Nancy Dale, Army Nurse
that spies all over the country were busy trying to get information about the movements of troop trains and transports. She pressed her eyes to the window and looked out at the milling crowd. Then suddenly she saw the blond corporal. He did not get aboard the train, but watched the troops marching down the paved walk between the tracks. Then he turned sharply and hurried back toward the station. The man in civilian clothes was not with him.

Nancy tried to shake off the nagging uneasiness that haunted her even after she was comfortably stretched in her berth, and the train was rushing out across the red Georgia hills. But her interest in what lay ahead was too keen for her to remain depressed. Several times she raised the shade to peep out when the train slowed at small towns where street lights twinkled sleepily, but at last the hum of the wheels lulled her to sleep.

Then suddenly, several hours before dawn, there came a terrific crash and jolt. Nancy caught wildly at the clothes hammock to keep from being hurled into the aisle, as the Pullman crashed to a stop and toppled slightly to the right. Screams and moans were heard above the grinding noises.

Nancy clung to the hammock a moment, too stunned to move. She expected the tilting coach to crash to earth any moment. Lights had vanished beyond the cracks of her curtain. With shaking hands she found her flashlight in the zipper bag left at the foot of her berth. She opened the curtain and turned the light up and down the aisle. Several who hadn’t been thrown from their berths were climbing out, wanting to know what had happened. Groans, curses and cries only added to the confusion.

Then with the speed of a fireman preparing to answer a call to duty, Nancy put on her clothes. Some sure instinct warned her that in a few minutes there would be no time to think of herself. At last her long legs swung down from the berth. Her flashlight showed some people still lying where they had fallen in the aisle. Some actually climbed over them in their frantic haste to get out of the leaning Pullman.

She turned her light on the nearest injured person. It was a gray-haired lady, moaning that her arm was broken. A big man, clad only in his undershirt and army trousers, emerged from his berth.

“Here, give me a hand,” ordered Nancy. “This lady has a broken arm.”

The soldier, who was of powerful build, braced himself against the berth on the lower side, and lifted the stunned old lady to 
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