The young Belgian soldier who was driving her stopped
his motor and jumped out.
"I do not care to go farther," he said.
Lady ----, who is a skilful driver, climbed to the front seat, drove the
car to the dressing station and brought back the wounded. I have seen
her drive a touring car, carrying six wounded men, from Nieuport to
Furnes at eight o'clock on a pitch-dark night, no lights allowed, over a
narrow, muddy road on which the car skidded. She had to thread her way
through silent marching troops, turn out for artillery wagons, follow
after tired horses.
She was not a trained nurse, but when Dr. Hector Munro was working over
a man with a broken leg she prepared a splint and held the leg while he
set it and bound it. She drove a motor into Nieuport when the troops
were marching out of it. Her guest for the afternoon was a war
correspondent.
"This is a retreat," he said. "It is never safe to enter a place when
the troops are leaving it. I have had experience."
"We are going in to get the wounded," she replied. They went in.
At Ypres she dodged round the corner because she saw a captain who
doesn't believe in women at the front. A shell fell in the place where
she had been standing a moment before. It blew the arm from a soldier.
Her nerve was unbroken, and she continued her work through the morning.
Her notion of courage is that people have a right to feel frightened,
but that they have no right to fail to do the job even if they are
frightened.
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