FIRST EXPERIENCES
The train rolled on staggeringly. Berth cars had long since been
removed from all military trains as being too cumbersome. The
exigencies of the situation demanded that comfort and luxuries be
sacrificed to a desire to move men--many men--quickly. The gay but
strangely practical French more quickly adjusted themselves to the
intensely serious fact that the party which endured most was destined
to win the war.
It was a strictly military train on which Belinda Melnotte traveled.
She was an atom in the Military Department of the French Republic;
so why should she not be jounced about on a hard seat as well as the
soldiers traveling to the trenches? She was to halt short of the
trenches; just how short she did not know.
Her uniform was quite as distinctive as that of the soldiers
themselves. Nor could the cross on her cap and breast be mistaken.
These marks of her service won the girl a good deal of attention.
She had, during her stay in Paris, become used to hearing little but
French spoken. Speaking it so perfectly herself, she did not think
she minded the lack of the sound of English. Yet suddenly, while the
train stood for some time and for some mysterious reason at a little
station, she heard through the open window a high-pitched voice singing
a popular music hall ditty--and it sounded good!
"Yet I suppose he is intoxicated. He seems to be," she said to a man
in uniform with the empty coatsleeve, who had strolled along the
platform to speak to her with the camaraderie which it seemed was quite
customary.
"But no, Mademoiselle. He is one _Anglais blessé_--a _grand blessé_. In
an ambulance behind there," with a characteristic shrug of the shoulder
indicating the direction. "They wait for the _train sanitaire_. He is
one of these air pilots, it is said, and fell with his Nieuport--such a
young man! And with red hair," added the one-armed _poilu_, as though
the last fact made it all the more sad.
This information startled Belinda. She jumped up from her seat and
rushed to the door, which stood open, for the soldiers returning from
furlough who occupied the compartment with her had all stepped out.
"Where is he?" she demanded of the one-armed man. "Show him to me," she
added as she leaped to the platform.
"But even you can do nothing for him, Mademoiselle," he said
flatteringly. "He is delirious. They have removed both his legs. The
_ambulancier_ states that he cannot live."
Of course, it was foolish of her. Frank Sanderson could not possibly
have joined the Aviation Corps, been assigned to this sector, and
fallen with his airplane all in a few days' time! Yet the suggestion
made her run around behind the station to where the now weakening voice
of the singer still chanted the foolish song in English.
One look at the white face on the stretcher reassured her. But, oh,
he was so young! And his eyes burned so brightly! He thought in his
delirium that he knew her and he smiled and tried to reach forth his
hand to her.
"Hi, there, Flossy! Was it you singin' that jolly bit? My word! but
you're a long way from home."
"She doesn't understand you, old scout," said the American ambulance
driver. "She's French like the rest of 'em."
"Oh, can nothing be done for him?" gasped Belinda.
The ambulance driver came quickly to attention, blushing like the great
boy he was. "Beg pardon, Miss. You _look_ French, you know."
The injured aviator was laughing immoderately, if weakly. "What d'you
think of this Johnny, Floss? Callin' you a French girl. Ah!" he added
in quite another tone, "they were a long while gettin' these legs of
mine off--don't you think? They held a sheet up between me and my legs
when they first tried to do it: but I knew when they cut into me--the
butchers! The blood spurted up and spread all over the sheet, so it
did!"
"Local anesthetic," whispered the ambulance driver to the white-faced
nurse. "Couldn't etherize him. And it's all for nothing, I fancy. Might
as well have let the poor chap be buried whole as in pieces."
The locomotive whistled a warning. There was really nothing she could
do for the sufferer. Belinda fled back to the train and it moved on.
She had glimpsed a little of what her work was to be--and the _poilus_
in her compartment respected her tears.
But they tried to cheer her up immediately. If a woman's tears appeal
to men of all nations and in all walks in life, they particularly
appeal to a Frenchman. A big, bewhiskered lieutenant sat down beside
her and talked to her as though she were a child he was comforting.
