Belinda had already made herself useful. Her old ward was quite filled, so no new cases were being entered there. But the hut the women nurses had slept in was being hastily made ready for the freshly wounded. Where the nurses would sleep thereafter was a question.
"But by the sound of those guns," said one phlegmatic German woman to Belinda, "we shall have no time for sleep. Yes?"
Belinda shrank from obeying the surgeon's command. The horrors of the operating ward seemed to her now more than she could bear. Yet there was no escape. She was forced to join the black-browed Herr Doktor at the chief table—the table to which most of the serious cases were brought.
She worked far into the night—worked until she was so foot-weary she thought she must drop beside the table.
The Prussian surgeon seemed tireless. Each fresh case renewed both his vigor and his interest. Between operations he would stand, picking at the long black hairs upon his arms, or exercising his already supple fingers in that grim way which was his habit.
He was a marvel. In Belinda's mind, wearied and sick as she was, grew the wonder again of this strange man. Seemingly without heart, without conscience, a person apart from all humanity because he lacked humane feeling—or the power of expressing it—this being performed the most delicate operations with the sure skill of a master, in the same haste that another surgeon might tie up finger wounds!
He turned with his usual harshness to Belinda at the end:
"You are excused, Nurse Genau. Report at nine-thirty again. There will be some pretty cases by that time, I have no doubt."
The nurse could not reply had she wished. She almost staggered from the ward. Where she would sleep she did not know. The whole hospital was now crowded, and everybody working with might and main, while the guns thundered closer—closer.
Belinda found Carl Baum awaiting her outside. His quick hand bore her up or she would have stumbled and fallen.