Some doctors of different regiments thrown together in the havoc of remnants of many organizations, with the help of hospital-corps men, were trying to extricate the wounded from among the dead.  They heard a woman’s voice and saw a woman’s face.  They did not wonder at her presence, for there was nothing left in the world for them to wonder at.  Had an imp from hell or an angel from heaven appeared, or a shower of diamonds fallen from the sky, they would not have been surprised.  Their duty was clear; there was work of their kind to do, endless work.  Units of the broken machine, in the instinct of their calling they struggled with the duty nearest at hand.

“What do you need?  What can I do?” Marta asked.

“Rest, shelter, safety for these poor fellows,” answered one of the doctors.

“There is the house—­our house!” said Marta.

“My God!  Aren’t you men?” bellowed an officer.  “Get away from the road!  Come out here!  Form line!  You—­you; I mean you!”

“You who can walk—­you who aren’t hurt, you cowards, give us a hand with the wounded!” shouted another doctor.

The soldiers were deaf to commands, but they heard a feminine voice above the oaths and groans and heavy breathing and rustle of pressing bodies and thrusting arms; a feminine voice, clear and steadying in that orgy of male ferocity.  It was like a chemical precipitate clearing muddy water.  Their wild glances saw a woman’s features in exaltation and in her eyes something as definite as the fire of command.  She was shaming them for their unmanliness; shaming their panic—­the foolish panic at a theatre exit—­and giving orders as if that were her part and theirs was to obey; a woman to soldiers, the weak sex to the strong.  They did obey, under the spell of the amazing fact of her presence, in the relief of having some simple human purpose to cling to.

After the work was begun they needed no urging to carry the wounded up the terrace steps; and men who had knocked down and trampled on the wounded were gentle with them now, under the guidance of better impulses.  How could they falter directed by a woman unmindful of occasional shells and bullet whistles?  They begged her to go back to the house; this was no place for her.

But Marta did not want safety.  Danger was sweet; it was expiation.  She was helping, actually helping; that was enough.  She envied the peaceful dead—­they had no nightmares—­as she aided the doctors in separating the bodies that were still breathing from those that were not; and she steeled herself against every ghastly sight save one, that of a man lying with his legs pinned under a wagon body.  His jaw had been shot away.  Slowly he was bleeding to death, but he did not realize it.  He realized nothing in his delirium except the nature of his wound.  He was dipping his finger in the cavity and, dab by dab, writing “Kill me!” on the wagon body.  It sent reeling waves of red before her eyes.  Then a shell burst near her and a doctor cried out: