BELINDA AT WORK
The _directrice_ was just as positive and bustling a little Frenchwoman
as Aunt Roberta. Belinda was quite sure she must have made an atrocious
nurse, even in time of peace; but she possessed great executive ability
and was inured to the work by long experience. It was "the job" to her,
and "the job" only. If the wounded looked to her for pity rather than
justice, they looked in vain.
"Don't let them bully you, these wounded," she instructed Belinda.
"They will do it if you do not put your foot down firmly. It's their
work to get back to the trenches as soon as possible--or be sent home.
It's our job to get them back on the firing line as quickly as it can
be done. Remember that."
"Ah!" breathed the queer little man who was _infirmier_ of _Salle III_
to which Belinda was assigned. "_Madame la Directrice_, her bark is
much worse than her bite. _Ma foi!_ one would think to hear her that
her hand wore a steel gauntlet instead of being like velvet. _Oui!
Oui!_"
He was a man with a twisted foot and a harelip, named Erard.
He had been born with the harelip, of course; but the twisted foot he
had suffered as a boy. A heavy truck had run over it, he told Belinda.
He could not, of course, serve in the trenches; but no more patriotic
son of France ever lived, it seemed.
"Just now," Erard said, "mademoiselle will find it easy. Only eighteen
of the beds are filled. There are thirty-four _blessés_ when the ward
is full."
Erard watched at night. He gave the patients their breakfasts; he
washed them; he lifted them when the nurse dressed their wounds; he
fetched and carried; he had so many duties that Belinda wondered if the
little man with the harelip ever slept--if he ever found time to eat.
The _blessés_ in the care of the American recruit were just at the
"fussy stage." They were inclined at first to be critical. They
resented losing a nurse they had got used to, to have foisted upon them
"a greenie." Too, she was an American, it was said, and these wounded
_poilus_ had their doubts concerning the good intentions of _les
Américains_.
"Why, they tell me the _sales Boches_ are just as welcome in that
America as we French," one said.
During these first few weeks, there were not many new cases brought
into _Salle III_. Just enough to keep the number up to the average
of eighteen or twenty. Quite as many were discharged to go back to
the trenches, or died, or were sent to the base hospitals as being
practically unfit for "gun fodder," as were brought in from the front.
Just now there was a lull in this sector. The French and the Germans
seemed merely watching each other.
The wise ones said a great battle was in preparation. But it was very
monotonous, this waiting. The guns growled and thundered, but in the
distance. Belinda was not sure she would have found an occasional shell
bursting near by hard to bear.
From the doorway of her hut where she found time occasionally to
stand to breathe the pure air Belinda could see the huge captive
balloons, wagging lazily back and forth at their tethers. Sometimes
a smaller shape darted across the horizon--an aeroplane of some
kind--occasionally chased by black bursts of smoke, the shells fired by
the German aerial guns.
Somewhere over there, perhaps eight or ten kilometres away, were
the trenches. At any time--at first the thought made Belinda very
nervous--a battle might break out along this sector. Like leashed dogs
the French and the Germans were tugging to get at each other--ready to
fly at each other's throats.
The aeroplanes she watched with particular interest. She wondered if
Frank Sanderson had as yet joined the Flying Corps. Was he already
assigned to work on the battle front? Was he one of those whom the
French acclaim the greatest heroes, the pilot of a battleplane? She
had heard nothing from him--nor of him--since they had parted at the
little Paris café.
That was her own fault and the girl fully realized it. She had
dismissed him with an abruptness that must have hurt the aviator if he
cared for her at all. And Belinda was positive that he did care.
She could not forget "Stella" and "the kiddies." She told herself
stoutly at first that she wished nothing to do with a man such as Frank
Sanderson had proved himself to be. Yet her intimacy with the young
aviator back in the New York hospital and on board ship had revealed no
characteristic of his nature that bore out the suspicions of him which
had been bred in her heart and mind.
This was why her thought returned ever and again to the careless,
cheerful, smiling American. He would make, she was sure, the very
highest type of _pilote_.
The characteristics that made him what he was seemed to deny the
possibility of his playing fast and loose with any woman. Belinda could
not understand these contradictions.
