Later I saw and talked with Nurse Phyllis herself: “We had come in for the worst, for the wounded that were brought on board the ‘Taormina’ had been _sotto le macerie_ for days,” she said. “They were suffering from intolerable thirst and hunger. Oh, the cries for water, the screams of pain, as the poor maimed creatures were brought on board in the arms of the soldiers and sailors. The first day I was detailed to do the dressing of the wounds; later I was ordered down into the hold to assist Dr. Guarneri, the chief surgeon, with the operations. Then my real work began. We worked at the rate of sixty operations a day, all sorts of settings, every conceivable fracture. There was no time to give anesthetics (indeed we had none to give), yet we hardly heard a murmur from these poor lips. We had two extemporized operating tables and two young doctors worked with me under Guarneri. Sometimes it seemed impossible to keep up with the work, to have the dressings and antiseptics ready; but Guarneri is a splendid surgeon, full of energy and enthusiasm, so calm and self-possessed that we worked under him unconscious of time or of fatigue; our hours were from six in the morning till one at night.” There was work for doctors and nurses among the rescuers as well as among the rescued. Many of the brave soldiers and sailors, who had worked with splendid courage and devotion, died from gangrene caused by handling the decomposing bodies; the death of one of these heroes stands clear in the nurse’s memory. A young lieutenant of Bersaglieri was brought on board the “Taormina,” dying from a hemorrhage brought on by his tremendous exertions. “He was conscious to the last,” the nurse said. “We had no time to undress him, so he lay in his uniform and we placed his sword beside him. He was only one of many who laid down their lives!” “I had for my helper,” Nurse Phyllis went on, “a young Roman belle, not twenty years old, with no more knowledge of nursing than a baby. She stood up to her work like a veteran--it was not easy; no American girl of that sort could have done what she did.” Those days on the “Taormina” were not easy days for the Red Cross ladies, but I do not think one of them would be willing to give up the experience they brought. Whatever else was lacking, on board the hospital ship they had splendid surgical skill, for the Italian surgeons are among the best in the world. In this dire emergency the national characteristic, the capacity of working on a spurt, came into play. Soon help came to the “Taormina” from the other ships already on the ground; one sent sterilized gauze, another sent bandages, a third medicines, a fourth a supply of vaseline. “The English Jackies from a neighboring ship,” said Phyllis, “made and sent us a quantity of long white garments for our poor naked patients; they were very primitive, made of a long piece of white cloth with two seams and a hole for the head, but we were mighty glad to get them.”