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diff --git a/31332-8.txt b/31332-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55b5d85 --- /dev/null +++ b/31332-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7903 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Journal of Impressions in Belgium, by May Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Journal of Impressions in Belgium + +Author: May Sinclair + +Release Date: February 20, 2010 [EBook #31332] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tamise Totterdell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A JOURNAL OF +IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM + + + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS +ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + +LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + +TORONTO + + + + +A JOURNAL OF +IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM + +BY + +MAY SINCLAIR + +Author of "The Three Sisters," "The Return of +The Prodigal," etc. + +New York + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1915 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1915 + +BY MAY SINCLAIR + +Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1915 + + + + +DEDICATION + +(_To a Field Ambulance in Flanders_) + + + I do not call you comrades, + You, + Who did what I only dreamed. + Though you have taken my dream, + And dressed yourselves in its beauty and its glory, + Your faces are turned aside as you pass by. + I am nothing to you, + For I have done no more than dream. + + Your faces are like the face of her whom you follow, + Danger, + The Beloved who looks backward as she runs, calling to her lovers, + The Huntress who flies before her quarry, trailing her lure. + She called to me from her battle-places, + She flung before me the curved lightning of her shells for a lure; + And when I came within sight of her, + She turned aside, + And hid her face from me. + + But you she loved; + You she touched with her hand; + For you the white flames of her feet stayed in their running; + She kept you with her in her fields of Flanders, + Where you go, + Gathering your wounded from among her dead. + Grey night falls on your going and black night on your returning. + You go + Under the thunder of the guns, the shrapnel's rain and the curved + lightning of the shells, + And where the high towers are broken, + And houses crack like the staves of a thin crate filled with fire; + Into the mixing smoke and dust of roof and walls torn asunder + You go; + And only my dream follows you. + + That is why I do not speak of you, + Calling you by your names. + Your names are strung with the names of ruined and immortal cities, + Termonde and Antwerp, Dixmude and Ypres and Furnes, + Like jewels on one chain-- + + Thus, + In the high places of Heaven, + They shall tell all your names. + + MAY SINCLAIR. + + March 8th, 1915. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This is a "Journal of Impressions," and it is nothing more. It will not +satisfy people who want accurate and substantial information about +Belgium, or about the War, or about Field Ambulances and Hospital Work, +and do not want to see any of these things "across a temperament." For +the Solid Facts and the Great Events they must go to such books as Mr. +E. A. Powell's "Fighting in Flanders," or Mr. Frank Fox's "The Agony of +Belgium," or Dr. H. S. Souttar's "A Surgeon in Belgium," or "A Woman's +Experiences in the Great War," by Louise Mack. + +For many of these impressions I can claim only a psychological accuracy; +some were insubstantial to the last degree, and very few were actually +set down there and then, on the spot, as I have set them down here. This +is only a Journal in so far as it is a record of days, as faithful as I +could make it in every detail, and as direct as circumstances allowed. +But circumstances seldom _did_ allow, and I was always behindhand with +my Journal--a week behind with the first day of the seventeen, four +months behind with the last. + +This was inevitable. For in the last week of the Siege of Antwerp, when +the wounded were being brought into Ghent by hundreds, and when the +fighting came closer and closer to the city, and at the end, when the +Germans were driving you from Ghent to Bruges, and from Bruges to Ostend +and from Ostend to Dunkirk, you could not sit down to write your +impressions, even if you were cold-blooded enough to want to. It was as +much as you could do to scribble the merest note of what happened in +your Day-Book. + +But when you had made fast each day with its note, your impressions were +safe, far safer than if you had tried to record them in their flux as +they came. However far behind I might be with my Journal, it was _kept_. +It is not written "up," or round and about the original notes in my +Day-Book, it is simply written _out_. Each day of the seventeen had its +own quality and was soaked in its own atmosphere; each had its own +unique and incorruptible memory, and the slight lapse of time, so far +from dulling or blurring that memory, crystallized it and made it sharp +and clean. And in writing _out_ I have been careful never to go behind +or beyond the day, never to add anything, but to leave each moment as it +was. I have set down the day's imperfect or absurd impression, in all +its imperfection or absurdity, and the day's crude emotion in all its +crudity, rather than taint its reality with the discreet reflections +that came after. + +I make no apology for my many errors--where they were discoverable I +have corrected them in a footnote; to this day I do not know how wildly +wrong I may have been about kilometres and the points of the compass, +and the positions of batteries and the movements of armies; but there +were other things of which I was dead sure; and this record has at least +the value of a "human document." + + * * * * * + +There is one question that I may be asked: "Why, when you had the luck +to go out with a Field Ambulance Corps distinguished by its +gallantry--why in heaven's name have you not told the story of its +heroism?" + +Well--I have not told it for several excellent reasons. When I set out +to keep a Journal I pledged myself to set down only what I had seen or +felt, and to avoid as far as possible the second-hand; and it was my +misfortune that I saw very little of the field-work of the Corps. +Besides, the Corps itself was then in its infancy, and it is its +infancy--its irrepressible, half-irresponsible, whole engaging +infancy--that I have touched here. After those seventeen days at Ghent +it grew up in all conscience. It was at Furnes and Dixmude and La Panne, +after I had left it, that its most memorable deeds were done.[A] + +And this story of the Corps is not mine to tell. Part of it has been +told already by Dr. Souttar, and part by Mr. Philip Gibbs, and others. +The rest is yet to come. + + M. S. + + July 15th, 1915. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote A: See Postscript.] + + + + +A JOURNAL OF IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM + + + + +A JOURNAL OF IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM + +[_September 25th, 1914._] + + +After the painful births and deaths of I don't know how many committees, +after six weeks' struggling with something we imagined to be Red Tape, +which proved to be the combined egoism of several persons all +desperately anxious to "get to the Front," and desperately afraid of +somebody else getting there too, and getting there first, we are +actually off. Impossible to describe the mysterious processes by which +we managed it. I think the War Office kicked us out twice, and the +Admiralty once, though what we were doing with the Admiralty I don't to +this day understand. The British Red Cross kicked us steadily all the +time, on general principles; the American snubbed us rather badly; what +the French said to us I don't remember, and I can't think that we +carried persistency so far as to apply to the Russian and the Japanese. +Many of our scheme perished in their own vagueness. Others, vivid and +adventurous, were checked by the first encounter with the crass +reality. At one time, I remember, we were to have sent out a detachment +of stalwart Amazons in khaki breeches who were to dash out on to the +battle-field, reconnoitre, and pick up the wounded and carry them away +slung over their saddles. The only difficulty was to get the horses. But +the author of the scheme--who had bought her breeches--had allowed for +that. The horses were to be caught on the battle-field; as the wounded +and dead dropped from their saddles the Amazons were to leap into them +and ride off. On this system "remounts" were also to be supplied. +Whenever a horse was shot dead under its rider, an Amazon was to dash up +with another whose rider had been shot dead. It was all perfectly simple +and only needed a little "organization." For four weeks the lure of the +battle-field kept our volunteers dancing round the War Office and the +Red Cross Societies, and for four weeks their progress to the Front was +frustrated by Lord Kitchener. Some dropped off disheartened, but others +came on, and a regenerated committee dealt with them. Finally the thing +crystallized into a Motor Ambulance Corps. An awful sanity came over the +committee, chastened by its sufferings, and the volunteers, under +pressure, definitely renounced the battle-field. Then somebody said, +"Let's help the Belgian refugees." From that moment our course was +clear. Everybody was perfectly willing that we should help the refugees, +provided we relinquished all claim on the wounded. The Belgian Legation +was enchanted. It gave passports to a small private commission of +inquiry under our Commandant to go out to Belgium and send in a report. +At Ostend the commission of inquiry whittled itself down to the one +energetic person who had taken it out. And before we knew where we were +our Ambulance Corps was accepted by the Belgian Red Cross. + +Only we had not got the ambulances. + +And though we had got some money, we had not got enough. This was really +our good luck, for it saved us from buying the wrong kind of motor +ambulance car. But at first the blow staggered us. Then, by some abrupt, +incalculable turn of destiny, the British Red Cross, which had kicked us +so persistently, came to our help and gave us all the ambulances we +wanted. + +And we are off. + +There are thirteen of us: The Commandant, and Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird +under him; and Mrs. Torrence, a trained nurse and midwife, who can drive +a motor car through anything, and take it to bits and put it together +again; Janet McNeil, also an expert motorist, and Ursula Dearmer and +Mrs. Lambert, Red Cross emergency nurses; Mr. Grierson, Mr. Foster and +Mr. Riley, stretcher-bearers, and two chauffeurs and me. I don't know +where I come in. But they've called me the Secretary and Reporter, which +sounds very fine, and I am to keep the accounts (Heaven help them!) and +write the Commandant's reports, and toss off articles for the daily +papers, to make a little money for the Corps. We've got some already, +raised by the Commandant's Report and Appeal that we published in the +_Daily Telegraph_ and _Daily Chronicle_. I shall never forget how I +sprinted down Fleet Street to get it in in time, four days before we +started. + +And we have landed at Ostend. + +I'll confess now that I dreaded Ostend more than anything. We had been +told that there were horrors upon horrors in Ostend. Children were being +born in the streets, and the state of the bathing-machines where the +refugees lived was unspeakable. I imagined the streets of Ostend crowded +with refugee women bearing children, and the Digue covered with the +horrific bathing-machines. On the other hand, Ostend was said to be the +safest spot in Europe. No Germans there. No Zeppelins. No bombs. + +And we found the bathing-machines planted out several miles from the +town, almost invisible specks on a vanishing shore-line. The refugees we +met walking about the streets of Ostend were in fairly good case and +bore themselves bravely. But the town had been bombarded the night +before and our hotel had been the object of very special attentions. We +chose it (the "Terminus") because it lay close to the landing-stage and +saved us the trouble of going into the town to look for quarters. It was +under the same roof as the railway station, where we proposed to leave +our ambulance cars and heavy luggage. And we had no difficulty whatever +in getting rooms for the whole thirteen of us. There was no sort of +competition for rooms in that hotel. I said to myself, "If Ostend ever +is bombarded, this railway station will be the first to suffer. And the +hotel and the railway station are one." And when I was shown into a +bedroom with glass windows all along its inner wall and a fine glass +front looking out on to the platforms under the immense glass roof of +the station, I said, "If this hotel is ever bombarded, what fun it will +be for the person who sleeps in this bed between these glass windows." + +We were all rather tired and hungry as we met for dinner at seven +o'clock. And when we were told that all lights would be put out in the +town at eight-thirty we only thought that a municipality which was +receiving all the refugees in Belgium must practise _some_ economy, and +that, anyway, an hour and a half was enough for anybody to dine in; and +we hoped that the Commandant, who had gone to call on the English +chaplain at the Grand Hôtel Littoral, would find his way back again to +the peaceful and commodious shelter of the "Terminus." + +He did find his way back, at seven-thirty, just in time to give us a +chance of clearing out, if we chose to take it. The English chaplain, it +seemed, was surprised and dismayed at our idea of a suitable hotel, and +he implored us to fly, instantly, before a bomb burst in among us (this +was the first we had heard of the bombardment of the night before). The +Commandant put it to us as we sat there: Whether would we leave that +dining-room at once and pack our baggage all over again, and bundle out, +and go hunting for rooms all through Ostend with the lights out, and +perhaps fall into the harbour; or stay where we were and risk the +off-chance of a bomb? And we were all very tired and hungry, and we had +only got to the soup, and we had seen (and smelt) the harbour, so we +said we'd stay where we were and risk it. + +And we stayed. A Taube hovered over us and never dropped its bomb. + + +[_Saturday, 26th._] + +When we compared notes the next morning we found that we had all gone +soundly to sleep, too tired to take the Taube seriously, all except our +two chauffeurs, who were downright annoyed because no bomb had entered +their bedroom. Then we all went out and looked at the little hole in the +roof of the fish market, and the big hole in the hotel garden, and +thought of bombs as curious natural phenomena that never had and never +would have any intimate connection with _us_. + +And for five weeks, ever since I knew that I must certainly go out with +this expedition, I had been living in black funk; in shameful and +appalling terror. Every night before I went to sleep I saw an +interminable spectacle of horrors: trunks without heads, heads without +trunks, limbs tangled in intestines, corpses by every roadside, murders, +mutilations, my friends shot dead before my eyes. Nothing I shall ever +see will be more ghastly than the things I have seen. And yet, before a +possibly-to-be-bombarded Ostend this strange visualizing process +ceases, and I see nothing and feel nothing. Absolutely nothing; until +suddenly the Commandant announces that he is going into the town, by +himself, to _buy a hat_, and I get my first experience of real terror. + +For the hats that the Commandant buys when he is by himself--there are +no words for them. + +This morning the Corps begins to realize its need of discipline. First +of all, our chauffeurs have disappeared and can nowhere be found. The +motor ambulances languish in inactivity on Cockerill's Wharf. We find +one chauffeur and set him to keep guard over a tin of petrol. We _know_ +the ambulances can't start till heaven knows when, and so, first Mrs. +Lambert, our emergency nurse, then, I regret to say, our Secretary and +Reporter make off and sneak into the Cathedral. We are only ten minutes, +but still we are away, and Mrs. Torrence, our trained nurse, is ready +for us when we come back. We are accused bitterly of sight-seeing. (We +had betrayed the inherent levity of our nature the day before, on the +boat, when we looked at the sunset.) Then the Secretary and Reporter, +utterly intractable, wanders forth ostensibly to look for the +Commandant, who has disappeared, but really to get a sight of the motor +ambulances on Cockerill's Wharf. And Mrs. Torrence is ready again for +the Secretary, convicted now of sight-seeing. And I have seen no +Commandant, and no motor ambulances and no wharf. (Unbearable thought, +that I may never, absolutely never, see Cockerill's Wharf!) It is really +awful this time, because the President of the Belgian Red Cross is +waiting to get the thirteen of us to the Town Hall to have our passports +_visés_. And the Commandant is rounding up his Corps, and Ursula Dearmer +is heaven knows where, and Mrs. Lambert only somewhere in the middle +distance, and Mrs. Torrence's beautiful eyes are blazing at the +slip-sloppiness of it all. Things were very different at the ---- +Hospital, where she was trained. + +Only the President remains imperturbable. + +For, after all this fuming and fretting, the President isn't quite ready +himself, or perhaps the Town Hall isn't ready, and we all stroll about +the streets of Ostend for half an hour. And the Commandant goes off by +himself, to buy that hat. + +It is a terrible half-hour. But after all, he comes back without it, +judging it better to bear the ills he has. + +Very leisurely, and with an immense consumption of time, we stroll and +get photographed for our passports. Then on to the Town Hall, and then +to the Military Depôt for our _Laissez-passer_, and then to the Hôtel +Terminus for lunch. And at one-thirty we are off. + +Whatever happens, whatever we see and suffer, nothing can take from us +that run from Ostend to Ghent. + +We go along a straight, flat highway of grey stones, through flat, green +fields and between thin lines of trees--tall and slender and delicate +trees. There are no hedges. Only here and there a row of poplars or +pollard willows is flung out as a screen against the open sky. This +country is formed for the very expression of peace. The straight flat +roads, the straight flat fields and straight tall trees stand still in +an immense quiet and serenity. We pass low Flemish houses with white +walls and red roofs. Their green doors and shutters are tall and slender +like the trees, the colours vivid as if the paint had been laid on +yesterday. It is all unspeakably beautiful and it comes to me with the +natural, inevitable shock and ecstasy of beauty. I am going straight +into the horror of war. For all I know it may be anywhere, here, behind +this sentry; or there, beyond that line of willows. I don't know. I +don't care. I cannot realize it. All that I can see or feel at the +moment is this beauty. I look and look, so that I may remember it. + +Is it possible that I am enjoying myself? + +I dare not tell Mrs. Torrence. I dare not tell any of the others. They +seem to me inspired with an austere sense of duty, a terrible integrity. +They know what they are here for. To me it is incredible that I should +be here. + +I am in Car 1., sitting beside Tom, the chauffeur; Mrs. Torrence is on +the other side of me. Tom disapproves of these Flemish roads. He cannot +see that they are beautiful. They will play the devil with his tyres. + +I am reminded unpleasantly that our Daimler is not a touring car but a +motor ambulance and that these roads will jolt the wounded most +abominably. + +There are straggling troops on the road now. At the nearest village all +the inhabitants turn out to cheer us. They cry out "_Les Anglais!_" and +laugh for joy. Perhaps they think that if the British Red Cross has come +the British Army can't be far behind. But when they hear that we are +Belgian Red Cross they are gladder than ever. They press round us. It is +wonderful to them that we should have come all the way from England +"_pour les Belges!_" Somehow the beauty of the landscape dies before +these crowding, pressing faces. + +We pass through Bruges without seeing it. I have no recollection +whatever of having seen the Belfry. We see nothing but the Canal (where +we halt to take in petrol) and more villages, more faces. And more +troops. + +Half-way between Bruges and Ghent an embankment thrown up on each side +of the road tells of possible patrols and casual shooting. It is the +first visible intimation that the enemy may be anywhere. + +A curious excitement comes to you. I suppose it is excitement, though it +doesn't feel like it. You have been drunk, very slightly drunk with the +speed of the car. But now you are sober. Your heart beats quietly, +steadily, but with a little creeping, mounting thrill in the beat. The +sensation is distinctly pleasurable. You say to yourself, "It is coming. +Now--or the next minute--perhaps at the end of the road." You have one +moment of regret. "After all, it would be a pity if it came too soon, +before we'd even begun our job." But the thrill, mounting steadily, +overtakes the regret. It is only a little thrill, so far (for you don't +really believe that there is any danger), but you can imagine the thing +growing, growing steadily, till it becomes ecstasy. Not that you imagine +anything at the moment. At the moment you are no longer an observing, +reflecting being; you have ceased to be aware of yourself; you exist +only in that quiet, steady thrill that is so unlike any excitement that +you have ever known. Presently you get used to it. "What a fool I should +have been if I hadn't come. I wouldn't have missed this run for the +world." + +I forget myself so far as to say this to Mrs. Torrence. My voice doesn't +sound at all like the stern voice of duty. It is the voice of somebody +enjoying herself. I am behaving exactly as I behaved this morning at +Ostend; and cannot possibly hope for any sympathy from Mrs. Torrence. + +But Mrs. Torrence has unbent a little. She has in fact been unbending +gradually ever since we left Ostend. There is a softer light in her +beautiful eyes. For she is not only a trained nurse but an expert +motorist; and a Daimler is a Daimler even when it's an ambulance car. +From time to time remarks of a severely technical nature are exchanged +between her and Tom. Still, up till now, nothing has passed to indicate +any flagging in the relentless spirit of the ---- Hospital. + +The next minute I hear that the desire of Mrs. Torrence's heart is to +get into the greatest possible danger--and to get out of it. + +The greatest possible danger is to fall into the hands of the Uhlans. I +feel that I should be very glad indeed to get out of it, but that I'm +not by any means so keen on getting in. I say so. I confess frankly +that I'm afraid of Uhlans, particularly when they're drunk. + +But Mrs. Torrence is not afraid of anything. There is no German living, +drunk or sober, who could break her spirit. Nothing dims for her that +shining vision of the greatest possible danger. She does not know what +fear is. + +I conceive an adoration for Mrs. Torrence, and a corresponding distaste +for myself. For I do know what fear is. And in spite of the little +steadily-mounting thrill, I remember distinctly those five weeks of +frightful anticipation when I knew that I must go out to the War; the +going to bed, night after night, drugged with horror, black horror that +creeps like poison through your nerves; the falling asleep and +forgetting it; the waking, morning after morning, with an energetic and +lucid brain that throws out a dozen war pictures to the minute like a +ghastly cinema show, till horror becomes terror; the hunger for +breakfast; the queer, almost uncanny revival of courage that follows its +satisfaction; the driving will that strengthens as the day goes on and +slackens its hold at evening. I remember one evening very near the end; +the Sunday evening when the Commandant dropped in, after he had come +back from Belgium. We were stirring soup over the gas stove in the +scullery--you couldn't imagine a more peaceful scene--when he said, +"They are bringing up the heavy siege guns from Namur, and there is +going to be a terrific bombardment of Antwerp, and I think it will be +very interesting for you to see it." I remember replying with passionate +sincerity that I would rather die than see it; that if I could nurse the +wounded I would face any bombardment you please to name; but to go and +look on and make copy out of the sufferings I cannot help--I couldn't +and I wouldn't, and that was flat. And I wasn't a journalist any more +than I was a trained nurse. + +I can still see the form of the Commandant rising up on the other side +of the scullery stove, and in his pained, uncomprehending gaze and in +the words he utters I imagine a challenge. It is as if he said, "Of +course, if you're _afraid_"--(haven't I told him that I _am_ afraid?). + +The gage is thrown down on the scullery floor. I pick it up. And that is +why I am here on this singular adventure. + +Thus, for the next three kilometres, I meditate on my cowardice. It is +all over as if it had never been, but how can I tell that it won't come +back again? I can only hope that when the Uhlans appear I shall behave +decently. And this place that we have come to is Ecloo. We are not very +far from Ghent. + +A church spire, a few roofs rising above trees. Then many roofs all +together. Then the beautiful grey-white foreign city. + +As we run through the streets we are followed by cyclists; cyclists +issue from every side-street and pour into our road; cyclists rise up +out of the ground to follow us. We don't realize all at once that it is +the ambulance they are following. Bowing low like racers over their +handle-bars, they shoot past us; they slacken pace and keep alongside, +they shoot ahead; the cyclists are most fearfully excited. It dawns on +us that they are escorting us; that they are racing each other; that +they are bringing the news of our arrival to the town. They behave as if +we were the vanguard of the British Army. + +We pass the old Military Hospital--_Hôpital Militaire_ No. I.--and +presently arrive at the Flandria Palace Hotel, which is _Hôpital +Militaire_ No. II. The cyclists wheel off, scatter and disappear. The +crowd in the Place gathers round the porch of the hotel to look at the +English Ambulance. + +We enter. We are received by various officials and presented to Madame +F., the head of the Red Cross nursing staff. There is some confusion, +and Mrs. Torrence finds herself introduced as the Secretary of the +English Committee. Successfully concealed behind the broadest back in +the Corps, which belongs to Mr. Grierson, I have time to realize how +funny we all are. Everybody in the hospital is in uniform, of course. +The nurses of the Belgian Red Cross wear white linen overalls with the +brassard on one sleeve, and the Red Cross on the breasts of their +overalls, and over their foreheads on the front of their white linen +veils. The men wear military or semi-military uniforms. We had never +agreed as to our uniform, and some of us had had no time to get it, if +we had agreed. Assembled in the vestibule, we look more like a party of +refugees, or the cast of a Barrie play, than a field ambulance corps. +Mr. Grierson, the Chaplain, alone wears complete khaki, in which he is +indistinguishable from any Tommy. The Commandant, obeying some +mysterious inspiration, has left his khaki suit behind. He wears a +Norfolk jacket and one of his hats. Mr. Foster in plain clothes, with a +satchel slung over his shoulders, has the air of an inquiring tourist. +Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil in short khaki tunics, khaki putties, and +round Jaeger caps, and very thick coats over all, strapped in with +leather belts, look as if they were about to sail on an Arctic +expedition; I was told to wear dark blue serge, and I wear it +accordingly; Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert are in normal clothes. But +the amiable officials and the angelic Belgian ladies behave as if there +was nothing in the least odd about our appearance. They remember only +that we are English and that it is now six o'clock and that we have had +no tea. They conceive this to be the most deplorable fate that can +overtake the English, and they hurry us into the great kitchen to a +round table, loaded with cake and bread-and-butter and enormous bowls of +tea. The angelic beings in white veils wait on us. We are hungry and we +think (a pardonable error) that this meal is hospital supper; after +which some work will surely be found for us to do. + +We are shown to our quarters on the third floor. We expect two bare +dormitories with rows of hard beds, which we are prepared to make +ourselves, besides sweeping the dormitories, and we find a fine suite of +rooms--a mess-room, bedrooms, dressing-rooms, bathrooms--and hospital +orderlies for our _valets de chambre_. + +We unpack, sit round the mess-room and wait for orders. Perhaps we may +all be sent down into the kitchen to wash up. Personally, I hope we +shall be, for washing up is a thing I can do both quickly and well. It +is now seven o'clock. + +At half-past we are sent down into the kitchen, not to wash up, but, if +you will believe it, to dine. And more hospital orderlies wait on us at +dinner. + +The desire of our hearts is to do _something_, if it is only to black +the boots of the angelic beings. But no, there is nothing for us to do. +To-morrow, perhaps, the doctors and stretcher-bearers will be busy. We +hear that only five wounded have been brought into the hospital to-day. +They have no ambulance cars, and ours will be badly needed--to-morrow. +But to-night, no. + +We go out into the town, to the Hôtel de la Poste, and sit outside the +café and drink black coffee in despair. We find our chauffeurs doing the +same thing. Then we go back to our sumptuous hotel and so, dejectedly, +to bed. Aeroplanes hover above us all night. + + +[_Sunday, 27th._] + +We hang about waiting for orders. They may come at any moment. Meanwhile +this place grows incredible and fantastic. Now it is an hotel and now it +is a military hospital; its two aspects shift and merge into each other +with a dream-like effect. It is a huge building of extravagant design, +wearing its turrets, its balconies, its very roofs, like so much +decoration. The gilded legend, "Flandria Palace Hotel," glitters across +the immense white façade. But the Red Cross flag flies from the front +and from the corners of the turrets and from the balconies of the long +flank facing south. You arrive under a fan-like porch that covers the +smooth slope of the approach. You enter your hotel through mahogany +revolving doors. A colossal Flora stands by the lift at the foot of the +big staircase. Unaware that this is no festival of flowers, the poor +stupid thing leans forward, smiling, and holds out her garland to the +wounded as they are carried past. Nobody takes any notice of her. The +great hall of the hotel has been stripped bare. All draperies and +ornaments have disappeared. The proprietor has disappeared, or goes +about disguised as a Red Cross officer. The grey mosaic of floors and +stairs is cleared of rugs and carpeting; the reading-room is now a +secretarial bureau; the billiard-room is an operating theatre; the great +dining-hall and the reception-rooms and the bedrooms are wards. The army +of waiters and valets and chambermaids has gone, and everywhere there +are surgeons, ambulance men, hospital orderlies and the Belgian nurses +with their white overalls and red crosses. And in every corridor and on +every staircase and in every room there is a mixed odour, bitter and +sweet and penetrating, of antiseptics and of ether. When the ambulance +cars come up from the railway stations and the battle-fields, the last +inappropriate detail, the mahogany revolving doors, will disappear, so +that the wounded may be carried through on their stretchers. + +I confess to a slight, persistent fear of _seeing_ these wounded whom I +cannot help. It is not very active, it has left off visualizing the +horror of bloody bandages and mangled bodies. But it's there; it waits +for me in every corridor and at the turn of every stair, and it makes me +loathe myself. + +We have news this morning of a battle at Alost, a town about fifteen +kilometres south-east of Ghent. The Belgians are moving forty thousand +men from Antwerp towards Ghent, and heavy fighting is expected near the +town. If we are not in the thick of it, we are on the edge of the thick. + +They have just told us an awful thing. Two wounded men were left lying +out on the battle-field all night after yesterday's fighting. The +military ambulances did not fetch them. Our ambulance was not sent out. +There are all sorts of formalities to be observed before it can go. We +haven't got our military passes yet. And our English Red Cross brassards +are no use. We must have Belgian ones stamped with the Government stamp. +And these things take time. + +Meanwhile we, who have still the appearance of a disorganized Cook's +tourist party, are beginning to realize each other, the first step to +realizing ourselves. We have come from heaven knows where to live +together here heaven knows for how long. The Commandant and I are +friends; Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil are friends; Dr. Haynes and Dr. +Bird are evidently friends; our chauffeurs, Bert and Tom, are bound to +fraternize professionally; we and they are all right; but these pairs +were only known to each other a week or two ago, and some of the +thirteen never met at all till yesterday. An unknown fourteenth is +coming to-day. We are five women and nine men. You might wonder how, for +all social purposes, we are to sort ourselves? But the idea, sternly +emphasized by Mrs. Torrence, is that we have no social purposes. We are +neither more nor less than a strictly official and absolutely impersonal +body, held together, not by the ordinary affinities of men and women, +but by a common devotion and a common aim. Differences, if any should +exist, will be sunk in the interest of the community. Probabilities that +rule all human intercourse, as we have hitherto known it, will be +temporarily suspended in our case. But we shall gain more than we lose. +Insignificant as individuals, as a corps we share the honour and +prestige of the Military Authority under which we work. We have visions +of a relentless discipline commanding and controlling us. A cold glory +hovers over the Commandant as the vehicle of this transcendent power. + +When the Power has its way with us it will take no count of friendships +or affinities. It will set precedence at naught. It will say to itself, +"Here are two field ambulance cars and fourteen people. Five out of +these fourteen are women, and what the devil are they doing in a field +ambulance?" And it will appoint two surgeons, who will also serve as +stretcher-bearers, to each car; it will set our trained nurse, Mrs. +Torrence, in command of the untrained nurses in one of the wards of the +Military Hospital No. II.; the Hospital itself will find suitable +feminine tasks for Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert; while Janet McNeil +and the Secretary will be told off to work among the refugees. And until +more stretcher-bearers are wanted the rest of us will be nowhere. If +nothing can be found for our women in the Hospital they will be sent +home. + +It seems inconceivable that the Power, if it is anything like Lord +Kitchener, can decide otherwise. + +Odd how the War changes us. I, who abhor and resist authority, who +hardly know how I am to bring myself to obey my friend the Commandant, +am enamoured of this Power and utterly submissive. I realize with +something like a thrill that we are in a military hospital under +military orders; and that my irrelevant former self, with all that it +has desired or done, must henceforth cease (perhaps irrevocably) to +exist. I contemplate its extinction with equanimity. I remember that one +of my brothers was a Captain in the Gunners, that another of them fought +as a volunteer in the first Boer War; that my uncle, Captain Hind, of +the Bengal Fusiliers, fought in the Mutiny and in the Crimean War, and +his son at Chitral, and that I have one nephew in Kitchener's Army and +one in the West Lancashire Hussars; and that three generations of solid +sugar-planters and ship-owners cannot separate me from my forefathers, +who seem to have been fighting all the time. (At the moment I have +forgotten my five weeks' blue funk.) + +Mrs. Torrence's desire for discipline is not more sincere than mine. +Meanwhile the hand that is to lick us into shape hovers over us and does +not fall. We wait expectantly in the mess-room which is to contain us. + +It was once the sitting-room of a fine suite. A diminutive vestibule +divides it from the corridor. You enter through double doors with muffed +glass panes in a wooden partition opposite the wide French windows +opening on the balcony. A pale blond light from the south fills the +room. Its walls are bare except for a map of Belgium, faced by a print +from one of the illustrated papers representing the King and Queen of +the Belgians. Of its original furnishings only a few cane chairs and a +settee remain. These are set back round the walls and in the window. +Long tables with marble tops, brought up from what was once the hotel +restaurant, enclose three sides of a hollow square, like this: + + ================================== + || || + || || + || || + || || + +Round these we group ourselves thus: the Commandant in the middle of the +top table in the window, between Mrs. Torrence and Ursula Dearmer; Dr. +Haynes and Dr. Bird, on the other side of Ursula Dearmer; the +chauffeurs, Tom and Bert, round the corner at the right-hand side table; +I am round the other corner at the left-hand side table, by Mrs. +Torrence, and Janet McNeil is on my right, and on hers are Mrs. Lambert +and Mr. Foster and the Chaplain. Mr. Riley sits alone on the inside +opposite Mrs. Torrence. + +This rather quiet and very serious person interests me. He doesn't say +anything, and you wonder what sort of consciousness goes on under the +close-cropped, boyish, black velvet hair. Nature has left his features a +bit unfinished, the further to baffle you. + +All these people are interesting, intensely interesting and baffling, as +men and women are bound to be who have come from heaven knows where to +face heaven knows what. Most of them are quite innocently unaware. They +do not know that they are interesting, or baffling either. They do not +know, and it has not occurred to them to wonder, how they are going to +affect each other or how they are going to behave. Nobody, you would +say, is going to affect the Commandant. When he is not dashing up and +down, driven by his mysterious energy, he stands apart in remote and +dreamy isolation. His eyes, when they are not darting brilliantly in +pursuit of the person or the thing he needs, stand apart too in a blank, +blue purity, undarkened by any perception of the details that may +accumulate under his innocent nose. He has called this corps into being, +gathered these strange men and women up with a sweep of his wing and +swept them almost violently together. He doesn't know how any of us are +going to behave. He has taken for granted, with his naïve and +heart-rending trust in the beauty of human nature, that we are all going +to behave beautifully. He is absorbed in his scheme. Each one of us +fits into it at some point, and if there is anything in us left over it +is not, at the moment, his concern. + +Yet he himself has margins about him and a mysterious hinterland not to +be confined or accounted for by any scheme. He alone of us has the air, +buoyant, restless, and a little vague, of being in for some tremendous +but wholly visionary adventure. + +When I look at him I wonder again what this particular adventure is +going to do to him, and whether he has, even now, any vivid sense of the +things that are about to happen. I remember that evening in my scullery, +and how he talked about the German siege-guns as if they were details in +some unreal scene, the most interesting part, say, of a successful +cinematograph show. + +But they are really bringing up those siege-guns from Namur. + +And the Commandant has brought four women with him besides me. I confess +I was appalled when I first knew that they would be brought. + +Mrs. Torrence, perhaps--for she is in love with danger,[1] and she is of +the kind whom no power, military or otherwise, can keep back from their +desired destiny. + +But why little Janet McNeil?