I was with an English physician one day before he was seasoned. We were
under the bank at Grembergen, just across the river from Termonde. The
enemy were putting over shells about one hundred yards from where we
were crawling toward a machine-shop sheltering wounded men. The _obus_
were noisy and the dirt flew high. Scattered bits of metal struck the
bank. As we heard the shell moaning for that second of time when it
draws close, we would crawl into one of the trenches scooped out in the
green bank, an earthen cave with a roof of boughs.
"Let's get out of this," said the doctor. "It's too hot for our kind of
work. If I had a rifle and could shoot back I shouldn't mind it. But
this waiting round and doing nothing in return till you are hit, I don't
like it."
But that is the very power that women possess. They can wait round
without wishing to strike back. Saving life gives them sufficient
spiritual resource to stand up to artillery. They have no wish to
relieve their nervousness by sighting an alien head and cracking it.
One of our corps was the daughter of an earl. She had all the
characteristics of what we like to think is the typical American girl.
She had a bonhomie that swept class distinctions aside. Her talk was
swift and direct. She was pretty and executive, swift to act and always
on the go.
One day, as we were on the road to the dressing stations, the noise of
guns broke out.
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