Vera Butchkareff, commander of the Legion, suffering from shell shock in a hospital, so declared as she proudly told the heroic story of her unit's fighting. Half a dozen other wounded women in the same hospital gave instant corroboration.
"We have fought with men and with women," Commander Butchkareff declared, "and one is as good as the other if he or she loves the fatherland.
"My girls have been divided before the battle. One half remained a unit under my command and the other half were distributed in small detachments of six or ten to various companies. These small units were to act as ammunition carriers only. My half was an active fighting force. I led them into the charge myself."
"We are all going back to the front," one of the girls declared. The whole roomful of wounded Legionnaires chorused instant approval.
"The German girls we captured carried a sign 'Send us your women; we will pay you well,'" declared one of the girl soldiers.
"They sent us—but we carried bayonets," she added.
The girls are for the most part between eighteen and thirty years of age. Some of the force are married women with children and a few are of middle age. Among these latter a striking figure is Mme. Sofie Vansa, widow of a colonel killed in battle and whose two sons are now lying wounded.
Mary Goloubyova, the eighteen-year-old high-school girl who was wounded, tells this story:
"We went into action a fortnight after our arrival at the front under heavy German cannon fire. Given the order to advance, we rushed out of our trench. Feeling no sense of danger, we dashed toward the enemy in the wood. The machine guns began knocking over my companions. We were ordered to lie down. I noticed those at the front with me were all women. The men were further back.
"I began shooting, the gun kicking my shoulder so hard that it is still blue and stiff. I was glad when we were ordered to charge the machine guns in the woods. We paid dearly, but we held on, and by night our scouts discovered the machine gunners and we shelled them out.