[2] She is the youngest of us, an +eighteen-year-old child who has followed Mrs. Torrence, and will follow +her if she walks straight into the German trenches. She sits beside me +on my right, ready for anything, all her delicate Highland beauty +bundled up in the kit of a little Arctic explorer, utterly determined, +utterly impassive. Her small face, under the woolly cap that defies the +North Pole, is nearly always grave; but it has a sudden smile that is +adorable. + +And the youngest but one, Ursula Dearmer, who can't be so much +older--Mr. Riley's gloom and the Commandant's hinterland are nothing to +the mystery of this young girl. She looks as if she were not yet +perfectly awake, as if it would take considerably more than the +siege-guns of Namur to rouse her. She moves about slowly, as if she were +in no sort of hurry for the adventure. She has slow-moving eyes, with +sleepy, drooping eyelids that blink at you. She has a rather sleepy, +rather drooping nose. Her shoulders droop; her small head droops, +slightly, half the time. If she were not so slender she would be rather +like a pretty dormouse half-recovering from its torpor. You insist on +the determination of her little thrust-out underlip, only to be +contradicted by her gentle and delicately-retreating chin. + +In our committee-room, among a band of turbulent female volunteers, all +clamouring for the firing-line, Ursula Dearmer, dressed very simply, +rather like a senior school-girl, and accompanied by her mother, had a +most engaging air of submission and docility. If anybody breaks out into +bravura it will not be Ursula Dearmer. + +This thought consoles me when I think of the last solemn scenes in that +committee-room and of the pledges, the frightfully sacred pledges, I +gave to Ursula Dearmer's mother. As a result of this responsibility I +see myself told off to the dreary duty of conducting Ursula Dearmer back +to Dover at the moment when things begin to be really thick and +thrilling. And I deplore the Commandant's indiscriminate hospitality to +volunteers. + +Mrs. Lambert (she must surely be the next youngest) you can think of +with less agitation, in spite of her youth, her charming eyes and the +recklessly extravagant quantity of her golden hair. For she is an +American citizen, and she has a husband (also an American citizen) in +Ghent, and her husband has a high-speed motor-car, and if the Germans +should ever advance upon this city he can be relied upon to take her +out of it before they can possibly get in. Besides, even in the German +lines American citizens are safe. + +We are all suffering a slight tension. The men, who can see no reason +why the ambulance should not have been sent out last night, are restless +and abstracted and impatient for the order to get up and go. No wonder. +They have been waiting five weeks for their chance. + +There is Dr. Haynes, whose large dark head and heavy shoulders look as +if they sustained the whole weight of an intolerable world. His +features, designed for sensuous composure, brood in a sad and sulky +resignation to the boredom of delay. + +His friend, Dr. Bird, the young man with the head of an enormous cherub +and the hair of a blond baby, hair that _will_ fall in a shining lock on +his pink forehead, Dr. Bird has an air of boisterous preparation, as if +the ambulance were a picnic party and he was responsible for the +champagne. + +Mr. Foster, the inquiring tourist, looks a little anxious, as if he were +preoccupied with the train he's got to catch. + +Bert, the chauffeur, sits tight with the grim assurance of a man who +knows that the expedition cannot start without him. The chauffeur Tom +has an expressive face. Every minute it becomes more vivid with +humorous, contemptuous, indignant protest. It says plainly: "Well, this +is about the rottenest show I ever was let in for. Bar none. Call +yourself a field ambulance? Garn! And if you _are_ a field ambulance, +who but a blanky fool would have hit upon this old blankety haunt of +peace. It'll be the 'Ague Conference next!" + +But it is on the Chaplain, Mr. Grierson, that the strain is telling +most. It shows in his pale and prominent blue eyes, and in a slight +whiteness about his high cheek-bones. In his valiant khaki he has more +than any of us the air of being on the eve. He is visibly bracing +himself to a stupendous effort. He smokes a cigarette with ostentatious +nonchalance. We all think we know these symptoms. We turn our eyes away, +considerately, from Mr. Grierson. Which of us can say that when our turn +comes the thought of danger will not spoil our breakfast? + +The poor boy squares his shoulders. He is white now round the edges of +his lips. But he is going through with it. + +Suddenly he speaks. + +"I shall hold Matins in this room at ten o'clock every Sunday morning. +If any of you like to attend you may." + +There is a terrible silence. None of us look at each other. None of us +look at Mr. Grierson. + +Presently Mrs. Torrence is heard protesting that we haven't come here +for Matins; that this is a mess-room and not a private chapel; and that +Matins are against all military discipline. + +"I shall hold Matins all the same," says Mr. Grierson. His voice is +thick and jerky. "And if anybody likes to attend, they can. That's all +I've got to say." + +He gets up. He faces the batteries of unholy and unsympathetic eyes. He +throws away the end of his cigarette with a gesture of superb defiance. + +He has gone through with it. He has faced the fire. He has come out, not +quite victorious, but with his hero's honour unstained. + +It seemed to me awful that none of us should want his Matins. I should +like, personally, to see him through with them. I could face the hostile +eyes. But what I cannot face is the ceremony itself. My _moral_ was +spoiled with too many ceremonies in my youth; ceremonies that lacked all +beauty and sincerity and dignity. And though I am convinced of the +beauty and sincerity and dignity of Mr. Grierson's soul I cannot kneel +down with him and take part in the performance of his prayer. Prayer is +either the Supreme Illusion, or the Supreme Act, the pure and naked +surrender to Reality, and attended by such sacredness and shyness that +you can accomplish it only when alone or lost in a multitude that prays. + +But why is there no Victoria Cross for moral courage? + +(Dr. Wilson has come. He looks clever and nice.) + +Our restlessness increases. + + +[_11 a.m._] + +I have seen one of them. As I went downstairs this morning, two men +carrying a stretcher crossed the landing below. I saw the outline of the +wounded body under the blanket, and the head laid back on the pillow. + +It is impossible, it is inconceivable, that I should have been afraid of +seeing this. It is as if the wounded man himself absolved me from the +memory and the reproach of fear. + +I stood by the stair-rail to let them pass. There was some difficulty +about turning at the stair-head. Mr. Riley was there. He came forward +and took one end of the stretcher and turned it. He was very quiet and +very gentle. You could see that he did the right thing by instinct. And +I saw his face, and knew what had brought him here. + +And here on the first landing is another wounded. His face is deformed +by an abscess from a bullet in his mouth. It gives him a terrible look, +half savage, wholly suffering. He sits there and cannot speak. + +Mr. Riley is the only one of us who has found anything to do. So +presently we go out to get our military passes. We stroll miserably +about the town, oppressed with a sense of our futility. We buy +cigarettes for the convalescents. + +And at noon no orders have come for us. + +They come just as we are sitting down to lunch. Our ambulance car is to +go to Alost at once. The Commandant is arrested in the act of cutting +bread. Dr. Bird is arrested in the act of eating it. We are all arrested +in our several acts. As if they had been criminal acts, we desist +suddenly. The men get up and look at each other. It is clear that they +cannot all go. Mr. Grierson looks at the Commandant. His face is a +little white and strained, as it was this morning when he announced +Matins for ten o'clock. + +The Commandant looks at Dr. Bird and tells him that he may go if he +likes. His tone is admirably casual; it conveys no sense of the +magnificence of his renunciation. He looks also at Mr. Grierson and Mr. +Foster. The lot of honour falls upon these three. + +They set out, still with their air of a youthful picnic party. Dr. Bird +is more than ever the boisterous young man in charge of the champagne. + +I am contented so long as Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert and Mrs. +Torrence and Janet McNeil and the Commandant do not go yet. To anybody +who knows the Commandant he is bound to be a prominent figure in the +terrible moving pictures made by fear. Smitten by some great idea, he +dashes out of cover as the shrapnel is falling. He wanders, wrapped in a +happy dream, into the enemies' trenches. He mingles with their lines of +communication as I have seen him mingle with the traffic at the junction +of Chandos Street and the Strand. If you were to inform him of a patrol +of Uhlans coming down the road, he would only say, "I see no Uhlans," +and continue in their direction. It is inconceivable to his optimism +that he should encounter Uhlans in a world so obviously made for peace +and righteousness. + +So that it is a relief to see somebody else (whom I do not know quite so +well) going first. Time enough to be jumpy when the Commandant and the +women go forth on the perilous adventure. + +That is all very well. But I am jumpy all the same. By the mere fact +that they are going out first Mr. Grierson and Mr. Foster have suddenly +become dear and sacred. Their lives, their persons, their very +clothes--Dr. Bird's cheerful face, which is so like an overgrown +cherub's, his blond, gold lock of infantile hair, Mr. Grierson's pale +eyes that foresee danger, his not too well fitting khaki coat--have +acquired suddenly a priceless value, the value of things long seen and +long admired. It is as if I had known them all my life; as if life will +be unendurable if they do not come back safe. + +It is not very endurable now. Of all the things that can happen to a +woman on a field ambulance, the worst is to stay behind. To stay behind +with nothing in the world to do but to devise a variety of dreadful +deaths for Tom, the chauffeur, and Dr. Bird and Mr. Grierson and Mr. +Foster. To know nothing except that Alost is being bombarded and that it +is to Alost that they are going. + +And the others who have been left behind are hanging about in gloom, +disgusted with their fate. Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil are beginning +to ask themselves what they are here for. To go through the wards is +only to be in the way of the angelic beings with red crosses on their +breasts and foreheads who are already somewhat in each other's way. +Mrs. Torrence and the others do, however, go into the wards and talk to +the wounded and cheer them up. I sit in the deserted mess-room, and look +at the lunch that Tom and Dr. Bird and Mr. Grierson should have eaten +and were obliged to leave behind. I would give anything to be able to go +round the wards and cheer the wounded up. I wonder whether there is +anything I could conceivably do for the wounded that would not bore them +inexpressibly if I were to do it. I frame sentence after sentence in +strange and abominable French, and each, apart from its own inherent +absurdity, seems a mockery of the wounded. You cannot go to an immortal +hero and grin at him and say _Comment allez-vous?_ and expect him to be +cheered up, especially when you know yourself to be one of a long +procession of women who have done the same. + +I abandon myself to my malady of self-distrust. + +It is at its worst when Jean and Max, the convalescent orderlies, come +in to remove the ruins of our mess. They are pathetic and adorable with +their close-cropped heads in the pallor of their convalescence (Jean is +attired in a suit of yellowish linen and Max in striped flannels). +Jean's pallor is decorated (there is no other word for it) with +blue-grey eyes, black eyebrows, black eyelashes and a little black +moustache. He is martial and ardent and alert. But the pallor of Max is +unredeemed; it is morbid and profound. It has invaded his whole being. +His eyelids and his small sensitive mouth are involved; and his round +dark eyes have the queer grey look of some lamentable wonder and +amazement. But neither horror nor discipline have spoiled his engaging +air--the air of a very young _collégien_ who has broken loose and got +into this Military Hospital by mistake. + +I do not know whether intuition is a French or Belgian gift. Jean and +Max are not Belgian but French, and they have it to a marvellous degree. +They seemed to know in an instant what was the matter with the English +lady; and they set about curing the malady. I have seldom seen such +perfect tact and gentleness as was then displayed by those two hospital +orderlies, Max and Jean. They had been wounded not so very long ago. But +they think nothing of that. They intimate that if I insist on helping +them with their plates and dishes they will be wounded, and more +severely, in their honour. + +We converse. + +It is in conversation that they are most adorable. They gaze at you with +candid, innocent eyes; not a quiver of a lip or an eyelash betrays to +you the outrageous quality of your French. The behaviour of your +sentences would cause a scandal in a private boarding school for young +ladies, it is so fantastically incorrect. But Max and Jean receive each +phrase with an imperturbable and charming gravity. By the subtlest +suggestion of manner they assure you that you speak with fluency and +distinction, that yours is a very perfect French. Only their severe +attentiveness warns you of the strain you are putting on them. + +Max lingered long after Jean had departed to his kitchen. And presently +he gave up his secret. He is a student, and they took him from his +College (his course unfinished) to fight for his country. When the War +broke out his mother went mad with the horror of it. He told me this +quite simply, as if he were relating a common incident of war-time. +Then, with a little air of mystery, he signed to me to follow him along +the corridor. He stopped at a closed door and showed me a name inscribed +in thick ornamental Gothic characters on a card tacked to the panel: + + Prosper Panne. + +Max is not his real name. It is the name that Prosper Panne has taken to +disguise himself while he is a servant. Prosper Panne--_il est écrivain, +journaliste_. He writes for the Paris papers. He looked at me with his +amazed, pathetic eyes, and pointed with a finger to his breast to +assure me that he is he, Prosper Panne. + +And in the end I asked him whether it would bore the wounded frightfully +if I took them some cigarettes? (I laid in cigarettes this morning as a +provision for this desolate afternoon.) + +And--dear Prosper Panne--so thoroughly did he understand my malady, that +he himself escorted me. It is as if he knew the _peur sacré_ that +restrains me from flinging myself into the presence of the wounded. +Soft-footed and graceful, turning now and then with his instinct of +protection, the orderly glides before me, smoothing the way between my +shyness and this dreaded majesty of suffering. + +I followed him (with my cigarettes in my hand and my heart in my mouth) +into the big ward on the ground floor. + +I don't want to describe that ward, or the effect of those rows upon +rows of beds, those rows upon rows of bound and bandaged bodies, the +intensity of physical anguish suggested by sheer force of +multiplication, by the diminishing perspective of the beds, by the clear +light and nakedness of the great hall that sets these repeated units of +torture in a world apart, a world of insufferable space and agonizing +time, ruled by some inhuman mathematics and given over to pure +transcendent pain. A sufficiently large ward full of wounded really +does leave an impression very like that. But the one true thing about +this impression is its transcendence. It is utterly removed from and +unlike anything that you have experienced before. From the moment that +the doors have closed behind you, you are in another world, and under +its strange impact you are given new senses and a new soul. If there is +horror here you are not aware of it as horror. Before these multiplied +forms of anguish what you feel--if there be anything of _you_ left to +feel--is not pity, because it is so near to adoration. + +If you are tired of the burden and malady of self, go into one of these +great wards and you will find instant release. You and the sum of your +little consciousness are not things that matter any more. The lowest and +the least of these wounded Belgians is of supreme importance and +infinite significance. You, who were once afraid of them and of their +wounds, may think that you would suffer for them now, gladly; but you +are not allowed to suffer; you are marvellously and mercilessly let off. +In this sudden deliverance from yourself you have received the ultimate +absolution, and their torment is your peace. + +In the big ward very few of the men were well enough to smoke. So we +went to the little wards where the convalescents are, Max leading. + +I do not think that Max has received absolution yet. It is quite evident +that he is proud of his _entrée_ into this place and of his intimacy +with the wounded, of his rôle of interpreter. + +But how perfectly he does it! He has no Flemish, but through his subtle +gestures even the poor Flamand, who has no French, understands what I +want to say to him and can't. He turns this modest presentation of +cigarettes into a high social function, a trifle ambitious, perhaps, but +triumphantly achieved. + +All that was over by about three o'clock, when the sanctuary cast us +out, and Max went back to his empty kitchen and became Prosper Panne +again, and remembered that his mother was mad; and I went to the empty +mess-room and became my miserable self and remembered that the Field +Ambulance was still out, God knows where. + +The mess-room windows look south over the railway lines towards the +country where the fighting is. From the balcony you can see the lines +where the troop trains run, going north-west and south-east. The +Station, the Post Office, the Telegraph and Telephone Offices are here, +all in one long red-brick building that bounds one side of the _Place_. +It stands at right angles to the Flandria and stretches along opposite +its flank. It has a flat roof with a crenelated parapet. Grass grows on +the roof. No guns are mounted there, for Ghent is an open city. But in +German tactics bombardment by aeroplane doesn't seem to count, and our +situation is more provocative now than the Terminus Hotel at Ostend. + +Beyond the straight black railway lines are miles upon miles of flat +open country, green fields and rows of poplars, and little woods, and +here and there a low rise dark with trees. Under our windows the white +street runs south-eastward, and along it scouting cars and cycling corps +rush to the fighting lines, and military motor-cars hurry impatiently, +carrying Belgian staff officers; the ammunition wagons lumber along, and +the troops march in a long file, to disappear round the turn of the +road. That is where the others have gone, and I'd give everything I +possess to go with them. + +They have come back, incredibly safe, and have brought in four wounded. + +There was a large crowd gathered in the _Place_ to see them come, a +crowd that has nothing to do and that lives from hour to hour on this +spectacle of the wounded. Intense excitement this time, for one of the +four wounded is a German. He was lying on a stretcher. No sooner had +they drawn him out of the ambulance than they put him back again. (No +Germans are taken in at our Hospital; they are all sent to the old +_Hôpital Militaire_ No. I.) He thrust up his poor hand and grabbed the +hanging strap to raise himself a little in his stretcher, and I saw him. +He was ruddy and handsome. His thick blond hair stood up stiff from his +forehead. His little blond moustache was turned up and twisted fiercely +like the Kaiser's. The crowd booed at him as he lay there. His was a +terrible pathos, unlike any other. He was so defiant and so helpless. +And there's another emotion gone by the board. You simply could not hate +him. + +Later in the evening both cars were sent out, Car No. 1 with the +Commandant and, if you will believe it, Ursula Dearmer. Heavens! What +can the Military Power be thinking of? Car No. 2 took Dr. Wilson and +Mrs. Torrence. The Military Power, I suppose, has ordained this too. And +when I think of Mrs. Torrence's dream of getting into the greatest +possible danger, I am glad that the Commandant is with Ursula Dearmer. +We pledged our words, he and I, that danger and Ursula Dearmer should +never meet. + +They all come back, impossibly safe. They are rather like children after +the party, too excited to give a lucid and coherent tale of what they've +done. My ambulance Day-Book stores the stuff from which reports and +newspaper articles are to be made. I note that Car No. 1 has brought +three wounded to Hospital I., and that Car No. 2 has brought four +wounded to Hospital II., also that a dum-dum bullet has been found in +the hand of one of the three. There is a considerable stir among the +surgeons over this bullet. They are vaguely gratified at its being found +in our hospital and not the other. + +Little Janet McNeil and Mr. Riley and all the others who were left +behind have gone to bed in hopeless gloom. Even the bullet hasn't roused +them beyond the first tense moment. + +I ask for ink, and dear Max has given me all his in his own ink-pot. + + +[_Monday, 28th._] + +We have been here a hundred years. + +Car No. 1 went out at eight-thirty this morning, with the Commandant and +Dr. Bird and Ursula Dearmer and Mr. Grierson and a Belgian Red Cross +guide. With Tom, the chauffeur, that makes six. Tom's face, as he sees +this party swarming on his car, is expressive of tumultuous passions. +Disgust predominates. + +Their clothes seem stranger than ever by contrast with the severe +military khaki of the car. Dr. Bird has added to his civilian costume a +Belgian forage cap with a red tassel that hangs over his forehead. It +was given to him yesterday by way of homage to his courage and his +personal charm. But it makes him horribly vulnerable. The Chaplain, +standing out from the rest of the Corps in complete khaki, is an even +more inevitable mark for bullets. Tom stares at everybody with eyes of +violent inquiry. He still evidently wants to know whether we call +ourselves a field ambulance. He starts his car with movements of +exasperation and despair. We are to judge what his sense of discipline +must be since he consents to drive the thing at all. + +The Commandant affects not to see Tom. Perhaps he really doesn't see +him. + +It is just as well that he can't see Mrs. Torrence, or Janet McNeil or +Mr. Riley or Dr. Haynes. They are overpowered by this tragedy of being +left behind. Under it the discipline of the ---- Hospital breaks down. +The eighteen-year-old child is threatening to commit suicide or else go +home. She regards the two acts as equivalent. Mr. Riley's gloom is now +so awful that he will not speak when he is spoken to. He looks at me +with dumb hostility, as if he thought that I had something to do with +it. Dr. Haynes's melancholy is even more heart-rending, because it is +gentle and unexpressed. + +I try to console them. I point out that it is a question of arithmetic. +There are only two cars and there are fourteen of us. Fourteen into two +won't go, even if you don't count the wounded. And, after all, we +haven't been here two days. But it is no good. We have been here a +hundred years, and we have done nothing. There isn't anything to do. +There are not enough wounded to go round. We turn our eyes with longing +towards Antwerp, so soon to be battered by the siege-guns from Namur. + +And Bert, poor Bert! he has crawled into Ambulance Car No. 2 where it +stands outside in the hospital yard, and he has hidden himself under the +hood. + +Mrs. Lambert is a little sad, too. But we are none of us very sorry for +Mrs. Lambert. We have gathered that her husband is a journalist, and +that he is special correspondent at the front for some American paper. +He has a motor-car which we assume rashly to be the property of his +paper. He is always dashing off to the firing-line in it, and Mrs. +Lambert is always at liberty to go with him. She is mistaken if she +thinks that her sorrow is in any way comparable with ours. + +But if there are not enough wounded to go round in Ghent, there are +more refugees than Ghent can deal with. They are pouring in by all the +roads from Alost and Termonde. Every train disgorges multitudes of them +into the _Place_. + +This morning I went to the Matron, Madame F., and told her I wasn't much +good, but I'd be glad if she could give me some work. I said I supposed +there was some to be done among the refugees. + +Work? Among the refugees? They could employ whole armies of us. There +are thousands of refugees at the Palais des Fêtes. I had better go there +and see what is being done. Madame will give me an introduction to her +sister-in-law, Madame F., the Présidente of the Comité des Dames, and to +her niece, Mademoiselle F., who will take me to the Palais. + +And Madame adds that there will soon be work for all of us in the +Hospital. Yes: even for the untrained. + +Life is once more bearable. + +But the others won't believe it. They say there are three hundred nurses +in the hospital. + +And the fact remains that we have two young surgeons cooling their heels +in the corridors, and a fully-trained nurse tearing her hair out, while +the young girl, Ursula Dearmer, takes the field. + +And I think of the poor little dreamy, guileless Commandant in his +conspicuous car, and I smile at her in secret, thanking Heaven that it's +Ursula Dearmer and not Mrs. Torrence who is at his side. + +The ambulance has come back from Alost with two or three wounded and +some refugees. The Commandant is visibly elated, elated out of all +proportion to the work actually done. Ursula Dearmer is not elated in +the very least, but she is wide-awake. Her docility has vanished with +her torpor. She and the Commandant both look as if something extremely +agreeable had happened to them at Alost. But they are reticent. We +gather that Ursula Dearmer has been working with the nuns in the Convent +at Alost, where the wounded were taken before the ambulance cars removed +them to Ghent. It sounded very safe. + +But the Commandant dashed into my room after luncheon. His face was +radiant, almost ecstatic. He was like a child who has rushed in to tell +you how ripping the pantomime was. + +"We've been _under fire_!" + +But I was very angry. Coldly and quietly angry. I felt like that when I +was ten years old and piloting my mother through the thick of the +traffic between Guildhall and the Bank, and she broke from me and was +all but run over. I don't quite know what I said to him, but I think I +said he ought to be ashamed of himself. For it seems that Ursula +Dearmer was with him. + +I remembered how Ursula Dearmer's mother had come to me in the +committee-room and asked me how near we proposed to go to the +firing-line, and whether her daughter would be in any danger, and how I +said, first of all, that there wasn't any use pretending that there +wouldn't be danger, and that the chances were--and how the Commandant +had intervened at that moment to assure her that danger there would be +none. With a finger on the map of France and Belgium he traced the +probable, the inevitable, course of the campaign; and in light, casual +tones which allayed all anxiety, he explained how, as the Germans +advanced upon any point, we should retire upon our base. As for the +actual field-work, with one gesture he swept the whole battle-line into +the distance, and you saw it as an infinitely receding tide that left +its wrack strewn on a place of peace where the ambulance wandered at its +will, secure from danger. The whole thing was done with such compelling +and convincing enthusiasm that Ursula Dearmer's mother adopted more and +more the humble attitude of a mere woman who has failed to grasp the +conditions of modern warfare. Ursula Dearmer herself looked more docile +than ever, though a little bored, and very sleepy. + +And I remembered how when it was all over Ursula Dearmer's mother +implored me, if there _was_ any danger, to see that Ursula Dearmer was +sent home, and how I promised that whatever happened Ursula Dearmer +would be safe, clinching it with a frightfully sacred inner vow, and +saying to myself at the same time what a terrible nuisance this young +girl is going to be. I saw myself at the moment of parting, standing on +the hearthrug, stiff as a poker with resolution, and saying solemnly, +"I'll keep my word!" + +And here was the Commandant informing me with glee that a shell had +fallen and burst at Ursula Dearmer's feet. + +He was so pleased, and with such innocent and childlike pleasure, that I +hadn't the heart to tell him that there wasn't much resemblance between +those spaces of naked peace behind the receding battle-line and the +narrow streets of a bombarded village. I only said that I should write +to Ursula Dearmer's mother and ask her to release me from my promise. He +said I would do nothing of the kind. I said I would. And I did. And the +poor Commandant left me, somewhat dashed, and not at all pleased with +me. + +It seems that the shell burst, not exactly at Ursula Dearmer's feet, but +ten yards away from her. It came romping down the street with immense +impetus and determination; and it is not said of Ursula Dearmer that she +was much less coy in the encounter. She took to shell-fire "like a duck +to water." + +Dr. Bird told us this. Ursula Dearmer herself was modest, and claimed no +sort of intimacy with the shell that waked her up. She was as nice as +possible about it. But all the same, into the whole Corps (that part of +it that had been left behind) there has crept a sneaking envy of her +luck. I feel it myself. And if _I_ feel it, what must Mrs. Torrence and +Janet feel? + +Mrs. Lambert, anyhow, has had nothing to complain of so far. Her husband +took her to Alost in his motor-car; I mean the motor-car which is the +property of his paper. + +In the afternoon Mademoiselle F. called to take me to the Palais des +Fêtes. We stopped at a shop on the way to buy the Belgian Red Cross +uniform--the white linen overall and veil--which you must wear if you +work among the refugees there. + +Madame F. is very kind and very tired. She has been working here since +early morning for weeks on end. They are short of volunteers for the +service of the evening meals, and I am to work at the tables for three +hours, from six to nine P.M. This is settled, and a young Red Cross +volunteer takes me over the Palais. It is an immense building, rather +like Olympia. It stands away from the town in open grounds like the +Botanical Gardens, Regent's Park. It is where the great Annual Shows +were held and the vast civic entertainments given. Miles of country +round Ghent are given up to market-gardening. There are whole fields of +begonias out here, brilliant and vivid in the sun. They will never be +sold, never gathered, never shown in the Palais des Fêtes. It is the +peasants, the men and women who tilled these fields, and their children +that are being shown here, in the splendid and wonderful place where +they never set foot before. + +There are four thousand of them lying on straw in the outer hall, in a +space larger than Olympia. They are laid out in rows all round the four +walls, and on every foot of ground between; men, women and children +together, packed so tight that there is barely standing-room between any +two of them. Here and there a family huddles up close, trying to put a +few inches between it and the rest; some have hollowed out a place in +the straw or piled a barrier of straw between themselves and their +neighbours, in a piteous attempt at privacy; some have dragged their own +bedding with them and are lodged in comparative comfort. But these are +the very few. The most part are utterly destitute, and utterly +abandoned to their destitution. They are broken with fatigue. They have +stumbled and dropped no matter where, no matter beside whom. None turns +from his neighbour; none scorns or hates or loathes his fellow. The +rigidly righteous _bourgeoise_ lies in the straw breast to breast with +the harlot of the village slum, and her innocent daughter back to back +with the parish drunkard. Nothing matters. Nothing will ever matter any +more. + +They tell you that when darkness comes down on all this there is hell. +But you do not believe it. You can see nothing sordid and nothing ugly +here. The scale is too vast. Your mind refuses this coupling of infamy +with transcendent sorrow. It rejects all images but the one image of +desolation which is final and supreme. It is as if these forms had no +stability and no significance of their own; as if they were locked +together in one immense body and stirred or slept as one. + +Two or three figures mount guard over this litter of prostrate forms. +They are old men and old women seated on chairs. They sit upright and +immobile, with their hands folded on their knees. Some of them have +fallen asleep where they sit. They are all rigid in an attitude of +resignation. They have the dignity of figures that will endure, like +that, for ever. They are Flamands. + +This place is terribly still. There is hardly any rustling of the straw. +Only here and there the cry of a child fretting for sleep or for its +mother's breast. These people do not speak to each other. Half of them +are sound asleep, fixed in the posture they took when they dropped into +the straw. The others are drowsed with weariness, stupefied with sorrow. +On all these thousands of faces there is a mortal apathy. Their ruin is +complete. They have been stripped bare of the means of life and of all +likeness to living things. They do not speak. They do not think. They do +not, for the moment, feel. In all the four thousand--except for the +child crying yonder--there is not one tear. + +And you who look at them cannot speak or think or feel either, and you +have not one tear. A path has been cleared through the straw from door +to door down the middle of the immense hall, a narrower track goes all +round it in front of the litters that are ranged under the walls, and +you are taken through and round the Show. You are to see it all. The +dear little Belgian lady, your guide, will not let you miss anything. +"_Regardez, Mademoiselle, ces deux petites filles. Qu'elles sont jolies, +les pauvres petites._" "_Voici deux jeunes mariés, qui dorment. Regardez +l'homme; il tient encore la main de sa femme._" + +You look. Yes. They are asleep. He is really holding her hand. "_Et ces +quatre petits enfants qui ont perdu leur père et leur mère. C'est +triste, n'est-ce pas, Mademoiselle?_" + +And you say, "_Oui, Mademoiselle. C'est bien triste._" + +But you don't mean it. You don't feel it. You don't know whether it is +"_triste_" or not. You are not sure that "_triste_" is the word for it. +There are no words for it, because there are no ideas for it. It is a +sorrow that transcends all sorrow that you have ever known. You have a +sort of idea that perhaps, if you can ever feel again, this sight will +be worse to remember than it is to see. You can't believe what you see; +you are stunned, stupefied, as if you yourself had been crushed and +numbed in the same catastrophe. Only now and then a face upturned (a +face that your guide hasn't pointed out to you) surging out of this +incredible welter of faces and forms, smites you with pity, and you feel +as if you had received a lacerating wound in sleep. + +Little things strike you, though. Already you are forgetting the faces +of the two little girls and of the young husband and wife holding each +other's hands, and of the four little children who have lost their +father and mother, but you notice the little dog, the yellow-brown +mongrel terrier, that absurd little dog which belongs to all nations and +all countries. He has obtained possession of the warm centre of a pile +of straw and is curled up on it fast asleep. And the Flemish family who +brought him, who carried him in turn for miles rather than leave him to +the Germans, they cannot stretch themselves on the straw because of him. +They have propped themselves up as best they may all round him, and they +cannot sleep, they are too uncomfortable. + +More thousands than there is room for in the straw are fed three times a +day in the inner hall, leading out of this dreadful dormitory. All round +the inner hall and on the upper story off the gallery are rooms for +washing and dressing the children and for bandaging sore feet and +attending to the wounded. For there are many wounded among the refugees. +This part of the Palais is also a hospital, with separate wards for men, +for women and children and for special cases. + +Late in the evening M. P---- took the whole Corps to see the Palais des +Fêtes, and I went again. By night I suppose it is even more "_triste_" +than it was by day. In the darkness the gardens have taken on some +malign mystery and have given it to the multitudes that move there, that +turn in the winding paths among ghostly flowers and bushes, that +approach and recede and approach in the darkness of the lawns. Blurred +by the darkness and diminished to the barest indications of humanity, +their forms are more piteous and forlorn than ever; their faces, thrown +up by the darkness, more awful in their blankness and their pallor. The +scene, drenched in darkness, is unearthly and unintelligible. You cannot +account for it in saying to yourself that these are the refugees, and +everybody knows what a refugee is; that there is War--and everybody +knows what war is--in Belgium; and that these people have been shelled +out of their homes and are here at the Palais des Fêtes, because there +is no other place for them, and the kind citizens of Ghent have +undertaken to house and feed them here. That doesn't make it one bit +more credible or bring you nearer to the secret of these forms. You who +are compelled to move with them in the sinister darkness are more than +ever under the spell that forbids you and them to feel. You are deadened +now to the touch of the incarnate. + +On the edge of the lawn, near the door of the Palais, some ghostly roses +are growing on a ghostly tree. Your guide, M. P----, pauses to tell you +their names and kind. It seems that they are rare. + +Several hundred more refugees have come into the Palais since the +afternoon. They have had to pack them a little closer in the straw. +Eight thousand were fed this evening in the inner hall. + +In the crush I get separated from M. P---- and from the Corps. I see +some of them in the distance, the Commandant and Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. +Lambert and M. P----. I do not feel as if I belonged to them any more. I +belong so much to the stunned sleepers in the straw who cannot feel. + +Nice Dr. Wilson comes across to me and we go round together, looking at +the sleepers. He says that nothing he has seen of the War has moved him +so much as this sight. He wishes that the Kaiser could be brought here +to see what he has done. And I find myself clenching my hands tight till +it hurts, not to suppress my feelings--for I feel nothing--but because I +am afraid that kind Dr. Wilson is going to talk. At the same time, I +would rather he didn't leave me just yet. There is a sort of comfort and +protection in being with somebody who isn't callous, who can really +feel. + +But Dr. Wilson isn't very fluent, and presently he leaves off talking, +too. + +Near the door we pass the family with the little yellow-brown dog. All +day the little dog slept in their place. And now that they are trying to +sleep he will not let them. The little dog is wide awake and walking +all over them. And when you think what it must have cost to bring him-- + +_C'est triste, n'est-ce pas?