When the beautiful and mysterious nurse whose fame had gone up with
the soldiers into Tilad Pass, arrived with others to take charge
of the Red Cross hospital, on the day following the battle, she
found the man she had been longing to see for many weary, heartsick
months. She found him dying.
To the surprise of the enthralled command, she fell in a dead swoon
when she looked upon the pallid face of Graydon Bansemer. She had
gone eagerly from one pallet to another, coming upon his near the
last. One glance was enough. His face had been in her mind for
months--just as she was seeing it now; she had lived in the horror
of finding him cold in death.
It was Teresa Velasquez who first understood. She knew that
Bansemer's one woman had found him at last. Her heart leaped with
hatred for one brief instant, then turned soft and contrite. If she
had learned to care for the big American herself during the hard
days when he had been so tender, she also had learned that her
worship was hopeless. She had felt his yearning love for another;
now she was looking upon that other. While the attendants were
bending over their unconscious companion, the Spanish girl stood
guard over the man who had been her guardian, the man whose life
was going out before her miserable, exhausted eyes.
Jane Cable stirred with returning life; Teresa was quick to see that
words not medicine would act as the restorative. She went swiftly
to the American girl's side and, clasping her hands, cried sharply
into her half conscious ears:
"He is not dead! He is alive! He needs you!"
The effect was magical. Life leaped into Jane's eyes, vigour into
her body. She recovered from the swoon as mysteriously as she had
succumbed to it. Her sudden breakdown had puzzled her companions.
It is true that she was new in the service; she had seen but little
of death and suffering; but, with all that, she was known to possess
remarkable strength of purpose and fortitude. That she should
collapse almost at the outset of her opportunities was the source
of wonder and no little contempt among her fellow workers. The
words of the strange girl in men's clothing opened the way to smart
surmises. It was not long before everyone in the command knew
that the "beautiful Red Cross nurse" was not wearing the garb of
the vocation for the sake of humanity alone--in fact, it was soon
understood that she did not care a straw for the rest of mankind
so long as Graydon Bansemer needed her ministrations.
Ignoring the principles of the cause she served, she implored the
doctors to confine their efforts to one man among all of them who
suffered; she pleaded and stormed in turn, finally offering fabulous
bribes in support of her demands. For the time being, she was
half crazed with fear and dread, woefully unworthy of her station,
partially divorced from reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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