of malarial fever, which Nona had been subject to ever since her childhood; nevertheless, the disease had never chosen a more unpropitious time for its reappearance.
For a few days she seemed dangerously ill, then her convalescence left her weak and exhausted. She was totally unfit for work and only a burden instead of an aid to the hospital staff.
Poor Barbara had a busy, unhappy time of it. She did her best to look after Nona in spare moments from her regular nursing, and she also tried not to lose courage when no word came from Mildred. Neither from newspapers nor inquiries in all possible directions could she even learn whether Grovno had fallen.
She was unable to read the newspapers for herself and so was compelled to wait until one of the other nurses could find time to laboriously translate the information into English.