Not of the horrors of war. Not of the criminal practices of a blood-inflamed soldiery fighting for the already moribund issue of the Divine Right of Kings. Not of the wrongs of France.
She suddenly had a vision of a grassy lane, on either hand old but pleasant houses with red-tiled or thatched roofs, a rambling inn on one side, a footbridge over a stream at the end of the lane, and a gristmill with its babbling wheel.
Marching out of one dooryard into the lane defiled a phalanx of geese led by a high-headed old gander. The little girl, Belinda herself, in the short petticoats and with the plaits of hair down her back, who was standing in the lane was a stranger and she was afraid of that gander.
But here to her rescue came running two tow-headed lads—not older than herself, but braver. They were her defense and comfort.
Carl and Paul, her cousins! Somewhere they were fighting with the enemies of France! Or were they already shot down? And did they lie, like this poor lad, in some hospital at the mercy of strangers?
Another incident served to impress the girl's mind deeply. The battle had rumbled away along the front to other sectors. But the passing to and from the trenches of troops and the heavy rumbling of the wagons continued past the hospital, day and night.
The Flying Corps, too, was busy, and Belinda was not too much engaged with her own work to worry about Frank Sanderson. How did he fare? There were airplanes being shot down, she heard, every day above the trenches. If the aviators fell within the German lines they were seldom heard of again. They were considered spies, of course. And, then, there are few falls, whether in peace or war, of flying machines that do not compass the pilot's death.
Then one day there walked into Salle III two visitors—first a smart old man in a blue suit and with a broad smile upon his sea-bronzed countenance, and behind him Sanderson himself with a hamper on his arm.
"Captain Dexter!" cried the nurse, giving both her hands to the beaming shipmaster, but looking over his shoulder at Sanderson.
"What did I tell you?" demanded the Yankee captain of the aviator. "I told you she'd be tickled to death to see folks from home."