_A Late Recruit_
A LITTLE before noon the following day, Mrs. David Clark, the wife of
the surgeon in command of the Red Cross hospital near Chateau-Thierry,
entered a small room in one of the towers of the old French chateau,
which had been serving as a hospital for the American wounded.
The room was in the portion of the building set apart for the use of the
Red Cross nurses.
Opening the door quietly and without knocking, Sonya stood for a moment
in silence upon the threshold, staring in polite amazement at the figure
she beheld sitting upright in the small hospital bed.
The figure was that of a young girl with straight brown hair cut short
and parted at one side, a rather thin white face with a pointed chin and
large hazel eyes. There was a boyish, or perhaps more of a sprite-like
quality in her appearance. As Sonya looked straightway she saw a
fleeting picture of Peter Pan, before the girl turned and spoke to her.
"You are Mrs. Clark aren't you? You are very kind to come to ask about
me. I am sorry I gave you so much trouble yesterday; another mile or
more and I should have arrived safely at the hospital and been none the
worse for my long walk. You won't mind if I go on eating a moment
longer, will you? I am dreadfully hungry and I have just succeeded in
persuading the charming little girl who is taking care of me that there
is nothing in the world the matter with me today, except the need for
food. I really feel no worse from yesterday's experience, although it is
nice to be so deliciously warm after one has come fairly near being
frozen."
As the girl talked, the older woman came and took a little chair beside
the bed. The newcomer to the hospital, who had been rescued from the
snow storm the afternoon before, Sonya now discovered was not so young
as she had originally believed. On closer observation there were tiny
lines about the girl's eyes, a little droop at the corners of her mouth,
which might, however, be due partly to fatigue and exposure.
"When you feel inclined and if you are strong enough, I wonder if you
will not tell me something about yourself and where you were trying to
go when we picked you up yesterday? Red Cross nurses have been in many
unexpected places since the beginning of the war, yet one scarcely looks
to find one lost in the snow in such a picturesque fashion," Sonya
suggested half smiling and half serious.
In answer to Sonya's speech, the girl pushed the tray of food which by
this time she had finished eating, to the bottom of her bed and sat
resting her chin in the palms of her hands. She was leaning forward with
her shoulders lifted and wearing a little white flannel dressing sacque
which Bianca Zoli must have loaned to her.
"I want very much to explain to you, Mrs. Clark, and I am entirely all
right again, only perhaps a little tired from my adventure. I do not
seem even to have taken cold. First of all my name is Nora Jamison and I
have traveled all the way from California to France, across a country
and across an ocean. Was it my good fortune or my ill fortune that I
landed in Paris just three days before the armistice was signed to begin
my Red Cross nursing? I have been looking forward to the opportunity it
seems to me for years. Oh, I have done war nursing, but near one of the
California camps."
The girl turned her eyes at this moment to glance out the small window
cut into the wall just beside her bed.
They were remarkable eyes, Sonya had already observed, sometimes a light
brown in shade, then flecked with green and grey tones. Not in any sense
was the rest of the face beautiful, although oddly interesting, the nose
long and delicate, the lips thin with slightly irregular white teeth.
"I want to see what this French country is like, Mrs. Clark, see it
until I shall never forget its desolation as compared to the
fruitfulness and tranquility of our own. Some day when I return home I
mean to make some of my own country people share my impression with me."
Then without further explanation of her meaning she turned again to her
companion.
"I wonder if you are going to be willing to do me a great favor?
Strange, I know, to be asking a favor of some one who has never seen one
and knows nothing of one, save that I am already in your debt! I want
you to take me with you as one of your Red Cross nurses to work with the
army of occupation on the Rhine. Please don't refuse me yet.
"When I arrived in Paris three days before the signing of the armistice
I was kept waiting there until the day after the celebration. Then I was
told that if I preferred I could stay on in Paris a week or more and go
back home, since now that the war was over, there would be less need for
Red Cross nurses. Yet somehow I managed to plead my cause and the
morning after the armistice I was ordered to report to Dr. Clark at his
hospital near Chateau-Thierry. Probably there would be nurses who were
tired and would now wish to be discharged and sent home. I was told that
a letter had been written Dr. Clark to expect me. There was a very
especial reason why I wished to come to this neighborhood which I would
like to tell you later. Well, I had a fairly difficult journey from
Paris. I was alone and know almost no French. But there was no one to
send with me and even the Red Cross organization relaxed just a little
with the prospect of peace. Nevertheless nothing happened to me of any
importance until I reached the station where I was told some one would
be waiting to drive me to the hospital. There was no one. But the
mistake was mine, because I thought an old Frenchman told me the Red
Cross hospital was only five miles away. At present, knowing my own
failure to understand French I think that he probably said fifteen
miles. However, I feel I must have walked nearer fifty, if I may
exaggerate the actual facts. I kept asking in my best French to be told
the proper direction and thinking I understood and then getting lost.
When I started out from the little French station it was early in the
morning and really not very cold; you must not think I am altogether
without judgment. But now that I am safely here, you will take me with
you to Germany? Just think how far I have traveled for this chance! Your
other nurses have had their opportunity."
Two bright spots of color were at this moment glowing on the girl's
cheeks, her lips and eyes were eager as a child.
Nevertheless Sonya shook her head.
"I am sorry, Miss Jamison, but I'm afraid I can't promise anything. In
the first place, my husband has already made the choice of the Red Cross
nurses who are to form his unit. He selected his staff of nurses and
physicians last night. There is no time for delay. The division of
troops we are to serve leaves before dawn Sunday morning. The Red Cross
units will bring up the rear. We will probably move later on the same
morning. Don't think I am not sympathetic; why you must feel like the
last of our American troops who reached Chateau-Thierry the morning of
the armistice. Major Hersey told me it was difficult to keep them from
fighting, armistice, or no armistice. But you will be able to remain
here at the hospital for a time. We still have a number of the wounded
to be cared for and more than half the staff will stay behind."
The new nurse covered her eyes for a moment with her hands, they were
beautiful nurse's hands, with long slender, firm fingers.
"Mrs. Clark, I haven't any immediate family, the one person I cared for
and to whom I was engaged was killed here in the neighborhood of
Chateau-Thierry at one of the first engagements of the United States
troops. We had planned to do wonderful things with our life together
after the war was past and he was safely home. Now, I haven't the
courage, not for a time anyhow, to go on with what we hoped to do. I
must have work, change, movement. I am very strong, see how quickly I
have recovered from yesterday. To stay here at the hospital and work now
that the war is over would of course be better than going home at once.
But the hospital will be sure to close in a little time and the men sent
nearer the coast so as to be ready to sail as soon as they are able. May
I at least talk to Dr. Clark? Will you ask him to give me a few moments?
I shall be dressed in a little while and can come to his office."
Sonya rose up from her chair and stood hesitating a moment.
There was something in the girl's story, something in her face which was
oddly wistful and appealing. More than an ordinary loss lay behind her
quickly told tragedy.
"Why, yes, I'll speak to Dr. Clark if you desire it and in any case he
will wish to know you have recovered. Yet I am afraid I cannot
truthfully hold out much hope to you. As a matter of fact I have not
personally the least influence with my husband in professional matters.
If I had, well I should like to take you with our Red Cross unit to the
Rhine," and Sonya stooped, obeying an unusual impulse and kissed the new
girl lightly on the forehead before leaving her.