That was the thing you were confronted with--woman after woman hurling
herself at the war till spent. They wished to share with men the
hardship and peril. If risks were right for the men, then they were
right for women. If the time had come for nations to risk death, these
women refused to claim the exemptions of sex difference. If war was
unavoidable, then it was equally proper for women to be present and
carry on the work of salvage.
Of a desire to kill they have none. A certain type of man under
excitement likes to shoot and reach his mark. I have had soldiers tell
me with pride of the number of enemies they have potted. It sounds very
much like an Indian score-card of scalps or a grouse hunter's bag of
game. Our women did not talk in these terms, nor did they act so. They
gave the same care to German wounded as to Belgian, French and English
wounded, and that though they knew they would not receive mercy if the
enemy came across the fields and stormed the trenches. A couple of
machine guns placed on the trench at Pervyse could have raked the ruined
village and killed our three nurses. They shared the terms of peril with
the soldiers; but they had no desire for retaliation, no wish to wreak
their will on human life. Their instinct is to help. The danger does not
excite them to a nervous explosion where they grab for a gun and shoot
the other fellow.
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