The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army | Page 7

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 into a refuge for the wounded.
The long stone chamber boasted only four small windows hardly larger than portholes and some distance from the ground. These opened with difficulty and were protected by heavy iron bars. But then in Russia in many private houses no window is ever voluntarily opened from autumn until Easter, as the cold is so intense and the arrangements for heating so crude.
Today Mildred wondered if the heavy, sick-laden air was giving her extraordinary fancies. She kept seeing dream pictures. For as she stared about the cold chamber of sorrow she beheld with greater distinctness the image of her own rooms at home.
This was the hour when the maid came to light her yellow-shaded electric candles; then she would put a fresh log on the fire and stir it to brightness, not because the added warmth was needed in their big steam-heated house, but because of