As soon as Barbara reached the scene of the wreck she turned to seek Nona’s advice and aid. But to her amazement there was no evidence of her companion. Stupidly she continued to stare. It was impossible to conceive what could have become of Nona, yet the last quarter of an hour had been so full of strange happenings that there was small wonder at Barbara’s bewilderment. A moment later, a few yards from where they had first begun to run, she saw Nona’s figure lying in a crumpled heap upon the ground. Yet was it imaginable that this could be Nona? Had she fainted or stumbled? The recollection of the suffocating gas about them really did not occur to Barbara, as she had felt its effects so slightly.
Yet here she stood torn between two duties. Should she return and find out[162] what had happened to her friend or try first to release the man?
Barbara suffered only a brief indecision. Though she may have failed in her first week’s work at the hospital, her training as a nurse now asserted itself. And one of the supreme requisites of the successful nurse is that she use her judgment without unnecessary delay.
Straightway Barbara attempted dragging the unconscious man from his seat in the wrecked aeroplane, it being, of course, out of the question to move the machine itself. But the body felt as heavy and inert as if there were no life inside. Still she tugged, and though so miniature a person her muscles and nerves were for the time at least strong and steady.
The man was tall, an Englishman Barbara guessed him to be, but happily he was thin. Many months devoted to war’s service leaves little flesh upon a soldier, and these modern soldiers of the air bear perhaps the most terrific strain of all.
But once the man’s head was in the open air Barbara knelt beside him. So far as[163] she could discover he did not appear to be wounded; there was no blood upon him anywhere. Holding her smelling salts under his nose, he showed no sign of consciousness. Then she worked his arms back and forth, so as to stimulate the action of the heart, used every first aid method that her three years of study had taught her. This case was unlike any she had ever known. As she worked an idea came to Barbara. Once she recalled a man having been brought into the hospital overcome by the fumes of gas. Such a possibility was absurd with this case and yet the face had the same dark, frightful look.
Nevertheless, Barbara Meade was not in the least hopeless, nor did she for an instant cease to work, though now and then she was forced to glance toward the spot where Nona remained so quiet. What could be the matter? Why did she not come to her aid?
All this, of course, took place in a very few minutes. A little later when Barbara gave another frightened look across the fields, she discovered that Nona had gotten[164] up and was walking toward her. She seemed dizzy and uncertain, but there was evidently nothing serious the matter.
Moreover, there was no time for inquiries, for just as Nona reached her, Barbara’s patient stirred, coughed and struggled to regain his breath. Then for the first time the nurse put her arm about her friend. The air would do more for the stupefied man than she could.
Soon after he opened his eyes and in an incredibly short time pulled himself out from beneath his aeroplane. He then stared in a dazed half-blind fashion at the two girls standing near him in nurses’ uniforms, in the center of a ploughed field.
But war admits of no surprises. Only the two American Red Cross girls had not yet grown accustomed to the possible strangeness of their adventures. Moreover, they were frightened at the appearan............