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قراءة كتاب The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army

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The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army

The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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at this moment. She merely watched and waited, trying to see clearly through the mist in her eyes.

The boy’s broad chest, strong once as a young giant’s, but now with a scarcely beating heart beneath it, quivered with what seemed a final emotion. The same instant General Alexis leaned down and pinned against the white cotton of his rough shirt the iron cross of all the Russias. Afterwards he kissed him as simply as a woman might have done.

That was all! So natural and so quiet it was, Mildred Thornton herself was hardly aware of the significance of the little scene she had just witnessed.

Here in a country where the gulf between the rich and the poor, the humble and the great was well nigh impassable, a single act of courage had bridged it.

What act of valor Peter had performed Mildred never knew. She only knew that it had called from his duties one of the greatest men in Europe, that he might by his presence and with his own hands show homage to the humblest of soldiers.

When the simple ceremony was over the boy lay quite still, scarcely noticing that his general knelt down beside his bed. For his eyes were almost closing.

Neither did Mildred dare move or speak.

Against the walls the other nurses and doctors stood quiet as wooden figures, while the wounded were hushed to unaccustomed silences.

Then the Russian priest began to intone in words which the American girl could not understand, but in a voice the most wonderful she had ever heard. His tones were those of an organ deep and beautiful, of great volume but without noise.

Ceasing, he lifted an ikon before the young soldier’s dimming eyes, and pronounced what must have been a benediction.

The next moment the great stillness had entered the hospital chamber and the Russian boy with the iron cross above his heart lay in his final sleep.

All at once Mildred Thornton felt extraordinarily weary. Backward and forward she could see the big room rise and recede as though it had been an immense wave. The dim light was turning to darkness, when instinctively reaching out her hand touched the back of a chair. With this she steadied herself for the moment. Until now she had not known how tired she was from her vigil, nor how she had been moved by the scene she had just witnessed. After a little she would go to her own room and perhaps Nona or Barbara would be there. But she must wait until General Alexis and the priest had gone away.

The next moment she realized that the great man had risen and was approaching toward her.

Mildred looked wholly unlike a Russian woman. Her heavy flaxen hair, simply braided and twisted about her head, showed a few strands underneath her nurse’s cap. Her face was almost colorless, yet her pallor was unlike the Russian, which is of a strange olive tone. Now and then in her nurse’s costume Mildred Thornton became almost beautiful, through her air of strength and refinement and the unusual sweetness of her expression.

The eyes that were turned toward General Alexis were a clear blue-gray, but there were deep circles under them, and the girl swayed a little in spite of her effort to stand perfectly still.

For several seconds the great man regarded her in silence. Then he stretched forth his hand.

“You are an American Red Cross nurse, I believe. May I have the honor of shaking your hand. I have been told that three young American women are here at our fortress at Grovno helping to care for our wounded. You have traveled many miles for a noble cause. In the name of my Emperor and his people may I thank you.”

The little speech was made in perfect English and with such simplicity that Mildred did not feel awed or surprised.

However, she was not certain how she replied or if she replied at all. She only felt her cold fingers held in a hand like steel and the next moment the great general had gone out of the room.

Immediately after Mildred found herself surrounded by a group of Russian nurses. The Russians are amazing linguists and several of the nurses could speak English. Evidently they were overwhelmed by the honor the American girl had just had bestowed upon her. It had almost overshadowed for the time the greater glory of the young soldier.

An American Red Cross nurse had been individually thanked by one of the greatest commanders in Europe for her service and the services of her friends to his soldiers and his country.

But there was another personal side to the situation which the Russian hospital staff appeared to find more amazing.

General Dmitri Alexis was supposed never to speak to a woman. He was an old bachelor and was said to greatly despise the frivolities of Russian society women.

Incredible as it may seem, there is gossip even inside a great fortress in time of war.

But Mildred’s Russian companions had neither time nor opportunity to reveal much to her at present. As soon as it was possible she begged that she might be allowed to go to her own room. Although she shared it with Nona and Barbara, neither one of them was there at the time.

But instead of lying down at once Mildred wrote a few lines to her mother. She knew that she would be greatly pleased by the attention that had just been paid her. Of course Mildred realized that the General’s thanks were not bestowed upon her as an individual, but as a representative of the United States, whose sympathy and friendliness Russia so greatly appreciated.

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CHAPTER IV

An Encounter

BARBARA had been writing a letter to Dick Thornton. She was seated on the side of her cot bed in a tiny room high up in a tower, with only one small window overlooking the courtyard below.

Although it was well into the twentieth century, this room was just such an one as might have concealed the hapless Amy Robsart in the days of Lord Leicester and Kenilworth Castle. But although Barbara had not to suffer the thought of a faithless lover, at the present moment she was feeling extremely sorry for herself.

Russia had no charms for her as it appeared to have for Mildred Thornton and Nona Davis. She disliked its bleakness, its barbarity and the strange, moody people it contained. Of course she realized that there was another side to Russian life, before the present war its society was one of the gayest in the world. But these days, when the Germans were driving the Russian army backward and even further backward behind their own frontiers, were days for work and silence, not social amusements. Moreover, Barbara knew that she could never expect to have any part in Russian social life when her mission lay among the wounded. So far she had met only other Red Cross nurses, a few physicians and the soldiers who required her care. But really Barbara was not so foolish as to resent these conditions; she was merely homesick and anxious to see Dick Thornton, and if not Dick, then Eugenia.

France had not seemed so far away from the United States and she had loved France and its brave, gay people. She had understood them and their life. Almost she had envied Eugenia her future possession of the old chateau and the little “Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door.” But then Eugenia had seemed to find France as strange and uncongenial as Barbara now considered Russia.

Even after her marriage

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