Margaret Vandercook - The Red Cross Girls with Pershing to Victory

But as usual Sonya Clark's task was looking after the Red Cross nurses, seeing not only that they were in good health, but as happy and contented as possible, giving their best service and in little danger of breakers ahead.

Nevertheless, within forty-eight hours after the passing of the American troops through Luxemburg, it appeared to Sonya that some unexpected change had taken place in her group of Red Cross nurses.

What they were actually ordered to do they did in a fairly dutiful fashion, but the old enthusiasm, the old passionate desire for service had vanished. Among the entire group of nurses a relaxation of discipline had taken place. The excitement of their journey, the knowledge that the war had ended in the allied victory, a natural desire for pleasure after so long a strain, apparently possessed them alike, except Nora Jamison who was comparatively new to the work, and seemed in every way an unusual girl.

Frankly Bianca Zoli confessed to Sonya, not long after their arrival in Luxemburg, that she was weary of the endless waiting upon the nurses and patients and needed a short rest. And Sonya agreed that this was true. Bianca was younger than any member of their Red Cross unit and had been faithful and untiring in her devotion for many months during the final allied struggle for victory. Moreover, Bianca also appeared slightly depressed and Sonya wisely guessed this was partly due to the long separation from Carlo Navara, which Bianca must see was inevitable. With his regiment Carlo was moving toward the Rhine and nothing was apt to be less in his mind for the time being than his friendship for the young girl whom he undoubtedly regarded only in a semi-brotherly spirit composed of indifference and affection.

Since the greater part of the nursing at the temporary hospital in Luxemburg was the care of the soldiers who were ill with influenza, and feeling that Bianca was not altogether in the right state of health to battle with the contagion, Sonya requested Miss Blackstone to permit her to have a half holiday, doing no work that was not voluntary.

But with Nona Davis and Mildred Thornton, the two Red Cross nurses who had given the most valuable personal service, since the outbreak of the war, the situation was more serious and far more difficult to meet.

They did not neglect their duties, this would have been impossible to either of them, and yet in a way it was plain that they were no longer wholly absorbed by them and to use an old expression, their hearts were no longer in what they were doing.

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