Nancy Dale, Army Nurse
his shoulder. Nancy held her flashlight so he could see as they made their way toward the exit. She snatched a sheet to use for bandages from one of the berths as she went.

On reaching the platform they found the Pullman was leaning precariously against a clay cut on one side, while the steps on the other were high in air. Flares had already been lighted beside the track, and eager hands reached up to help with the injured woman. Nancy never remembered how she got down herself. Her one idea was to help the little old lady whose wavy gray hair was so like her own mother’s.

“Do you have a pocket knife?” she asked the service man as he was stretching the woman on the ground.

He dug in his trouser pocket and produced one.

“Cut me a splint off some bush or tree,” she ordered. “I’ll have to protect this broken arm till it can be X-rayed and properly set.”

She took off her coat to cushion the gray head. While she waited for the splint she saw that injured people were being brought from the three rear coaches. Just beyond the clay bank which had saved their car from greater damage, she saw that several coaches had overturned and telescoped into a horrible mass of wreckage.

The soldier came back promptly with a good splint from which he was deftly peeling the bark. To Nancy’s surprise he knelt on the ground, and in the light of her flash began to manipulate the broken bone into position. One glance at those skillful fingers and Nancy exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a doctor!”

“Yes,” was all he said as he proceeded to the business of the moment.

“Thank God,” she said earnestly, and began to tear the sheet into bandages.

As she had done numberless times before in the emergency room, Nancy helped bind up the broken arm.

“I see you’ve at least had first aid,” he said as they worked.

“I’m a nurse,” she retorted as tersely as he had informed her he was a doctor.

“There’ll be plenty for us to do tonight,” he told her.

When the arm was set, he lifted the frail woman and carried her out of the cut.


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