“Three weeks we’ve been driving ’em north.”
“You were lucky to escape so far.”
“Glad they waited till you got here,” he said, beginning to look drowsy.
A few minutes later the boy was sleeping, his wound dressed, and Nancy rose to go to the next cot. She sent a fleeting glance along the beach and under the towering palms where men with all manner of wounds were lying. Here was work enough for a hundred nurses. She saw there would be no sleep for any of the fifty who were here tonight. A doctor near by was amputating an arm, working fast while the daylight lasted.
Mabel worked with the released prisoners. She was giving plasma to one, evidently at the point of death. Nancy paused to give her a hand. She was amazed to see that the man’s hair was snow white.
“Wonder how anyone this old got into the service?” she whispered to Mabel.
The man’s face was brown and creased as cracked leather. Only a loin cloth hung about his waist, while every rib could be counted in his shriveled body. His limbs were mere skin-covered bones, making the joints seem abnormally large. In spite of all this they could see he had once been a powerful, tall man.
“He looks too dark to be an American,” said Nancy dubiously.
“This sun can cook anybody’s skin that brown. Look, his dog tag’s still on. That gives his data,” said Mabel, for she had already referred to it to get his blood type.
The man was in a coma. There seemed slight chance they could bring him around, yet there was life still in his pulse, and they did everything which modern science knew to strengthen that feeble spark.