_ + +As we left the gardens M. P---- gathered two ghostly roses, the last +left on their tree, and gave one to Mrs. Lambert and one to me. I felt +something rather like a pang then. Heaven knows why, for such a little +thing. + +Conference in our mess-room. M. ----, the Belgian Red Cross guide who +goes out with our ambulances, is there. He is very serious and +important. The Commandant calls us to come and hear what he has to say. +It seems it had been arranged that one of our cars should be sent +to-morrow morning to Termonde to bring back refugees. But M. ---- does +not think that car will ever start. He says that the Germans are now +within a few miles of Ghent, and may be expected to occupy it to-morrow +morning, and that instead of going to Termonde to-morrow we had very +much better pack up and retreat to Bruges to-night. There are ten +thousand Germans ready to march into Ghent. + +M. ---- is weighed down by the thought of his ten thousand Germans. But +the Commandant is not weighed down a bit. On the contrary, a pleasant +exaltation comes upon him. It comes upon the whole Corps, it comes even +upon me. We refuse to believe in his ten thousand Germans. M. ---- +himself cannot swear to them. We refuse to pack up. We refuse to retreat +to Bruges to-night. Time enough for agitation in the morning. We prefer +to go to bed. M. ---- shrugs his shoulders, as much as to say that he +has done his duty and if we are all murdered in our beds it isn't his +fault. + +Does M. ---- really believe in the advance of the ten thousand? His face +is inscrutable. + + +[_Tuesday, 29th._] + +No Germans in Ghent. No Germans reported near Ghent. + +Madame F. and her daughter smile at the idea of the Germans coming into +Ghent. They will never come, and if they do come they will only take a +little food and go out again. They will never do any harm to Ghent. +Namur and Liége and Brussels, if you like, and Malines, and Louvain, and +Termonde and Antwerp (perhaps); but Ghent--why should they? It is +Antwerp they are making for, not Ghent. + +And Madame represents the mind of the average Gantois. It is placid, +incredulous, stolidly at ease, superbly inhospitable to disagreeable +ideas. No Gantois can conceive that what has been done to the citizens +of Termonde would be done to him. _C'est triste_--what has been done to +the citizens of Termonde, but it doesn't shake his belief in the +immunity of Ghent. + +Which makes M. ----'s behaviour all the more mysterious. _Why_ did he +try to scare us so? Five theories are tenable: + +(1.) M. ---- did honestly believe that ten thousand Germans would come +in the morning and take our ambulance prisoner. That is to say, he +believed what nobody else believed. + +(2.) M. ---- was scared himself. He had no desire to be taken quite so +near the firing-line as the English Ambulance seemed likely to take him; +so that the departure of the English Ambulance would not be wholly +disagreeable to M. ----. (This theory is too far-fetched.) + +(3.) M. ---- was the agent of the Military Power, commissioned to test +the nerve of the English Ambulance. ("Stood fire, have they? Give 'em a +_real_ scare, and see how they behave.") + +(4.) M. ---- is a psychologist and made this little experiment on the +English Ambulance himself. + +(5.) He is a humorist and was simply "pulling its leg." + +The three last theories are plausible, but all five collapse before the +inscrutability of Monsieur's face. + +Germans or no Germans, one ambulance car started at five in the morning +for Quatrecht, somewhere between Ghent and Brussels, to fetch wounded +and refugees. The other went, later, to Zele. I am not very clear as to +who has gone with them, but Mrs. Torrence, Mrs. Lambert, Janet McNeil +and Dr. Haynes and Mr. Riley have been left behind. + +It is their third day of inactivity, and three months of it could not +have devastated them more. They have touched the very bottom of suicidal +gloom. Three months hence their state of mind will no doubt appear in +all its absurdity, but at the moment it is too piteous for words. When +you think what they were yesterday and the day before, there is no +language to express the crescendo of their despair. I came upon Mr. +Riley this morning, standing by the window of the mess-room, and +contemplating the façade of the railway station. (It is making a pattern +on our brains.) I tried to soothe him. I said it was hard lines--beastly +hard lines--and told him to cheer up--there'd be heaps for him to do +presently. And he turned from me like a man who has just buried his +first-born. + +Janet McNeil is even more heart-rending, sunk in a chair with her hands +stuck into the immense pockets of her overcoat, her flawless and +impassive face tilted forward as her head droops forlornly to her +breast. She is such a child that she can see nothing beyond to-day, and +yesterday and the day before that. She is going back to-morrow. Her +valour and energy are frustrated and she is wounded in her honour. She +is conscious of the rottenness of putting on a khaki tunic, and winding +khaki putties round and round her legs to hang about the Hospital doing +nothing. And she had to sell her motor bicycle in order to come out. Not +that that matters in the least. What matters is that we are here, eating +Belgian food and quartered in a Belgian Military Hospital, and +"swanking" about with Belgian Red Cross brassards (stamped) on our +sleeves, and doing nothing for the Belgians, doing nothing for anybody. +We are not justifying our existence. We are frauds. + +I tell the poor child that she cannot possibly feel as big a fraud as I +do; that there was no earthly reason why I should have come, and none +whatever why I should remain. + +And then, to my amazement, I learn that I am envied. It's all right for +me. My job is clearly defined, and nobody can take it from me. I haven't +got to wind khaki putties round my legs for nothing. + +I should have thought that the child was making jokes at my expense but +for the extreme purity and candour of her gaze. Incredible that there +should exist an abasement profounder than my own. I have hidden my tunic +and breeches in my hold-all. I dare not own to having brought them. + +Down in the vestibule I encounter Mrs. Torrence in khaki. Mrs. Torrence +yearning for her wounded. Mrs. Torrence determined to get to her wounded +at any cost. She is not abased or dejected, but exalted, rather. She is +ready to go to the President or to the Military Power itself, and demand +her wounded from them. Her beautiful eyes demand them from Heaven +itself. + +I cannot say there are not enough wounded to go round, but I point out +for the fifteenth time that the trouble is there are not enough +ambulance cars to go round. + +But it is no use. It does not explain why Heaven should have chosen +Ursula Dearmer and caused shells to bound in her direction, and have +rejected Mrs. Torrence. The Military Power that should have ordered +these things has abandoned us to the caprice of Heaven. + +Of course if Mrs. Torrence was a saint she would fold her hands and bow +her superb little head before the decrees of Heaven; but she is only a +mortal woman, born with the genius of succour and trained to the last +point of efficiency; so she rages. The tigress, robbed of her young, is +not more furiously inconsolable than Mrs. Torrence. + +It is not Ursula Dearmer's fault. She is innocent of supplanting Mrs. +Torrence. The thing simply happened. More docile than determined, +unhurrying and uneager, and only half-awake, she seems to have rolled +into Car No. 1 with Heaven's impetus behind her. Like the shell at +Alost, it is her luck. + +And on the rest of us our futility and frustration weigh like lead. The +good Belgian food has become bitter in our mouths. When we took our +miserable walk through Ghent this morning we felt that _l'Ambulance +Anglaise_ must be a mark for public hatred and derision because of us. I +declare I hardly dare go into the shops with the Red Cross brassard on +my arm. I imagine sardonic raillery in the eyes of every Belgian that I +meet. We do not think the authorities will stand it much longer; they +will fire us out of the _Hôpital Militaire_ No. II. + +But no, the authorities do not fire us out. Impassive in wisdom and +foreknowledge, they smile benignly on our agitation. They compliment the +English Ambulance on the work it has done already. They convey the +impression that but for the English Ambulance the Belgian Army would be +in a bad way. Mademoiselle F. insists that the Hospital will soon be +overflowing with the wounded from Antwerp and that she can find work +even for me. It is untrue that there are three hundred nurses in the +Hospital. There are only three hundred nurses in all Belgium. They pile +it on so that we are more depressed than ever. + +Janet McNeil is convinced that they think we are no good and that they +are just being angels to us because they are sorry for us. + +I break it to them very gently that I've volunteered to serve at the +tables at the Palais des Fêtes. I feel as if I had sneaked into a +remunerative job while my comrades are starving. + +The Commandant is not quite as pleased as I thought he would be to hear +of my engagement at the Palais des Fêtes. He says, "It is not your +work." I insist that my work is to do anything I can do; and that if I +cannot dress wounds I can at least hand round bread and pour out coffee +and wash up dishes. It is true that I am Secretary and Reporter and (for +the time being) Treasurer to the Ambulance, and that I carry its funds +in a leather purse belt round my body. Because I am the smallest and +weakest member of the Corps that is the most unlikely place for the +funds to be. It was imprudent, to say the least of it, for the Chaplain +in his khaki, to carry them, as he did, into the firing-line. The belt, +which fitted the Chaplain, hangs about half a yard below my waist and is +extremely uncomfortable, but that is neither here nor there. Keeping the +Corps' accounts only takes two hours and a half, even with Belgian and +English money mixed, and when I've added the same column of figures ten +times up and ten times down, to make certain it's all right (I am no +good at accounts, but I know my weakness and guard against it, giving +the Corps the benefit of every doubt and making good every deficit out +of my private purse). Writing the Day-Book--perhaps half an hour. The +Commandant's correspondence, when he has any, and reporting to the +British Red Cross Society, when there is anything to report, another +half-hour at the outside; and there you have only three and a half hours +employed out of the twenty-four, even if I balanced my accounts every +day, and I don't. + +True that _The Daily Chronicle_ promised to take any articles that I +might send them from the front, but I haven't written any. You cannot +write articles for _The Daily Chronicle_ out of nothing; at least I +can't. + +The Commandant finally yields to argument and entreaty. + + * * * * * + +I do not tell him that what I really want to do is to go out with the +Field Ambulance, and get beyond the turn of that road. + +I know I haven't the ghost of a chance; I know that if I had--as things +stand at present--not being a surgeon or a trained nurse, I wouldn't +take it, even to get there. And at the same time I know, with a superior +certainty, that this unlikely thing will happen. This sense of certainty +is not at all uncommon, but it is, or seems, unintelligible. You can +only conceive it as a premonition of some unavoidable event. It is as if +something had been looking for you, waiting for you, from all eternity +out here; something that you have been looking for; and, when you are +getting near, it begins calling to you; it draws your heart out to it +all day long. You can give no account of it. All that you know about it +is that it is unique. It has nothing to do with your ordinary +curiosities and interests and loves; nothing to do with the thirst for +experience, or for adventure, or for glory, or for the thrill. You can't +"get" anything out of it. It is something hidden and secret and +supremely urgent. Its urgency, indeed, is so great that if you miss it +you will have missed reality itself. + +For me this uncanny anticipation is somehow connected with the turn of +the south-east road. I do not see how I am ever going to get there or +anywhere near there. But I am not uneasy or impatient any more. There is +no hurry. The thing, whatever it is, will be irresistible, and if I +don't go out to find it, it will find me. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Torrence has gone, Heaven knows where. She has not been with the +others at the Palais des Fêtes. Janet McNeil and Mrs. Lambert have been +working there for five hours, serving meals to the refugees. Ursula +Dearmer with extreme docility has been working all the afternoon with +the nurses. + +It looks as if we were beginning to settle down. + +Mrs. Torrence has come back. The red German pom-pom has gone from her +cap and she wears the badge of the Belgian Motor Cyclist Corps, black +wings on a white ground. Providence has rehabilitated himself. He has +abased our trained nurse and expert motorist in order to exalt her. He +fairly flung her in the path of the Colonel of (I think) the Belgian +Motor Cyclist Corps at a moment when the Colonel found himself in a +jibbing motor-car without a chauffeur. We gather that the Colonel was +becoming hectic with blasphemy when she appeared and settled the little +difficulty between him and his car. She seems to have followed it up by +driving him then and there straight up to the firing-line to look for +wounded. + +End of the adventure--she volunteered her services as chauffeur to the +Colonel and was accepted. + +The Commandant has received the news with imperturbable optimism. + +As for her, she is appeased. She will realize her valorous dream of "the +greatest possible danger;" and she will get to her wounded. + +The others have come back too. They have toiled for five hours among the +refugees. + + +[_5.30._] + +It is my turn now at the Palais des Fêtes. + +It took ages to get in. The dining-hall is narrower than the +sleeping-hall, but it extends beyond it on one side where there is a +large door opening on the garden. But this door is closed to the public. +You can only reach the dining-hall by going through the straw among the +sleepers. And at this point the Commandant's optimism has broken down. +He won't let you go in through the straw, and the clerk who controls the +entry won't let you go in through the other door. You explain to the +clerk that the English Ambulance being quartered in a Military Hospital, +its rules are inviolable; it is not allowed to expose itself to the +horrors of the straw. The clerk is not interested in the English +Ambulance, he is not impressed by the fact that it has volunteered its +priceless services to the Refugee Committee, and he is contemptuous of +the orders of its Commandant. His business is to see that you go into +the Palais through _his_ door and not through any other door. And when +you tell him that if he will not withdraw his regulations the Ambulance +will be compelled to withdraw its services, he replies with delicious +sarcasm, "_Nous n'avons pas prévu ça_." In the end you are referred to +the Secretary in his bureau. He grasps the situation and is urbanity +itself. Provided with a special permit bearing his sacred signature, you +are admitted by the other door. + +Your passage to the _Vestiaire_ takes you through the infants' room and +along the galleries past the wards. The crowd of refugees is so great +that beds have been put up in the galleries. You take off your outer +garments and put on the Belgian Red Cross uniform (you have realized by +this time that your charming white overall and veil are sanitary +precautions). + +Coming down the wide wooden stairways you have a full view of the Inner +Hall. This enormous oblong space below the galleries is the heart, the +fervid central _foyer_ of the Palais des Fêtes. At either end of it is +an immense auditorium, tier above tier of seats, rising towards the +gallery floors. All down each side of it, standards with triumphal +devices are tilted from the balustrade. Banners hang from the rafters. + +And under them, down the whole length of the hall from auditorium to +auditorium, the tables are set out. Bare wooden tables, one after +another, more tables than you can count. + +From the door of the sleeping-hall to each auditorium, and from each +auditorium down the line of the tables a gangway is roped off for the +passage of the refugees. + +They say there are ten thousand five hundred here to-night. Beyond the +rope-line, along the inner hall, more straw has been laid down to bed +the overflow from the outer hall. They come on in relays to be fed. They +are marshalled first into the seats of each auditorium, where they sit +like the spectators of some monstrous festival and wait for their turn +at the tables. + +This, the long procession of people streaming in without haste, in +perfect order and submission, is heart-rending if you like. The +immensity of the crowd no longer overpowers you. The barriers make it a +steady procession, a credible spectacle. You can take it in. It is the +thin end of the wedge in your heart. They come on so slowly that you can +count them as they come. They have sorted themselves out. The fathers +and the mothers are together, they lead their little children by the +hand or push them gently before them. There is no anticipation in their +eyes; no eagerness and no impatience in their bearing. They do not +hustle each other or scramble for their places. It is their silence and +submission that you cannot stand. + +For you have a moment of dreadful inactivity after the setting of the +tables for the _premier service_. You have filled your bowls with black +coffee; somebody else has laid the slices of white bread on the bare +tables. You have nothing to do but stand still and see them file in to +the banquet. On the banners and standards from the roof and balustrades +the Lion of Flanders ramps over their heads. And somewhere in the back +of your brain a song sings itself to a tune that something in your brain +wakes up: + + _Ils ne vont pas dompter + Le vieux lion de Flandres, + Tant que le lion a des dents, + Tant que le lion peut griffer._ + +It is the song the Belgian soldiers sang as they marched to battle in +the first week of August. It is only the end of September now. + +And somebody standing beside you says: "_C'est triste, n'est-ce pas?_" + +You cannot look any more. + +At the canteen the men are pouring out coffee from enormous enamelled +jugs into the small jugs that the waitresses bring. This wastes your +time and cools the coffee. So you take a big jug from the men. It seems +to you no heavier than an ordinary teapot. And you run with it. To carry +the largest possible jug at the swiftest possible pace is your only +chance of keeping sane. (It isn't till it is all over that you hear the +whisper of "_Anglaise!_" and realize how very far from sane you must +have looked running round with your enormous jug.) You can fill up the +coffee bowls again--the little bowls full, the big bowls only half full; +there is more than enough coffee to go round. But there is no milk +except for the babies. And when they ask you for more bread there is not +enough to go twice round. The ration is now two slices of dry bread and +a bowl of black coffee three times a day. Till yesterday there was an +allowance of meat for soup at the mid-day meal; to-day the army has +commandeered all the meat. + +But you needn't stand still any more. After the first service the bowls +have to be cleared from the tables and washed and laid ready for the +next. Round the great wooden tubs there is a frightful competition. It +is who can wash and dry and carry back the quickest. You contend with +brawny Flemish women for the first dip into the tub and the driest +towel. Then you race round the tables with your pile of crockery, and +then with your jug, and so on over and over again for three hours, till +the last relay is fed and the tables are deserted. You wash up again and +it is all over for you till six o'clock to-morrow evening. + +You go back to your mess-room and a ten-o'clock supper of cold coffee +and sandwiches and Belgian current loaf eaten with butter. And in a +nightmare afterwards Belgian refugees gather round you and pluck at your +sleeve and cry to you for more bread: "_Une petite tranche de pain, s'il +vous plaît, mademoiselle!_" + + +[_Wednesday, 30th._] + +No Germans, nor sign of Germans yet. + +Fighting is reported at Saint Nicolas, between Antwerp and Ghent. The +Commandant has an idea. He says that if the Belgian Army has to meet the +Germans at Saint Nicolas, so as to cut off their advance on Antwerp, the +base hospital must be removed from Ghent to some centre or point which +will bring the Ambulance behind the Belgian lines. He thinks that +working from Ghent would necessarily bring it behind the German lines. +This is assuming that the Germans coming up from the south-east will cut +in between Saint Nicolas and Ghent. + +He consults the President, who apparently thinks that the base hospital +will do very well where it is. + + +[_2.30._] + +Mrs. Torrence brought her Colonel in to lunch. He is battered and +grizzled, but still a fine figure in the dark-green uniform of the Motor +Cyclist Corps. He is very polite and gallant _à la belge_ and vows that +he has taken on Mrs. Torrence _pour toujours, pour la vie_! She diverts +the flow of urbanity adroitly. + +Except the Colonel nothing noteworthy seems to have occurred to-day. The +three hours at the Palais des Fêtes were like the three hours last +night. + + +[_Thursday, October 1st._] + +It really isn't safe for the Commandant to go out with Ursula Dearmer. +For her luck in the matter of bombardments continues. (He might just as +well be with Mrs. Torrence.) They have been at Termonde. What is more, +it was Ursula Dearmer who got them through, in spite of the medical +military officer whose vigorous efforts stopped them at the barrier. He +seems at one point to have shown weakness and given them leave to go on +a little way up the road; and the little way seems to have carried them +out of his sight and onward till they encountered the Colonel (or it may +have been a General) in command. The Colonel (or the General) seems to +have broken down very badly, for the car and Ursula Dearmer and the +Commandant went on towards Termonde. Young Haynes was with them this +time, and on the way they had picked up Mr. G. L----, War Correspondent +to the _Daily Mail_ and _Westminster_. They left the car behind +somewhere in a safe place where the fire from the machine-guns couldn't +reach it. There is a street or a road--I can't make out whether it is +inside or outside the town; it leads straight to the bridge over the +river, which is about as wide there as the Thames at Westminster. The +bridge is the key to the position; it has been blown up and built again +several times in the course of the War, and the Germans are now +entrenched beyond it. The road had been raked by their _mitrailleuses_ +the day before. + +It seems to have struck the four simultaneously that it would be quite a +good thing to walk down this road on the off-chance of the machine-guns +opening fire again. The tale told by the Commandant evokes an awful +vision of them walking down it, four abreast, the Commandant and Mr. G. +L---- on the outside, fairly under shelter, and Ursula Dearmer and young +Haynes a little in front of them down the middle, where the fire comes, +when it does come. This spectacle seems to have shaken the Commandant in +his view of bombarded towns as suitable places of amusement for young +girls. Young Haynes ought to have known better. You tell him that as +long as the world endures young Haynes will be young Haynes, and if +there is danger in the middle of the road, it is there that he will walk +by preference. And as no young woman of modern times is going to let +herself be outdone by young Haynes, you must expect to find Ursula +Dearmer in the middle of the road too. You cannot suppress this +competitive heroism of young people. The roots strike too deep down in +human nature. In the modern young man and woman competitive heroism has +completely forgotten its origin and is now an end in itself. + +And if it comes to that--how about Alost? + +At the mention of Alost the Commandant's face becomes childlike again in +its utter simplicity and innocence and candour. Alost was a very +different thing. Looking for shells at Alost, you understand, was like +looking for shells on the seashore. At Alost Ursula Dearmer was in no +sort of danger. For at Alost she was under the Commandant's wing (young +Haynes hasn't got any wings, only legs to walk into the line of fire +on). He explains very carefully that he took her under his wing +_because_ she is a young girl and he feels responsible for her to her +mother. + +(Which, oddly enough, is just how _I_ feel!) + +As for young Haynes, I suppose he would plead that when he and Ursula +Dearmer walked down the middle of the road there was no firing. + +That seems to have been young Haynes's particular good fortune. I have +now a perfect obsession of responsibility. I see, in one dreadful vision +after another, the things that must happen to Ursula Dearmer under the +Commandant's wing, and to young Haynes and the Commandant under Ursula +Dearmer's. + +No wounded were found, this time, at Termonde. + +This little _contretemps_ with the Commandant has made me forget to +record a far more notable event. Mrs. Torrence brought young Lieutenant +G---- in to luncheon. He is the hero of the Belgian Motor Cyclist Corps. +He is said to have accounted for nine Germans with his own rifle in one +morning. The Corps has already intimated that this is the first +well-defined specimen of a man it has yet seen in Belgium. His +dark-green uniform fits him exceedingly well. He is tall and handsome. +Drenched in the glamour of the greatest possible danger, he gives it off +like a subtle essence. As he was led in he had rather the air, the +slightly awkward, puzzled and embarrassed air, of being on show as a +fine specimen of a man. But it very soon wore off. In the absence of the +Commandant he sat in the Commandant's place, so magnificent a figure +that our mess, with gaps at every table, looked like a banquet given in +his honour, a banquet whose guests had been decimated by some +catastrophe. + +Suddenly--whether it was the presence of the Lieutenant or the absence +of the Commandant, or merely reaction from the strain of inactivity, I +don't know, but suddenly madness came upon our mess. The mess-room was +no longer a mess-room in a Military Hospital, but a British school-room. +Mrs. Torrence had changed her woollen cap for a grey felt wide-awake. +She was no longer an Arctic explorer, but the wild-western cowboy of +British melodrama. She was the first to go mad. One moment she was +seated decorously at the Lieutenant's right hand; the next she was +strolling round the tables with an air of innocent abstraction, having +armed herself in secret with the little hard round rolls supplied by +order of the Commandant. Each little roll became a deadly _obus_ in her +hand. She turned. Her innocent abstraction was intense as she poised +herself to aim. + +With a shout of laughter Dr. Bird ducked behind the cover of his +table-napkin. + +I had a sudden memory of Mrs. Torrence in command of the party at +Ostend, a figure of austere duty, of inexorable propriety, rigid with +the discipline of the ---- Hospital, restraining the criminal levity of +the Red Cross volunteer who would look or dream of looking at Ostend +Cathedral. Mrs. Torrence, like a seven-year-old child meditating +mischief, like a baby panther at play, like a very young and very +engaging demon let loose, is looking at Dr. Bird. He is not a Cathedral, +but he suffered bombardment all the same. She got his range with a roll. +She landed her shell in the very centre of his waistcoat. + +Her madness entered into Dr. Bird. He replied with a spirited fire which +fell wide of her and battered the mess-room door. The orderlies +retreated for shelter into the vestibule beyond. Jean was the first to +penetrate the line of fire. Max followed him. + +Madness entered into Max. He ceased to be a hospital orderly. He became +Prosper Panne again, the very young _collégien_, as he put down his +dishes and glided unobtrusively into the affair. + +And then the young Belgian Lieutenant went mad. But he gave way by +degrees. At first he sat up straight and stiff with polite astonishment +before the spectacle of a British "rag." He paid the dubious tribute of +a weak giggle to the bombardment of Dr. Bird. He was convulsed at the +first performance of Prosper Panne. In his final collapse he was rocking +to and fro and crowing with helpless, hysterical laughter. + +For with the entrance of Prosper Panne the mess-room became a scene at +the _Folies Bergères_. There was Mrs. Torrence, _première comédienne_, +in the costume of a wild-western cowboy; there was the young Lieutenant +himself, looking like a stage-lieutenant in the dark-green uniform of +the Belgian Motor Cyclist Corps; and there was Prosper Panne. He began +by picking up Mrs. Torrence's brown leather motor glove with its huge +gauntlet, and examining it with the deliciously foolish bewilderment of +the accomplished clown. After one or two failures, brilliantly +improvised, he fixed it firmly on his head. The huge gauntlet, with its +limp five fingers dangling over his left ear, became a rakish képi with +a five-pointed flap. Max--I mean Prosper Panne--wore it with an "_air +impayable_." Out of his round, soft, putty-coloured face he made +fifteen other faces in rapid succession, all incomparably absurd. He lit +a cigarette and held it between his lower lip and his chin. The effect +was of a miraculous transformation of those features, in which his upper +lip disappeared altogether, his lower lip took on its functions, while +his chin ceased to be a chin and became a lower lip. With this +achievement Prosper Panne had his audience in the hollow of his hands. +He could do what he liked with it. He did. He caused his motor-glove cap +to fall from his head as if by some mysterious movement of its own. Then +he went round the stalls and gravely and earnestly removed all our hats. +With an air more and more "_impayable_" he wore each one of them in +turn--the grey felt wide-awake of the wild-western cowboy, the knitted +Jaeger head-gear of the little Arctic explorer, the dark-blue military +cap with the red tassel assumed by Dr. Bird, even the green cap with the +winged symbol of the young Belgian officer. By this time the young +Belgian officer was so entirely the thrall of Prosper Panne that he +didn't turn a hair. + +Flushed with success, Max rose to his top-notch. Moving slowly towards +the open door (centre) with his back to his audience and his head turned +towards it over his left shoulder, by some extraordinary dislocation of +his hip-joints, he achieved the immemorial salutation of the _Folies +Bergères_--the last faint survival of the Old Athenian Comedy. + +Up till now Jean had affected to ignore the performance of his +colleague. But under this supreme provocation he yielded to the +Aristophanic impulse, and--_exit_ Max in the approved manner of the +_Folies Bergères_. + + * * * * * + +It is all over. The young Belgian officer has flown away on his motor +cycle to pot Germans; Mrs. Torrence has gone off to the field with the +Colonel on the quest of the greatest possible danger. The Ambulance has +followed them there. + +I am in the mess-room, sitting at the disordered table and gazing at the +ruins of our mess. I hear again the wild laughter of the mess-mates; it +mingles with the cry of the refugees in the Palais des Fêtes: "_Une +petite tranche de pain, s'il vous plaît, mademoiselle!_" + +_C'est triste, n'est-ce pas?_ + +In the chair by the window Max lies back with his loose boyish legs +extended limply in front of him; his round, close-cropped head droops to +his shoulder, his round face (the face of a very young _collégien_) is +white, the features are blurred and inert. Max is asleep with his +dish-cloth in his hand, in the sudden, pathetic sleep of exhaustion. +After his brief, funny madness, he is asleep. Jean comes and looks at +him and shakes his head. You understand from Jean that Max goes mad like +that now and then on purpose, so that he may forget in what manner his +mother went mad. + +We go quietly so as not to wake him a minute too soon, lest when he +wakes he should remember. + +There is a Taube hovering over Ghent. + +Up there, in the clear blue sky it looks innocent, like an enormous +greyish blond dragon-fly hovering over a pond. You stare at it, +fascinated, as you stare at a hawk that hangs in mid-air, steadied by +the vibration of its wings, watching its prey. + +You are not in the least disturbed by the watching Taube. An aeroplane, +dropping a few bombs, is nothing to what goes on down there where the +ambulances are. + +The ambulances have come back. I go out into the yard to look at them. +They are not always nice to look at; the floors and steps would make you +shudder if you were not past shuddering. + +I have found something to do. Not much, but still something. I am to +look after the linen for the ambulances, to take away the blood-stained +pillow-slips and blankets, and deliver them at the laundry and get clean +ones from the linen-room. It's odd, but I'm almost foolishly elated at +being allowed to do this. We are still more or less weighed down by the +sense of our uselessness. Even the Chaplain, though his services as a +stretcher-bearer have been definitely recognized--even the Chaplain +continues to suffer in this way. He has just come to me to tell me with +pride that he is making a good job of the stretchers he has got to mend. + +Then, just as I am beginning to lift up my head, the blow falls. Not one +member of the Field Ambulance Corps is to be allowed to work at the +Palais des Fêtes, for fear of bringing fever into the Military Hospital. +And here we are, exactly where we were at the beginning of the week, +Mrs. Lambert, Janet McNeil and I, three women out of five, with nothing +to do and two convalescent orderlies waiting on us. If I could please +myself I would tuck Max up in bed and wait on _him_. + +In spite of the ambulance linen, this is the worst day of all for the +wretched Secretary and Reporter. Five days in Ghent and not a thing +done; not a line written of those brilliant articles (from the Front) +which were to bring in money for the Corps. To have nothing to do but +hang about the Hospital on the off-chance of the Commandant coming back +unexpectedly and wanting a letter written; to pass the man with the +bullet wound in his mouth a dozen times a day (he is getting very slowly +better; his poor face was a little more human this morning); to see the +maimed and crippled men trailing and hobbling about the hall, and the +wounded carried in on their stretchers--dripping stretchers, agonized +bodies, limbs rolled in bandages, blood oozing through the bandages, +heads bound with bandages, bandages glued tight to the bone with +blood--to see all this and be utterly powerless to help; to endure, day +after day, the blank, blond horror of the empty mess-room; to sit before +a marble-topped table with a bad pen, never enough paper and hardly any +ink, and nothing at all to write about, while all the time the names of +places, places you have not seen and never will see--Termonde, Alost, +Quatrecht and Courtrai--go on sounding in your brain with a maddening, +luring reiteration; to sit in a hateful inactivity, and a disgusting, an +intolerable safety, and to be haunted by a vision of two figures, +intensely clear on a somewhat vague background--Mrs. Torrence following +her star of the greatest possible danger, and Ursula Dearmer wandering +in youth and innocence among the shells; to be obliged to think of +Ursula Dearmer's mother when you would much rather not think of her; to +be profoundly and irrevocably angry with the guileless Commandant, whom +at the moment you regard (it may be perversely) as the prime agent in +this fatuous sacrifice of women's lives; to want to stop it and to be +unable to stop it, and at the same time to feel a brute because you want +to stop it--when _they_ are enjoying the adventure--I can only say of +the experience that I hope there is no depth of futility deeper than +this to come. You might as well be taken prisoner by the +Germans--better, since that would, at least, give you something to write +about afterwards. + +What's more, I'm bored. + +When I told the Commandant all this he looked very straight at me and +said, "Then you'd better come with us to Termonde." So straight he +looked that the suggestion struck me less as a _bona fide_ offer than an +ironic reference to my five weeks' funk. + +I don't tell him that that is precisely what I want to do. That his +wretched Reporter nourishes an insane ambition--not to become a Special +Correspondent; not to career under massive headlines in the columns of +the _Daily Mail_; not to steal a march on other War Correspondents and +secure the one glorious "scoop" of the campaign. Not any of these sickly +and insignificant things. But--in defiance of Tom, the chauffeur--to go +out with the Field Ambulance as an _ambulancière_, and hunt for wounded +men, and in the intervals of hunting to observe the orbit of a shell and +the manner of shrapnel in descending. To be left behind, every day, in +an empty mess-room, with a bad pen, utterly deprived of copy or of any +substitute for copy, and to have to construct war articles out of your +inner consciousness, would be purgatory for a journalist. But to have a +mad dream in your soul and a pair of breeches in your hold-all, and to +see no possibility of "sporting" either, is the very refinement of hell. +And your tortures will be unbearable if, at the same time, you have to +hold your tongue about them and pretend that you are a genuine reporter +and that all you want is copy and your utmost aim the business of the +"scoop." + +After a week of it you will not be likely to look with crystal clarity +on other people's lapses from precaution. + +But it would be absurd to tell him this. Ten to one he wouldn't believe +it. He thinks I am funking all the time. + + * * * * * + +I am still very angry with him. He must know that I am very angry. I +think that somewhere inside him he is rather angry too. + + * * * * * + +All the same he has come to me and asked me to give him my soap. He says +Max has taken his. + +I give him my soap, but-- + +These oppressions and obsessions, the deadly anxiety, the futile +responsibility and the boredom are too much for me. I am thinking +seriously of going home. + + * * * * * + +In the evening we--the Commandant and Janet McNeil and I--went down to +the Hôtel de la Poste, to see the War Correspondents and hear the War +news. Mr. G. L. and Mr. M. and Mr. P. were there. And there among them, +to my astonishment, I found Mr. Davidson, the American sculptor. + +The last time I saw Mr. Davidson it was in Mr. Joseph Simpson's studio, +the one under mine in Edwardes Square. He was making a bust of +Rabindranath Tagore; and as the great mystic poet disconcerted him by +continually lapsing into meditation under this process, thereby emptying +his beautiful face of all expression whatever, I had been called down +from my studio to talk to him, so as to lure him, if possible, from +meditation and keep his features in play. Mr. Davidson made a very fine +bust of Rabindranath Tagore. And here he is, imperfectly disguised by +the shortest of short beards, drawing caricatures of G. L.