With no night nurse, no assistance of orderlies, the work bore heavily upon Belinda and her infirmier. Jacob did what he could; but his wounds had been painful and he was only able to hobble about the ward.
Erard crept to Belinda's side as she was busy preparing packs and bandages for the day's dressings, and whispered:
"Mademoiselle, what will you do when the Boches come? Me, I shall slip away. I am a small man—and a cripple. They will not bother one like me. But you, Mademoiselle——"
"I speak German," Belinda said briefly.
"But you wear the French insignia." He touched lightly with his finger the A. D. F. and bar on her breast. "Hide that," Erard whispered warningly. "Let even these Boches," with a gesture toward the ward, "forget it if they will. Take off your cap and the Red Cross, too. The German Red Cross nurses wear different caps—and their Geneva Cross is in different form, too. Be German, Mademoiselle. It is for the best."
"Papa Jacob says I am already German," Belinda said, with a smile.
"Ma foi! Let it be so. I swear you speak the gutturals like a native. Let them all think so."
It was, after all, good advice, and after a little hesitancy she obeyed. From what she had heard of the rudeness of Prussian officers she doubted if her position as a Red Cross worker—especially under the French Department—would aid her.
Nor was she at all sure how her present patients would treat her if the German troops marched in. Some of them she had cared for through many weeks; but they had been rasped and embittered by their imprisonment. They would not forget, perhaps, that she had nursed them under protest.
Erard had difficulty in finding food supplies for them all. He ventured outside the gate in the hedge and came back to report that the village was deserted. They had made breakfast; but he declared the prospect of another meal was limited to "cobblestone soup."