“But when he goes in his ambulance after the blessés—they are the poor wounded soldiers—it is just like day, for the sky is filled with star-shells shooting around him in all colors, and then there is a constant cannonading of shells and shot of all kinds. When he hears a purr he knows it’s a Boche plane and dodges pretty lively, for if he doesn’t ‘watch out’ a machine-gun comes sputtering down at him. He’s awfully afraid of them because they drop bombs.
“But he says it would make your heart ache to see him when he carries the blessés. He has to drive them from the postes de secours—the aid-stations—to the hospitals. He has to go very slowly, and even then you can hear the poor things groan and shriek with the agony of being moved. And sometimes,” Grace lowered her voice reverently, “when he goes to take them out of the ambulance he finds a dead soldier.
“But dear me,” she continued in a more cheerful tone, “he seems to like the life and is constantly hoping—I believe he dreams about it in his sleep—that he’ll soon have a shot at one of those German fiends. Yes, I think it would be gloriously exciting,” ended Grace with a half sigh of envy.
“Gloriously exciting?” repeated Nathalie with a shudder. “Oh, Grace, I should think you would be frightfully worried. Suppose he should lose his life some time in the darkness of the night, alone with those wounded soldiers? O dear,” she ended drearily, “I just wish some one would shoot or kill the Kaiser! Sometimes I wish I could be a Charlotte Corday. Don’t you remember how she killed Murat for the sake of the French?”
“Why, Nathalie,” cried Helen with amused eyes, “I thought you were a pacifist, and here you are talking of shooting people.” And the girl’s “Ha! ha!” rang out merrily.
Nathalie’s color rose in a wave as she cried decidedly, “Helen, I’m not a pacifist. Of course I want the Allies to win. I believe in the war—only—only—I do not think it is necessary to send our boys across the sea to fight.”
“But I do,” insisted Helen, “for this is God’s war, a war to give liberty to everybody in the world, and that makes it our war. We should be willing to fight, to give the rights and privileges of democracy to other people, and our American boys are not slackers who let some one else do their work.”
“Our boys! You mean my boy,” said Nathalie, with sudden bitterness. “It’s all right for you to talk, Helen, but you haven’t a brother to go and stand up and be mercilessly bayoneted by those Boches. And that is what Dick will have to do.” Nathalie choked as she turned her head away.
“Yes, Nathalie dear,” replied Helen in a softened tone, “I know it is a terrible thing to have to give up your loved ones to be ruthlessly shot down. But what are we going to do?” she pleaded desperately, “we must do what is right and leave the rest to God, for, as mother says, ‘God is in his Heaven.’ And Dick wants to go,” she ended abruptly, “he told me so the other day.”
“Yes, that is just it,” cried Nathalie in a pitifully small voice, “and he says that he is not going to wait to be drafted. Oh, Helen, mother and I cannot sleep at night thinking about it!” Nathalie turned her face away, her eyes dark and sorrowful. No, she did not mean to be a coward, but it just rent her heart to picture Dick going about armless, or a helpless cripple shuffling along, with either she or Dorothy leading him.