There was no shelter for any of them that night. They worked in the open, and volunteers came from the ranks to do what they could. The surgeons would have scorned them, but the nurse mustered in a score or more to keep the fires under the kettles burning, to hold supplies and lanterns, to make coffee when the sterilizing basins could be surrendered for the purpose; and she showed those with pocket-knives how to cut away the blood-soaked clothing. Caked with mud herself and desperately hungry, she dressed and comforted as she went. The scene was ghastly—Verestchagin might have painted it—but Sheila saw none of it. It was for her a time exalted, even for those she helped to die. There was no sting in this death. As she passed on and on in the darkness the space about her seemed filled with the shadowy forms of those whom God was mustering out, peacefully, gloriously waiting His command to march into a land of full promise. So acutely did she feel this that a prayer rose to her lips and stayed there, mute, half through the night, that some time she might be given the chance to make this clear for those who mourned at home, to make them feel that death, here, held no sting.
In the midst of it Sheila felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and turned to look into the face of the commander.
“Are you the nurse I ordered back two days ago?”
“I believe so.”
“No one.”
“How did you come?”
The girl laughed softly. She could not resist the memory of that flight. “Engine went wrong and I—beat it. Don’t blame the driver; he did his best to obey orders. I joined the division last night and came on with my chief.”
“So there’s no use in ordering you back?”
“None in the least—that is, not so long as the boys are coming in like this.”