Behind the girl lay thirty-four men on the cots of the ward—most of them helpless—unable even to rise unaided from their pillows. Jacob was almost the only patient who could hobble about. The poor lad whose condition had first roused Belinda's pity for the prisoners had pneumonia and must be attended hourly.
She shook her head. She understood only too well where her duty lay. But those poor sick and dying men——
The médecin chef, his mouth open, his clenched hands gesticulating his anger at what he considered her stupidity, started across the yard toward her. The gateway was emptied suddenly and she heard the throbbing of the engines as the autos made their departure.
She heard, too, the whistle of the falling shell. It burst with a deafening report overhead.
Belinda saw the médecin chef throw his hands heavenward, spin once, and fall with his face masked in blood, and featureless. By the posture of the limbs, by the utter stillness of the body, she knew it was useless to go to him. He had died instantly.
The girl staggered back into the ward and let the door swing shut. There was excitement here—excitement that would surely raise the temperatures of the weaker patients.
Jacob had climbed out of his cot and stood on trembling limbs in the short, gaily striped cotton flannel shirt that some woman in America had made in a spare hour. It was a grotesquely made garment, and the bewhiskered German was a grotesque figure in it.
"What is it, Fräulein?" he asked her.
"The station is abandoned. The Germans advance," she told him calmly. "But we must not lose heart—or hope. Be cool. Keep quiet. I have not forsaken you."
"Mein Gott!" gasped the old man. "Sie sind Deutsch!"