Page:Women Wanted.djvu/138

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WOMEN WANTED

Twelve men on an average died every night and they wrapped them in white sheets for the burial, the Viscountess D'Azy did, daughter of one of the proudest houses of France.

One day the message came that the Germans, sweeping through the nearby village of St. Dié, had denuded the hospital there of all supplies. Would the Viscountess with her influence, the commandant begged, carry a report of their need to Paris. She went to Paris and brought back a truck-load of supplies. She and the driver were three days on the return journey. German shells were again falling on the road to St. Dié as they approached. The chauffeur stopped in terror. "Go on!" commanded the Viscountess. "Go on!" As the car shot forward by her order, a bomb dropped behind them, tearing up in a cloud of dust the exact spot in the road where the car had halted.

Word reached military headquarters of Elizabeth D'Azy's skill in nursing, of her unflinching coolness in the face of all danger. It was decided that the war department had need of her at Dunkirk. The town was under heavy bombardment, receiving between three hundred and four hundred bombs daily. At the barracks hospital, arranged at the railway-station, there were cots for two hundred wounded. Sometimes a thousand men were laid out on the floors. One night there were three thousand. And there was only the Viscountess, who was the commandant, one trained nurse, and some voluntary untrained assistants. For a protection against the Zep-