In the loneliness of her poor lodging at night these and similar
thoughts fastened upon her mind. How she had been interested in
him from the very first! When he was brought into the New York
hospital--wounded and delirious--Sanderson had appealed to her as no
other young man had ever appealed.
Was it because she was now so lonely that she could not scatter
these thoughts--that she could not drive his spirit away from her?
Was it because she was away from friends and amid strange and trying
surroundings that she was so weak? She tried to excuse herself by
admitting these reasons for a time; but at length she had to face the
thing out.
Belinda Melnotte was no coward. The turmoil in her soul could not go on
for long without arousing scorn for herself.
"Why, he is not worthy of my thought," she told herself bitterly. "A
married man! A man with wife and children! Oh! I should be ashamed of
myself! I who call myself good!
"This certainly cannot be love. He has a fascination for me; just as
Doctor Herschall inspires me with disgust--with hate! Am I different
from other girls? Is there something wrong with me--something innately
bad? I do love him! I do! I _do_! And I hate myself for it!"
She threw herself upon her bed, muffling her sobs in the pillow. This
acknowledgment of what she termed her weakness in caring so deeply for
Frank Sanderson seared her very soul. And her agony was the heavier
because she had nobody in whom she might confide.
The monotony of her work in the hospital finally deadened her
apprehension of the coming battle; but it dulled no other thoughts.
Her little round of life was made up of petty duties and interests
that were narrowing to both body and mind. She had the same wounds to
dress each day; the same physic to administer; the same complaints to
hear; the same jokes to listen to--some of them not at all clean; the
same faces to see and voices to hear. Oh, yes! her work at the New York
hospital had been vastly more interesting, had had more variety.
Yet a war hospital is so much cleaner than a hospital in time of peace.
Here there were none of the foul diseases which came under her care
while she was a probationer. And there were no old people doddering to
their graves, full of the ills that come with advancing years.
* * * * *
"I wish you might see me and my children now, Tante," wrote Belinda
to Aunt Roberta. "The ward is spick and span. There is a trophy of
flags draped at the head, which all the _blessés_ face. When I had
arranged this and hung branches of bright-hued autumn leaves over each
window (and bribed two of the orderlies to wash those windows till the
panes shone!) my little _infirmier_ of the harelip marched proudly in
with a small silk American flag which he had secured from one of the
_ambulanciers_ from New York. This he placed up with my arrangement of
banners and the whole ward applauded--that is, all those of the poor
fellows who possess their full complement of hands and can applaud.
"It made my eyes sting. Not so much because of the Stars and Stripes,
perhaps--although to a full-blown American I suppose it is a comforting
sight--but at the thought expressed. My queer little _infirmier_, as
well as my wounded, have learned through these weeks to love me.
"If you think the furnished flat on the Rue di Rivoli something of a
cross, dear Tante, I wish you could see our makeshifts here. And the
room I have to sleep in at the other end of the village--quite fifteen
minutes' walk.
"Old Minerva, the aged dame is called with whom I lodge. She remembers
'70 of course, and is never through talking about it. _Then_ the
Germans marched by twice triumphant--going to Paris and returning.
"'But it is not so this time--the _sales embusqués_! They strut by
quite as grand as before,'--she points south, to Paris--'but they come
back on the run! _Ça y est, maintenant! Ça y est!_' and she smiles a
toothless but delighted smile.
"She does well by me, does Minerva. When I have made my toilet by six
o'clock (and now it is still pitch dark at that hour) she has ready a
huge bowl of coffee, bread and butter, with sometimes a baked apple or
some other _compote_.
"I walk briskly to the hospital. The sentinel at the gate salutes me,
for know you, dear Tante, I am a real officer of the French army--I
wear the insignia, A. D. F. and a bar, beside my _croix rouge_. Erard
is sure to be brushing out the entrance of _Salle III_ and welcomes me
with his crooked smile.
"He has already cleaned up the ward, emptied the slops, cleansed
pans, got rid as well as possible of all the more offensive things.
