It may be just as well that there are crises in human life when one
acts without thinking.
So it was now with Barbara Meade. She did not consider her own danger,
nor perhaps the foolishness of her deed. All she saw was that Dick
Thornton was lying defenseless upon the ground with a rain of shrapnel
descending about him.
It may have been that he was dead and that nothing could further injure
or aid him, but Barbara did not contemplate this. She did not cry for
help nor even turn back for a moment toward the hospital. Quick as a
flash, with the swift movement and decision characteristic of the girl,
she darted from her own place of comparative safety out into the open
field.
The ambulance had overturned slowly so that one-half of it had sunk
down at the side, but in any case the wounded men were safer within
its covered walls than under the angry skies.
It required only a few moments for the girl to reach the prostrate
figure of the American boy. He had not stirred after his fall, so
that Barbara instantly dropped down on her knees beside him and with
a nurse’s knowledge took hold of the limp hand that was lying in the
dust, to count the beating of his pulse. It was so faint she could
hardly be sure of it.
She must find out his injury, and yet first he must be gotten to a
place of greater security.
Curious that Barbara, who had been so fearful of the horrors of war,
should be so fearless now! But it did not occur to her that she was in
equal peril there by the body of her wounded friend. The gun fire which
might again strike him was equally apt to choose her for a victim.
Indeed, the girl’s body partly covered that of the boy as she leaned
over him and seizing him firmly by the shoulders began dragging him
backwards.
If they could get behind the partly overturned ambulance perhaps in a
little while the firing might cease in their neighborhood long enough
for the hospital staff to rescue them.
Barbara set her teeth. If she had been weary a short while before
she had forgotten it now. But Dick was tall and heavy and she was so
stupidly, ridiculously small. However, Barbara made no effort to be
gentle. If Dick had been a log of wood that she had been forced to
bring to a certain spot she would have hauled it in much the same way.
Yet once she believed she heard Dick groan and this was perhaps her one
consciously glad moment, for at least he was alive; before she had not
been altogether sure.
But once behind the wagon, Barbara sat down and drew Dick’s head into
her lap. Gently she pushed the hair back from his face and then from a
little canteen she always carried poured a few drops of water between
his lips. He seemed to swallow them. She could see now that his right
shoulder had been struck and that his arm hung strangely at his side.
There might be other worse injuries, of course, but this one she could
discern.
Then Barbara wiped the grime from her companion’s face with the white
linen cloths she had in her pocket. Only then did the tears start
to her eyes, because the blood which had been stopped by the dirt
encrusting it began to flow afresh. Dick also had a wound across his
face. It did not appear serious, but Barbara had suddenly thought of
Mrs. Thornton’s pride in Dick’s appearance and of what she would suffer
should she see him like this. The girl had a sudden, unreasonable
feeling of resentment against Dick himself. After all, what right had
he to risk his life in this horrible war? He was an American and owed
no duty to another country.
The next instant Barbara realized her own absurdity. Was she not in her
way doing just what Dick had done, only of course far less nobly and
well? And after all, were not men and women fighting for the right,
brothers and sisters in the divinest sense?
When Dick Thornton finally opened his eyes Barbara was crying in
earnest. It was ridiculous and utterly undignified of her. Here she had
done the bravest kind of deed quickly and efficiently, but now that she
should be showing all the calmness of a well-regulated trained nurse,
she had taken to weeping.
Of course, Dick did not return at once to a full understanding of the
situation. For to Barbara’s credit it must be said that while she was
indulging in tears she was also bandaging Dick’s forehead with all
possible skill. It was perhaps the touch of her hands that had awakened
him.
For a moment he gazed at the girl stupidly. But when her work was
finished and his head again rested quietly in her lap, Dick endeavored
to look about him. A movement made him faint with pain, yet he could
turn his eyes without stirring. Vaguely he saw the overturned ambulance
in front of them, heard faint moans on the inside. Then there was the
field. He recalled driving like mad across it and the explosion that
had plunged him out of the car. What had taken place was becoming
fairly clear except for the presence of his little western friend.
What on earth was Barbara Meade doing here in a desperately dangerous
situation? He remembered now having seen her assisting one of the
surgeons inside the hospital tent earlier in the day. At least he
believed he had seen her; there had been no moment then even for
thought.
But what must he do now?
“Barbara,” Dick began with surprising firmness, “you must get out of
this death trap at once. The Lord only knows how you got here! Some one
will look after us as soon as there is half a chance.”
But Dick’s last words were lost. Over in the dust a few feet from the
place where he had first fallen a piece of broken shell fell with a
kind of shriek. Stone and earth shot up in the air like a geyser and
falling again partly covered the young man and Barbara and also the
white sides of the ambulance.
“Don’t talk, Dick,” Barbara returned firmly. “You are right, some one
will look after us as soon as possible.”
Perhaps another five minutes passed, perhaps half an hour; there is no
way of counting time in danger. Now and then a bullet or a piece of
shrapnel passed beyond them or sunk into the earth at no great distance
away. Dick again lost consciousness, Barbara remained almost equally
still. Whatever fate might send they must accept.
But while Barbara Meade had given no thought to the nearness of the
relief hospital and the men and women at work there, when she had made
her swift rush to Dick Thornton’s aid, naturally the overturning of the
Red Cross ambulance had not gone long unobserved.
As everyone except Barbara was at work at the moment of the actual
accident to the car, no one had seen her immediate action. However,
the noise of the explosions so close to them naturally attracted the
attention of the hospital staff. It was unusual, although it did happen
now and then, for the German firing to be directed toward a Red Cross
hospital. Perhaps it was intentional, perhaps a mistake had been made;
one could only accept the fact that war is war.
Through a small telescope one of the hospital surgeons studied the
position of the overturned ambulance a short time after Barbara
succeeded in drawing Dick behind its shelter. Then he became aware that
one of their Red Cross nurses was also beside the ambulance. He could
distinctly see her uniform, even the Red Cross on her arm.
The next moment he called Dr. Milton, who happened to be passing with
Nona Davis on their way to another case.
You may remember that the accident had taken place between a quarter
and a half mile across the fields.
Therefore it was not difficult when Nona’s turn came to look through
the telescope to recognize Barbara Meade. Dick she did not recognize,
but indeed she paid scant attention to the khaki figure on the ground.
Her interest was in her friend.
As soon as possible six volunteers made their way to the ambulance.
Dick was carried safely back to the hospital and the two wounded men
inside the ambulance whom he had been trying to save. Barbara walked
beside them.
A little later, when the firing in the neighborhood had entirely
ceased, the ambulance itself was righted and dragged back to the
hospital for repairs. Fortunately, the car itself had been little
injured.