Helene Lamroux's Deliverance from the Burning Hospital and Cozette Charming's Rescue

“The subsequent events remained in Helene’s mind as a sort of realistic dream. She indistinctly remembered the matron hurrying calmly about, giving orders for the removal of the helpless, and indicating where each ward’s contingent should be placed for the greatest degree of safety. ... As voices from another sphere, she heard her name called to return; heard the matron’s voice command her to stop, and the German lad plead to be sent instead. But still Helene hurried on, with but one thought really clear in her dazed brain—“For conspicuous bravery in rescuing wounded comrades,” and back there, somewhere in the burning ward, lay a little innocent child incapable of self aid. ... With an answering cry, Helene gathered the bewildered, fear-convulsed child into her mothering arms. No need now—so reasoned the dazed Helene—to retrace that long path through dangerous hallways. The end of the ward had partially given away, and a small opening was framed by wrecked masonry. Voices of warning and encouragement rose from below. Helene started blindly toward the newly made aperture. stumbled over an upset medicine rack and fell forward out of the opening into the smouldering ruins of what had been a small, detached clinical laboratory. As she fell, she instinctively closed her eyes and clutched Cozette Charming into the protecting crook of her arm and neck. Kind hands quickly rescue! them, but as Helene, cut and burned, drifted into merciful unconsciousness, she muttered half-audibly “For conspicuous bravery, little babies—.” — The Young Woman's Journal 28:9”