He does not slip out at night through the hedge, as some of the other
_infirmiers_ and orderlies do, to visit a neighboring _estaminet_ and
get drunk. He is a faithful little man, is my Erard.
"I must speak to each of my children first, or they would feel the day
had begun wrong. Then I look to see that all things are in order, and
start instrument boiling. Ah, that instrument boiling! It is an endless
task.
"Taking temperatures and marking charts is the next duty. Face washing
and mouth rinsing go with this, and Erard officiates at the combined
ceremonies.
"The doctor comes about eight o'clock, and after he goes I am left to
my own resources for the rest of the day unless something unexpected
happens to some of my patients.
"Dressings follow, and the first to manage are the more important ones.
Sometimes I accomplish only three or four of these before the bell
rings for soup at a quarter to eleven. At first these major wounds
almost keeled me over! The washing of huge shrapnel holes, the putting
in of drains, the probing for bits of shell--all the horrible by-bits
of work that the surgeons have no time for!
"We nurses have our _déjeuner à la fourchette_ immediately after the
patients are fed, crowding into a small detached hut where we eat and
gossip as fast as possible. It is the single hour of general relaxation
during the day. There is not another American girl here (am I American,
I wonder?), but they are all lovely to me.
"Mail arrives immediately after lunch. And those _blessés_ who receive
little presents from home--oh, how they are envied by the others! Dear
fellows! they almost always pass the goodies around, even though they
be but a few cheap candies. And I am obliged to take my share. These
gifts I often hide away, however, to slip into some poor fellow's hand
before I go at night. It is marvelous what comfort there seems to be
for even the most sorely wounded in a peppermint or a lime wafer.
"The remaining dressings follow, and so all the afternoon. Then comes
soup for my children--and for myself--after which I give massage
to those who need it, prepare soothing drinks for the night, give
injections and play '_ma mère_' in general to the ward--stuffing cotton
under weary backs and plastered limbs; and so bid all good-night. Then
I polish my instruments, clean up in general, and am relieved by my
harelipped _infirmier_, who comes stumbling in for another vigil,
bravely blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Ah, Tante, I shall want to forget all this some day. I wonder if I can!
"You say Captain Dexter has called. If he comes again give him my best
love--the dear, brave man! If he is as interested in flying as you say
he is, he must know what has become of Mr. Sanderson."
* * * * *
Aunt Roberta wrote frequently and sent on, too, letters which arrived
from America. One came from Sue Blaine--a cheerful and newsy missive
and one which the Red Cross nurse read over and over again. Especially
this portion of it:
"Oh, my darling Belinda! you should have seen Herr Doktor's face
when I told him of your departure for France. It seemed he had
called at your house and you were gone. He was actually white when
I explained your sudden disappearance--I do not know whether with
rage or because he feared for your precious life, honey!
"However, it was not long before the Herr Doktor left us himself.
He bade nobody good-by, and I learned on good authority that he
had secretly slipped out of the States, homeward bound. Many of
the warmer supporters of the Kaiser among our New York Germans are
doing so. And, of course, Doctor Herschall would be of infinite
help to the Prussian Hospital Staff.
"The trenches will, I presume, separate you and him, if the Herr
Doktor succeeds in reaching Germany. At least, you will not have to
serve under his direction in your hospital work. Now isn't that a
blessing, Belinda?"
Not that this news of Doctor Herschall's departure, presumably for the
battlefields, should have been of any moment to the Red Cross nurse.
Yet she admitted the fact that he had a certain influence upon her and
that this had not been dwarfed by separation from him.
"This war will make him famous I am sure," she told herself. "Those
wonderful hands of his will perform operations that other medical
men will acclaim as scientific marvels. But the unfortunates whom he
operates upon--will it be worth while? Will it be really a Christian
act to drag them back from the grave to spend torturing years as
cripples and half-men?"
The lull between battles was not to last for long after this letter was
received from America. Despite the prophecies that there would be no
push until spring, and in spite, indeed, of the pouring October rains,
one night at midnight the near-by guns broke out and shook Belinda in
her bed.
She got up and dressed. There was no possibility of sleep for her, for
neither her ears nor her nerves were attuned to this thunderous music.