"_Non! Non!_ Do not take on so, Mademoiselle. Let the tears be for us
chaps who are hit. Then _we_ weep--not our nurses. We must look to you
for cheerfulness--for courage. _Mon Dieu!_ this fighting would be a
hard task indeed were it not for you of the _Croix Rouge_."
Another man had picked a bunch of wild flowers while the train was
halted (who but a Frenchman could have made so artistic a bouquet of
the poor little blossoms?) and he presented them to Belinda with a
polite speech. An apple-cheeked boy slipped into the seat beside her
after her bewhiskered comforter was gone and blushingly showed her the
photograph of the girl he had just been home to marry. Naturally the
nurse had to be interested in that romance.
And so, soon, the train stopped again and there was a cow-shed in
sight where clean, mild-eyed cows were standing to be milked. Belinda
ventured forth again to beg a cup of the fresh milk. The women milking
would not let her pay for it, and when they learned she had come from
America they showered her with blessings.
"These good people seem so grateful for the little America is doing for
their country," she later wrote in her diary.
There were children, too--bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked little ones in blue
smocks and sabots. They clung to her skirt, and the older ones asked
her questions about America--especially about New York, which they had
heard much of.
Louis, or Alphonse, or Henri had been to New York before the war and
had told them unbelievable things. They were now in the trenches,
having returned from their work in New York to fight for _la patrie_.
Was it true that there were buildings in New York higher than the
Eiffel Tower?
Then the train rolled on again. It drew on toward night. Once they
slowly passed a long _train sanitaire_. The chorused, if low, groans
from the wounded was a wail as from souls imprisoned in purgatory.
Belinda steeled herself against displaying the feelings of horror these
sounds called up. She talked cheerfully with the returning _poilus_.
Another nurse--one with experience in the field hospitals--joined her
and this girl's chatter was very helpful to the recruit.
"Of course, there really are no field hospitals in this war. Where
those big guns throw their iron fourteen, sometimes sixteen,
kilometres, a hospital in the field would have small chance of escaping
bombardment, to say nothing of attack from _tauben_ that have little
respect for the Red Cross flag," she said bitterly.
"The first dressing of wounds--if the victim cannot walk--is done right
in the trenches by the first-aid men. Rude enough the dressing is
sometimes; but many lives are saved by the work. In the hospital you
will go to, you'll be within sound of the guns all right. Don't worry
about that. And it'll be very different from the hospitals you've been
used to, no matter how much experience you've had at home. My faith,
yes!
"They have settled on the huts as the best of all for this work--a
nurse to a hut and from twenty-four to three dozen patients for her to
attend. Work? I believe you!"
It was midnight when the Red Cross recruit arrived at the end of her
railway journey. She was to report here to an official who would tell
her how to reach her assignment. But the morning must do for that.
Belinda got a room above a wineshop on the main street of the town, and
was made comfortable by the shopkeeper's wife. It seemed strange to her
to be going about so absolutely alone and unattended. Yet she felt no
fear. These people--everybody she met--were so kindly disposed that one
could not feel otherwise than confident of perfect safety.
At least, no anxiety kept Belinda Melnotte awake after her tiring
journey from Paris. The clatter of wagons and the braying of mules
awoke her with the rising sun. A baggage train was going through the
central street of the town, and there was no sleep for the nurse after
that.
The housewife served her coffee and a roll with which to break her
fast, being likewise glad to talk to the mademoiselle who had come so
far to nurse the poor _poilus_. Her husband--"_mon brave_"--the woman
declared, was fighting somewhere for France--she knew not where.
"He has promised me not to get killed," she said cheerfully. "Of course
I would not have him an _embusqué_--no Frenchman may show the white
feather at this time. But some of these men are so reckless! They
think more of a smoke than they do of their lives--and we poor women at
home suffering agonies of fear for them! _Ça y est!_ That is what we
are here for, _n'est-ce pas_, Mademoiselle?"
