The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army | Page 7

blue eyes with
their curiously dark brows and lashes watched the younger girl with an
almost wistful affection.
The situation was more than puzzling. Yet, although she grew more
anxious each minute to be away, Nona could only agree to her
companion's request.
For a moment she was left alone in the crude, bare room. It was
cheerless and cold and she grew even more uncomfortable. Surely,
Russia was the strangest land in the world. How could her history as a
young American girl have any connection with it? Why had she so
insisted upon continuing her Red Cross nursing in Russia, when
without her urging the other Red Cross girls would have been content
to remain where they were?
The next moment a very old woman and a man came into the room
with Sonya. There was no doubting they were both peasants. With
them it was not merely a matter of rough clothes. They were both
heavily built, with stupid, sad faces and they mumbled something in
broken English when they were introduced to Nona, eyeing her with
suspicion. It was only when their gaze rested upon Sonya that their
faces changed. Then it was as though a light had shone through
darkness.
Sonya introduced them by name, some queer Russian name which
Nona could not grasp.
However, she was trying her best to find something civil to say in
return, which they might be able to understand, when an unexpected
noise interrupted them.
Some one had unceremoniously opened the door in the hall and was
walking toward them.
For an instant Nona thought she saw a shade of anxiety cross the faces

of her three companions, but the next instant it was gone.
Nona could scarcely swallow a gasp of surprised admiration when,
soon after, the door opened.
A young Russian soldier entered the room. He wore the uniform of a
Cossack: the high boots, the fur cap and tunic.
To Nona Davis' American eyes the young man seemed a typical
Russian of the better classes. He was extremely handsome, more than
six feet tall, with dark hair and eyes and a colorless skin.
He appeared surprised at Nona's presence, but explained that he was
stationed at the Russian fort where a number of wounded were being
cared for. He remembered having seen Nona and her two friends. They
were the only American nurses in the vicinity, so it was not strange to
have noticed them.
Michael Orlaff was the soldier's name. Sonya spoke it with distinctness,
but gave him no title. Yet evidently they knew each other very well.
A moment later and Nona finally got away. She was late and nervous
about returning to the fortifications alone. Yet as she hurried on she
was thinking over the afternoon until her head ached with the mystery
of it. Perhaps it might be wise if she could avoid meeting this particular
group of people again.
CHAPTER III
General Alexis
All that day Mildred Thornton had scarcely left the bedside of her
patient.
For the Russian boy was dying, and as there was no hope for him,
Mildred could only do her best to make him as comfortable as possible.
Now he seemed half asleep, so with her hands folded in her lap the girl

sat near him trying to rest, although unable to keep her mind as quiet as
her hands.
How strange her surroundings! Since her arrival in Europe as a Red
Cross nurse she had lived and worked in two other countries and
certainly had passed through remarkable experiences, yet none of them
were to be compared with these few weeks of nursing in Russia. One
might have been transferred to another planet instead of another land.
As an ordinary American tourist, Mildred had been familiar with
Europe for several years, having spent three summers abroad traveling
with her parents. But this was her first vision of the East, for Russia is
eastern, however she may count herself otherwise.
The American girl now lifted her eyes from the figure of the dying boy
and let them wander down the length of the room which sheltered
them.
An immense place, it held rows on rows of other cot beds with
white-clad nurses passing about among them. When they spoke or
when the patients spoke Mildred could rarely guess what was being
said, as she knew so few words of Russian. Yet she had little difficulty
with her nursing, for the ways of the ill are universal and she had
already seen so much suffering.
Now the hospital room was in half shadow, but it was never light nor
aired as the American nurse felt it should be.
The hospital quarters were only a portion of the fortress, a great room,
like a barracks which had been hastily turned