“How long can you stand it?”
“As long as they can, sir.” And then without rhyme or reason tears sprang into the nurse’s eyes, to her great mortification and terror. That would probably finish her; a woman who cried had no place at the front, and the general would dismiss her promptly and with scorn.
But he did not. The hand that had touched her arm reached out and gripped her hand. She caught a whimsical smile brushing his lips in the dark.
“Good night. When you want your discharge, I’ll sign it.”
He went as swiftly and silently as he had come. The nurse turned back to her work with a sigh of relief. The regiment was hers officially now.
The next day they made another little town. So quickly and unexpectedly had the enemy been forced to evacuate it that there had been no time to destroy or pillage, and the shells had somehow passed it by. The town was full of liberated French—the young and very old—who crowded the streets and shouted their welcome as the troops passed through. The chapel was flung open to receive the wounded, and the hospital unit was installed therein.
As Sheila O’Leary crossed the threshold of the little church a strange feeling sprang at her, so that her throat went dry and her heart almost stopped beating. It was as if something apart from her and yet not apart had spoken and said: “Here is where the big moment of your life will be staged. Whatever matters for all time will happen here, and what has gone before—the San, the hospital, everything you have felt, striven for, believed in, and trusted—all that is but a prologue. The real part of your life is just beginning—or—”
Griggs broke the terror that was clutching at her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you know there’s a war going on and about a million wounded coming in? There are a few hundred of them up there, lying round under the images of the saints. The saints may bless ’em, but they won’t dress ’em. The chief’s growling for you. Come along!”
For once she was grateful to the pessimist. She tried to brush the strangeness away as she hurried down the aisle, but it clung in spite of her. And at the altar more strangeness confronted her. A slightly wounded lad suddenly reached out a hand holding a crumpled paper.
“Guess you’re Miss O’Leary, ain’t you? He said there wasn’t much of a chance, but what you don’t expect over here is what you get. You know?”