--G. L. +explaining the plan of campaign to the Belgian General Staff; G. L. very +straight and tall, the Belgian General Staff looking up to him with +innocent, deferential faces, earnestly anxious to be taught. I am not +more surprised at seeing Mr. Davidson here than he is at seeing me. In +the world that makes war we have both entirely forgotten the world where +people make busts and pictures and books. But we accept each other's +presence. It is only a small part of the fantastic dislocation of war. + +Nothing could be more different from the Flandria Palace Hotel, our +Military Hospital, than the Hôtel de la Poste. It is packed with War +Correspondents and Belgian officers. After the surgeons and the Red +Cross nurses and their wounded, and the mysterious officials hanging +about the porch and the hall, apparently doing nothing, after the +English Ambulance and the melancholy inactivity of half its Corps, this +place seems alive with a rich and virile life. It is full of live, +exultant fighters, and of men who have their business not with the +wounded and the dying but with live men and live things, and they have +live words to tell about them. At least so it seems. + +You listen with all your ears, and presently Termonde and Alost and +Quatrecht and Courtrai cease to be mere names for you and become +realities. It is as if you had been taken from your prison and had been +let loose into the world again. + +They are saying that there is no fighting at Saint Nicolas (the +Commandant has been feeling about again for his visionary base +hospital), but that the French troops are at Courtrai in great force. +They have turned their left [?] wing round to the north-east and will +probably sweep towards Brussels to cut off the German advance on +Antwerp. The siege of Antwerp will then be raised. And a great battle +will be fought outside Brussels, probably at Waterloo. + +WATERLOO! + +Mr. L. looks at you as much as to say that is what he has had up his +sleeve all the time. The word comes from him as casually as if he spoke +of the London and South-Western terminus. But he is alive to the power +of its evocation, to the unsurpassable thrill. So are you. It starts the +current in that wireless system of vibrations that travel unperishing, +undiminished, from the dead to the living. There are not many kilometres +between Ghent and Waterloo; you are not only within the radius of the +psychic shock, you are close to the central batteries, and ninety-nine +years are no more than one pulse of their vibration. Through I don't +know how many kilometres and ninety-nine years it has tracked you down +and found you in your one moment of response. + +It has a sudden steadying effect. Your brain clears. The things that +loomed so large, the "Flandria," and the English Field Ambulance and its +miseries, and the terrifying recklessness of its Commandant, are reduced +suddenly to invisibility. You can see nothing but the second Waterloo. +You forget that you have ever been a prisoner in an Hotel-Hospital. You +understand the mystic fascination of the road under your windows, going +south-east from Ghent to Brussels, somewhere towards Waterloo. You are +reconciled to the incomprehensible lassitude of events. That is what we +have all been waiting for--the second Waterloo. And we have only waited +five days. + +I am certainly not going back to England. + +The French troops are being massed at Courtrai. + +Suddenly it strikes me that I have done an injustice to the Commandant. +It is all very well to say that he brought me out here against my will. +But did he? He said it would interest me to see the siege of Antwerp, +and I said it wouldn't. I said with the most perfect sincerity that I'd +die rather than go anywhere near the siege of Antwerp, or of any other +place. And now the siege-guns from Namur are battering the forts of +Antwerp, and down there the armies are gathering towards the second +Waterloo, and the Commandant was right. I am extremely interested. I +would die rather than go back to England. + +Is it possible that he knew me better than I knew myself? + +When I think that it is possible I feel a slight revulsion of justice +towards the Commandant. After all, he brought me here. We may disagree +about the present state of Alost and Termonde, considered as +health-resorts for English girls, but it is pretty certain that without +him we would none of us have got here. Where, indeed, should we have +been and how should we have got our motor ambulances, but for his +intrepid handling of Providence and of the Belgian Red Cross and the +Belgian Legation? There is genius in a man who can go out without one +car, or the least little nut or cog of a _châssis_ to his name, and +impose himself upon a Government as the Commandant of a Motor Field +Ambulance. + +Still, though I am not going back to England as a protest, I _am_ going +to leave the Hospital Hotel for a little while. That bright idea has +come to me just now while we are waiting for the Commandant to tear +himself from the War Correspondents and come away. I shall get a room +here in the Hôtel de la Poste for a week, and, while we wait for +Waterloo, I shall write some articles. The War Correspondents will tell +me what is being done, and what has been overdone and what remains to +do. I shall at least hear things if I can't see them. And I shall cut +the obsession of responsibility. It'll be worse than ever if there +really is going to be a second Waterloo. + +Waterloo with Ursula Dearmer and Janet in the thick of it, and Mrs. +Torrence driving the Colonel's scouting-car! + +There are moments of bitterness and distortion when I see the Commandant +as a curious psychic monster bringing up his women with him to the +siege-guns because of some uncanny satisfaction he finds in their +presence there. There are moods, only less perverted, when I see him +pursuing his course because it is his course, through sheer Highland +Celtic obstinacy; lucid flashes when he appears, blinded by the glamour +of his dream, and innocently regardless of actuality. Is it uncanniness? +Is it obstinacy? Is it dreamy innocence? Or is it some gorgeous streak +of Feminism? Is it the New Chivalry, that refuses to keep women back, +even from the firing-line? The New Romance, that gives them their share +of divine danger? Or, since nothing can be more absurd than to suppose +that any person acts at all times and in all circumstances on one +ground, or necessarily on any grounds, is it a little bit of all these +things? I am not sure that Feminism, or at any rate the New Chivalry, +doesn't presuppose them all. + +The New Chivalry sees the point of its reporter's retirement to the +Hôtel de la Poste, since it has decided that journalism is my work, and +journalism cannot flourish at the "Flandria." So we interview the nice +fat _propriétaire_, and the _propriétaire's_ nice fat wife, and between +them they find a room for me, a back room on the fourth floor, the only +one vacant in the hotel; it looks out on the white-tiled walls and the +windows of the enclosing wings. The space shut in is deep and narrow as +a well. The view from that room is more like a prison than any view from +the "Flandria," but I take it. I am not deceived by appearances, and I +recognize that the peace of God is there. + +It is a relief to think that poor Max will have one less to work for. + +At the "Flandria" we find that the Military Power has put its foot down. +The General--he cannot have a spark of the New Chivalry in his brutal +breast--has ordered Mrs. Torrence off her chauffeur's job. You see the +grizzled Colonel as the image of protest and desolation, helpless in the +hands of the implacable Power. You are sorry for Mrs. Torrence (she has +seen practically no service with the ambulance as yet), but she, at any +rate, has had her fling. No power can take from her the memory of those +two days. + +Still, something is going to be done to-morrow, and this time, even the +miserable Reporter is to have a look in. The Commandant has another +scheme for a temporary hospital or a dressing-station or something, and +to-morrow he is going with Car 1 to Courtrai to reconnoitre for a +position and incidentally to see the French troops. A God-sent +opportunity for the Reporter; and Janet McNeil is going, too. We are to +get up at six o'clock in the morning and start before seven. + + +[_Friday, October 2nd._] + +We get up at six. + +We hang about till eight-thirty or nine. A fine rain begins to fall. An +ominous rain. Car 1 and Car 2 are drawn up at the far end of the +Hospital yard. The rain falls ominously over the yellow-brown, trodden +clay of the yard. There is an ominous look of preparation about the +cars. There is also an ominous light in the blue eyes of the chauffeur +Tom. + +The chauffeur Tom appears as one inspired by hatred of the whole human +race. You would say that he was also hostile to the entire female sex. +For Woman in her right place he may, he probably does, feel tenderness +and reverence. Woman in a field ambulance he despises and abhors. I +really think it was the sight of us that accounted for his depression at +Ostend. I have gathered from Mrs. Torrence that the chauffeur Tom has +none of the New Chivalry about him. He is the mean and brutal male, the +crass obstructionist who grudges women their laurels in the equal field. + +I know the dreadful, blasphemous and abominable things that Tom is +probably thinking about me as I climb on to his car. He is visibly +disgusted with his orders. That he, a Red Cross Field Ambulance +chauffeur, should be told to drive four--or is it all five?--women to +look at the massing of the French troops at Courtrai! He is not deceived +by the specious pretext of the temporary hospital. Hospitals be blowed. +It's a bloomin' joy-ride, with about as much Red Cross in it as there is +in my hat. He is glad that it is raining. + +Yes, I know what Tom is thinking. And all the time I have a sneaking +sympathy with Tom. I want to go to Courtrai more than I ever wanted +anything in my life, but I see the expedition plainly from Tom's point +of view. A field ambulance is a field ambulance and not a motor touring +car. + +And to-day Tom is justified. We have hardly got upon his car than we +were told to get off it. We are not going to Courtrai. We are not going +anywhere. From somewhere in those mysterious regions where it abides, +the Military Power has come down. + +Even as I get off the car and return to the Hospital-prison, in +melancholy retreat over the yellow-brown clay of the yard, through the +rain, I acknowledge the essential righteousness of the point of view. +And, to the everlasting honour of the Old Chivalry, it should be stated +that the chauffeur Tom repressed all open and visible expression of his +joy. + +The morning passes, as the other mornings passed, in unspeakable +inactivity. Except that I make up the accounts and hand them over to Mr. +Grierson. It seems incredible, but I have balanced them to the last +franc. + +I pack. Am surprised in packing by Max and Jean. They both want to know +the reason why. This is the terrible part of the business--leaving Max +and Jean. + +I try to explain. Prosper Panne, who "writes for the Paris papers," +understands me. He can see that the Hôtel de la Poste may be a better +base for an attack upon the London papers. But Max does not understand. +He perceives that I have a scruple about occupying my room. And he takes +me into _his_ room to show me how nice it is--every bit as good as mine. +The implication being that if the Hospital can afford to lodge one of +its orderlies so well, it can perfectly well afford to lodge me. (This +is one of the prettiest things that Max has done yet! As long as I live +I shall see him standing in his room and showing me how nice it is.) + +Still you can always appeal from Max to Prosper Panne. He understands +these journalistic tempers and caprices. He knows on how thin a thread +an article can hang. We have a brief discussion on the comparative +difficulties of the _roman_ and the _conte_, and he promises me to +cherish and protect the hat I must leave behind me as if it were his +bride. + +But Jean--Jean does not understand at all. He thinks that I am not +satisfied with the service of our incomparable mess; that I prefer the +flesh-pots of the "Poste" and the manners of its waiters. He has no +other thought but this, and it is abominable; it is the worst of all. +The explanation thickens. I struggle gloriously with the French +language; one moment it has me by the throat and I am strangled; the +next I writhe forth triumphant. Strange gestures are given to me; I +plunge into the darkest pits of memory for the words that have escaped +me; I find them (or others just as good); it is really quite easy to say +that I am coming back again in a week. + +Interview with Madame F. and M. G., the President. + +Interview with the Commandant. Final assault on the defences of the New +Chivalry (the Commandant's mind is an impregnable fortress). + +And, by way of afterthought, I inquire whether, in the event of a sudden +scoot before the Germans, a reporter quartered at the Hôtel de la Poste +will be cut off from the base of communications and left to his or her +ingenuity in flight? + +The Commandant, vague and imperturbable, replies that in all probability +it will be so. + +And I (if possible more imperturbable than he) observe that the War +Correspondents will make quite a nice flying-party. + +In a little open carriage--the taxis have long ago all gone to the +War--in an absurd little open carriage, exactly like a Cheltenham "rat," +I depart like a lady of Cheltenham, for the Hôtel de la Poste. The +appearance and the odour of this little carriage give you an odd sense +of security and peace. The Germans may be advancing on Ghent at this +moment, but for all the taste of war there is in it, you might be that +lady, going from one hotel to the other, down the Cheltenham Promenade. + +The further you go from the Military Hospital and the Railway Station +the more it is so. The War does not seem yet to have shaken the +essential peace of the _bourgeois_ city. The Hôtel de la Poste is in the +old quarter of the town, where the Cathedrals are. Instead of the long, +black railway lines and the red-brick façade of the Station and Post +Office; instead of the wooded fields beyond and the white street that +leads to the battle-places south and east; instead of the great Square +with its mustering troops and swarms of refugees, you have the quiet +Place d'Armes, shut in by trees, and all round it are the hotels and +cafés where the officers and the War Correspondents come and go. Through +all that coming and going you get the sense of the old foreign town that +was dreaming yesterday. People are sitting outside the restaurants all +round the Place, drinking coffee and liqueurs as if nothing had +happened, as if Antwerp were far-off in another country, and as if it +were still yesterday. Mosquitoes come up from the drowsy canal water +and swarm into the hotels and bite you. I found any number of mosquitoes +clinging drowsily to my bedroom walls. + +But there are very few women among those crowds outside the restaurants. +There are not many women except refugees in the streets, and fewer still +in the shops. + +I have blundered across a little café with an affectionately smiling and +reassuringly fat proprietress, where they give you _brioches_ and China +tea, which, as it were in sheer affection, they call English. It is not +as happy a find as you might think. It is not, in the circumstances, +happy at all. In fact, if you have never known what melancholy is and +would like to know it, I can recommend two courses. Go down the Grand +Canal in Venice in the grey spring of the year, in a gondola, all by +yourself. Or get mixed up with a field ambulance which is not only doing +noble work but running thrilling risks, in neither of which you have a +share, or the ghost of a chance of a share; cut yourself off from your +comrades, if it is only for a week, and go into a Belgian café in +war-time and try to eat _brioches_ and drink English tea all by yourself. +This is the more successful course. You may see hope beyond the gondola +and the Grand Canal. But you will see no hope beyond the _brioche_ and +the English tea. + +I walk about again till it is time to go back to the Hotel. So far, my +emancipation has not been agreeable. + + +[_Evening. Hôtel de la Poste._] + +I dined in the crowded restaurant, avoiding the War Correspondents, +choosing a table where I hoped I might be unobserved. Somewhere through +a glass screen I caught a sight of Mr. L.'s head. I was careful to avoid +the glass screen and Mr. L.'s head. He shall not say, if I can possibly +help it, that I am an infernal nuisance. For I know I haven't any +business to be here, and if Belgium had a Kitchener I shouldn't be here. +However you look at me, I am here on false pretences. In the eyes of Mr. +L. I would have no more right to be a War Correspondent (if I were one) +than I have to be on a field ambulance. It is with the game of war as it +was with the game of football I used to play with my big brothers in the +garden. The women may play it if they're fit enough, up to a certain +point, very much as I played football in the garden. The big brothers +let their little sister kick off; they let her run away with the ball; +they stood back and let her make goal after goal; but when it came to +the scrimmage they took hold of her and gently but firmly moved her to +one side. If she persisted she became an infernal nuisance. And if those +big brothers over there only knew what I was after they would make +arrangements for my immediate removal from the seat of war. + +The Commandant has turned up with Ursula Dearmer. He is drawn to these +War Correspondents who appear to know more than he does. On the other +hand, an ambulance that can get into the firing-line has an irresistible +attraction for a War Correspondent. It may at any moment constitute his +only means of getting there himself. + +One of our cars has been sent out to Antwerp with dispatches and +surgical appliances. + +The sight of the Commandant reminds me that I have got all the funds of +the Ambulance upstairs in my suit-case in that leather purse-belt--and +if the Ambulance does fly from Ghent without me, and without that belt, +it will find itself in considerable embarrassment before it has +retreated very far. + +It is quite certain that I shall have to take my chance. I have asked +the Commandant again (either this evening or earlier) so that there may +be no possible doubt about it: "If we do have to scoot from Ghent in a +hurry I shall have nothing but my wits to trust to?" + +And he says, "True for you." + +And he looks as if he meant it.[3] + +These remarkable words have a remarkable effect on the new War +Correspondent. It is as if the coolness and the courage and the strength +of a hundred War Correspondents and of fifty Red Cross Ambulances had +been suddenly discharged into my soul. This absurd accession of power +and valour[4] is accompanied by a sudden immense lucidity. It is as if +my soul had never really belonged to me until now, as if it had been +either drugged or drunk and had never known what it was to be sober +until now. The sensation is distinctly agreeable. And on the top of it +all there is a peace which I distinctly recognize as the peace of God. + +So, while the Commandant talks to the War Correspondents as if nothing +had happened, I go upstairs and unlock my suit-case and take from it the +leather purse-belt with the Ambulance funds in it, and I bring it to the +Commandant and lay it before him and compel him to put it on. As I do +this I feel considerable compunction, as if I were launching a +three-year-old child in a cockle-shell on the perilous ocean of finance. +I remind him that fifteen pounds of the money in the belt is his (he +would be as likely as not to forget it). As for the accounts, they are +so clear that a three-year-old child could understand them. I notice +with a diabolical satisfaction which persists through the all-pervading +peace by no means as incongruously as you might imagine--I notice +particularly that the Commandant doesn't like this part of it a bit. +There is not anybody in the Corps who wants to be responsible for its +funds or enjoys wearing that belt. But it is obvious that if the Ambulance +can bear to be separated from its Treasurer-Secretary-Reporter, in the +flight from Ghent, it cannot possibly bear to be separated from its funds. + +I am alone with the Commandant while this happens, standing by one of +the writing-tables in the lounge. Ursula Dearmer (she grows more mature +every day) and the War Correspondents and a few Generals have melted +somewhere into the background. The long, lithe pigskin belt lies between +us on the table--between my friend and me--like a pale snake. It exerts +some malign and poisonous influence. It makes me say things, things +that I should not have thought it possible to say. And it is all about +the shells at Alost. + +He is astonished. + +And I do not care. + +I am sustained, exalted by that sense of righteousness you feel when you +are insanely pounding somebody who thinks that in perfect sanity and +integrity he has pounded you. + + +[_Saturday, 3rd._] + +Mr. L. asked me to breakfast. He has told me more about the Corps in +five minutes than the Corps has been able to tell me in as many days. He +has seen it at Alost and Termonde. You gather that he has seen other +heroic enterprises also and that he would perjure himself if he swore +that they were indispensable. Every Correspondent is besieged by the +leaders of heroic enterprises, and I imagine that Mr. L. has been "had" +before now by amateurs of the Red Cross, and his heart must have sunk +when he heard of an English Field Ambulance in Ghent. And he owns to +positive terror when he saw it, with its girls in breeches, its +Commandant in Norfolk jacket, grey knickerbockers, heather-mixture +stockings and deer-stalker; its Chaplain in khaki, and its Surgeon a +mark for bullets in his Belgian officer's cap. I suggest that this +absence of uniform only proves our passionate eagerness to be off and +get to work. But it is right. Our ambulance is the real thing, and Mr. +L. is going to be an angel and help it all he can. He will write about +it in the _Illustrated London News_ and the _Westminster_. When he hears +that I came out here to write about the War and make a little money for +the Field Ambulance, and that I haven't seen anything of the War and +that my invasion of his hotel is simply a last despairing effort to at +least hear something, he is more angelic than ever. He causes a whole +cinema of war-scenes to pass before my eyes. When I ask if there is +anything left for me to "do," he evokes a long procession of +articles--pure, virgin copy on which no journalist has ever laid his +hands--and assures me that it is mine, that the things that have been +done are nothing to the things that are left to do. I tell him that I +have no business on his pitch, and that I am horribly afraid of getting +in the regular Correspondents' way and spoiling their game; as I am +likely to play it, there isn't any pitch. Of course, I suppose, there is +the "scoop," but that's another matter. It is the War Correspondent's +crown of cunning and of valour, and nobody can take from him that +crown. But in the psychology of the thing, every Correspondent is his +own pitch. He has told me very nearly all the things I want to know, +among them what the Belgian General said to the Commandant when he saw +Ursula Dearmer at Alost: + +"What the devil is the lady doing there?" + +I gather that Mr. L. shares the General's wonder and my own anxiety. I +am not far wrong in regarding Alost and Termonde as no fit place for +Ursula Dearmer or any other woman. + +Answered the Commandant's letters for him. Wrote to Ezra Pound. Wrote +out the report for the last three days' ambulance work and sent it to +the British Red Cross; also a letter to Mr. Rogers about a light +scouting-car. The British Red Cross has written that it cannot spare any +more motor ambulances, but it may possibly send out a small car. (The +Commandant has cabled to Mr. Gould, of Gould Bros., Exeter, accepting +his offer of his own car and services.) + +Went down to the "Flandria" for news of the Ambulance. The car that was +sent out yesterday evening got through all right to Antwerp and returned +safely. It has brought very bad news. Two of the outer forts are said to +have fallen. The position is critical, and grave anxiety is felt for +the safety of the English in Antwerp. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart has asked +us for one of our ambulances. But even if we could spare it we cannot +give it up without an order from the military authority at Ghent. We +hear that Dr. ----, one of Mrs. Stobart's women, is to leave Antwerp and +work at our hospital. She is engaged to be married to Dr. ----, and the +poor boy is somewhat concerned for her safety. I'm very glad I have left +the "Flandria," for she can have my room. + +I wish they would make Miss ---- come away too. + +Yes: Miss ----, that clever novelist, who passes for a woman of the +world because she uses mundane appearances to hide herself from the +world's importunity--Miss ---- is here. The War caught her. Some people +were surprised. I wasn't.[5] + + * * * * * + +Walked through the town again--old quarter. Walked and walked and +walked, thinking about Antwerp all the time. Through streets of +grey-white and lavender-tinted houses, with very fragile balconies. Saw +the two Cathedrals[6] and the Town Hall--refugees swarming round it--and +the Rab--I can't remember its name: see Baedeker--with its turrets and +its moat. Any amount of time to see cathedrals in and no Mrs. Torrence +to protest. I wonder how much of all this will be left by next month, or +even by next week? Two of the Antwerp forts have fallen. They say the +occupation of Ghent will be peaceful; while of Antwerp I suppose they +would say, "_C'est triste, n'est-ce pas?_" They say the Germans will +just march into Ghent and march out again, commandeering a few things +here and there. But nobody knows, and by the stolid faces of these +civilians you might imagine that nobody cares. Certainly none of them +think that the fate of Antwerp can be the fate of Ghent. + +And the faces of the soldiers, of the men who know? They are the faces +of important people, cheerful people, pleasantly preoccupied with the +business in hand. Only here and there a grave face, a fixed, drawn face, +a face twisted with the irritation of the strain. + +Why, the very refugees have the look of a rather tired tourist-party, +wandering about, seeing Ghent, seeing the Cathedral. + +Only they aren't looking at the Cathedral. They are looking straight +ahead, across the _Place_, up the street; they do not see or hear the +trams swinging down on them, or the tearing, snorting motors; they +stroll abstractedly into the line of the motors and stand there; they +start and scatter, wild-eyed, with a sudden recrudescence of the terror +that has driven them here from their villages in the fields. + + * * * * * + +It seems incredible that I should be free to walk about like this. It is +as if I had cut the rope that tied me to a soaring air-balloon and found +myself, with firm feet, safe on the solid earth. Any bit of earth, even +surrounded by Germans, seems safe compared with the asphyxiation of that +ascent. And when the air-balloon wasn't going up it was as if I had lain +stifling under a soft feather-bed for more than a year. Now I've waked +up suddenly and flung the feather-bed off with a vigorous kick. + + +[_[7]Sunday, 4th._] + +(I have no clear recollection of Sunday morning, because in the +afternoon we went to Antwerp; and Antwerp has blotted out everything +that went near before it.) + +The Ambulance has been ordered to take two Belgian professors (or else +they are doctors) into Antwerp. There isn't any question this time of +carrying wounded. It seems incredible, but I am going too. I shall see +the siege of Antwerp and hear the guns that were brought up from Namur. + +Somewhere, on the north-west horizon, a vision, heavenly, but +impalpable, aerial, indistinct, of the Greatest Possible Danger. + +I am glad I am going. But the odd thing is that there is no excitement +about it. It seems an entirely fit and natural thing that the vision +should materialize, that I should see the shells battering the forts of +Antwerp and hear the big siege-guns from Namur. For all its +incredibility, the adventure lacks every element of surprise. It is +simply what I came out for. For here in Belgium the really incredible +things are the things that existed and happened before the War. They +existed and happened a hundred years ago and the memory of them is +indistinct; the feeling of them is gone. You have ceased to have any +personal interest in them; if they happened at all they happened to +somebody else. What is happening now has been happening always. All your +past is soaking in the vivid dye of these days, and what you are now you +have been always. I have been a War Correspondent all my life--_blasée_ +with battles. The Commandant orders me into the front seat beside the +chauffeur Tom, so that I may see things. Even Tom's face cannot shake me +in my conviction that I am merely setting out once more on my usual, +legitimate, daily job. + +It is all so natural that you do not wonder in the least at this really +very singular extension of your personality. You are not aware of your +personality at all. If you could be you would see it undergoing +shrinkage. It is, anyhow, one of the things that ceased to matter a +hundred years ago. If you could examine its contents at this moment you +would find nothing there but that shining vision of danger, the siege of +Antwerp, indistinct, impalpable, aerial. + +Presently the vision itself shrinks and disappears on the north-west +horizon. The car has shot beyond the streets into the open road, the +great paved highway to Antwerp, and I am absorbed in other matters: in +Car 1 and in the chauffeur Tom, who is letting her rip more and more +into her top speed with every mile; in M. C----, the Belgian Red Cross +guide, beside me on my left, and in the Belgian soldier sitting on the +floor at his feet. The soldier is confiding some fearful secret to +M. C---- about somebody called Achille. M. C---- bends very low to catch +the name, as if he were trying to intercept and conceal it, and when he +_has_ caught it he assumes an air of superb mystery and gravity and +importance. With one gesture he buries the name of Achille in his breast +under his uniform. You know that he would die rather than betray the +secret of Achille. You decide that Achille is the heroic bearer of +dispatches, and that we have secret orders to pick him up somewhere and +convey him in safety to Antwerp. You do not grasp the meaning of this +pantomime until the third sentry has approached us, and M. C---- has +stopped for the third time to whisper "Ach-ille!" behind the cover of +his hand, and the third sentry is instantly appeased. + +(Concerning sentries, you learn that the Belgian kind is amiable, but +that the French sentry is a terrible fellow, who will think nothing of +shooting you if your car doesn't stop dead the instant he levels his +rifle.) + +Except for sentries and straggling troops and the long trains of +refugees, the country is as peaceful between Ghent and Saint Nicolas as +it was last week between Ostend and Ghent. It is the same adorable +Flemish country, the same flat fields, the same paved causeway and the +same tall, slender avenues of trees. But if anything could make the +desolation of Belgium more desolate it is this intolerable beauty of +slender trees and infinite flat land, the beauty of a country formed for +the very expression of peace. In the vivid gold and green of its autumn +it has become a stage dressed with ironic splendour for the spectacle of +a people in flight. Half the population of Antwerp and the country round +it is pouring into Ghent.[8] First the automobiles, Belgian officers in +uniform packed tight between women and children and their bundles, +convoying the train. Then the carriages secured by the _bourgeois_ (they +are very few); then men and boys on bicycles; then the carts, and with +the coming on of the carts the spectacle grows incredible, fantastic. +You see a thing advancing like a house on wheels. It is a tall +hay-wagon--the tallest wagon you have ever seen in your life--piled with +household furniture and mattresses on the top of the furniture, and on +top of the mattresses, on the roof, as it were, a family of women and +children and young girls. Some of them seem conscious of the stupendous +absurdity of this appearance; they smile at you or laugh as the +structure goes towering and toppling by. + +Next, low on the ground, enormous and grotesque bundles, endowed with +movement and with legs. Only when you come up to them do you see that +they are borne on the bowed backs of men and women and children. The +children--when there are no bundles to be borne these carry a bird in a +cage, or a dog, a dog that sits in their arms like a baby and is pressed +tight to their breasts. Here and there men and women driving their +cattle before them, driving them gently, without haste, with a great +dignity and patience. + +These, for all the panic and ruin in their bearing, might be pilgrims or +suppliants, or the servants of some religious rite, bringing the votive +offerings and the sacrificial beasts. The infinite land and the avenues +of slender trees persuade you that it is so. + +And wherever the ambulance cars go they meet endless processions of +refugees; endless, for the straight, flat Flemish roads are endless, and +as far as your eye can see the stream of people is unbroken; endless, +because the misery of Belgium is endless; the mind cannot grasp it or +take it in. You cannot meet it with grief, hardly with conscious pity; +you have no tears for it; it is a sorrow that transcends everything you +have known of sorrow. These people have been left "only their eyes to +weep with." But they do not weep any more than you do. They have no +tears for themselves or for each other.[9] This is the terrible thing, +this and the manner of their flight. It is not flight, it is the vast, +unhasting and unending movement of a people crushed down by grief and +weariness, pushed on by its own weight, by the ceaseless impact of its +ruin. + +This stream is the main stream from Antwerp, swollen by its tributaries. +It doesn't seem to matter where it comes from, its strength and volume +always seem the same. After the siege of Antwerp it will thicken and +flow from some other direction, that is all. And all the streams seem to +flow into Ghent and to meet in the Palais des Fêtes.[10] + +I forget whether it was near Lokeren or Saint Nicolas that we saw the +first sign of fighting, in houses levelled to the ground to make way for +the artillery fire; levelled, and raked into neat plots without the +semblance of a site. + +After the refugees, the troops. Village streets crowded with military +automobiles and trains of baggage wagons and regiments of infantry. +Little villas with desolate, surprised and innocent faces, standing back +in their gardens; soldiers sitting in their porches and verandahs, +soldiers' faces looking out of their windows; soldiers are quartered in +every room, and the grass grows high in their gardens. Soldiers run down +the garden paths to look at our ambulance as it goes by. + +There is excitement in the village streets. + +At Saint Nicolas we overtake Dr. Wilson and Mr. Davidson walking into +Antwerp. They tell us the news. + +The British troops have come. At last. They have been through before us +on their way to Antwerp. Dr. Wilson and Mr. Davidson have seen the +British troops. They have talked to them. + +Mr. Davidson cannot conceal his glee at getting in before the War +Correspondents. Pure luck has given into his hands _the_ great +journalistic scoop of the War in Belgium. And he is not a journalist. He +is a sculptor out for the busts of warriors, and for actuality in those +tragic and splendid figures that are grouped round memorial columns, for +the living attitude and gesture. + +We take up Mr. Davidson and Dr. Wilson, and leave one of our professors +(if he is a professor) at Saint Nicolas, for the poor man has come +without his passport. He will have to hang about at Saint Nicolas, doing +nothing, until such time as it pleases Heaven to send us back from +Antwerp. He resigns himself, and we abandon him, a piteous figure +wrapped in a brown shawl. + +After Saint Nicolas more troops, a few batteries of artillery, some +infantry, long, long regiments of Belgian cavalry, coming to the defence +of the country outside Antwerp. Cavalry halting at a fork of the road by +a little fir-wood. A road that is rather like the road just outside +Wareham as you go towards Poole. More troops. And after the troops an +interminable procession of labourers trudging on foot. At a distance you +take them for refugees, until you see that they are carrying poles and +spades. Presently the road cuts through the circle of stakes and barbed +wire entanglements set for the German cavalry. And somewhere on our left +(whether before or after Saint Nicolas I cannot remember), across a +field, the rail embankment ran parallel with our field, and we saw the +long ambulance train, flying the Red Cross and loaded with wounded, on +its way from Antwerp to Ghent. At this point the line is exposed +conspicuously, and we must have been well within range of the German +fire, for the next ambulance train--but we didn't know about the next +ambulance train till afterwards. + +After the circle of the stakes and wire entanglements you begin to think +of the bombardment. You strain your ears for the sound of the siege-guns +from Namur. Somewhere ahead of us on the horizon there is Antwerp. +Towers and tall chimneys in a very grey distance. Every minute you look +for the flight of the shells across the grey and the fall of a tower or +a chimney. But the grey is utterly peaceful and the towers and the tall +chimneys remain. And at last you turn in a righteous indignation and +say: "Where is the bombardment?" + +The bombardment is at the outer forts. + +And where are the forts, then? (You see no forts.) + +The outer forts? Oh, the outer forts are thirty kilometres away. + +No. Not there. To your right. + +And you, who thought you would have died rather than see the siege of +Antwerp, are dumb with disgust. Your heart swells with a holy and +incorruptible resentment of the sheer levity of the Commandant. + +A pretty thing--to bring a War Correspondent out to see a bombardment +when there isn't any bombardment, or when all there ever was is a +hundred--well then, _thirty_ kilometres away.