Belinda went to the window, opened the creaking shutter, and leaned
across the sill. She could feel the tremor of the house after the
report of each gun.
Toward the north, where she knew the trenches lay, a red flash abruptly
illuminated the starless sky. A roar like the blowing up of a gas-tank
followed in train of the flash. It was one of the huge German guns.
The artillery battle soon became general. The horizon was lit with
flames. The air crashed about her ears. She was so deafened that she
did not at first hear the noise of the troop of ambulances getting
under way for the front.
They swept under her window, their shapes but dimly outlined, for
they carried no lights. A lamp moving along the road--especially an
automobile lamp--was an object easily spied from a directing _taube_ or
a captive balloon; and a shell was likely to drop upon the bright mark
within a few moments.
Belinda put on her long blue cape, pulled up the hood, and went out.
Minerva and the other lodgers remained in bed. They had suffered other
bombardments.
The nurse needed nobody to tell her that those dark cars rolling off to
the north, finding their way over the broken roads by the light of the
illuminating bombs thrown up from the trenches, or by the flash of the
shells, would begin soon to return laden with wounded. She must be "on
the job," as _Madame la Directrice_ was so fond of saying.
Suddenly the searchlights began to play more rapidly above the
trenches. High up in the gloom they revealed certain drifting shapes
against which the anti-aircraft guns were turned--a squadron of
bombarding machines returning from a raid behind the German lines.
She watched these vague forms as the moving lights searched them out.
Then the shrapnel began to burst about them.
They came on slowly, as though tired after their long journey into
the enemy's country. She hoped they would soon be safely across the
battleline.
Suddenly, like a new star in the murky firmament, a red flame appeared.
Belinda watched it with terrified gaze, for she knew instinctively what
it was.
In the midst of the squadron of bombarding aeroplanes this light had
sprung up. It spread rapidly--and began to fall.
One had been set afire! This thought only for an instant preceded
another in the girl's mind: Suppose Frank Sanderson was in that burning
machine!
Faster and faster the flaming aeroplane plunged toward the earth,
trailing behind it a tail of sparks like the tail of a comet.
The shells ceased bursting high in the air. The glow of the fallen
aeroplane was swallowed up in the flashes of the trench guns. The
squadron had passed behind the French battleline.
But somewhere on that No-Man's-Land between the trenches, the wreck of
the bombarding machine and the aviators who accompanied it were being
devoured by the flames.
The girl hurried along the road, shuddering and fearful. When she
arrived at the hospital there was an air of excitement and expectancy
that she had never seen there before. It was communicated to the
restless patients in her ward. The little wooden hut shook and rattled
to the roar of the guns.
"A great day has begun, Mademoiselle," chirped the harelipped Erard,
bustling about, doing unnecessary things, setting the whole ward "by
the ears," until Marius swore at him.
"Dirty little rabbit-mouth!" declared the irritable _blessé_. "He will
never learn. And with that broken foot dragging, dragging, like a
child's toy cart. _Mon Dieu!_ What a useless beggar!"
"Hush, Marius," the girl said. "Poor Erard is very kind to me."
"_Sale embusqué!_ Why is he not kind to _me_?" growled Marius.
It was scarcely light--gray dawn of a cloudy fall day--when the
ambulances began to trundle in at the gateway of the hospital enclosure
with their burdens of wounded.
Belinda was called to the operating ward to help. Piles of clothing
lay here and there on the floor--filthy, muddy, blood-soaked; torn or
cut from the broken bodies on the beds. The _brancardiers_ stepped on
these heaps, or kicked them aside, as they lifted the stripped wounded,
one by one, to the brown canvas stretchers, and carried them, walking
carefully out of step, to the operating room.
That operating room! Belinda had a vision for a moment of the spotless,
sterilized compartment at the New York hospital, with Doctor Herschall
in mask, apron and white apparel, waiting at the table for a single
case to be brought to him, putting his wonderful hands and fingers
through an exercise like a pianist's gymnastics, to make them supple.
Then the girl was suddenly so busy that she had no time for visions.