h the windows could be seen the iron framework on
which the stretchers, three in a tier, were swung.

Halfway down the car a wide window was opened, and two tall
lieutenants, with four orderlies, took their places outside. It was
very silent. Orders were given in low tones. The muffled rumble of the
trucks carrying the soldiers with frozen feet was all that broke the
quiet, and soon they, too, were gone; and there remained only the six
men outside, receiving with hands as gentle as those of women the
stretchers so cautiously worked over the window sill to them. One by
one the stretchers came; one by one they were added to the lengthening
line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was
not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. One great officer, very young,
took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with
marvellous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the
wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher,
without freeing his hands. He was marvellously strong, marvellously
tender.

The stretchers were laid out side by side. Their occupants did not
speak or move. It was as if they had reached their limit of endurance.
They lay with closed eyes, or with impassive, upturned faces, swathed
in their brown blankets against the chill. Here and there a knitted
neck scarf had been loosely wrapped about a head. All over America
women were knitting just such scarfs.

And still the line grew. The car seemed inexhaustible of horrors. And
still the young lieutenant with the tender hands and the strong wrists
took the onus of the burden, the muscles of his back swelling under
his khaki tunic. If I were asked to typify the attitude of the British
Army and of the British people toward their wounded, I should point to
that boy. Nothing that I know of in history can equal the care the
English are taking of their wounded in this, the great war. They have,
of course, the advantage of the best nursing system in Europe.

France is doing her best, but her nursing had always been in the hands
of nuns, and there are not nearly enough nuns in France to-day to cope
with the situation. Belgium, with some of the greatest surgeons in the
world, had no organised nursing system when war broke out. She is
largely dependent apparently on the notable work of her priests, and
on English and Dutch nurses.

When my train drew out, the khaki-clad lieutenant and his assistants
wer