[11] + +It was twilight as we came into Antwerp. We approached it by the west, +by the way of the sea, by the great bridge of boats over the Scheldt. +The sea and the dykes are the defence of Antwerp on this side. Whole +regiments of troops are crossing the bridge of boats. Our car crawls by +inches at a time. It is jammed tight among some baggage wagons. It +disentangles itself with difficulty from the baggage wagons, and is +wedged tighter still among the troops. But the troops are moving, though +by inches at a time. We get our front wheels on to the bridge. Packed in +among the troops, but moving steadily as they move, we cross the +Scheldt. On our right the sharp bows and on our left the blunt sterns of +the boats. Boat after boat pressed close, gunwale to gunwale, our +roadway goes across their breasts. Their breasts are taut as the breasts +of gymnasts under the tramping of the regiments. They vibrate like the +breasts of living things as they bear us up. + +No heaving of any beautiful and beloved ship, no crossing of any sea, no +sight of any city that has the sea at her feet, not New York City nor +Venice, no coming into any foreign land, ever thrilled me as that +coming into Antwerp with the Belgian army over that bridge of boats. + +At twilight, from the river, with its lamps lit and all its waters +shining, Antwerp looked beautiful as Venice and as safe and still. For +the dykes are her defences on this side. But for the trudging regiments +you would not have guessed that on the land side the outer ramparts were +being shelled incessantly. + +It was a struggle up the slope from the river bank to the quay, a +struggle in which we engaged with commissariat and ammunition wagons and +troops and refugees in carts, all trying to get away from the city over +the bridge of boats. The ascent was so steep and slippery that you felt +as though at any moment the car might hurl itself down backwards on the +top of the processions struggling behind it. + +At last we landed. I have no vivid recollection[12] of our passage +through the town. Except that I know we actually were in Antwerp I could +not say whether I really saw certain winding streets and old houses with +steep gables or whether I dreamed them. There was one great street of +white houses and gilded signs that stood shimmering somewhere in the +twilight; but I cannot tell you what street it was. And there were some +modern boulevards, and the whole place was very silent. It had the +silence and half darkness of dreams, and the beauty and magic and +sinister sadness of dreams. And in that silence and sadness our car, +with its backings and turnings and its snorts, and our own voices as we +asked our way (for we were more or less lost in Antwerp) seemed to be +making an appalling and inappropriate and impious noise. + +Antwerp seems to me to have been all hospitals, though I only saw two, +or perhaps three. One was in an ordinary house in a street, and I think +this must have been the British Field Hospital; for Mrs. Winterbottom +was there. And of all the women I met thus casually "at the front" she +was, by a long way, the most attractive. We went into one or two of the +wards; in others, where the cases were very serious, we were only +allowed to stand for a second in the doorway; there were others again +which we could not see at all. + +I think, unless I am rolling two hospitals into one, that we saw a +second--the English Hospital. It was for the English Hospital that we +heard the Commandant inquire perpetually as we made our way through the +strange streets and the boulevards beyond them, following at his own +furious pace, losing him in byways and finding him by some miracle +again. Talk of dreams! Our progress through Antwerp was like one of +those nightmares which have no form or substance but are made up of +ghastly twilight and hopeless quest and ever-accelerating speed. It was +not till it was all over that we knew the reason for his excessive +haste. + +When we got to Mrs. St. Clair Stobart's Hospital--in a garden, planted +somewhere away beyond the boulevards in an open place--we had hardly any +time to look at it. All the same, I shall never forget that Hospital as +long as I live. It had been a concert-hall[13] and was built principally +of glass and iron; at any rate, if it was not really the greenhouse that +it seemed to be there was a great deal of glass about it, and it had +been shelled by aeroplane the night before. No great damage had been +done, but the sound and the shock had terrified the wounded in their +beds. This hospital, as everybody knows, is run entirely by women, with +women doctors, women surgeons, women orderlies. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart +and some of her gallant staff came out to meet us on a big verandah in +front of this fantastic building, she and her orderlies in the uniform +of the British Red Cross, her surgeons in long white linen coats over +their skirts. Dr. ---- whom we are to take back with us to Ghent, was +there. + +We asked for Miss ----, and she came to us finally in a small room +adjoining what must have been the restaurant of the concert-hall. + +I was shocked at her appearance. She was quieter than ever and her face +was grey and worn with watching. She looked as if she could not have +held out another night. + +She told us about last night's bombardment. The effect of it on this +absurd greenhouse must have been terrific. Every day they are expecting +the bombardment of the town. + +No, none of them are leaving except two. Every woman will stick to her +post[14] till the order comes to evacuate the hospital, and then not one +will quit till the last wounded man is carried to the transport. + +It seems that Miss ---- is a hospital orderly, and that her duty is to +stand at the gate of the garden with a lantern as the ambulances come in +and to light them to the door of the hospital, and then to see that each +man has the number of his cot pinned to the breast of his +sleeping-jacket. + +Mrs. Stobart, very properly, will have none but trained women in her +hospital. But even an untrained woman is equal to holding a lantern and +pinning on tickets, so I implored Miss ---- to let me take her place +while she went back to rest in my room at Ghent, if it was only for one +night. I used every argument I could think of, and for one second I +thought the best argument had prevailed. But it was only for a second. +Probably not even for a second. Miss ---- may drop to pieces at her +post, but it is there that she will drop. + +Outside on the verandah the Commandant was fairly ramping to be off. +No--I can't see the Hospital. There isn't any time to see the Hospital. +But Miss ---- could not bear me not to see it, and together we made a +surreptitious bolt for it, and I did see the Hospital. + +It was not like any hospital you had ever seen before. Except that the +wounded were all comfortably bedded, it was more like the sleeping-hall +of the Palais des Fêtes. The floor of the great concert-hall was covered +with mattresses and beds, where the wounded lay about in every attitude +of suffering. No doubt everything was in the most perfect order, and the +nurses and doctors knew how to thread their way through it all, but to +the hurried spectator in the doorway the effect was one of the most +_macabre_ confusion. Only one object stood out--the large naked back of +a Belgian soldier, who sat on the edge of his bed waiting to be washed. +He must have been really the most cheerful and (comparatively) uninjured +figure in the whole crowd, but he seemed the most pitiful, because of +the sheer human insistence of his pathetic back. + +Over this back and over all that prostrate agony the enormous floriated +bronze rings that carried the lights of the concert-hall hung from the +ceiling in frightful, festive decoration. + +Miss ---- whispered: "One of them is dying. We can't save him." + +She seemed to regard this one as a positive slur on their record. I +thought: "Only one--among all that crowd!" + +Mrs. Stobart came after us in some alarm as we ran down the garden. + +"What are you doing with Miss ----? You're not going to carry her off?" + +"No," I said, "we're not. She won't come." + +But we have got off with Dr. ----. + +Mrs. Stobart has refused the Commandant's offer of one of our best +surgeons in exchange. He is a man. And this hospital is a Feminist Show. + +We dined in a great hurry in a big restaurant in one of the main +streets. The restaurant was nearly empty and funereal black cloths were +hung over the windows to obscure the lights. + +Mr. Davidson (this cheerful presence was with us in our dream-like +career through Antwerp)--Mr. Davidson and I amused ourselves by planning +how we will behave when we are taken prisoner by the Germans. He is +safe, because he is an American citizen. The unfortunate thing about me +is my passport, otherwise, by means of a well-simulated nasal twang I +might get through as an American novelist. I've been mistaken for one +often enough in my own country. But, as I don't mean to be taken +prisoner, and perhaps murdered or have my hands chopped off, without a +struggle, my plan is to deliver a speech in German, as follows: "_Ich +bin eine berühmte Schriftstellerin_" (on these occasions you stick at +nothing), "_berühmt in England, aber viel berühmter in den Vereinigten +Staaten, und mein Schicksal will den Presidenten Wilson nicht +gleichgültig sein_." I added by way of rhetorical flourish as the +language went to my head: "_Er will mein Tod zu vertheidigen gut +wissen_;" but I was aware that this was overdoing it. + +Mr. Davidson thought it would be better on the whole if he were to pass +me off as his wife. Perhaps it would, but it seems a pity that so much +good German should be wasted. + +We got up from that dinner with even more haste than we had sat down. +All lights in the town were put out at eight-thirty, and we didn't want +to go crawling and blundering about in the dark with our ambulance car. +There was a general feeling that the faster we ran back to Ghent the +better. + +We left Mr. Davidson and Dr. Wilson in Antwerp. They were staying +over-night for the fun of the thing. + +Another awful struggle on the downward slope from the quay to the bridge +of boats. A bad jam at the turn. A sudden loosening and letting go of +the traffic, and we were over. + +We ran back to Ghent so fast that at Saint Nicolas (where we stopped to +pick up our poor little Belgian professor) we took the wrong turn at the +fork of the road and dashed with considerable _élan_ over the Dutch +frontier. We only realized it when a sentry in an unfamiliar uniform +raised his rifle and prepared to fire, not with the cheerful, +perfunctory vigilance of our Belgians, but in a determined, +business-like manner, and the word "Achille," imparted in a burst of +confidence, produced no sympathy whatever. On the contrary, this absurd +sentry (who had come out of a straw sentry-box that was like an enormous +beehive) went on pointing his rifle at us with most unnecessary +persistence. I was so interested in seeing what he would do next that I +missed the very pleasing behaviour of the little Belgian professor, who +sat next to me, wrapped in his brown shawl. He still imagined himself +to be on the road to Ghent, and when he saw that sentry continuing to +prepare to fire in spite of our password, he concluded that we and the +road to Ghent were in the hands of the Germans. So he instantly ducked +behind me for cover and collapsed on the floor of the ambulance in his +shawl. + +Then somebody said "We're in Holland!" and there were shouts of laughter +from everybody in the car except the little Belgian. Then shouts of +laughter from the Dutch sentries and Customs officers, who enjoyed this +excellent joke as much as we did. + +We were now out of our course by I don't know how many miles and short +of petrol. But one of the Customs officers gave us all we wanted. + +It's heart-breaking the way these dear Belgians take the British. They +have waited so long for our army, believing that it would come, till +they could believe no more. In Ghent, in Antwerp, you wouldn't know that +Belgium had any allies; you never see the British flag, or the French +either, hanging from the windows. The black, yellow and red standard +flies everywhere alone. Now that we _have_ come, their belief in us is +almost unbearable. They really think we are going to save Antwerp. +Somewhere between Antwerp and Saint Nicolas the population of a whole +village turned out to meet us with cries of "_Les Anglais! Les +Anglaises!_" and laughed for joy. Terrible for us, who had heard +Belgians say reproachfully: "We thought that the British would come to +our help. But they never came!" They said it more in sorrow than in +anger; but you couldn't persuade them that the British fought for +Belgium at Mons. + +We got into Ghent about midnight. + +Dr. ---- is to stay at the Hôtel de la Poste to-night. + + +[_Monday, 5th._] + +The mosquitoes from the canal have come up and bitten me. I was ill all +night with something that felt like malarial fever, if it isn't +influenza. Couldn't get up--too drowsy. + +Mr. L. came in to see me first thing in the morning. He also came to +hear at first hand the story of our run into Antwerp. He was extremely +kind. He sat and looked at me sorrowfully, as if he had been the family +doctor, and gave me some of his very own China tea (in Belgium in +war-time this is one of the most devoted things that man can do for his +brother). He was so gentle and so sympathetic that my heart went out to +him, and I forgot all about poor Mr. Davidson, and gave up to him the +whole splendid "scoop" of the British troops at Saint Nicolas. + +I couldn't tell him much about the run into Antwerp. No doubt it was a +thrilling performance--through all the languor of malaria it thrills me +now when I think of it--but it wasn't much to offer a War Correspondent, +since it took us nowhere near the bombardment. It had nothing for the +psychologist or for the amateur of strange sensations, and nothing for +the pure and ardent Spirit of Adventure, and nothing for that insatiable +and implacable Self, that drives you to the abhorred experiment, +determined to know how you will come out of it. For there was no more +danger in the excursion than in a run down to Brighton and back; and I +know no more of fear or courage than I did before I started. + +But now that I realize what the insatiable and implacable Self is after, +how it worked in me against all decency and all pity, how it actually +made me feel as if I wanted to see Antwerp under siege, and how the +spirit of adventure backed it up, I can forgive the Commandant. I still +think that he sinned when he took Ursula Dearmer to Termonde and to +Alost. But the temptation that assailed him at Alost and Termonde was +not to be measured by anybody who was not there. + +It must have been irresistible. + +Besides, it is not certain that he did take Ursula Dearmer into danger; +it is every bit as likely that she took him; more likely still that they +were both victims of _force majeure_, fascinated by the lure of the +greatest possible danger. And, oh, how I did pitch into him! + +I am ashamed of the things I said in that access of insulting and +indignant virtue. + +Can it be that I was jealous of Ursula Dearmer, that innocent girl, +because she saw a shell burst and I didn't? I know this is what was the +matter with Mrs. Torrence the other day. She even seemed to imply that +there was some feminine perfidy in Ursula Dearmer's power of drawing +shells to her. (She, poor dear, can't attract even a bullet within a +mile of her.)[15] + +Lying there, in that mosquito-haunted room, I dissolved into a blessed +state, a beautiful, drowsy tenderness to everybody, a drowsy, beautiful +forgiveness of the Commandant. I forgot that he intimated, sternly, that +no ambulance would be at my disposal in the flight from Ghent--I +remember only that he took me into Antwerp yesterday, and that he +couldn't help it if the outer forts _were_ thirty kilometres away, and +I forgive him, beautifully and drowsily. + +But when he came running up in great haste to see me, and rushed down +into the kitchens of the Hotel to order soup for me, and into the +chemist's shop in the Place d'Armes to get my medicine, and ran back +again to give it me, before I knew where I was (such is the debilitating +influence of malaria), instead of forgiving him, I found myself, in +abject contrition, actually asking him to forgive _me_. + +It was all wrong, of course; but the mosquitoes had bitten me rather +badly. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil have got to work at last. All afternoon +and all night yesterday they were busy between the Station and the +hospitals removing the wounded from the Antwerp trains. + +And Car 1 had no sooner got into the yard of the "Flandria" to rest +after its trip to Antwerp and back than it was ordered out again with +the Commandant and Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Torrence to meet the last +ambulance train. The chauffeur Tom was nowhere to be seen when the order +came. He was, however, found after much search, in the Park, in the +company of the Cricklewood bus and a whole regiment of Tommies. + +One of these ambulance trains had been shelled by the Germans (they +couldn't have been very far from us in our run from Antwerp--it was +their nearness, in fact, that accounted for our prodigious haste!), and +many of the men came in worse wounded than they went out. + +We are all tremendously excited over the arrival of the Tommies and the +Cricklewood bus. We can think of nothing else but the relief of Antwerp. + +Ursula Dearmer came to see me. She understands that I have forgiven her +that shell--and why. She wore the clothes--the rather heart-rending +school-girl clothes--she wore when she came to see the Committee. But +oh, how the youngest but one has grown up since then! + +Mrs. Torrence came to see me also, and Janet McNeil. Mrs. Torrence, +though that shell still rankles, is greatly appeased by the labours of +last night. So is Janet. + +They told rather a nice story. + +A train full of British troops from Ostend came into the station +yesterday at the same time as the ambulance train from Antwerp. The two +were drawn up one on each side of the same platform. When the wounded +Belgians saw the British they struggled to their feet. At every window +of the ambulance train bandaged heads were thrust out and bandaged hands +waved. And the Belgians shouted. + +But the British stood dumb, stolid and impassive before their +enthusiasm. + +Mrs. Torrence called out, "Give them a cheer, boys. They're the bravest +little soldiers in the world." + +Then the Tommies let themselves go, and the Station roof nearly flew off +with the explosion. + +The Corps worked till four in the morning clearing out those ambulance +trains. The wards are nearly full. And this is only the beginning. + + +[_Tuesday, 6th._] + +Malaria gone. + +The Commandant called to give his report of the ambulance work. He, Mrs. +Torrence, Janet McNeil, Ursula Dearmer and the men were working all +yesterday afternoon and evening till long past dark at Termonde. It's +the finest thing they've done yet. The men and the women crawled on +their hands and knees in the trenches [? under the river bank] under +fire. Ursula Dearmer (that girl's luck is simply staggering!)--Ursula +Dearmer, wandering adventurously apart, after dark, on the battle-field, +found a young Belgian officer, badly wounded, lying out under a tree. +She couldn't carry him, but she went for two stretchers and three men; +and they put the young officer on one stretcher, and she trotted off +with his sword, his cap and the rest of his accoutrements on the other. +He owes his life to this manifestation of her luck. + +Dr. Wilson has come back from Antwerp. + +It looks as if Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird would go. At any rate, I think +they will give up working on the Field Ambulance. There aren't enough +cars for four surgeons _and_ four field-women, and they have seen hardly +any service. This is rather hard luck on them, as they gave up their +practice to come out with us. Naturally, they don't want to waste any +more time. + +I managed to get some work done to-day. Wrote a paragraph about the +Ambulance for Mr. L., who will publish it in the _Westminster_ under his +name, to raise funds for us. He is more than ever certain that it (the +Ambulance) is the real thing. + +Also wrote an article ("L'Hôpital Militaire, No. 2") for the _Daily +Chronicle_; the first bit of journalism I've had time or material for. + +Shopped. Very _triste_ affair. + +Went to mass in the Cathedral. Sat far back among the refugees. + +If you want to know what Religion really is, go into a Catholic church +in a Catholic country under invasion. You only feel the tenderness, the +naïveté of Catholicism in peace-time. In war-time you realize its power. + + +[_Evening._] + +Saw Mr. P., who has been at Termonde. He spoke with great praise of the +gallantry of our Corps. + +It's odd--either I'm getting used to it, or it's the effect of that run +into Antwerp--but I'm no longer torn by fear and anxiety for their +safety. + +[?] Dined with Mr. L. in a restaurant in the town. It proved to be more +expensive than either of us cared for. Our fried sole left us hungry and +yet conscience-stricken, as if after an orgy, suffering in a dreadful +communion of guilt. + + +[_Wednesday, 7th._] + +7 A.M. Got up early and went to Mass in the Cathedral. + +Prepared report for British Red Cross. Wrote "Journal of Impressions" +from September 25th to September 26th, 11 A.M. It's slow work. Haven't +got out of Ostend yet! + +Fighting at Zele. + + +[_Afternoon._] + +Got very near the fighting this time. + +Mr. L. (Heaven bless him!) took me out with him in the War +Correspondents' car to see what the Ambulance was doing at Zele, and, +incidentally, to look at the bombardment of some evacuated villages near +it (I have no desire to see the bombardment of any village that has not +been evacuated first). Mr. M. came too, and they brought a Belgian lady +with them, a charming and beautiful lady, whose name I forget. + +When Mr. L. told me to get up and come with him to Zele, I did get up +with an energy and enthusiasm that amazed me; I got up like one who has +been summoned at last, after long waiting, to a sure and certain +enterprise. I can trust Mr. L. or any War Correspondent who means +business, as I cannot (after Antwerp) trust the Commandant. So far, if +the Commandant happens upon a bombardment it has been either in the way +of duty, or by sheer luck, or both, as at Alost and Termonde, when duty +took him to these places, and any bombardment or firing was, as it were, +thrown in. He did not go out deliberately to seek it, for its own sake, +and find it infallibly, which is the War Correspondent's way. So that if +Mr. L. says there is going to be a bombardment, we shall probably get +somewhere nearer to it than thirty kilometres. + +We took the main road to Zele. I don't know whether it was really a +continuation of the south-east road that runs under the Hospital +windows; anyhow, we left it very soon, striking southwards to the right +to find what Mr. L. believed to be a short cut. Thus we never got to +Zele at all. We came out on a good straight road that would no doubt +have led us there in time, but that we allowed ourselves to be lured by +the smoke of the great factory at Schoonard burning away to the south. + +For a long time I could not believe that it was smoke we saw and not an +enormous cloud blown by the wind across miles of sky. We seemed to run +for miles with that terrible banner streaming on our right to the south, +apparently in the same place, as far off as ever. East of it, on the +sky-line, was a whole fleet of little clouds that hung low over the +earth; that rose from it; rose and were never lifted, but as they were +shredded away, scattered and vanished, were perpetually renewed. This +movement of their death and re-birth had a horrible sinister pulse in +it. + +Each cloud of this fleet of clouds was the smoke from a burning village. + +At last, after an endless flanking pursuit of the great cloud that +continued steadily on our right, piling itself on itself and mounting +incessantly, we struck into a side lane that seemed to lead straight to +the factory on fire. But in this direct advance the cloud eluded us at +every turn of the lane. Now it was rising straight in front of us in the +south, now it was streaming away somewhere to the west of our track. +When we went west it went east. When we went east it went west. And +wherever we went we met refugees from the burning villages. They were +trudging along slowly, very tired, very miserable, but with no panic and +no violent grief. We passed through villages and hamlets, untouched +still, but waiting quietly, and a little breathlessly, on the edge of +their doom. + +At the end of one lane, where it turned straight to the east round the +square of a field we came upon a great lake ringed with trees and set in +a green place of the most serene and vivid beauty. It seemed incredible +that the same hour should bring us to this magic stillness and peace and +within sight of the smoke of war and within sound of the guns. + +At the next turn we heard them. + +We still thought that we could get to Schoonard, to the burning factory, +and work back to Zele by a slight round. But at this turn we had lost +sight of Schoonard and the great cloud altogether, and found ourselves +in a little hamlet Heaven knows where. Only, straight ahead of us, as we +looked westwards, we heard the guns. The sound came from somewhere over +there and from two quarters; German guns booming away on the south, +Belgian [? French] guns answering from the north. + +Judging by these sounds and those we heard afterwards, we must have been +now on the outer edge of a line of fire stretching west and east and +following the course of the Scheldt. The Germans were entrenched behind +the river. + +In the little hamlet we asked our way of a peasant. As far as we could +make out from his mixed French and Flemish, he told us to turn back and +take the road we had left where it goes south to the village of +Baerlaere. This we did. We gathered that we could get a road through +Baerlaere to Schoonard. Failing Schoonard, our way to Zele lay through +Baerlaere in the opposite direction. + +We set off along a very bad road to Baerlaere. + +Coming into Baerlaere, we saw a house with a remarkable roof, a +steep-pitched roof of black and white tiles arranged in a sort of +chequer-board pattern. I asked Mr. L. if he had ever seen a roof like +that in his life and he replied promptly, "Yes; in China." And that +roof--if it was coming into Baerlaere that we saw it--is all that I can +remember of Baerlaere. There was, I suppose, the usual church with its +steeple where the streets forked and the usual town hall near it, with a +flight of steps before the door and a three-cornered classic pediment; +and the usual double line of flat-fronted, grey-shuttered houses; I do +seem to remember these things as if they had really been there, but you +couldn't see the bottom half of the houses for the troops that were +crowded in front of them, or the top half for the shells you tried to +see and didn't. They were sweeping high up over the roofs, making for +the entrenchments and the batteries beyond the village. + +We had come bang into the middle of an artillery duel. It was going on +at a range of about a mile and a half, but all over our heads, so that +though we heard it with great intensity, we saw nothing. + +There were intervals of a few seconds between the firing. The Belgian [? +French] batteries were pounding away on the left quite near (the booming +seemed to come from behind the houses at our backs), and the German on +the right, farther away. + +Now, you may have hated and dreaded the sound of guns all your life, as +you hate and dread any immense and violent noise, but there is something +about the sound of the first near gun of your first battle that, so far +from being hateful or dreadful, or in any way abhorrent to you, will +make you smile in spite of yourself with a kind of quiet exultation +mixed very oddly with reminiscence[16] so that, though your first +impression (by no means disagreeable) is of being "in for it," your +next, after the second and the third gun, is that of having been in for +it many times before. The effect on your nerves is now like that of +being in a very small sailing-boat in a very big-running sea. You climb +wave after high wave, and are not swallowed up as you expected. You +wait, between guns, for the boom and the shock of the next, with a +passionate anticipation, as you wait for the next wave. And the sound of +the gun when it comes is like the exhilarating smack of the wave that +you and your boat mean to resist and do resist when it gets you. + +You do not think, as you used to think when you sat safe in your little +box-like house in St. John's Wood, how terrible it is that shells should +be hurtling through the air and killing men by whole regiments. You do +not think at all. Nobody anywhere near you is thinking that sort of +thing, or thinking very much at all. + +At the sound of the first near gun I found myself looking across the +road at a French soldier. We were smiling at each other. + +When we tried to get to Schoonard from the west end of the town we were +stopped and turned back by the General in command. Not in the least +abashed by this _contretemps_, Mr. L., after some parley with various +officers, decided not to go back in ignominious safety by the way we +came, but to push on from the east end of the village into the open +country through the line of fire that stretched between us and the road +to Zele. On our way, while we were about it, he said, we might as well +stop and have a look at the Belgian batteries at work--as if he had said +we might as well stop at Olympia and have a look at the Motor Show on +our way to Richmond. + +At this point the unhappy chauffeur, who had not found himself by any +means at home in Baerlaere, remarked that he had a wife and family +dependent on him. + +Mr. L. replied with dignity that he had a wife and family too, and that +we all had somebody or something; and that War Correspondents cannot +afford to think of their wives and families at these moments. + +Mr. M.'s face backed up Mr. L. with an expression of extreme +determination. + +The little Belgian lady smiled placidly and imperturbably, with an air +of being ready to go anywhere where these intrepid Englishmen should see +fit to take her. + +I felt a little sorry for the chauffeur. He had been out with the War +Correspondents several times already, and I hadn't. + +We left him and his car behind us in the village, squeezed very tight +against a stable wall that stood between them and the German fire. We +four went on a little way beyond the village and turned into a bridle +path across the open fields. At the bottom of a field to our left was a +small slump of willows; we had heard the Belgian guns firing from that +direction a few minutes before. We concluded that the battery was +concealed behind the willows. We strolled on like one half of a picnic +party that has been divided and is looking innocently for the other half +in a likely place.[17] But as we came nearer to the willows we lost our +clue. The battery had evidently made up its mind not to fire as long as +we were in sight. Like the cloud of smoke from the Schoonard factory, it +eluded us successfully. And indeed it is hardly the way of batteries to +choose positions where interested War Correspondents can come out and +find them.[18] + +So we went back to the village, where we found the infantry being drawn +up in order and doing something to its rifles. For one thrilling moment +I imagined that the Germans were about to leap out of their trenches and +rush the village, and that the Belgians [? French] were preparing for a +bayonet charge. + +"In that case," I thought, "we shall be very useful in picking up the +wounded and carrying them away in that car." + +I never thought of the ugly rush and the horrors after it. It is +extraordinary how your mind can put away from it any thought that would +make life insupportable. + +But no, they were not fixing bayonets. They were not doing anything to +their rifles; they were only stacking them. + +It was then that you thought of the ugly rush and were glad that, after +all, it wouldn't happen. + +You were glad--and yet in spite of that same gladness, there was a +little sense of disappointment, unaccountable, unpardonable, and not +quite sane. + +One of the men showed us a burst shrapnel shell. We examined it with +great interest as the kind of thing that would be most likely to hit us +on our way from Baerlaere to Zele. + +We had been barely half an hour hanging about Baerlaere, but it seemed +as if we had wasted a whole afternoon there. At last we started. We were +told to drive fast, as the fire might open on us at any minute. We drove +very fast. Our road lay through open country flat to the river, with no +sort of cover anywhere from the German fire, if it chose to come. About +half a mile ahead of us was a small hamlet that had been shelled. Mr. L. +told us to duck when we heard the guns. I remember thinking that I +particularly didn't want to be wounded in my right arm, and that as I +sat with my right arm resting on the ledge of the car it was somewhat +exposed to the German batteries, so I wriggled low down in my seat and +tucked my arm well under cover for quite five minutes. But you couldn't +see anything that way, so I popped up again and presently forgot all +about my valuable arm in the sheer excitement of the rush through the +danger zone. Our car was low on the ground; still, it was high enough +and big enough to serve as a mark for the German guns and it fairly gave +them the range of the road. + +But though the guns had been pounding away before we started, they +ceased firing as we went through. + +That, however, was sheer luck. And presently it was brought home to me +that we were not the only persons involved in the risk of this joyous +adventure. Just outside the bombarded hamlet ahead of us we were stopped +by some Belgian [? French] soldiers hidden in the cover of a ditch by +the roadside, which if it was not a trench might very easily have been +one. They were talking in whispers for fear of being overheard by the +Germans, who must have been at least a mile off, across the fields on +the other side of the river. A mile seemed a pretty safe distance; but +Mr. L. said it wouldn't help us much, considering that the range of +their guns was twenty-four miles. The soldiers told us we couldn't +possibly get through to Zele. That was true. The road was blocked--by +the ruins of the hamlet--not twenty yards from where we were pulled up. +We got out of the car; and while Mr. L. and the Belgian lady conversed +with the soldiers, Mr. M. and I walked on to investigate the road. + +At the abrupt end of a short row of houses it stopped where it should +have turned suddenly, and became a rubbish-heap lying in a waste place. + +Just at first I thought we must have gone out of our course somehow and +missed the road to Zele. It was difficult to realize that this +rubbish-heap lying in a waste place ever _had_ been a road. But for the +shell of a house that stood next to it, the last of the row, and the +piles of lath and plaster, and the shattered glass on the sidewalk and +the blown dust everywhere, it might have passed for the ordinary +no-thoroughfare of an abandoned brick-field. + +Mr. M. made me keep close under the wall of a barn or something on the +other side of the street, the only thing that stood between us and the +German batteries. Beyond the barn were the green fields bare to the guns +that had shelled this end of the village. At first we hugged our shelter +tight, only looking out now and then round the corner of the barn into +the open country. + +A flat field, a low line of willows at the bottom, and somewhere behind +the willows the German batteries. Grey puffs were still curling about +the stems and clinging to the tops of the willows. They might have been +mist from the river or smoke from the guns we had heard. I hadn't time +to watch them, for suddenly Mr. M. darted from his cover and made an +alarming sally into the open field. + +He said he wanted to find some pieces of nice hot shell for me. + +So I had to run out after Mr. M. and tell him I didn't want any pieces +of hot shell, and pull him back into safety. + +All for nothing. Not a gun fired. + +We strolled across what was left of the narrow street and looked through +the window-frames of a shattered house. It had been a little inn. The +roof and walls of the parlour had been wrecked, so had most of the +furniture. But on a table against the inner wall a row of clean glasses +still stood in their order as the landlord had left them; and not one of +them was broken. + +I suppose it must have been about time for the guns to begin firing +again, for Mr. L. called to us to come back and to look sharp too. So we +ran for it. And as we leaped into the car Mr. L. reproved Mr. M. gravely +and virtuously for "taking a lady into danger." + +The car rushed back into Baerlaere if anything faster than it had rushed +out, Mr. L. sitting bolt upright with an air of great majesty and +integrity. I remember thinking that it would never, never do to duck if +the shells came, for if we did Mr. L.'s head would stand out like a +noble monument and he would be hit as infallibly as any cathedral in +Belgium. + +It seems that the soldiers were not particularly pleased at our +blundering up against their trench in our noisy car, which, they said, +might draw down the German fire at any minute on the Belgian lines. + +We got into Ghent after dark by the way we came. + + +[_Evening._] + +Called at the "Flandria." Ursula Dearmer and two Belgian nurses have +been sent to the convent at Zele to work there to-night. + +Mr. ---- is here. But you wouldn't know him. I have just been introduced +to him without knowing him. Before the War he was a Quaker,[19] a +teetotaller, and a pacifist at any price. And I suppose he wore clothes +that conformed more or less to his principles. Now he is wearing +the uniform of a British naval officer. He is drinking long +whiskies-and-sodas in the restaurant, in the society of Major R. And the +Major's khaki doesn't give a point to the Quaker's uniform. As for the +Quaker, they say he could give points to any able seaman when it comes +to swear words (but this may be sheer affectionate exaggeration). His +face and his high, hatchet nose, whatever colour they used to be, are +now the colour of copper--not an ordinary, Dutch kettle and +coal-scuttle, pacifist, arts-and-crafts copper, but a fine old, +truculent, damn-disarmament, Krupp-&-Co., bloody, ammunition copper, and +battered by the wars of all the world. He is the commander and the +owner of an armoured car, one of the unit of five volunteer armoured +cars. I do not know whether he was happy or unhappy when there wasn't a +war. No man, and certainly no Quaker, could possibly be happier than +this Quaker is now. He and the Major have been out potting Germans all +the afternoon. (They have accounted for nine.) A schoolboy who has hit +the mark nine times running with his first toy rifle is not merrier +than, if as merry as, these more than mature men with their armoured +car. They do not say much, but you gather that it is more fun being a +volunteer than a regular; it is to enjoy delight with liberty, the +maximum of risk with the minimum of responsibility. + +And their armoured car--if it is the one I saw standing to-day in the +Place d'Armes--it is, as far as you can make out through its disguises, +an ordinary open touring car, with a wooden hoarding (mere matchboard) +stuck all round it, the whole painted grey to simulate, armoured +painting. Through four holes, fore and aft and on either side of her, +their machine-guns rake the horizon. The Major and Mr. ---- sit inside, +hidden behind the matchboard plating. They scour the country. When they +see any Germans they fire and bring them down. It is quite simple. When +you inquire how they can regard that old wooden rabbit-hutch as an +armoured cover, they reply that their car isn't for defence, it's for +attack. The Germans have only to see their guns and they're off. And +really it looks like it, since the two are actually here before your +eyes, drinking whiskies-and-sodas, and the rest of the armoured car +corps are alive somewhere in Ghent. + +Dear Major R. and Mr. ---- (whom I never met before), unless they read +this Journal, which isn't likely, they will never know how my heart +warmed towards them, nor how happy I count myself in being allowed to +see them. They showed me how good it is to be alive; how excellent, +above all things, to be a man and to be young for ever, and to go out +into the most gigantic war in history, sitting in an armoured car which +is as a rabbit-hutch for safety, and to have been a pacifist, that is to +say a sinner, like Mr. ----, so that on the top of it you feel the whole +glamour and glory of conversion. Others may have known the agony and the +fear and sordid filth and horror and the waste, but they know nothing +but the clean and fiery passion and the contagious ecstasy of war. + +If you were to tell Mr. ---- about the mystic fascination of the +south-east road, the road that leads eventually to Waterloo, he would +most certainly understand you, but it is very doubtful whether he would +let you venture very far down it. Whereas the Commandant, sooner or +later, will. + + +[_Thursday, 8th._] + +Had breakfast with Mr. L. + +Went down to the "Flandria." They say Zele has been taken. There has +been terrific anxiety here for Ursula Dearmer and the two Belgian nurses +(Madame F.'s daughter and niece), who were left there all night in the +convent, which may very well be in the hands of the Germans by now. An +Ambulance car went off very early this morning to their rescue and has +brought them back safe. + +We are told that the Germans are really advancing on Ghent. We have +orders to prepare to leave it at a minute's notice. This time it looks +as if there might be something in it. + +I attend to the Commandant's correspondence. Wired Mr. Hastings. Wired +Miss F. definitely accepting the Field Ambulance Corps and nurses she +has raised in Glasgow. Her idea is that her Ambulance should be an +independent unit attached to our corps but bearing her name. (Seems +rather a pity to bring the poor lady out just now when things are +beginning to be risky and our habitations uncertain.) + +The British troops are pouring into Ghent. There is a whole crowd of +them in the _Place_ in front of the