“That girl!” he said. “Say, laddie, you couldn’t find a better head in all Europe, including Hoover himself. She’s a Napoleon Bonaparte without his blood-lust. She’s Horatio Nelson and Lord Northcliffe and Nurse Cavell all rolled into one, to produce the organising genius of Eileen O’Connor. Only, you would have to add a few saints like Catherine of Sienna and Joan of Arc to allow for her spirituality. She organises feeding-centres like you would write a column article. She gets the confidence of Austrian women so that they would kiss her feet if she’d allow it. She has a head for figures that fairly puts me to shame, and as for her courage--well, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve sworn to pack her back to England if she doesn’t keep clear of typhus dens and other fever-stricken places. We can’t afford to lose her by some dirty bug-bite.” Eileen came into the room again with another tea-cup and saucer. I counted those on the table and saw three already. “Who is the other cup for?” I asked. “If you are expecting visitors I’ll go, because I’m badly in need of a wash.” “Don’t worry,” said Eileen. “We haven’t time to wash in Vienna, and anyhow there’s no soap, for love or money. This is for Wickham, who is no visitor but one of the staff.” “Wickham?” I said. “Is Brand here?” “Rather!” said Daddy Small. “He has been here a week, and is doing good work. Looks after the supplies, and puts his heart into the job.” As he spoke the door opened and Brand strode into the room, with rain dripping from his waterproof coat which he took off and flung into a corner before he turned to the table. “Lord! a cup of tea is what I want!” “And what you shall have, my dear,” said Eileen. “But don’t you know a friend when you see him?” “By Jove!” He held my hand in a hard grip and patted me on the shoulder. Our friendship was beyond the need of words. So there we three who had seen many strange and tragic things in those years of history were together again, in the city of Vienna, the city of death, where the innocent were paying for the guilty but where also, as Daddy Small said, there was going out a call to charity which was being heard by the heart of the world above the old war-cries of cruelty. I stayed with them only a week. I had been long away from England and had other work to do. But in that time I saw how these three friends, and others in their service, were devoting themselves to the rescue of human life. Partly, I think, for their own sake, though without conscious selfishness, and with a passionate pity for those who suffered. By this service they were healing their own souls, sorely wounded in the war. That was so, certainly, with Wickham Brand, and a little, I think, with Eileen O’Connor.