"Home?" repeated Belinda, a little startled by the thought of America being her home.
"By Hannah!" pursued the shipmaster. "Isn't she a regular Yankee girl? I'm proud of you young folks that have come over here to give these Johnny Crapauds a hand in their fight. I meet you everywhere I go about France—in the air, on the auto-busses—these jitneys as I'd call 'em at home—carryin' the wounded; and best of all in the hospitals. All of you doin' your 'bit,' as John Bull calls it. Well! Well! I told you, Frank, that she'd be glad to see us."
The nurse had given the young man her hand.
"And we haven't come empty-handed," went on Captain Dexter in his loud, cheerful tone. "Got something for your boys here——"
"They are mostly Germans now in this ward," Belinda interrupted. "Prisoners."
"By Hannah! That so?"
"The poor fellows!" Sanderson said. "We've got candy and cakes. The captain insisted they'd be appreciated by fellows who have to live mostly on broth," and he laughed.
There were other comforts, too, in the hamper. Some things the sight of which almost brought tears to the nurse's eyes, for there were not many luxuries seen in the wards. She noticed that the captain himself was surprised by some of the articles taken out of the hamper, and she believed the old man's thoughtfulness had not suggested all the comforts produced. Lastly came a quantity of cigarettes and tobacco, with pipes—the greatest boon possible to those blessés who were convalescent.
Belinda watched, too, Sanderson's manner as he went down the ward distributing to the occupants of the cots such of the dainties as she said each might have. He could speak German with the same facility that he spoke French, and he was as cheerful and kindly to the Germans as to the few French left in Salle III.
Indeed, for the first time since the influx of prisoners a spirit of cheerfulness spread through the ward. Some of these silent, suffering prisoners, so far from their homes and with wearisome confinement facing them, actually smiled.