In the meantime Nona was on duty in the convalescent ward. It was the
work that she had been able to attend to with peculiar success ever
since her arrival at the base hospital. This was a duty which many of
the Red Cross nurses liked the least. For the convalescent soldiers
were often like spoiled and nervous children. It was amazing how many
drinks of water they required, how frequently their pillows had to be
turned, how often letters from home had to be read and re-read until
the nurses knew them by heart as well as the patients.
It was a dark, cloudy afternoon when Nona entered the big room and
before she had more than crossed the threshold she became aware of an
atmosphere of gloom and ill-temper.
Daisy Redmond, the English girl with whom they had crossed the Channel,
had been in attendance on the ward before Nona’s appearance and she
seemed bored and annoyed. She was a very good nurse for an ill person,
but too serious and reserved to cheer the convalescent, and on Nona’s
entrance she gave a sigh of relief.
The room, which was used for the soldiers who were on the high road to
recovery from whatever disaster they had suffered, must have been the
refectory or the old dining hall of the convent in the days before the
Franco-Prussian war. It was an oblong room with a high ceiling crossed
by great oak beams. Midway up the walls were of dark oak and the rest
of stone. The floor was of stone and the windows high and crossed
with small iron bars. While they let in the air and sunlight, it was
impossible to see much of the outside world unless one climbed a ladder
or chair. Evidently it had been thought best not to permit the little
French convent maids to seek for distractions even among the flowers
and trees.
So the great room, in spite of its perfect cleanliness, had little
suggestion of gayety or beauty to recommend it at present. The floor,
walls, beds, everything apparently had been scrubbed to the limit of
perfection and were smelling of antiseptics. But there was not a flower
in the room, not a picture, only two long rows of beds each containing
a weary, impatient soldier, longing to be home with his own people or
back at the front with the other Tommies.
Almost anyone might have become discouraged with the prospect of two
hours’ effort in such surroundings, but Nona never dreamed of flinching.
As she went up toward the first bed, the young fellow with his right
arm in a sling who was trying to write with his left hand, used a short
word of three letters. He was a boy who worked in a butcher’s shop in
London. When he saw Nona so near him, he blushed crimson and stammered
an apology.
Nona only laughed. “Oh, I say that myself sometimes, inside of me,” she
whispered. “If it hurts your arm, do let me finish your letter. I’d
like to add a line or two anyhow just to let Addie know you are really
getting well and not trying to encourage her with false hopes.”
The young fellow smiled. It was clever of the little American girl to
remember his girl’s name. He was glad enough to have her end his letter
so that he might lie down again. Besides, he liked to have her sitting
near him, she was so pretty--the prettiest nurse in the hospital in his
opinion. Five minutes after when Nona had finished his letter and made
him comfortable, he sighed to have her leave him. She was only going to
another duffer a few beds away, who had been trying to read and dropped
all his magazines on the floor. With one of his legs in a plaster cast,
he had almost broken his neck trying to fish for them.
So Nona wandered up and down the ward doing whatever was asked of
her. She felt that she was being useful in spite of her lack of long
experience in nursing. But it was amusing the queer things she was
called upon to do.
She was passing one of the cots where a boy lay who had received a
wound in his head. He was not more than seventeen or eighteen, and
was a blue-eyed, fair-haired boy with a mouth like a young girl’s. You
would never have dreamed of him as a fighter; indeed, he had left Eton
to join the army and had never before known a real hardship in his
life. But now a pair of wasted white hands clasped Nona’s skirt.
Looking down she discovered that the bandage had slipped off his
forehead and that his eyes were full of tears.
Nona’s own eyes were dim as she bent toward him.
“Are you suffering again?” she asked gently. “I am so sorry; I thought
you were almost well.”
“It isn’t that,” the boy whispered. “I wouldn’t mind the pain; it’s
only--oh, I might as well say it, I want my mother. Funny to behave
like a cry-baby. I wish I could sleep. I wonder if you could sing to
me?”
At first Nona shook her head. “Why I can’t sing, really,” she returned.
“I have never had a music lesson in my life. I only know two or three
songs that I used to sing to my father way down in South Carolina. I
expect you hardly know there is such a place.”
Then suddenly the boy’s disappointed face made the girl hesitate.
She glanced about them. In the bed next to the boy’s the man she and
Barbara had rescued from the aeroplane disaster lay apparently too
deeply absorbed in a bundle of newspapers to pay the least attention to
them.