Station. And some British wounded +from Antwerp are in our Hospital. + +Heavy fighting at Lokeren, between Ghent and Saint Nicolas. Car 1 has +been sent there with the Commandant, Ursula Dearmer, Janet McNeil and +the Chaplain (Mr. Foster has been hurt in lifting a stretcher; he is out +of it, poor man). Mrs. Torrence, Dr. Wilson and Mr. Riley have been sent +to Nazareth. Mrs. Lambert has gone to Lokeren with her husband in his +car. + +I was sent for this morning by somebody who desired to see the English +Field Ambulance. Drawn up before the Hospital I found all that was left +of a Hendon bus, in the charge of two British Red Cross volunteers in +khaki and a British tar. The three were smiling in full enjoyment of the +high comedy of disaster. They said they were looking for a job, and they +wanted to know if our Ambulance would take them on. They were keen. They +had every qualification under the sun. + +"Only," they said, "there's one thing we bar. And that's the +firing-line. We've been under shell-fire for fifteen hours--and look at +our bus!" + +The bus was a thing of heroism and gorgeous ruin. The nose of its engine +looked as if it had nuzzled its way through a thousand _débâcles_; its +dark-blue sides were coated with dust and mud to the colour of an +armoured car. The letters M. E. T. were barely discernible through the +grey. Its windows were shattered to mere jags and spikes and splinters +of glass that adhered marvellously to their frames. + +I don't know how I managed to convey to the three volunteers that such a +bus would be about as much use to our Field Ambulance as an old +greenhouse that had come through an earthquake. It was one of the +saddest things I ever had to do. + +Unperturbed, and still credulous of adventure, they climbed on to their +bus, turned her nose round, and went, smiling, away. + +Who they were, and what corps they belonged to, and how they acquired +that Metropolitan bus I shall never know, and do not want to know. I +would far rather think of them as the heroes of some fantastic +enterprise, careering in gladness and in mystery from one besieged city +to another. + +Saw Madame F., who looks worried. She suggested that I should come back +to the Hospital. She says it must be inconvenient for the Commandant not +to have his secretary always at hand. At the same time, we are told +that the Hospital is filling up so fast that our rooms will be wanted. +And anyhow, Dr. ---- has got mine. + +I have found an absurd little hotel, the Hôtel Cecil in the _Place_, +opposite the Hospital, where I can have a room. Then I can be on duty +all day. + +Went down to the "Poste." Gave up my room, packed and took leave of the +nice fat _propriétaire_ and his wife. + +Driving through the town, I meet French troops pouring through the +streets. There was very little cheering. + +Settled into the Hôtel Cecil; if it could be called settling when my +things have to stay packed, in case the Germans come before the evening. + +The Hôtel Cecil is a thin slice of a house with three rooms on each +little floor, and a staircase like a ladder. There is something very +sinister about this smallness and narrowness and steepness. You say to +yourself: Supposing the Germans really do come into Ghent; there will be +some Uhlans among them; and the Uhlans will certainly come into the +Hôtel Cecil, and they will get very drunk in the restaurant below; and +you might as well be in a trap as in this den at the top of the slice up +all these abominable little steep stairs. And you are very glad that +your room has a balcony. + +But though your room has a balcony it hasn't got a table, or any space +where a table could stand. There is hardly anything in it but a big +double bed and a tall hat-stand. I have never seen a room more +inappropriate to a secretary and reporter. + +The proprietor and his wife are very amiable. He is a Red Cross man; and +they have taken two refugee women into their house. They have promised +faithfully that by noon there shall be a table. + +Noon has come; and there is no table. + +The cars have come back from Lokeren and Nazareth, full of wounded. + +Mrs. Lambert and her husband have come back from Lokeren. They drove +right into the German lines to fetch two wounded. They were promptly +arrested and as promptly released when their passports had shown them to +be good American citizens. They brought back their two wounded. +Altogether, ten or fifteen wounded have been brought back from Lokeren +this morning. + + +[_Afternoon._] + +The Commandant has taken me out with the Ambulance for the first time. +We were to go to Lokeren. + +On the way we came up with the Lamberts in their scouting-car. They +asked me to get out of the Ambulance car and come with them. On the +whole, after this morning, it looked as if the scouting-car promised +better incident. So I threw in my lot with the Lamberts. + +It was a little disappointing, for no sooner had the Ambulance car got +clean away than the scouting-car broke down. Also Mr. Lambert stated +that it was not his intention to take Mrs. Lambert into the German lines +again to-day if he could possibly help it. + +We waited for an exasperating twenty minutes while the car got righted. +From our street, in a blue transparent sky, so high up that it seemed +part of the transparency, we saw a Taube hanging over Ghent. People came +out of their houses and watched it with interest and a kind of amiable +toleration. + +At last we got off; and the scouting-car made such good running that we +came up with our Ambulance in a small town half-way between Ghent and +Lokeren. We stopped here to confer with the Belgian Army Medical +officers. They told us it was impossible to go on to Lokeren. Lokeren +was now in the hands of the Germans. The wounded had been brought into a +small village about two miles away. + +When we got into the village we were told to go back at once, for the +Germans were coming in. The Commandant answered that we had come to +fetch the wounded and were certainly not going back without them. It +seemed that there were only four wounded, and they had been taken into +houses in the village. + +We were given five minutes to get them out and go. + +I suppose we stayed in that village quite three-quarters of an hour. + +It was one straight street of small houses, and beyond the last house +about a quarter of a mile of flat road, a quiet, grey road between tall, +slender trees, then the turn. And behind the turn the Germans were +expected to come in from Lokeren every minute. + +And we had to find the houses and the wounded men. + +The Commandant went into the first house and came out again very +quickly. + +The man in the room inside was dead. + +We went on up the village. + +Down that quiet road and through the village, swerving into the rough, +sandy track that fringed the paved street, a battery of Belgian +artillery came clattering in full retreat. The leader turned his horse +violently into a side alley and plunged down it. I was close behind the +battery when it turned; I could see the faces of the men. They had not +that terrible look that Mr. Davidson told me he saw on the faces of +Belgians in retreat from [?] Zele. There was no terror in them, only a +sort of sullen annoyance and disgust. + +I was walking beside the Commandant, and how I managed to get mixed up +with this battery I don't know. First of all it held me up when it +turned, then when I got through, it still came on and cut me off from +the Commandant. (The rest of the Corps were with the Ambulance in the +middle of the village.) + +Then, through the plunging train, I caught sight of the innocent +Commandant, all by himself, strolling serenely towards the open road, +where beyond the bend the Germans were presumably pursuing the battery. +It was terribly alarming to see the Commandant advancing to meet them, +all alone, without a word of German to protect him. + +There were gaps in the retreat, and I dashed through one of them (as you +dash through the traffic in the Strand when you're in a hurry) and went +after the Commandant with the brilliant idea of defending him with a +volley of bad German hurled at the enemy's head. + +And the Commandant went on, indifferent both to his danger and to his +salvation, and disappeared down a little lane and into a house where a +wounded man was. I stood at the end of the lane with the sublime +intention of guarding it. + +The Commandant came out presently. He looked as if he were steeped in a +large, vague leisure, and he asked me to go and find Mr. Lambert and his +scouting-car. Mr. Lambert had got to go to Lokeren to fetch some +wounded. + +So I ran back down the village and found Mr. Lambert and his car at the +other end of it. He accepted his destiny with a beautiful transatlantic +calm and dashed off to Lokeren. I do not think he took his wife with him +this time.[20] + +I went back to see if the Germans had got any nearer to the Commandant. +They hadn't. What with dressings and bandages and looking for wounded, +the Ambulance must have worked for about half an hour, and not any +Germans had turned the corner yet. + +It was still busy getting its load safely stowed away. Nothing for the +wretched Secretary to do but to stand there at the far end of the +village, looking up the road to Lokeren. There was a most singular +fascination about the turn of that road beyond the trees. + +Suddenly, at what seemed the last minute of safety, two Belgian +stretcher-bearers, without a stretcher, rushed up to me. They said there +was a man badly wounded in some house somewhere up the road. I found a +stretcher and went off with them to look for him. + +We went on and on up the road. It couldn't have been more than a few +hundred yards, really, if as much; but it felt like going on and on; it +seemed impossible to find that house. + + * * * * * + +There was something odd about that short stretch of grey road and the +tall trees at the end of it and the turn. These things appeared in a +queer, vivid stillness, as if they were not there on their own account, +but stood in witness to some superior reality. Through them you were +somehow assured of Reality with a most singular and overpowering +certainty. You were aware of the possibility of an ensuing agony and +horror as of something unreal and transitory that would break through +the peace of it in a merely episodical manner. Whatever happened to come +round the turn of the road would simply not matter. + +And with your own quick movements up the road there came that steadily +mounting thrill which is not excitement, or anything in the least like +excitement, because of its extreme quietness. This thrill is apt to +cheat you by stopping short of the ecstasy it seems to promise. But this +time it didn't stop short; it became more and more steady and more and +more quiet in the swing of its vibration; it became ecstasy; it became +intense happiness. + +It lasted till we reached the little plantation by the roadside. + +While it lasted you had the sense of touching Reality at its highest +point in a secure and effortless consummation; so far were you from +being strung up to any pitch. + +Then came the plantation. + +Behind the plantation, on a railway siding, a train came up from Lokeren +with yet another load of wounded. And in the train there was confusion +and agitation and fear. Belgian Red Cross men hung out by the doors of +the train and clamoured excitedly for stretchers. There was only one +stretcher, the one we had brought from the village. + +Somebody complained bitterly: "_C'est mal arrangé. Avec les Allemands +sur nos dos!_" + +Somebody tried to grab our one stretcher. The two bearers seemed +inclined to give it up. Nobody knew where our badly wounded man was. +Nobody seemed very eager now to go and look for him. We three were +surrounded and ordered to give up our stretcher. No use wasting time in +hunting for one man, with the Germans on our backs. + +None of the men we were helping out of the train were seriously hurt. I +had to choose between my one badly wounded man, whom we hadn't found, +and about a dozen who could stumble somehow into safety. But my two +stretcher-bearers were wavering badly, and it was all I could do to keep +them firmly to their job. + +Then three women came out of a little house half hidden by the +plantation. They spoke low, for fear the Germans should overhear them. + +"He is here," they said; "he is here." + +The stretcher-bearers hurried off with their stretcher. The train +unloaded itself somehow. + +The man, horribly hurt, with a wound like a red pit below his +shoulder-blades, was brought out and laid on the stretcher. He lay +there, quietly, on his side, in a posture of utter resignation to +anguish. + +He was a Flamand, clumsily built; he had a broad, rather ugly face, +narrowing suddenly as the fringe of his whiskers became a little +straggling beard. But to me he was the most beautiful thing I have ever +seen. And I loved him. I do not think it is possible to love, to adore +any creature more than I loved and adored that clumsy, ugly Flamand. + +He was my first wounded man. + +For I tried, I still try, to persuade myself that if I hadn't bullied my +two bearers and repulsed the attack on my stretcher, he would have been +left behind in the little house in the plantation. + +We got him out of the plantation all right and on to the paved road. +Ursula Dearmer at Termonde with her Belgian officer, and at Zele with +all her wounded, couldn't have been happier than I was with my one +Flamand. + +We got him a few yards down the road all right. + +Then, to my horror, the bearers dumped him down on the paving-stones. +They said he was much too heavy. They couldn't possibly carry him any +more unless they rested. + +I didn't think it was exactly the moment for resting, and I told them +so. The Germans hadn't come round the turn, and probably never would +come; still, you never know; and the general impression seemed to be +that they were about due. + +But the bearers stood stolidly in the middle of the road and mopped +their faces and puffed. The situation began to feel as absurd and as +terrible as a nightmare. + +So I grabbed one end of the stretcher and said I'd carry it myself. I +said I wasn't very strong, and perhaps I couldn't carry it, but anyhow +I'd try. + +They picked it up at once then, and went off at a good swinging trot +over the paving-stones that jolted my poor Flamand most horribly. I told +them to go on the smooth track at the side. They hailed this suggestion +as a most brilliant and original idea. + +As the Flamand was brought into the village, the Ambulance had got its +wounded in, and was ready to go. But he had to have his wound dressed. + +He lay there on his stretcher in the middle of the village street, my +beloved Flamand, stripped to the waist, with the great red pit of his +wound yawning in his white flesh. I had to look on while the Commandant +stuffed it with antiseptic gauze. + +I had always supposed that the dressing of a wound was a cautious and +delicate process. But it isn't. There is a certain casual audacity about +it. The Commandant's hands worked rapidly as he rammed cyanide gauze +into the red pit. It looked as if he were stuffing an old crate with +straw. And it was all over in a moment. There seemed something indecent +in the haste with which my Flamand was disposed of. + +When the Commandant observed that my Flamand's wound looked much worse +than it was, I felt hurt, as if this beloved person had been slighted; +also as if there was some subtle disparagement to my "find." + +I rather hoped that we were going to wait till the men I had left behind +in the plantation had come up. But the car was fairly full, and Ursula +Dearmer and Janet and Mrs. Lambert were told off to take it in to Z----, +leave the wounded there and come back for the rest. I was to walk to +Z---- and wait there for the returning car. + +Nothing would have pleased me better, but the distance was farther than +the Commandant realized, farther, perhaps, than was desirable in the +circumstances, so I was ordered to get on the car and come back with it. + +(Tom the chauffeur is perfectly right. There are too many of us.) + +We got away long before the Germans turned the corner, if they ever did +turn it. In Z----, which is half-way between Lokeren and Ghent, we came +upon six or seven fine military ambulances, all huddled together as if +they sought safety in companionship (why none of them had been sent up +to our village I can't imagine). Ursula Dearmer, with admirable +presence of mind, commandeered one of these and went back with it to the +village, so that we could take our load of wounded into Ghent. We did +this, and went back at once. + +The return journey was a tame affair. Before we got to Z---- we met the +Commandant and the Chaplain and two refugees, in Mr. Lambert's +scouting-car, towed by a motor-wagon. It had broken down on the way from +Lokeren. We took them on board and turned back to Ghent. + +The wounded came on in Ursula Dearmer's military car. + +Twenty-three wounded in all were taken from Lokeren or near it to-day. +Hundreds had to be left behind in the German lines. + + * * * * * + +We have heard that Antwerp is burning; that the Government is removed to +Ostend; that all the English have left. + +There are a great many British wounded, with nurses and Army doctors, in +Ghent. Three or four British have been brought into the "Flandria." + +One of them is a young British officer, Mr. ----. He is said to be +mortally wounded. + +Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird have not gone. They and Dr. ---- have joined the +surgical staff of the Hospital, and are working in the operating +theatre all day. They have got enough to do now in all conscience. + +All night there has been a sound of the firing of machine guns [?]. At +first it was like the barking, of all the dogs in Belgium. I thought it +_was_ the dogs of Belgium, till I discovered a deadly rhythm and +precision in the barking.[21] + + +[_Friday, 9th._] + +The Hospital is so full that beds have been put in the entrance hall, +along the walls by the big ward and the secretarial bureau. In the +recess by the ward there are three British soldiers. + +There are some men standing about there whose heads and faces are +covered with a thick white mask of cotton-wool like a diver's helmet. +There are three small holes in each white mask, for mouth and eyes. The +effect is appalling. + +These are the men whose faces have been burned by shell-fire at Antwerp. + +The Commandant asked me to come with him through the wards and find all +the British wounded who are well enough to be sent home. I am to take +their names and dress them and get them ready to go by the morning +train. + +There are none in the upper wards. Mr. ---- cannot be moved. He is very +ill. They do not think he will live. + +There are three downstairs in the hall. One is well enough to look after +himself (I have forgotten his name). One, Russell, is wounded in the +knee. The third, Cameron, a big Highlander, is wounded in the head. He +wears a high headdress of bandages wound round and round many times like +an Indian turban, and secured by more bandages round his jaw and chin. +It is glued tight to one side of his head with clotted blood. Between +the bandages his sharp, Highland face looks piteous. + +I am to dress these two and have them ready by eleven. Dr. ---- of the +British Field Hospital, who is to take them over, comes round to enter +their names on his list. + +They are to be dressed in civilian clothes supplied by the Hospital. + +It all sounded very simple until you tried to get the clothes. First you +had to see the President, who referred you to the Matron, who referred +you to the clerk in charge of the clothing department. An _infirmier_ +(one of the mysterious officials who hang about the hall wearing peaked +caps; the problem of their existence was now solved for the first +time)--an _infirmier_ was despatched to find the clerk. The clothing +department must have been hidden in the remotest recesses of the +Hospital, for it was ages before he came back to ask me all over again +what clothes would be wanted. He was a little fat man with bright, curly +hair, very eager, and very cheerful and very kind. He scuttled off again +like a rabbit, and I had to call him back to measure Russell. And when +he had measured Russell, with his gay and amiable alacrity, Russell and +I had to wait until he came back with the clothes. + +I had made up my mind very soon that it would be no use measuring +Cameron for any clothes, or getting him ready for any train. He was +moving his head from side to side and making queer moaning sounds of +agitation and dismay. He had asked for a cigarette, which somebody had +brought him. It dropped from his fingers. Somebody picked it up and lit +it and stuck it in his mouth; it dropped again. Then I noticed something +odd about his left arm; he was holding it up with his right hand and +feeling it. It dropped, too, like a dead weight, on the counterpane. +Cameron watched its behaviour with anguish. He complained that his left +arm was all numb and too heavy to hold up. Also he said he was afraid +to be moved and taken away. + +It struck me that Cameron's head must be smashed in on the right side +and that some pressure on his brain was causing paralysis. It was quite +clear that he couldn't be moved. So I sent for one of the Belgian +doctors to come and look at him, and keep him in the Hospital. + +The Belgian doctor found that Cameron's head _was_ smashed in on the +right side, and that there was pressure on his brain, causing paralysis +in his left arm. + +He is to be kept in the Hospital and operated on this morning. They may +save him if they can remove the pressure. + +It seemed ages before the merry little _infirmier_ came back with +Russell's clothes. And when he did come he brought socks that were too +tight, and went back and brought socks that were too large, and a shirt +that was too tight and trousers that were too long. Then he went back, +eager as ever, and brought drawers that were too tight, and more +trousers that were too short. He brought boots that were too large and +boots that were too tight; and he had to be sent back again for +slippers. Last of all he brought a shirt which made Russell smile and +mutter something about being dressed in all the colours of the rainbow; +and a black cutaway morning coat, and a variety of hats, all too small +for Russell. + +Then when you had made a selection, you began to try to get Russell into +all these things that were too tight or too loose for him. The socks +were the worst. The right-hand one had to be put on very carefully, by +quarter inches at a time; the least tug on the sock would give Russell +an excruciating pain in his wounded knee; and Russell was all for +violence and haste; he was so afraid of being left behind. + +Though he called me "Sister," I felt certain that Russell must know that +I wasn't a trained nurse and that he was the first wounded man I had +ever dressed in my life. However, I did get him dressed, somehow, with +the help of the little _infirmier_, and a wonderful sight he was, in the +costume of a Belgian civilian. + +What tried him most were the hats. He refused a peaked cap which the +_infirmier_ pressed on him, and compromised finally on a sort of checked +cricket cap that just covered the extreme top of his head. We got him +off in time, after all. + +Then two _infirmiers_ came with a stretcher and carried Cameron +upstairs to the operating theatre, and I went up and waited with him in +the corridor till the surgeons were ready for him. He had grown drowsy +and indifferent by now. + +I have missed the Ambulance going out to Lokeren, and have had to stay +behind. + +Two ladies called to see Mr. ----. One of them was Miss Ashley-Smith, +who had him in her ward at Antwerp. I took them over the Hospital to +find his room, which is on the second story. His name--his names--in +thick Gothic letters, were on a white card by the door. + +He was asleep and the nurse could not let them see him. + +Miss Ashley-Smith and her friend are staying in the Couvent de Saint +Pierre, where the British Field Hospital has taken some of its wounded. + +Towards one o'clock news came of heavy fighting. The battle is creeping +nearer to us; it has stretched from Zele and Quatrecht to Melle, four +and a half miles from Ghent. They are saying that the Germans may enter +Ghent to-day, in an hour--half an hour! It will be very awkward for us +and for our wounded if they do, as both our ambulance cars are out. + +Later news of more fighting at Quatrecht. + + +[_Afternoon._] + +The Commandant has come back. They were at Quatrecht, not Lokeren. + +Mr. ---- is awake now. The Commandant has taken me to see him. + +He is lying in one of the officers' wards, a small room, with bare walls +and a blond light, looking south. There are two beds in this room, set +side by side. In the one next the door there is a young French officer. +He is very young: a boy with sleek black hair and smooth rose-leaf skin, +shining and fresh as if he had never been near the smoke and dirt of +battle. He is sitting up reading a French magazine. He is wounded in the +leg. His crutches are propped up against the wall. + +Stretched on his back in the further bed there is a very tall young +Englishman. The sheet is drawn very tight over his chest; his face is +flushed and he is breathing rapidly, in short jerks. At first you do not +see that he, too, is not more than a boy, for he is so big and tall, and +a little brown feathery beard has begun to curl about his jaw and chin. + +When I came to him and the Commandant told him my name, he opened his +eyes wide with a look of startled recognition. He said he knew me; he +had seen me somewhere in England. He was so certain about it that he +persuaded me that I had seen him somewhere. But we can neither of us +remember where or when. They say he is not perfectly conscious all the +time. + +We stayed with him for a few minutes till he went off to sleep again. + +None of the doctors think that he can live. He was wounded in front with +mitrailleuse; eight bullets in his body. He has been operated on. How he +survived the operation and the journey on the top of it I can't imagine. +And now general peritonitis has set in. It doesn't look as if he had a +chance. + + * * * * * + +We have heard that all the War Correspondents have been sent out of +Ghent. + +Numbers of British troops came in to-day. + +Went up to see Mr. Foster, who is in his room, ill. It is hard lines +that he should have had this accident when he has been working so +splendidly. And it wasn't his fault, either. One of the Belgian bearers +slipped with his end of a stretcher when they were carrying a heavy man, +and Mr. Foster got hurt in trying to right the balance and save his +wounded man. He is very much distressed at having to lie up and be +waited on. + + * * * * * + +Impossible to write a Journal or any articles while I am in the +Hospital, and there is no table yet in my room at the Hôtel Cecil. + +The first ambulance car, with the chauffeur Bert and Mr. Riley, has come +back from Melle, where they left Mrs. Torrence and Janet and Dr. Wilson. +They went back again in the afternoon. + +They are all out now except poor Mr. Foster and Mrs. Lambert, who is +somewhere with her husband. + +I am the only available member of the Corps left in the Hospital! + + +[_3.30._] + +No Germans have appeared yet. + + * * * * * + +I was sitting up in the mess-room, making entries in the Day-Book, when +I was sent for. Somebody or something had arrived, and was waiting +below. + +On the steps of the Hospital I found two brand-new British chauffeurs in +brand-new suits of khaki. Behind them, drawn up in the entry, were two +brand-new Daimler motor-ambulance cars. + +I thought it was a Field Ambulance that had lost itself on the way to +France. The chauffeurs (they had beautiful manners, and were very spick +and span, and one pleased me by his remarkable resemblance to the +editor of the _English Review_)--the chauffeurs wanted to know whether +they had come to the right place. And of course they hardly had, if all +the British Red Cross ambulance cars were going into France. + +Then they explained. + +They were certainly making for Ghent. The British Red Cross Society had +sent them there. They were only anxious to know whether they had come to +the right Hospital, the Hospital where the English Field Ambulance was +quartered. + +Yes: that was right. They had been sent for us. + +They had just come up from Ostend, and they had not been ten minutes in +Ghent before orders came through for an ambulance to be sent at once to +Melle. + +The only available member of the Corps was its Secretary and Reporter. +To that utterly untrained and supremely inappropriate person Heaven sent +this incredible luck. + +When I think how easily I might have missed it! If I'd gone for a stroll +in the town. If I'd sat five minutes longer with Mr. Foster. If the +landlord of the Hôtel Cecil had kept his word and given me a table, when +I should, to a dead certainty, have been writing this wretched Journal +at the ineffable moment when the chauffeurs arrived. + +I am glad to think that I had just enough morality left to play fair +with Mrs. Lambert. I did try to find her, so that she shouldn't miss it. +Somebody said she was in one of the restaurants on the _Place_ with her +husband. I looked in all the restaurants and she wasn't in one of them. +The finger of Heaven pointed unmistakably to the Secretary and Reporter. + +There was a delay of ten minutes, no more, while I got some cake and +sandwiches for the hungry chauffeurs and took them to the bureau to have +their brassards stamped. And in every minute of the ten I suffered +tortures while we waited. I thought something _must_ happen to prevent +my taking that ambulance car out. I thought my heart would leave off +beating and I should die before we started (I believe people feel like +this sometimes before their wedding night). I thought the Commandant +would come back and send out Ursula Dearmer instead. I thought the +Military Power would come down from its secret hiding-place and stop me. +But none of these things happened. At the last moment, I thought that M. +C---- + +M. C---- was the Belgian Red Cross guide who took us into Antwerp. To M. +C---- I said simply and firmly that I was going. The functions of the +Secretary and Reporter had never been very clearly defined, and this +was certainly not the moment to define them. M. C----, in his innocence, +accepted me with confidence and a chivalrous gravity that left nothing +to be desired. + +The chauffeur Newlands (the leaner and darker one) declared himself +ready for anything. All he wanted was to get to work. Poor Ascot, who +was so like my friend the editor, had to be content with his vigil in +the back yard. + +At last we got off. I might have trusted Heaven. The getting off was a +foregone conclusion, for we went along the south-east road, which had +not worked its mysterious fascination for nothing. + +At a fork where two roads go into Ghent we saw one of our old ambulance +cars dashing into Ghent down the other road on our left. It was beyond +hail. Heaven _meant_ us to go on uninterrupted and unchallenged. + +I had not allowed for trouble at the barrier. There always is a barrier, +which may be anything from a mile to four miles from the field or +village where the wounded are. Yesterday on the way to Lokeren the +barrier was at Z----. To-day it was somewhere half-way between Ghent and +Melle. + +None of us had ever quite got to the bottom of the trouble at the +barrier. We know that the Belgian authorities wisely refused all +responsibility. Properly speaking, our ambulances were not supposed to +go nearer than a certain safe distance from the enemy's firing-line. For +two reasons. First, it stood the chance of being shelled or taken +prisoner. Second, there was a very natural fear that it might draw down +the enemy's fire on the Belgians. Our huge, lumbering cars, with their +brand-new khaki hoods and flaming red crosses on a white ground, were an +admirable mark for German guns. But as the Corps in this case went into +the firing-line on foot, I do not think that the risk was to the +Belgians. So, though in theory we stopped outside the barriers, in +practice we invariably got through. + +The new car was stopped at the barrier now by the usual Belgian Army +Medical Officer. We were not to go on to Melle. + +I said that we had orders to go on to Melle; and I meant to go on to +Melle. The Medical Officer said again that we were not to go, and I said +again that we were going. + +Then that Belgian Army Medical Officer began to tell us what I imagine +is the usual barrier tale. + +There were any amount of ambulances at Melle. + +There were no wounded at Melle. + +And in any case this ambulance wouldn't be allowed to go there. And then +the usual battle of the barrier had place. + +It was one against three. For M. C---- went over to the enemy, and the +chauffeur Newlands, confronted by two official adversaries in uniform, +became deafer and deafer to my voice in his right ear. + +First, the noble and chivalrous Belgian Red Cross guide, with an +appalling treachery, gave the order to turn the car round to Ghent. I +gave the counter order. Newlands wavered for one heroic moment; then he +turned the car round. + +I jumped out and went up to the Army Medical Officer and delivered a +frontal attack, discharging execrable French. + +"No wounded? You tell us that tale every day, and there are always +wounded. Do you want any more of them to die? I mean to go on and I +shall go on." + +I didn't ask him how he thought he could stop one whom Heaven had +predestined to go on to Melle. + +M. C---- had got out now to see the fight. + +The Army Medical Officer looked the Secretary and Reporter up and down, +taking in that vision of inappropriateness and disproportion. There was +a faint, a very faint smile under the ferocity of his moustache, the +first sign of relenting. The Secretary and Reporter saw the advantage +and followed, as you might follow a bend in the enemy's line of +defence. + +"I _want_ to go on" (placably, almost pathetically). "_Je veux +continuer._ Do you by any chance imagine we're _afraid_?" + +At this, M. C----, the Belgian guide, smiled too, under a moustache not +quite so ferocious as the Army Medical Officer's. They shrugged their +shoulders. They had done their duty. Anyhow, they had lost the battle. + +The guide and the reporter jumped back into the car; I didn't hear +anybody give the order, but the chauffeur Newlands turned her round in +no time, and we dashed past the barrier and into Melle. + +The village street, that had been raked by mitrailleuses from the field +beyond it, was quiet when we came in, and almost deserted. Up a side +street, propped against the wall of a stable, four wounded Frenchmen +waited for the ambulance. A fifth, shot through the back of his head by +a dum-dum bullet, lay in front of them on a stretcher that dripped +blood. + +I found Mr. Grierson in the village, left behind by the last ambulance. +He was immensely astonished at my arrival with the new car. He had with +him an eager little Englishman, one of the sort that tracks an +ambulance everywhere on the off-chance of being useful. + +And the Curé of the village was there. He wore the Red Cross brassard on +the sleeve of his cassock and he carried the Host in a little bag of +purple silk. + +They told me that the village had been fired on by shrapnel a few +minutes before we came into it. They said we were only a hundred [?] +yards from the German trenches. We could see the edge of the field from +the village street. The trenches [?] were at the bottom of it. + +It was Baerlaere all over again. The firing stopped as soon as I came +within range of it, and didn't begin again until we had got away. + +You couldn't take any interest in the firing or the German trenches, or +the eager little Englishman, or anything. You couldn't see anything but +those five wounded men, or think of anything but how to get them into +the ambulance as painlessly and in as short a time as possible. + +The man on the dripping stretcher was mortally wounded. He was lifted in +first, very slowly and gently. + +The Curé climbed in after him, carrying the Host. + +He kneeled there while the blood from the wounded head oozed through the +bandages and through the canvas of the stretcher to the floor and to +the skirts of his cassock. + +We waited. + +There was no ugly haste in the Supreme Act; the three mortal moments +that it lasted (it could not have lasted more) were charged with +immortality, while the Curé remained kneeling in the pool of blood. + +I shall never become a Catholic. But if I do, it will be because of the +Curé of Melle, who turned our new motor ambulance into a sanctuary after +the French soldier had baptized it with his blood. I have never seen, I +never shall see, anything more beautiful, more gracious than the Soul +that appeared in his lean, dark face and in the straight, slender body +under the black _soutane_. In his simple, inevitable gestures you saw +adoration of God, contempt for death, and uttermost compassion. + +It was all over. I received his missal and his bag of purple silk as he +gathered his cassock about him and came down. + +I asked him if anything could be done. His eyes smiled as he answered. +But his lips quivered as he took again his missal and his purple bag. + +M. C---- is now glad that we went on to Melle. + +We helped the four other wounded men in. They sat in a row alongside the +stretcher. + +I sat on the edge of the ambulance, at the feet of the dying man, by the +handles of the stretcher. + +At the last minute the Chaplain jumped on to the step. So did the little +eager Englishman. Hanging on to the hood and swaying with the rush of +the car, he talked continually. He talked from the moment we left Melle +to the moment when we landed him at his street in Ghent; explaining over +and over again the qualifications that justified him in attaching +himself to ambulances. He had lived fourteen years in Ghent. He could +speak French and Flemish. + +I longed for the eager little Englishman to stop. I longed for his +street to come and swallow him up. He had lived in Ghent fourteen years. +He could speak Flemish and French. I felt that I couldn't bear it if he +went on a minute longer. I wanted to think. The dying man lay close +behind me, very straight and stiff; his poor feet stuck out close under +my hand. + +But I couldn't think. The little eager Englishman went on swaying and +talking. + +He had lived fourteen years in Ghent. + +He could speak French and Flemish. + + * * * * * + +The dying man was still alive when he was lifted out of the ambulance. + +He died that evening. + + * * * * * + +The Commandant is pleased with his new ambulances. He is not altogether +displeased with me. + +We must have been very quick. For it was the Commandant's car that we +passed at the fork of the road. And either he arrived a few minutes +after we got back or we arrived just as he had got in. Anyhow, we met in +the porch. + +He and Ursula Dearmer and I went back to Melle again at once, in the new +car. It was nearly dark when we got there. + +We found Mrs. Torrence and little Janet in the village. They and Dr. +Wilson had been working all day long picking up wounded off the field +outside it. The German lines are not far off--at the bottom of the +field. I think only a small number of their guns could rake the main +street of the village where we were. Their shell went over our heads and +over the roofs of the houses towards the French batteries on this side +of the village. There must have been a rush from the German lines across +this field, and the French batteries have done their work well, for Mrs. +Torrence said the German dead are lying thick there among the turnips. +She and Janet and Dr. Wilson had been under fire for eight hours on +end, lifting men and carrying stretchers. I don't know whether their +figures (the two girls in khaki tunics and breeches) could be seen from +the German lines, but they just trudged on between the furrows, and over +the turnip-tops, serenely regardless of the enemy, carefully sorting the +wounded from the dead, with the bullets whizzing past their noses. + +Of bullets Mrs. Torrence said, indeed, that eight hours of them were +rather more than she cared for; and of carrying stretchers over a +turnip-field, that it was as much as she and Janet could do. But they +came back from it without turning a hair. I have seen women more +dishevelled after tramping a turnip-field in a day's partridge-shooting. + +They went off somewhere to find Dr. Wilson; and we--Ursula Dearmer, the +Commandant and I--hung about the village waiting for the wounded to be +brought in. The village was crowded with French and Belgian troops when +we came into it. Then they gathered together and went on towards the +field, and we followed them up the street. They called to us to stay +under cover, or, if we _must_ walk up the street, to keep close under +the houses, as the bullets might come flying at us any minute. + +No bullets came, however. It was like Baerlaere--it was like Lokeren--it +was like every place I've been in, so far. Nothing came as long as +there was a chance of its getting me. + +After that we drove down to the station. While we were hanging about +there, a shell was hurled over this side of the village from the German +batteries. It careered over the roofs, with a track that was luminous in +the dusk, like a curved sheet of lightning. I don't know where it fell +and burst. + +We were told to stand out from under the station building for fear it +should be struck. + +When we got back into the village we went into the inn and waited there +in a long, narrow room, lit by a few small oil-lamps and crammed with +soldiers. They were eating and drinking in vehement haste. Wherever the +light from the lamps fell on them, you saw faces flushed and scarred +under a blur of smoke and grime. Here and there a bandage showed up, +violently white. On the tables enormous quantities of bread appeared and +disappeared. + +These soldiers, with all their vehemence and violence, were exceedingly +lovable. One man brought me a chair; another brought bread and offered +it. Charming smiles flashed through the grime. + +At last, when we had found one man with a wounded hand, we got into the +ambulance and went back to Ghent. + + +[_Saturday, 10th._] + +I have got something to do again--at last! + +I am to help to look after Mr. ----. He has the pick of the Belgian Red +Cross women to nurse him, and they are angelically kind and very +skilful, but he is not very happy with them. He says: "These dear people +are so good to me, but I can't make out what they say. I can't tell them +what I want." He is pathetically glad to have any English people with +him. (Even I am a little better than a Belgian whom he cannot +understand.) + +I sat with him all morning. The French boy has gone and he is alone in +his room now. It seems that the kind Chaplain sat up with him all last +night after his hard day at Melle. (I wish now I had stood by the +Chaplain with his Matins. He has never tried to have them again--given +us up as an unholy crew, all except Mr. Foster, whom he clings to.) + +The morning went like half an hour, while it was going; but when it was +over I felt as if I had been nursing for weeks on end. There were so +many little things to be done, and so much that you mustn't do, and the +anxiety was appalling. I don't suppose there is a worse case in the +Hospital. He is perhaps a shade better to-day, but none of the medical +staff think that he can live. + +Madame E---- and Dr. Bird have shown me what to do, and what not to do. +I must keep him all the time in the same position. I must give him sips +of iced broth, and little pieces of ice to suck every now and then. I +must not let him try to raise himself in bed. I must not try to lift him +myself. If we do lift him we must keep his body tilted at the same +angle. I must not give him any hot drinks and not too much cold drink. + +And he is six foot high, so tall that his feet come through the blankets +at the bottom of the bed; and he keeps sinking down in it all the time +and wanting to raise himself up again. And his fever makes him restless. +And he is always thirsty and he longs for hot tea more than iced water, +and for more iced water than is good for him. The iced broth that is his +only nourishment he does not want at all. + +And then he must be kept very quiet. I must not let him talk more than +is necessary to tell me what he wants, or he will die of exhaustion. And +what he wants is to talk every minute that he is awake. + +He drops off to sleep, breathing in jerks and with a terrible rapidity. +And I think it will be all right as long as he sleeps. But his sleep +only lasts for a few minutes. I hear the rhythm of his breathing alter; +it slackens and goes slow; then it jerks again, and I know that he is +awake. + +And then he begins. He says things that tear at your heart. He has looks +and gestures that break it--the adorable, wilful smile of a child that +knows that it is being watched when you find his hand groping too often +for the glass of iced water that stands beside his bed; a still more +adorable and utterly gentle submission when you take the glass from him; +when you tell him not to say anything more just yet but to go to sleep +again. You feel as if you were guilty of act after act of nameless and +abominable cruelty. + +He sticks to it that he has seen me before, that he has heard of me, +that his people know me. And he wants to know what I do and where I live +and where it was that he saw me. Once, when I thought he had gone to +sleep, I heard him begin again: "Where did you say you lived?" + +I tell him. And I tell him to go to sleep again. + +He closes his eyes obediently and opens them the next instant. + +"I say, may I come and call on you when we get back to England?" + +You can only say: "Yes. Of course," and tell him to go to sleep. + +His voice is so strong and clear that I could almost believe that he +will get back and that some day I shall look up and see him standing at +my garden gate. + +Mercifully, when I tell him to go to sleep again, he does go to sleep. +And his voice is a little clearer and stronger every time he wakes. + +And so the morning goes on. The only thing he wants you to do for him is +to sponge his hands and face with iced water and to give him little bits +of ice to suck. Over and over again I do these things. And over and over +again he asks me, "Do you mind?" + + * * * * * + +He wears a little grey woollen cord round his neck. Something has gone +from it. Whatever he has lost, they have left him his little woollen +cord, as if some immense importance attached to it. + + * * * * * + +He has fallen into a long doze. And at the end of the morning I left him +sleeping. + +Some of the Corps have brought in trophies from the battle-field--a fine +grey cloak with a scarlet collar, a spiked helmet, a cuff with three +buttons cut from the coat of a dead German. + +These things make me sick. I see the body under the cloak, the head +under the helmet, and the dead hand under the cuff. + + +[_Afternoon._] + +Saw Mr. Foster. He is to be sent back to England for an operation. Dr. +Wilson is to take him. He asked me if I thought the Commandant would +take him back again when he is better. + +Saw the President about Mr. Foster. He will not hear of his going back +to England. He wants him to stay in the Hospital and be operated on +here. He promises the utmost care and attention. He is most distressed +to think that he should go. + +It doesn't occur to him in his kindness that it would be much more +distressing if the Germans came into Ghent and interrupted the +operation. + +Cabled Miss F. about her Glasgow ambulance, asking her to pay her staff +if her funds ran to it. Cabled British Red Cross to send Mr. Gould and +his scouting-car here instead of to France. Cabled Mr. Gould to get the +British Red Cross to send him here. + +Mr. Lambert has been ill with malaria. He has gone back to England to +get well again and to repair the car that broke down at Lokeren.[22] + +Somebody else is to look after Mr. ---- this afternoon. + +I have been given leave rather reluctantly to sit up with him at night. + +The Commandant is going to take me in Tom's Daimler (Car 1) to the +British lines to look for a base for that temporary hospital which is +still running in his head like a splendid dream. I do not see how, with +the Germans at Melle, only four and a half miles off, any sort of +hospital is to be established on this side of Ghent. + +Tom, the chauffeur, does not look with favour on the expedition. I have +had to point out to him that a Field Ambulance is _not_, as he would +say, the House of Commons, and that there is a certain propriety +binding even on a chauffeur and a limit to the freedom of the speech you +may apply to your Commandant. This afternoon Tom has exceeded all the +limits. The worst of Tom is that while his tongue rages on the confines +of revolt, he himself is punctilious to excess on the point of orders. +Either he has orders or he hasn't them. If he has them he obeys them +with a punctuality that puts everybody else in the wrong. If he hasn't +them, an earthquake wouldn't make him move. Such is his devotion to +orders that he will insist on any one order holding good for an +unlimited time after it has been given. + +So now, in defence of his manners, he urges that what with orders and +counter-orders, the provocation is more than flesh and blood can stand. +Tom himself is protest clothed in flesh and blood. + +To-day at two o'clock Tom's orders are that his car is to be ready at +two-thirty. My orders are to be ready in twenty minutes. I _am_ ready in +twenty minutes. The Commandant thinks that he has transacted all his +business and is ready in twenty minutes too. Tom and his car are nowhere +to be seen. I go to look for Tom. Tom is reported as being last seen +riding on a motor-lorry towards the British lines in the company of a +detachment of British infantry. + +The chauffeur Tom is considered to have disgraced himself everlastingly. + +Punctually at two-thirty he appears with his car at the door of the +"Flandria." + +The Commandant is nowhere to be seen. He has gone to look for Tom. + +I reprove Tom for the sin of unpunctuality, and he has me. + +His orders were to be ready at two-thirty and he is ready at two-thirty. +And it is nobody's business what he did with himself ten minutes before. +He wants to know where the Commandant is. + +I go to look for the Commandant. + +The Commandant is reported to have been last seen going through the +Hospital on his way to the garage. I go round to the garage through the +Hospital; and the Commandant goes out of the garage by the street. He +was last seen _in_ the garage. + +He appears suddenly from some quarter where you wouldn't expect him in +the least. He reproves Tom. + +Tom with considerable violence declares his righteousness. He has +gathered to himself a friend, a Belgian Red Cross man, whose language he +does not understand. But they exchange winks that surpass all language. + +Then the Commandant remembers that he has several cables to send off. +He is seen disappearing in the direction of the Post and Telegraph +Office. + +Tom swallows words that would be curses if I were not there. + +I keep my eyes fixed on the doors of the Post Office. Ages pass. + +I go to the Post Office to look for the Commandant. He is not in the +Telegraph Office. He is not in the Post Office. Tom keeps his eyes on +the doors of both. + +More ages pass. Finally, the Commandant appears from inside the +Hospital, which he has not been seen to enter. + +The chauffeur Tom dismounts and draws from his car's mysterious being +sounds that express the savage fury of his resentment. + +You would think we were off now. But we only get as far as a street +somewhere near the Hôtel de la Poste. Here we wait for apparently no +reason in such tension that you can hear the ages pass. + +The Commandant disappears. + +Tom says something about there being no room for the wounded at this +rate. + +It seems his orders are to go first to the British lines at a place +whose name I forget, and then on to Melle. + +I remember Tom's views on the subject of field-women. And suddenly I +seem to understand them. Tom is very like Lord Kitchener. He knows +nothing about the aims and wants of modern womanhood and he cares less. +The modern woman does not ask to be protected, does not want to be +protected, and Tom, like Lord Kitchener, will go on protecting. You +cannot elevate men like Lord Kitchener and Tom above the primitive plane +of chivalry. Tom in the danger zone with a woman by his side feels about +as peaceful and comfortable as a woman in the danger zone with a +two-year-old baby in her lap. A bomb in his bedroom is one thing and a +band of drunken Uhlans making for his women is another. Tom's nerves are +racked with problems: How the dickens is he to steer his car and protect +his women at the same time? And if it comes to a toss-up between his +women and his wounded? You've got to stow the silly things somewhere, +and every one of them takes up the place of a wounded man. + +I get out of the car and tell the Commandant that I would rather not go +than take up the place of a wounded man. + +He orders me back to the car again. Tom seems inclined to regard me as a +woman who has done her best. + +We go on a little way and stop again. And there springs out of the +pavement a curious figure that I have seen somewhere before in Ghent, I +cannot remember when or where. The figure wears a check suit of extreme +horsyness and carries a kodak in its hand. It is excited. + +There is something about it that reminds me now of the eager little +Englishman at Melle. These figures spring up everywhere in the track of +a field ambulance. + +When Tom sees it he groans in despair. + +The Commandant gets out and appears to be offering it the hospitality of +the car. I am introduced. + +To my horror the figure skips round in front of the car, levels its +kodak at my head and implores me to sit still. + +I am very rude. I tell it sternly to take that beastly thing away and go +away itself. + +It goes, rather startled. + +And we get off, somehow, without it, and arrive at the end of the +street. + +Here Tom has orders to stop at the first hat-shop he comes to. + +The Commandant has lost his hat at Melle (he has been wearing little +Janet's Arctic cap, to the delight of everybody). He has just remembered +that he wants a hat and he thinks that he will get it now. + +At this point I break down. I hear myself say "Damn" five times, softly +but distinctly. (This after reproving Tom for unfettered speech and +potential insubordination.) + +Tom stops at a hat-shop. The Commandant to his doom enters, and +presently returns wearing a soft felt hat of a vivid green. He asks me +what I think of it. + +I tell him all I think of it, and he says that if I feel like that about +it he'll go in again and get another one. + +I forget what I said then except that I wanted to get on to Melle. That +Melle was the place of all places where I most wished to be. + +Then, lest he might feel unhappy in his green hat, I said that if he +would leave it out all night in the rain and then sit on it no doubt +time and weather and God would do something for it. + +This time we were off, and when I realized it I said "Hurray!"[23] + +Tom had not said anything for some considerable time. + +We found the British lines in a little village just outside of Ghent. +No place there for a base hospital. + +We hung about here for twenty minutes, and the women and children came +out to stare at us with innocent, pathetic faces. + +Somebody had stowed away one of the trophies--the spiked German +helmet--in the ambulance car, and the chauffeur Tom stuck it on a stick +and held it up before the British lines. It was greeted with cheers and +a great shout of laughter from the troops; and the villagers came +running out of their houses to look; they uttered little sharp and +guttural cries of satisfaction. The whole thing was a bit savage and +barbaric and horribly impressive. + +Finally we left the British lines and set out towards Melle by a +cross-road. + +We got through all right. A thousand accidents may delay his going, but +once off, no barriers exist for the Commandant. Seated in the front of +the car, utterly unperturbed by the chauffeur Tom's sarcastic comments +on men, things and women, wrapped (apparently) in a beautiful dream, he +looks straight ahead with eyes whose vagueness veils a deadly simplicity +of purpose. I marvel at the transfiguration of the Commandant. Before +the War he was a fairly complex personality. Now he has ceased to exist +as a separate individual. He is merged, vaguely and vastly, in his +adventure. He is the Motor Ambulance Field Corps; he is the ambulance +car; he is the electric spark and the continuous explosion that drives +the thing along. It is useless to talk to him about anything that +happened before the War or about anything that exists outside it. He +would not admit that anything did exist outside it. He is capable of +forgetting the day of the week and the precise number of female units in +his company and the amount standing to his credit at his banker's, but, +once off, he is cock-sure of the shortest cut to the firing-line within +a radius of fifty kilometres. + +Some of us who have never seen a human phenomenon of this sort are ready +to deny him an identity. They complain of his inveterate and deplorable +lack of any sense of detail. This is absurd. You might as well insist on +a faithful representation of the household furniture of the burgomaster +of Zoetenaeg, which is the smallest village in Belgium, in drawing the +map of Europe to scale. At the critical moment this more than +continental vastness gathers to a wedge-like determination that goes +home. He means to get through. + +We ran into Melle about an hour before sunset. + +There had been a great slaughter of Germans on the field outside the +village where the Germans were still firing when the Corps left it. We +found two of our cars drawn up by the side of the village street, close +under the houses. The Chaplain, Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert were +waiting in one of them, the new Daimler, with the chauffeur Newlands. +Dr. Wilson was in Bert's car with three wounded Germans. He was sitting +in front with one of them beside him. They say that the enemy's wounded +sometimes fire on our surgeons and Red Cross men, and Dr. Wilson had a +revolver about him when he went on the battle-field yesterday. He said +he wasn't taking any risks. The man he had got beside him to-day was +only wounded in the foot, and had his hands entirely free to do what he +liked with. He looked rather a low type, and at the first sight of him I +thought I shouldn't have cared to be alone with him anywhere on a dark +night. + +And then I saw the look on his face. He was purely pathetic. He didn't +look at you. He stared in front of him down the road towards Ghent, in a +dull, helpless misery. These unhappy German Tommies are afraid of us. +They are told that we shall treat them badly, and some of them believe +it. I wanted Dr. Wilson to let me get up and go with the poor fellow, +but he wouldn't. He was sorry for him and very gentle. He is always +sorry for people and very gentle. So I knew that the German would be all +right with him. But I should have liked to have gone. + +We found Mrs. Torrence and Janet with M. ---- on the other side of the +street, left behind by Dr. Wilson. They have been working all day +yesterday and half the night and all this morning and afternoon on that +hideous turnip-field. They have seen things and combinations of things +that no forewarning imagination could have devised. Last night the car +was fired on where it stood waiting for them in the village, and they +had to race back to it under a shower of bullets. + +They were as fresh as paint and very cheerful. Mrs. Torrence was wearing +a large silver order on a broad blue ribbon pinned to her khaki +overcoat. It was given to her to-day as the reward of valour by the +Belgian General in command here. Somebody took it from the breast of a +Prussian officer. She had covered it up with her khaki scarf so that she +might not seem to swank. + +Little Janet was with her. She always is with her. She looked younger +than ever, more impassive than ever, more adorable than ever. I have got +used to Mrs. Torrence and to Ursula Dearmer; but I cannot get used to +Janet. It always seems appalling to me that she should be here, +strolling about the seat of War with her hands in her pockets, as if a +battle were a cricket-match at which you looked on between your innings. +And yet there isn't a man in the Corps who does his work better, and +with more courage and endurance, than this eighteen-year-old child. + +They told us that there were no French or Belgian wounded left, but that +two wounded Germans were still lying over there among the turnips. They +were waiting for our car to come out and take these men up. The car was +now drawn up close under some building that looked like a town hall, on +the other side of the street. We were in the middle of the village. The +village itself was the extreme fringe of the danger zone. Where the +houses ended, a stretch of white road ran up for about [?] a hundred +yards to the turnip-field. Standing in the village street, we could see +the turnip-field, but not all of it. The road goes straight up to the +edge of it and turns there with a sweep to the left and runs alongside +for about a mile and a half. + +On the other side of the turnip-field were the German lines. The first +that had raked the village street also raked the fields and the mile and +a half of road alongside. + +It was along that road that the car would have to go. + +M. ---- told our Ambulance that it might as well go back. There were no +more wounded. Only two Germans lying in a turnip-field. The three of +us--Mrs. Torrence and Janet and I--tried to bring pressure to bear on M. +----. We meant to go and get those Germans. + +But M. ---- was impervious to pressure. He refused either to go with the +car himself or to let us go. He said we were too late and it was too far +and there wouldn't be light enough. He said that for two Belgians, or +two French, or two British, it would be worth while taking risks. But +for two Germans under German fire it wasn't good enough. + +But Mrs. Torrence and Janet and I didn't agree with him. Wounded were +wounded. We said we were going if he wasn't. + +Then the chauffeur Tom joined in. He refused to offer his car as a +target for the enemy.[24] Our firm Belgian was equally determined. The +Commandant, as if roused from his beautiful dream to a sudden +realization of the horrors of war, absolutely forbade the expedition. + +It took place all the same. + +Tom's car, planted there on our side of the street, hugging the wall, +with its hood over its eyes, preserved its attitude of obstinate +immobility. Newlands' car, hugging the wall on the other side of the +street, stood discreetly apart from the discussion. But a Belgian +military ambulance car ran up, smaller and more alert than ours. And a +Belgian Army Medical Officer strolled up to see what was happening. + +We three advanced on that Army Medical Officer, Mrs. Torrence and Janet +on his left and I on his right. + +I shall always be grateful to that righteous man. He gave Mrs. Torrence +and Janet leave to go, and he gave me leave to go with them; he gave us +the military ambulance to go in and a Belgian soldier with a rifle to +protect us. And he didn't waste a second over it. He just looked at us, +and smiled, and let us go. + +Mrs. Torrence got on to the ambulance beside the driver, Janet jumped on +to one step and I on to the other, while the Commandant came up, trying +to look stern, and told me to get down. + +I hung on all the tighter. + +And then---- + +What happened then was so ignominious, so sickening, that, if I were not +sworn to the utmost possible realism in this record, I should suppress +it in the interests of human dignity. + +Mrs. Torrence, having the advantage of me in weight, height, muscle and +position, got up and tried to push me off the step. As she did this she +said: "You can't come. You'll take up the place of a wounded man." + +And I found myself standing in the village street, while the car rushed +out of it, with Janet clinging on to the hood, like a little sailor to +his shrouds. She was on the side next the German guns. + +It was the most revolting thing that had happened to me yet, in a life +filled with incidents that I have no desire to repeat. And it made me +turn on the Commandant in a way that I do not like to think of. I +believe I asked him how he could bear to let that kid go into the German +lines, which was exactly what the poor man hadn't done.[25] + +Then we waited, Mrs. Lambert and I in Tom's car; and the Commandant in +the car with Ursula Dearmer and the Chaplain on the other side of the +street. + +We were dreadfully silent now. We stared at objects that had no earthly +interest for us as if our lives depended on mastering their detail. We +were thus aware of a beautiful little Belgian house standing back from +the village street down a short turning, a cream-coloured house with +green shutters and a roof of rose-red tiles, and a very small poplar +tree mounting guard beside it. This house and its tree were vivid and +very still. They stood back in an atmosphere of their own, an atmosphere +of perfect but utterly unreal peace. And as long as our memories endure, +that house which we never saw before, and shall probably never see +again, is bound up with the fate of Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil. + +We thought we should have an hour to wait before they came back, if they +ever did come. We waited for them during a whole dreadful lifetime. + + * * * * * + +In something less than half an hour the military ambulance came swinging +round the turn of the road, with Mrs. Torrence and the Kid, and the two +German wounded with them on the stretchers. + +Those Germans never thought that they were going to be saved. They +couldn't get over it--that two Englishwomen should have gone through +their fire, for them! As they were being carried through the fire they +said: "We shall never forget what you've done for us. God will bless you +for it." + +Mrs. Torrence asked them, "What will you do for us if we are taken +prisoner?" + +And they said: "We will do all we can to save you." + + * * * * * + +Antwerp is said to have fallen. + +Antwerp is said to be holding its own well.[26] + +All evening the watching Taube has been hanging over Ghent. + +Mrs. Torrence and Janet have gone back with the ambulance to Melle. + + +[_Night._] + +Sat up all night with Mr. ----. + +There is one night nurse for all the wards on this floor, and she has a +serious case to watch in another room. But I can call her if I want +help. And there is the chemist who sleeps in the room next door, who +will come if I go in and wake him up. And there are our own four doctors +upstairs. And the _infirmiers_. It ought to be all right. + +As a matter of fact it was the most terrible night I have ever spent in +my life; and I have lived through a good many terrible nights in +sick-rooms. But no amount of amateur nursing can take the place of +training or of the self-confidence of knowing you are trained. And even +if you _are_ trained, no amount of medical nursing will prepare you for +a bad surgical case. To begin with, I had never nursed a patient so tall +and heavy that I couldn't lift him by sheer strength and a sort of +amateur knack. + +And though in theory it was reassuring to know that you could call the +night nurse and the chemist and the four doctors and the _infirmiers_, +in practice it didn't work out quite so easily as it sounded. When the +night nurse came she couldn't lift any more than I could; and she had a +greater command of discouraging criticism than of useful, practical +suggestion. And the chemist knew no more about lifting than the night +nurse. (Luckily none of us pretended for an instant that we knew!) When +I had called up two of our hard-worked surgeons each once out of his +bed, I had some scruples about waking them again. And it took four +Belgian _infirmiers_ to do in five minutes what one surgeon could do in +as many seconds. And when the chemist went to look for the _infirmiers_ +he was gone for ages--he must have had to round them up from every floor +in the Hospital. Whenever any of them went to look for anything, it took +them ages. It was as if for every article needed in the wards of that +Hospital there was a separate and inaccessible central depôt.[27] + +At one moment a small pillow had to be placed in the hollow of my +patient's back if he was to be kept in that position on which I had been +told his life depended. When I sent the night nurse to look for +something that would serve, she was gone a quarter of an hour, in which +I realized that my case was not the only case in the Hospital. For a +quarter of an hour I had to kneel by his bed with my two arms thrust +together under the hollow of his back, supporting it. I had nothing at +hand that was small enough or firm enough but my arms. + +That night I would have given everything I possess, and everything I +have ever done, to have been a trained nurse. + +To make matters worse, I had an atrocious cough, acquired at the Hôtel +de la Poste. The chemist had made up some medicine for it, but the poor +busy dispensary clerk had forgotten to send it to my room. I had to stop +it by an expenditure of will when I wanted every atom of will to keep my +patient quiet and send him to sleep, if possible, without his morphia +_piqûres_. He is only to have one if he is restless or in pain. + +And to-night he wanted more than ever to talk when he woke. And his +conversation in the night is even more lacerating than his conversation +in the day. For all the time, often in pain, always in extreme +discomfort, he is thinking of other people. + +First of all he asked me if I had any books, and I thought that he +wanted me to read to him. I told him I was afraid he mustn't be read to, +he must go to sleep. And he said: "I mean for you to read yourself--to +pass the time." + +He is afraid that I shall be bored by sitting up with him, that I shall +tire myself, that I shall make my cough worse. He asks me if I think he +will ever be well enough to play games. That is what he has always +wanted to do most. + +And then he begins to tell me about his mother. + +He tells me things that I have no right to put down here. + +There is nothing that I can do for him but to will. And I will hard, or +I pray--I don't know which it is; your acutest willing and your +intensest prayer are indistinguishable. And it seems to work. I will--or +I pray--that he shall lie still without morphia, and that he shall have +no pain. And he lies still, without pain. I will--or I pray--that he +shall sleep without morphia. And he sleeps (I think that in spite of his +extreme discomfort, he must have slept the best part of the night). And +because it seems to work, I will--or I pray--that he shall get well. + +There are many things that obstruct this process as fast as it is begun: +your sensation of sight and touch; the swarms and streams of images that +your brain throws out; and the crushing obsession of your fear. This +last is like a dead weight that you hold off you with your arms +stretched out. Your arms sink and drop under it perpetually and have to +be raised again. At last the weight goes. And the sensations go, and the +swarms and streams of images go, and there is nothing before you and +around you but a clear blank darkness where your will vibrates. + +Only one avenue of sense is left open. You are lost to the very memories +of touch and sight, but you are intensely conscious of every sound from +the bed, every movement of the sleeper. And while one half of you only +lives in that pure and effortless vibration, the other half is aware of +the least change in the rhythm of his breathing. + +It is by this rhythm that I can tell whether he is asleep or awake. This +rhythm of his breathing, and the rhythm of his sleeping and his waking +measure out the night for me. It goes like one hour. + +And yet I have spent months of nights watching in this room. Its blond +walls are as familiar to me as the walls of rooms where I have lived a +long time; I know with a profound and intimate knowledge every crinkle +in the red shade of the electric bulb that hangs on the inner wall +between the two beds, the shape and position of every object on the +night table in the little white-tiled dressing-room; I know every trick +of the inner and outer doors leading to the corridor, and the long grey +lane of the corridor, and the room that I must go through to find ice, +and the face of the little ward-maid who sleeps there, who wants to get +up and break the ice for me every time. I have known the little +ward-maid all my life; I have known the night nurse all my life, with +her white face and sharp black eyes, and all my life I have not cared +for her. All my life I have known and cared only for the wounded man on +the bed. + +I have known every sound of his voice and every line of his face and +hands (the face and hands that he asks me to wash, over and over again, +if I don't mind), and the strong springing of his dark hair from his +forehead and every little feathery tuft of beard on his chin. And I have +known no other measure of time than the rhythm of his breathing, no mark +or sign of time than the black crescent of his eyelashes when the lids +are closed, and the curling blue of his eyes when they open. His eyes +always smile as they open, as if he apologized for waking when he knows +that I want him to sleep. And I have known these things so long that +each one of them is already like a separate wound in my memory.[28] He +sums up for me all the heroism and the agony and waste of the defence of +Antwerp, all the heroism and agony and waste of war. + +About midnight [?] he wakes and tells me he has had a jolly dream. He +dreamed that he was running in a field in England, running in a big +race, that he led the race and won it. + + +[_Sunday, 11th._] + +One bad symptom is disappearing. Towards dawn it has almost gone. He +really does seem stronger. + + +[_5 a.m._] + +He has had no return of pain or restlessness. But he was to have a +morphia _piqûre_ at five o'clock, and they have given it to him to make +sure. + + +[_8 a.m._] + +The night has not been so terrible, after all. It has gone like an hour +and I have left him sleeping. + +I am not in the least bit tired; I never felt drowsy once, and my cough +has nearly gone. + + * * * * * + +Antwerp has fallen. + +Taube over Ghent in the night. + +Six doctors have seen Mr. ----. They all say he is ever so much better. +They even say he may live--that he has a good chance. + +Dr. Wilson is taking Mr. Foster to England this morning. + +Went back to the Hôtel Cecil to sleep for an hour or two. An enormous +oval table-top is leaning flat against the wall; but by no possibility +can it be set up. Still, the landlord said he would find a table, and he +has found one. + +Went back to the "Flandria" for lunch. In the mess-room Janet tells me +that Mr. ----'s case has been taken out of my hands. I am not to try to +do any more nursing. + +Little Janet looks as if she were trying to soften a blow. But it isn't +a blow. Far from it. It is the end of an intolerable responsibility. + +The Commandant and the Chaplain started about nine or ten this morning +for Melle, and are not back yet. + +We expect that we may have to clear out of Ghent before to-morrow. + +Mr. Riley, Mrs. Lambert and Janet have gone in the second car to Melle. + +I waited in all afternoon on the chance of being taken when the +Commandant comes and goes out again. + + +[_4.45._] + +He is not back yet. I am very anxious. The Germans may be in Melle by +now. + +One of the old officials in peaked caps has called on me solemnly this +afternoon. He is the most mysterious of them all, an old man with a +white moustache, who never seems to do anything but hang about. He is +certainly not an _infirmier_. He called ostensibly to ask some question +and remained to talk. I think he thought he would pump me. He began by +asking if we women enjoyed going out with the Field Ambulance; he +supposed we felt very daring and looked on the whole thing as an +adventure. I detected some sinister intention, and replied that that was +not exactly the idea; that our women went out to help to save the lives +of the wounded soldiers, and that they had succeeded in this object over +and over again; and that I didn't imagine they thought of anything much +except their duty. We certainly were not out for amusement. + +Then he took another line. He told me that the reason why our Ambulance +is to be put under the charge of the British General here (we had heard +that the whole of the Belgian Army was shortly to be under the control +of the British, and the whole of the Belgian Red Cross with it)--the +reason is that its behaviour in going into the firing-line has been +criticized. And when I ask him on what grounds, it turns out that +somebody thinks there is a risk of our Ambulance drawing down the fire +on the lines it serves. I told him that in all the time I had been with +the Ambulance it had never placed itself in any position that could +possibly have drawn down fire on the Belgians, and that I had never +heard of any single instance of this danger; and I made him confess that +there was no proof or even rumour of any single instance when it had +occurred. I further told the old gentleman very plainly that these +things ought not to be said or repeated, and that every man and woman in +the English Ambulance would rather lose their own life than risk that of +one Belgian soldier. + +The old gentleman was somewhat flattened out before he left me; having +"_parfaitement compris_." + +It is a delicious idea that Kitchener and Joffre should be reorganizing +the Allied Armies because of the behaviour of our Ambulance. + +There are Gordon Highlanders in Ghent.