is station had never been really
and entirely clean. Judged by American standards Continental railway
stations are rarely ever clean, even when conditions are normal. Now
that conditions were anything but normal, this Maubeuge station was
incredibly and incurably filthy. No doubt the German nursing sisters
who were brought here tried at first, with their German love for
orderliness, to keep the interior reasonably tidy; but they had been
swamped by more important tasks. For two weeks now the wounded had been
passing through by the thousands and the tens of thousands daily. So
between trains the women dropped into chairs or down upon cots and took
their rest in snatches. But their fingers didn't reSt. Always their
hands were busy with the making of bandages and the fluffing of lint.

By bits I learned something about three of the women who served on the
so-called day shift, which meant that they worked from early morning
until long after midnight. One was a titled woman who had volunteered
for this duty. She was beyond middle age, plainly in poor health
herself and everlastingly on the verge of collapse from weakness and
exhaustion. Her will kept her on her feet. The second was a
professional nurse from one of the university towns--from Bonn, I think.
She called herself Sister Bartholomew, for the German nurses who go to
war take other names than their own, just as nuns do. She was a
beautiful woman, tall and strong and round-faced, with big, fine gray
eyes. Her energy had no limits. She ran rather than walked. She had a
smile for every maimed man who was brought to her, but when the man had
been treated, and had limped away or had been carried away, I saw her
often wringing her hands and sobbing over the utter horror of it all.
Then another sufferer would appear and she would wipe the tears off her
cheeks and get to work again. The third--so an assistant surgeon
confided to us--was the mistress of an officer at the front, a
prostitute of the Berlin sidewalks, who enrolled for hospital work when
her lover went to the front. She Was a tall, dark, handsome girl, who
looked to be more Spaniard than German, and she was graceful and lithe
even in the exceedingly shapeless costume of blue print that she wore.
She was less deft than either of her associates but very willing and
eager. As between the three--the noblewoman, the working woman and the
woman of the street--the medical officials in charge made no distinct