"Ain't I tellin' you? She isn't there. She never got away from the other station. And that's clean behind the German lines now!"
CHAPTER XVIII
PERILS INCREASE
Jacob, Belinda's self-appointed helper, aroused the girl from the spell of fear under which she had fallen at sight of Doctor Herschall.
"Poor Ernest is suffering greatly, Fräulein," he said. "These boys! They should be at home with their mothers. It matters not so much that war takes us old fellows. It is crueler to the young."
The girl, recalled to her duty, hurried to the side of the lad. Ernest was not a patient youth. His disregard of her orders had brought on this attack of pneumonia that the doctor had now successfully combatted.
He was querulous and by his exactions made it difficult for the nurse to attend properly the other serious cases left in her charge. It was not in Belinda's nature to be unkind, or even brusque. She could only be patient and faithful.
Meanwhile she sensed rather than saw the neatly fitted cog-wheels of the Prussian system begin to revolve in this newly established station of its hospital service—and revolve without a hitch. Discipline was the keynote and within an hour of the Herr Doktor's arrival one would scarcely have believed this was but a recently occupied base.
The Red Cross is the Red Cross everywhere; but in Germany at the present time it is almost entirely merged in the military branch of the government.
On Belinda Melnotte's part it took at first much fortitude for her to go about her usual tasks. The presence of Doctor Herschall at this hospital seemed almost unbelievable; though from Sue Blaine's letter she knew he must be somewhere on the battle front.