By this time he had almost recovered and was enormously impatient to
return to his regiment. It appeared that he was not a regular member of
the aviation corps, but a colonel in command of one of the crack line
regiments. However, he happened also to be a skilled aviator and on the
morning of the accident, having a leave of absence from his command,
had gone up to reconnoiter over the enemy’s lines.
No, Colonel Dalton would pay no attention to her, Nona felt convinced.
He was very quiet and stern and a distinguished soldier, so that most
of the nurses were afraid of him.
“If you’ll try to sleep, why I’ll sing softly just to you, so we need
not disturb any one else,” Nona murmured, kneeling down by the side of
the boy’s cot so that her face was not far from his. “I only know some
old darkey songs.”
Straightway the young English boy closed his eyes. Very quietly in a
hushed voice Nona began to sing, believing no one else would listen.
She chanced to be kneeling just under one of the tall windows and the
afternoon sun shone down upon her white cap, her pale gold hair and
delicate face. If she had known it she was not unlike a little nun, but
fortunately Nona had no thought of herself.
She had only a small voice, but it was sweet and clear.
“All this world am sad and dreary,
Everywhere I roam,
Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary,
Far from the old folks at home.”
Not one, but half a dozen soldiers lay quiet listening to Nona’s song.
She was only aware that the boy for whom she was singing was breathing
more evenly as she sang on and that there was a happier curve to his
lips. In a few moments more, if nothing occurred to disturb him, he
must be asleep.
So Nona did not know that Colonel Dalton, although holding his beloved
London newspaper before his face, had been watching her and that her
old-fashioned song had touched him.
She was slipping away with her patient finally asleep when he motioned
to her.
“It is a wonderful thing you are doing, Miss Davis,” he began in a low
tone, so as not to disturb the sleeper, “you a young American girl
to come over here to help care for our British boys. I want to shake
hands with you if I may, you and that clever little friend of yours,
who helped me out of my difficulty. I shall be away from the hospital
in a few days and back at my post, as I’ve almost entirely recovered
from the effects of the chlorine gas. But later on if I can ever be of
service to you in any way, you are to count upon me. I trust that at
some future day the English nation can show its appreciation for what
the United States has done for us in this tragic war.”
Colonel Dalton spoke with so much feeling and dignity that Nona was
both pleased and embarrassed. Of course, she seemed like a young girl
to him, and yet after all Colonel Dalton could be only a little over
thirty. It must be something in his character or in his history that
gave his face the expression of sadness and sternness. Although his
duties as an officer in the war might already have created the look.
“You are very good,” she murmured confusedly. She was moving away when
she noticed that Colonel Dalton was staring fixedly, not at her, but at
a brooch which she wore fastening her nurse’s apron to her dress.
But probably he was in a reverie and not seeing anything at all!
However, Nona did not have to remain long in doubt. Colonel Dalton
spoke abruptly.
“That’s an extraordinary pin you’ve got there, a collection of letters
isn’t it? I wonder if by any chance it represents the motto of your
own family?”
Nona shook her head and carelessly unclasped the pin. “No,” she
answered, “and I have scarcely been able to find out what the letters
spell. I wonder if you could tell me.”
The man scarcely glanced at the pin. “The letters are ‘Vinces,’ the
Latin for ‘Conquer.’” Then strangely enough Colonel Dalton flushed, a
curious brick-red, which is a peculiarity of many Englishmen.
“It’s a remarkable request I wish to make of you, Miss Davis. But would
you mind parting with that little pin? It’s an odd fancy of mine, but
then every soldier is superstitious and I should like very much to
possess it. Possibly because of the meaning of the word, for the word
‘Conquer’ never meant more in the history of the world than it does to
an Englishman today.”
But Nona had crimsoned uncomfortably and was clutching at her brooch
in a stupid fashion. “I am awfully sorry,” she murmured, “it must seem
ungracious of me, but I value the pin very much. You see, it was given
me by some one----”
“In this country, or in your own?” Colonel Dalton interrupted.
Again Nona hesitated. Suddenly she had become conscious of the unread
letter in her pocket which she had just received from Lady Dorian, and
of the hour of their parting and her bestowal of the pin.
She smiled. “It wasn’t given me in either your country or mine, but
upon the sea.”
Then she walked over to another patient who required a drink of water.