As early as possible the nurse sought an interview with the major. He
was a big, hairy man, with twinkling blue eyes behind his eye-glasses.
He was young, but very decisive.
"You are very welcome, Mademoiselle," he said in English, although
Belinda had addressed him in his own tongue. "Do you speak German, too?"
"I am part German and part French by ancestry," she told him. "I speak
both languages."
"But you are American born," he responded with satisfaction. "That is
a saving grace--at this time," and he smiled. "I know your hospital in
New York. Is Doctor Herschall still on its staff?"
"Yes."
"His name is known, Mademoiselle. Many of these German surgeons
are quite wonderful fellows--masters in their art. But it has been
remarked--and wondered at--that Herschall has not returned to his own
country. He is in sympathy with his people, is he not?"
"I know very little about the Herr Doktor's opinions," said Belinda
cautiously. "From some of his speeches, however, I should think him
quite favorably disposed toward his Government. Prussians generally
are, I believe."
The French surgeon nodded. "Now for you, Mademoiselle," he said. "With
your evident knowledge and experience you will be very helpful in the
place I shall send you to. 'Let nothing you dismay,' as the English
marriage service puts it. As you Americans say, 'Tackle any job.'
Remember that in all probability there will be nobody near who knows
any more than you do, or who can do the task any better."
With this he sent her away in an empty ambulance that was returning
to a small village up near the battle front, and beyond. The growl
and rattle of the big guns had been a disturbing factor to Belinda's
hearing since soon after sunrise. The driver of the ambulance, however,
said they were very distant. There was no fighting on the immediate
front at present.
This _ambulancier_ was nothing but a boy. He had finished his freshman
course at Columbia and had insisted on coming over to serve France in
the Red Cross. Like Belinda, he was "half French."
"Mom and the girls are in Paris. They're knitting socks and winding
bandages for the Red Cross. Dad stays at home and makes dollars for us
all. Poor dad! he has the hardest job--and serves France more perfectly
than any of us!"
Belinda began to realize after listening to him that driving a cheaply
built American ambulance behind the battleline was no sinecure.
"The British chaps call these motor-cars 'mechanical fleas.' But they
do the work--and as a usual thing it takes a shell to really put 'em
out of commission. We drivers learn how to repair them--even if we
break down on the road. The British Johnnies can laugh; but France
should strike that Detroit manufacturer a special medal-of-honor.
"I carry in my tool and repair kit almost everything but a new
chassis," the boy added, laughing. "That's since I broke down once
coming along from the front with two _blessés_ on the stretchers.
Seemed to me at the time the old girl busted in half a dozen places at
once.
"I'd have made the hospital on three cylinders at that, only for a
steep hill. Twice the old car all but got to the top only to die,
coughing, and slide clear back to the bottom. My two _blessés_ were
pretty well shattered below their waists; but they were good sports.
They were laying bets with each other as to whether I'd pull 'em over
the hill before a _Boche_ shell got 'em."
"But you _did_ save them?" Belinda asked.
"One of 'em," said the boy soberly. "I had to walk twelve kilometres
for help. While I was gone one of the wounded chaps died. He had taken
the short end of the bet and he paid the other chap just before he went
off. Good sports, those _poilus_, after all."
Belinda listened--and looked. Not many physical and visible signs of
war along this road. It was a warm morning; the dust rose behind them
in a stifling cloud, but ahead the driveway and the fields were clear.
Why! there were neatly staked vineyards, blooming gardens, vegetable
fields--all the signs of farm industry.
But here, beside the road, was an excavation. Had somebody started to
dig a cellar--or a well--and abandoned it unfinished? It was right at
the roadside.
A little farther on there were several similar holes in a row. The road
circled around them through a field that had been plowed. Suddenly the
nurse was thrilled by a thought.
"Oh!" she cried, "what are they?"
"Shell holes--craters," replied the ambulance driver. "This section was
under fire a week ago."