[29] + + * * * * * + +Went over to the Couvent de Saint Pierre, where Miss Ashley-Smith is +with her British wounded. I had to warn her that the Germans may come in +to-night. I had told the Commandant about her yesterday, and arranged +with him that we should take her and her British away in our Ambulance +if we have to go. I had to find out how many there would be to take. + +The Convent is a little way beyond the _Place_ on the boulevard. I knew +it by the Red Cross hanging from the upper windows. Everything is as +happy and peaceful here as if Ghent were not on the eve of an invasion. +The nuns took me to Miss Ashley-Smith in her ward. I hardly knew her, +for she had changed the uniform of the British Field Hospital[30] for +the white linen of the Belgian Red Cross. I found her in charge of the +ward. Absolutely unperturbed by the news, she went on superintending +the disposal of a table of surgical instruments. She would not consent +to come with us at first. But the nuns persuaded her that she would do +no good by remaining. + +I am to come again and tell her what time to be ready with her wounded, +when we know whether we are going and when. + +Came back to the "Flandria" and finished entries in my Day-Book. + + +[_Evening._] + +The Commandant has come back from Melle; but he is going there again +almost directly. He has been to the British lines, and heard for certain +that the Germans will be in Ghent before morning. We have orders to +clear out before two in the morning. I am to have all his things packed +by midnight. + +The British Consul has left Ghent. + +The news spread through the "Flandria." + +Max has gone about all day with a scared, white face. They say he is +suffering from cold feet. But I will not believe it. He has just +appeared in the mess-room and summoned me mysteriously. He takes me +along the corridor to that room of his which he is so proud of. There is +a brand-new uniform lying on the bed, the uniform of a French soldier +of the line. Max handles it with love and holy adoration, as a priest +handles his sacred vestments. He takes it in his arms, he spreads before +me the grey-blue coat, the grey-blue trousers, and his queer eyes are in +their solemnity large and quiet as dark moons. + +Max is going to rejoin his regiment. + +It is sheer nervous excitement that gave him that wild, white face. + +Max is confident that we shall meet again; and I have a horrid vision of +Max carried on a bloody stretcher, a brutally wounded Max. + +He has given me his address in Brussels, which will not find him there +for long enough: if ever. + +Jean also is to rejoin his regiment. + +Marie, the _bonne_, stands at the door of the service room and watches +us with frightened eyes. She follows me into the mess-room and shuts the +door. The poor thing has been seized with panic, and her one idea is to +get away from Ghent. Can I find a place for her on one of our ambulance +cars? She will squeeze in anywhere, she will stand outside on the step. +Will I take her back to England? She will do any sort of work, no matter +what, and she won't ask for wages if only I will take her there. I tell +her we are not going to England. We are going to Bruges. We have to +follow the Belgian Army wherever it is sent. + +Then will I take her to Bruges? She has a mother there. + +It is ghastly. I have to tell her that it is impossible; that there will +be no place for her in the ambulance cars, that they will be crammed +with wounded, that we will have to stand on the steps ourselves, that I +do not know how many we shall have to take from the Convent, or how many +from the hospitals; that I can do nothing without the Commandant's +orders, and that the Commandant is not here. And she pleads and +implores. She cannot believe that we can be so cruel, and I find my +voice growing hard and stern with sheer, wrenching pity. At last I tell +her that if there is room I will see what can be done, but that I am +afraid that there will not be room. She stays, she clings, trying to +extort through pity a more certain promise, and I have to tell her to +go. She goes, looking at me with the dull resentment of a helpless +creature whom I have hurt. The fact that she has left me sick with pity +will not do her any good. Nothing can do her any good but that place on +the ambulance which I have no power to give her. + +For Marie is not the only one. + +I see all the servants in the "Flandria" coming to me before the night +is over, and clinging and pleading for a place in the ambulance cars. + +And this is only the beginning. After Marie comes Janet McNeil. She, +poor child, has surrendered to the overpowering assault on her feelings +and has pledged herself to smuggle the four young children of Madame +---- into the ambulance somehow. I don't see how it was possible for her +to endure the agony of refusing this request. But what we are to do with +four young children in cars packed with wounded soldiers, through all +the stages of the Belgian Army's retreat--! + +The next problem that faced me was the Commandant's packing--how to get +all the things he had brought with him into one small Gladstone bag and +a sleeping-sack. There was a blue serge suit, two sleeping-suits, a +large Burberry, a great many pocket-handkerchiefs, socks and stockings, +an assortment of neckties, a quantity of small miscellaneous objects +whose fugitive tendencies he proposed to frustrate by confinement in a +large tin biscuit-box; there was the biscuit-box itself, a tobacco tin, +a packet of Gillette razors, a pipe, a leather case containing some +electric apparatus, and a fat scarlet volume: Freud's "Psychopathology +of Everyday Life." All these things he had pointed out to me as they lay +flung on the bed or strewn about the room. He had impressed on me the +absolute necessity of packing every one of them, and by the pathetic +grouping around the Gladstone bag of the biscuit-box, the tobacco-tin, +the case of instruments and Freud, I gathered that he believed that they +would all enter the bag placably and be contained in it with ease. + +The night is still young. + +I pack the Gladstone bag. By alternate coaxing and coercion Freud and +the tobacco-tin and the biscuit-box occupy it amicably enough; but the +case of instruments offers an unconquerable resistance. + +The night is not quite so young as it has been, and I think I must have +left off packing to run over to the Hôtel Cecil and pay my bill; for I +remember going out into the _Place_ and seeing a crowd drawn up in the +middle of it before the "Flandria." An official was addressing this +crowd, ordering them to give up their revolvers and any arms they had on +them. + +The fate of Ghent depends on absolute obedience to this order. + +When I get back I find Mrs. Torrence downstairs in the hall of the +"Flandria." I ask her what we had better do about our refugee children. +She says we can do nothing. There must be no refugee children. How _can_ +there be in an ambulance packed with wounded men? When I tell her that +the children will certainly be there if somebody doesn't do something to +stop them, she goes off to do it. I do not envy her her job. She is not +enjoying it herself. First of all she has got to break it to Janet. And +Janet will have to break it to the mother. + +As to poor Marie, she is out of the question. _I_ shall have to break it +to Marie. + +The night goes on. I sit with Mr. ---- for a little while. I have still +to finish the Commandant's packing; I have not yet begun my own, and it +is time that I should go round to the Convent to tell Miss Ashley-Smith +to be ready with her British before two o'clock. + +I sit with him for what seems a very long time. It is appalling to me +that the time should seem long. For it is really such a little while, +and when it is over there will be nothing more that I shall ever do for +him. This thought is not prominent and vivid; it is barely discernible; +but it is there, a dull background of pain under my anxiety for the +safety of the English over there in the Couvent de Saint Pierre. It is +more than time that I should go and tell them to be ready. + +He holds out his hands to be sponged "if I don't mind." I sponge them +over and over again with iced water and eau de Cologne, gently and very +slowly. I am afraid lest he should be aware that there is any hurry. The +time goes on, and my anxiety becomes acuter every minute, till with each +slow, lingering turn of my hand I think, "If I don't go soon it will be +too late." + +I hear that the children will be all right. Somebody has had a _crise de +nerfs_, and Janet was the victim. + +It is past midnight, and very dark. The _Place_ and the boulevards are +deserted. I cannot see the Red Cross flag hanging from the window of the +Convent. The boulevards look all the same in the blackness, and I turn +up the one to the left. I run on and on very fast, but I cannot see the +white flag with the red cross anywhere; I run back, thinking I must have +passed it, turn and go on again. + +There is nobody in sight. No sound anywhere but the sound of my own feet +running faster and faster up the wrong boulevard. + +At last I know I have gone too far, the houses are entirely strange. I +run back to the _Place_ to get my bearings, and start again. I run +faster than ever. I pass a solitary civilian coming down the boulevard. +The place is so empty and so still that he and I seem to be the only +things alive and awake in this quarter of the town. As I pass he turns +to look after me, wondering at the solitary lady running so fast at +this hour of the morning. I see the Red Cross flag in the distance, and +I come to a door that looks like the door of the Convent. It _is_ the +door of the Convent. + +I ring the bell. I ring it many times. Nobody comes. + +I ring a little louder. A tired lay sister puts her head out of an upper +window and asks me what I want. I tell her. She is rather cross and says +I've come to the wrong door. I must go to the second door; and she puts +her head in and shuts the window with a clang that expresses her just +resentment. + +I go to the second door, and ring many times again. And another lay +sister puts her head out of an upper window. + +She is gentle but sleepy and very slow. She cannot take it in all at +once. She says they are all asleep in the Convent, and she does not like +to wake them. She says this several times, so that I may understand. + +I am exasperated. + +"_Mais, Madame--de grâce! C'est peut-être la vie ou la mort!_" + +The minute I've said it it sounds to me melodramatic and absurd. _I_ am +melodramatic and absurd, with my running feet, and my small figure and +earnest, upturned face, standing under a Convent wall at midnight, and +talking about _la vie et la mort_. It is too improbable. _I_ am too +improbable. I feel that I am making a fuss out of all proportion to the +occasion. And I am sorry for frightening the poor lay sister all for +nothing. + +Very soon, down the south-east road, the Germans will be marching upon +Ghent. + +And I cannot realize it. The whole thing is too improbable. + +But the lay sister has understood this time. She will go and wake the +porteress. She is not at all frightened. + +I wait a little longer, and presently the porteress opens the door. When +she hears my message she goes away, and returns after a little while +with one of the nuns. + +They are very quiet, very kind, and absolutely unafraid. They say that +Miss Ashley-Smith and her British wounded shall be ready before [?] two +o'clock. + +I go back to the "Flandria." + +The Commandant, who went out to Melle in Tom's car, has not come back +yet. + +I think Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert have gone to bed. They are not +taking the Germans very seriously. + +There is nobody in the mess-room but the other three chauffeurs, Bert, +Tom and Newlands. Newlands has just come back from Ostend. They have had +no supper. We bustle about to find some. + +We all know the Germans are coming into Ghent. But we do not speak of +it. We are all very polite, almost supernaturally gentle, and very kind +to each other. The beautiful manners of Newlands are conspicuous in this +hour, the tragedy of which we are affecting to ignore. I behave as if +there was nothing so important in the world as cutting bread for +Newlands. Newlands behaves as if there were nothing so important as +fetching a bottle of formamint, which he has with him, to cure my cough. +(It has burst out again worse than ever after the unnatural repression +of last night.) + +When the chauffeurs are provided with supper I go into the Commandant's +room and finish his packing. The ties, the pocket-handkerchiefs and the +collars are all safe in the Gladstone bag. Only the underclothing and +the suits remain and there is any amount of room for them in the +hold-all. + +I roll up the blue serge coat, and the trousers, and the waistcoat very +smooth and tight, also the underclothes. It seems very simple. I have +only got to put them in the hold-all and then roll it up, smooth and +tight, too-- + +It would have been simple, if the hold-all had been a simple hold-all +and if it had been nothing more. But it was also a sleeping-bag and a +field-tent. As sleeping-bag, it was provided with a thick blanket which +took up most of the room inside, and a waterproof sheet which was part +of itself. As field-tent, it had large protruding flanges, shaped like +jib-sails, and a complicated system of ropes. + +First of all I tucked in the jib-sails and ropes and laid them as flat +as might be on the bottom of the sleeping-bag, with the blanket on the +top of them. Then I packed the clothes on the top of the blanket and +turned it over them to make all snug; I buttoned up the waterproof sheet +over everything, rolled up the hold-all and secured it with its straps. +This was only done by much stratagem and strength, by desperate tugging +and pushing, and by lying flat on my waist on the rolled-up half to keep +it quiet while I brought the loose half over. No sooner had I secured +the hold-all by its straps than I realized that it was no more a +hold-all than it was a sleeping-bag and a field tent, and that its +contents were exposed to the weather down one side, where they bulged +through the spaces that yawned between the buttons, strained almost to +bursting. + +I still believed in the genius that had devised this trinity. Clearly +the jib-sails which made it a field-tent were intended to serve also as +the pockets of the hold-all. I had done wrong to flatten them out and +tuck them in, frustrating the fulfilment of their function. It was not +acting fairly by the inventor. + +I unpacked the hold-all, I mean the field-tent. + +Then, with the Commandant's clothes again lying round me on the floor, I +grappled with the mystery of the jib-sails and their cords. The +jib-sails and their cords were, so to speak, the heart of this infernal +triple entity. + +They were treacherous. They had all the appearance of pockets, but owing +to the intricate and malign relations of their cords, it was impossible +to deal faithfully with them on this footing. When the contents had been +packed inside them, the field-tent asserted itself as against the +hold-all and refused to roll up. And I am sure that if the field-tent +had had to be set up in a field in a hurry, the hold-all and the +sleeping-bag would have arisen and insisted on their consubstantial +rights. + +I unpacked the field-tent and packed it all over again exactly as I had +packed it before, but more carefully, swearing gently and continuously, +as I tugged with my arms and pushed with my knees, and pressed hard on +it with my waist to keep it still. I cursed the day when I had first +heard of it; I cursed myself for giving it to the Commandant; more than +all I cursed the combined ingenuity and levity of its creator, who had +indulged his fantasy at our expense, without a thought to the actual +conditions of the retreat of armies and of ambulances. + +And in the middle of it all Janet came in, and curled herself up in a +corner, and forecast luridly and inconsolably the possible fate of her +friends, the nurses in the "Flandria." For the moment her coolness and +her wise impassivity had gone. Her behaviour was lacerating. + +This was the very worst moment we had come to yet.[31] + +And it seemed that Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert had gone to bed, +regardless of the retreat from Ghent. + +Somewhere in the small hours of the morning the Commandant came back +from Melle.[32] + + * * * * * + +It is nearly two o'clock. Downstairs, in the great silent hall two +British wounded are waiting for some ambulance to take them to the +Station. They are sitting bolt upright on chairs near the doorway, their +heads nodding with drowsiness. One or two Belgian Red Cross men wait +beside them. Opposite them, on three other chairs, the three doctors, +Dr. Haynes, Dr. Bird and Dr. ---- sit waiting for our own ambulance to +take them. They have been up all night and are utterly exhausted. They +sit, fast asleep, with their heads bowed on their breasts. + +Outside, the darkness has mist and a raw cold sting in it. + +A wretched ambulance wagon drawn by two horses is driven up to the door. +It had a hood once, but the hood has disappeared and only the naked +hoops remain. The British wounded from two [?] other hospitals are +packed in it in two rows. They sit bolt upright under the hoops, exposed +to mist and to the raw cold sting of the night; some of them wear their +blankets like shawls over their shoulders as they were taken from their +beds. The shawls and the head bandages give these British a strange, +foreign look, infinitely helpless, infinitely pitiful. + +Nobody seems to be out there but Mrs. Torrence and one or two Belgian +Red Cross men. She and I help to get our two men taken gently out of the +hall and stowed away in the ambulance wagon. There are not enough +blankets. We try to find some. + +At the last minute two bearers come forward, carrying a third. He is +tall and thin; he is wrapped in a coat flung loosely over his +sleeping-jacket; he wears a turban of bandages; his long bare feet stick +out as he is carried along. It is Cameron, my poor Highlander, who was +shot through the brain. + +They lift him, very gently, into the wagon. + +Then, very gently, they lift him out again. + +This attempt to save him is desperate. He is dying. + +They carry him up the steps and stand him there with his naked feet on +the stone. It is anguish to see those thin white feet on the stone; I +take off my coat and put it under them. + +It is all I can do for him. + +Presently they carry him back into the Hospital. + +They can't find any blankets. I run over to the Hôtel Cecil for my +thick, warm travelling-rug to wrap round the knees of the wounded, +shivering in the wagon. + +It is all I can do for them. + +And presently the wagon is turned round, slowly, almost solemnly, and +driven off into the darkness and the cold mist, with its load of weird +and piteous figures, wrapped in blankets like shawls. Their bandages +show blurred white spots in the mist, and they are gone. + +It is horrible. + + * * * * * + +I am reminded that I have not packed yet, nor dressed for the journey. I +go over and pack and dress. I leave behind what I don't need and it +takes seven minutes. There is something sad and terrible about the +little hotel, and its proprietors and their daughter, who has waited on +me. They have so much the air of waiting, of being on the eve. They hang +about doing nothing. They sit mournfully in a corner of the +half-darkened restaurant. As I come and go they smile at me with the +patient Belgian smile that says, "_C'est triste, n'est-ce pas?_" and no +more. + +The landlord puts on his soft brown felt hat and carries my luggage over +to the "Flandria." He stays there, hanging about the porch, fascinated +by these preparations for departure. There is the same terrible +half-darkness here, the same expectant stillness. Now and then the +servants of the hospital look at each other and there are whisperings, +mutterings. They sound sinister somehow and inimical. Or perhaps I +imagine this because I do not take kindly to retreating. Anyhow I am +only aware of them afterwards. For now it is time to go and fetch Miss +Ashley-Smith and her three wounded men from the Convent. + +Tom has come up with his first ambulance car. He is waiting for orders +in the porch. His enormous motor goggles are pushed up over the peak of +his cap. They make it look like some formidable helmet. They give an air +of mastership to Tom's face. At this last hour it wears its expression +of righteous protest, of volcanic patience, of exasperated discipline. + +The Commandant is nowhere to be seen. And every minute of his delay +increases Tom's sense of tortured integrity. + +I tell Tom that he is to drive me at once to the Couvent de Saint +Pierre. He wants to know what for. + +I tell him it is to fetch Miss Ashley-Smith and three British wounded. + +He shrugs his shoulders. He knows nothing about the Couvent de Saint +Pierre and Miss Ashley-Smith and three British wounded, and his shrug +implies that he cares less. + +And he says he has no orders to go and fetch them. + +I perceive that in this supreme moment I am up against Tom's +superstition. He won't move anywhere without orders. It is his one means +of putting himself in the right and everybody else in the wrong. + +And the worst of it is he _is_ right. + +I am also up against Tom's sex prejudices. I remember that he is said to +have sworn with an oath that he wasn't going to take orders from any +woman. + +And the Commandant is nowhere to be seen. + +Tom sticks to the ledge of the porch and stares at me defiantly. The +servants of the Hospital come out and look at us. They are so many +reinforcements to Tom's position. + +I tell him that the arrangement has been made with the Commandant's +consent, and I repeat firmly that he is to get into his car this minute +and drive to the Couvent de Saint Pierre. + +He says he does not know where the Convent is. It may be anywhere. + +I tell him where it is, and he says again he hasn't got orders. + +I stand over him and with savage and violent determination I say: +"You've got them _now_!" + +And, actually, Tom obeys. He says, "_All_ right, all right, all right," +very fast, and humps his shoulders and slouches off to his car. He +cranks it up with less vehemence than I have yet known him bring to the +starting of any car. + +We get in. Then, and not till then, I am placable. I say: "You see, Tom, +it wouldn't do to leave that lady and three British wounded behind, +would it?" + +What he says about orders then is purely by way of apology. + +Regardless of my instructions, he does what I did and dashes up the +wrong boulevard as if the Germans were even now marching into the +_Place_ behind him. But he works round somehow and we arrive. + +They are all there, ready and waiting. And the Mother Superior and two +of her nuns are in the corridor. They bring out glasses of hot milk for +everybody. They are so gentle and so kind that I recall with agony my +impatience when I rang at their gate. Even familiar French words desert +me in this crisis, and I implore Miss Ashley-Smith to convey my regrets +for my rudeness. Their only answer is to smile and press hot milk on me. +I am glad of it, for I have been so absorbed in the drama of preparation +that I have entirely forgotten to eat anything since lunch. + +The wounded are brought along the passage. We help them into the +ambulance. Two, Williams and ----, are only slightly wounded; they can +sit up all the way. But the third, Fisher, is wounded in the head. +Sometimes he is delirious and must be looked after. A fourth man is +dying and must be left behind. + +Then we say good-bye to the nuns. + +The other ambulance cars are drawn up in the _Place_ before the +"Flandria," waiting. For the first time I hate the sight of them. This +feeling is inexplicable but profound. + +We arrange for the final disposal of the wounded in one of the new +Daimlers, where they can all lie down. Mrs. Torrence comes out and helps +us. The Commandant is not there yet. Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird pack Dr. +---- away well inside the car. They are very quiet and very firm and +refuse to travel otherwise than together. Mrs. Torrence goes with the +wounded. + +I go into the Hospital and upstairs to our quarters to see if anything +has been left behind. If I can find Marie we must take her. There is +room, after all. + +But Marie is nowhere to be seen. + +Nobody is to be seen but the Belgian night nurses on duty, watching, one +on each landing at the entrance to her corridor. They smile at me +gravely and sadly as they say good-bye. + +I have left many places, many houses, many people behind me, knowing +that I shall never see them again. But of all leave-takings this seems +to me the worst. For those others I have been something, done something +that absolves me. But for these and for this place I have not done +anything, and now there is not anything to be done. + +I go slowly downstairs. Each flight is a more abominable descent. At +each flight I stand still and pull myself together to face the next +nurse on the next landing. At the second story I go past without +looking. I know every stain on the floor of the corridor there as you +turn to the right. The number of the door and the names on the card +beside it have made a pattern on my brain. + + * * * * * + +It is quarter to three. + +They are all ready now. The Commandant is there giving the final orders +and stowing away the nine wounded he has brought from Melle. The hall of +the Hospital is utterly deserted. So is the _Place_ outside it. And in +the stillness and desolation our going has an air of intolerable +secrecy, of furtive avoidance of fate. This Field Ambulance of ours +abhors retreat. + +It is dark with the black darkness before dawn. + +And the Belgian Red Cross guides have all gone. There is nobody to show +us the roads. + +At the last minute we find a Belgian soldier who will take us as far as +Ecloo. + +The Commandant has arranged to stay at Ecloo for a few hours. Some +friends there have offered him their house. The wounded are to be put up +at the Convent. Ecloo is about half-way between Ghent and Bruges. + +We start. Tom's car goes first with the Belgian soldier in front. Ursula +Dearmer, Mrs. Lambert, Miss Ashley-Smith and Mr. Riley and I are inside. +The Commandant sits, silent, wrapped in meditation, on the step. + +We are not going so very fast, not faster than the three cars behind us, +and the slowest of the three (the Fiat with the hard tyres, carrying the +baggage) sets the pace. We must keep within their sight or they may lose +their way. But though we are not really going fast, the speed seems +intolerable, especially the speed that swings us out of sight of the +"Flandria." You think that is the worst. But it isn't. The speed with +its steady acceleration grows more intolerable with every mile. Your +sense of safety grows intolerable. + +You never knew that safety could hurt like this. + +Somewhere on this road the Belgian Army has gone before us. We have got +to go with it. We have had our orders. + +That thought consoles you, but not for long. You may call it following +the Belgian Army. But the Belgian Army is retreating, and you are +retreating with it. There is nothing else you can do; but that does not +make it any better. And this speed of the motor over the flat roads, +this speed that cuts the air, driving its furrow so fast that the wind +rushes by you like strong water, this speed that so inspired and exalted +you when it brought you into Flanders, when it took you to Antwerp and +Baerlaere and Lokeren and Melle, this vehement and frightful and +relentless speed is the thing that beats you down and tortures you. For +several hours, ever since you had your orders to pack up and go, you +have been working with no other purpose than this going; you have +contemplated it many times with equanimity, with indifference; you knew +all along that it was not possible to stay in Ghent for ever; and when +you were helping to get the wounded into the ambulances you thought it +would be the easiest thing in the world to get in yourself and go with +them; when you had time to think about it you were even aware of looking +forward with pleasure to the thrill of a clean run before the Germans. +You never thought, and nobody could possibly have told you, that it +would be like this. + +I never thought, and nobody could possibly have told me, that I was +going to behave as I did then. + +The thing began with the first turn of the road that hid the "Flandria." +Up till that moment, whatever I may have felt about the people we had to +leave behind us, as long as none of our field-women were left behind, I +had not the smallest objection to being saved myself. And if it had +occurred to me to stay behind for the sake of one man who couldn't be +moved and who had the best surgeon in the Hospital and the pick of the +nursing-staff to look after him, I think I should have disposed of the +idea as sheer sentimentalism. When I was with him to-night I could think +of nothing but the wounded in the Couvent de Saint Pierre. And +afterwards there had been so much to do. + +And now that there was nothing more to do, I couldn't think of anything +but that one man. + +The night before came back to me in a vision, or rather an obsession, +infinitely more present, more visible and palpable than this night that +we were living in. The light with the red shade hung just over my head +on my right hand; the blond walls were round me; they shut me in alone +with the wounded man who lay stretched before me on the bed. And the +moments were measured by the rhythm of his breathing, and by the +closing and opening of his eyes. + +I thought, he will open his eyes to-night and look for me and I shall +not be there. He will know that he has been left to the Belgians, who +cannot understand him, whom he cannot understand. And he will think that +I have betrayed him. + +I felt as if I _had_ betrayed him. + +I am sitting between Mr. Riley and Miss Ashley-Smith. Mr. Riley is ill; +he has got blood-poisoning through a cut in his hand. Every now and then +I remember him, and draw the rug over his knees as it slips. Miss +Ashley-Smith, tired with her night watching, has gone to sleep with her +head on my shoulder, where it must be horribly jolted and shaken by my +cough, which of course chooses this moment to break out again. I try to +get into a position that will rest her better; and between her and Mr. +Riley I forget for a second. + +Then the obsession begins again, and I am shut in between the blond +walls with the wounded man. + +I feel his hand and arm lying heavily on my shoulder in the attempt to +support me as I kneel by his bed with my arms stretched out together +under the hollow of his back, as we wait for the pillow that never +comes. + +It is quite certain that I have betrayed him. + +It seems to me then that nothing that could happen to me in Ghent could +be more infernal than leaving it. And I think that when the ambulance +stops to put down the Belgian soldier I will get out and walk back with +him to Ghent. + +Every half-mile I think that the ambulance will stop to put down the +Belgian soldier. + +But the ambulance does not stop. It goes on and on, and we have got to +Ecloo before we seem to have put three miles between us and Ghent. + +Still, though I'm dead tired when we get there, I can walk three miles +easily. I do not feel at all insane with my obsession. On the contrary, +these moments are moments of exceptional lucidity.[33] While the +Commandant goes to look for the Convent I get out and look for the +Belgian soldier. Other Belgian soldiers have joined him in the village +street. + +I tell him I want to go back to Ghent. I ask him how far it is to walk, +and if he will take me. And he says it is twenty kilometres. The other +soldiers say, too, it is twenty kilometres. I had thought it couldn't +possibly be more than four or five at the outside. And I am just sane +enough to know that I can't walk as far as that if I'm to be any good +when I get there. + +We wait in the village while they find the Convent and take the wounded +men there; we wait while the Commandant goes off in the dark to find his +friend's house. + +The house stands in a garden somewhere beyond the railway station, up a +rough village street and a stretch of country road. It is about four in +the morning when we get there. A thin ooze of light is beginning to leak +through the mist. The mist holds it as a dark cloth holds a fluid that +bleaches it. + +There is something queer about this light. There is something queer, +something almost inimical, about the garden, as if it tried to protect +itself by enchantment from the fifteen who are invading it. The mist +stands straight up from the earth like a high wall drawn close about the +house; it blocks with dense grey stuff every inch of space between the +bushes and trees; they are thrust forward rank upon rank, closing in +upon the house; they loom enormous and near. A few paces further back +they appear as without substance in the dense grey stuff that invests +them; their tops are tangled and lost in a web of grey. In this strange +garden it is as if space itself had solidified in masses, and solid +objects had become spaces between. + +When your eyes get used to this curious inversion it is as if the mist +was no longer a wall but a growth; the garden is the heart of a jungle +bleached by enchantment and struck with stillness and cold; a tangle of +grey; a muffled, huddled and stifled bower, all grey, and webbed and +laced with grey. + +The door of the house opens and the effect of queerness, of inimical +magic disappears. + +Mr. E., our kind Dutch host, and Mrs. E., our kind English hostess, have +got up out of their beds to receive us. This hospitality of theirs is +not a little thing when you think that their house is to be invaded by +Germans, perhaps to-day.[34] + +They do not allow you to think of it. For all you are to see of the +tragedy they and their house might be remaining at Ecloo in leisure and +perfect hospitality and peace. Only, as they see us pouring in over +their threshold a hovering twinkle in their kind eyes shows that they +are not blind to the comic aspect of retreats. + +They have only one spare bedroom, which they offer; but they have filled +their drawing-room with blankets; piles and piles of white fleecy +blankets on chairs and sofas and on the floor. And they have built up a +roaring fire. It is as if they were succouring fifteen survivors of +shipwreck or of earthquake, or the remnants of a forlorn hope. To be +sure, we are flying from Ghent, but we have only flown twenty kilometres +as yet. + +However, most of the Corps have been up all night for several nights, +and the mist outside is a clinging and a biting mist, and everybody is +grateful. + +I shall never forget the look of the E.s' drawing-room, smothered in +blankets and littered with the members of the Corps, who lay about it in +every pathetic posture of fatigue. A group of seven or eight snuggled +down among the blankets on the floor in front of the hearth like a camp +before a campfire. Janet McNeil, curled up on one window-seat, and +Ursula Dearmer, rolled in a blanket on the other, had the heart-rending +beauty of furry animals under torpor. The chauffeurs Tom and Bert made +themselves entirely lovable by going to sleep bolt upright on +dining-room chairs on the outer ring of the camp. The E.s' furniture +came in where it could with fantastic and incongruous effect. + +I don't know how I got through the next three hours, for my obsession +came back on me again and again, and as soon as I shut my eyes I saw the +face and eyes of the wounded man. I remember sitting part of the time +beside Miss Ashley-Smith, wide-awake, in a corner of the room behind +Bert's chair. I remember wandering about the E.s' house. I must have got +out of it, for I also remember finding myself in their garden, at +sunrise. + +And I remember the garden, though I was not perfectly aware of it at the +time. It had a divine beauty, a serenity that refused to enter into, to +ally itself in any way with an experience tainted by the sadness of the +retreat from Ghent. + +But because of its supernatural detachment and tranquillity and its no +less supernatural illumination I recalled it the more vividly +afterwards. + +It was full of tall bushes and little slender trees standing in a +delicate light. The mist had cleared to the transparency of still water, +so still that under it the bushes and the trees stood in a cold, quiet +radiance without a shimmer. The light itself was intensely still. What +you saw was not the approach of light, but its mysterious arrest. It was +held suspended in crystalline vapour, in thin shafts of violet and gold, +clear as panes; it was caught and lifted upwards by the high bushes and +the slender trees; it was veiled in the silver-green masses of their +tops. Every green leaf and every blade of grass was a vessel charged. It +was not so much that the light revealed these things as that these +things revealed the light. There was no kindling touch, no tremor of +dawn in that garden. It was as if it had removed the walls and put off +the lacing webs and the thick cloths of grey stuff by some mystic +impulse of its own, as if it maintained itself in stillness by an inner +flame. Only the very finest tissues yet clung to it, to show that it was +the same garden that disclosed itself in this clarity and beauty. + +The next thing I remember is the Chaplain coming to me and our going +together into the E.s' dining-room, and Miss Ashley-Smith's joining us +there. My malady was contagious and she had caught it, but with no +damage to her self-control. + +She says very simply and quietly that she is going back to Ghent. And +the infection spreads to the Chaplain. He says that neither of us is +going back to Ghent, but that he is going. The poor boy tries to arrange +with us how he may best do it, in secrecy, without poisoning the +Commandant[35] and the whole Ambulance with the spirit of return. With +difficulty we convince him that it would be useless for any man to go. +He would be taken prisoner the minute he showed his nose in the +"Flandria" and set to dig trenches till the end of the War. + +Then he says, if only he had his cassock with him. They would respect +_that_ (which is open to doubt). + +We are there a long time discussing which of us is going back to Ghent. +Miss Ashley-Smith is fertile and ingenious in argument. She is a nurse, +and I and the Chaplain are not. She has friends in Ghent who have not +been warned, whom she must go back to. In any case, she says, it was a +toss-up whether she went or stayed. + +And while we are still arguing, we go out on the road that leads to the +village, to find the ambulances and see if any of the chauffeurs will +take us back to Ghent. I am not very hopeful about the means of +transport. I do not think that Tom or any of the chauffeurs will move, +this time, without orders from the Commandant. I do not think that the +Commandant will let any of us go except himself. + +And Miss Ashley-Smith says if only she had a horse. + +If she had a horse she would be in Ghent in no time. Perhaps, if none of +the chauffeurs will take her back, she can find a horse in the village. + +She keeps on saying very quietly and simply that she is going, and +explaining the reasons why she should go rather than anybody else. And I +bring forward every reason I can think of why she should do nothing of +the sort. + +I abhor the possibility of her going back instead of me; but I am not +yet afraid of it. I do not yet think seriously that she will do it. I do +not see how she is going to, if the chauffeurs refuse to take her. (I do +not see how, in this case, I am to go myself.) And I do not imagine for +one moment that she will find a horse. Still, I am vaguely uneasy. And +the Chaplain doesn't make it any better by backing her up and declaring +that as she will be more good than either of us when she gets there, her +going is the best thing that in the circumstances can be done. + +And in the end, with an extreme quietness and simplicity, she went. + +We had not yet found the ambulance cars, and it seemed pretty certain +that Miss Ashley-Smith would not get her horse any more than the +Chaplain could get his cassock. + +And then, just when we thought the difficulties of transport were +insuperable, we came straight on the railway lines and the station, +where a train had pulled up on its way to Ghent. Miss Ashley-Smith got +on to the train. I got on too, to go with her, and the Chaplain, who is +abominably strong, put his arms round my waist and pulled me off. + +I have never ceased to wish that I had hung on to that train. + +On our way back to the E.s' house we met the Commandant and told him +what had happened. I said I thought it was the worst thing that had +happened yet. It wasn't the smallest consolation when he said it was the +most sensible solution. + +And when Mrs. ---- for fifteen consecutive seconds took the view that I +had decoyed Miss Ashley-Smith out on to that accursed road in order to +send her to Ghent, and deliberately persuaded her to go back to the +"Flandria" instead of me, for fifteen consecutive seconds I believed +that this diabolical thing was what I had actually done. + +Mrs. ----'s indignation never blazes away for more than fifteen seconds; +but while the conflagration lasts it is terrific. And on circumstantial +evidence the case was black against me. When last seen, Miss +Ashley-Smith was entirely willing to be saved. She goes out for a walk +with me along a quiet country road, and the next thing you hear is that +she has gone back to Ghent. And since, actually and really, it was my +obsession that had passed into her, I felt that if I had taken Miss +Ashley-Smith down that road and murdered her in a dyke my responsibility +wouldn't have been a bit worse, if as bad. + +And it seemed to me that all the people scattered among the blankets in +that strange room, those that still lay snuggling down amiably in the +warmth, and those that had started to their feet in dismay, and those +that sat on chairs upright and apart, were hostile with a just and +righteous hostility, that they had an intimate knowledge of my crime, +and had risen up in abhorrence of the thing I was. + +And somewhere, as if they were far off in some blessed place on the +other side of this nightmare, I was aware of the merciful and pitiful +faces of Mrs. Lambert and Janet McNeil. + +Then, close beside me, there was a sudden heaving of the Chaplain's +broad shoulders as he faced the room. + +And I heard him saying, in the same voice in which he had declared that +he was going to hold Matins, that it wasn't my fault at all--that it was +_he_ who had persuaded Miss Ashley-Smith to go back to Ghent.[36] + +The Chaplain has a moral nerve that never fails him. + +Then Mrs. Torrence says that she is going back to protect Miss +Ashley-Smith, and Ursula Dearmer says that she is going back to protect +Mrs. Torrence, and somebody down in the blankets remarks that the thing +was settled last night, and that all this going back is simply rotten. + +I can only repeat that it is all my fault, and that therefore, if Mrs. +Torrence goes back, nobody is going back with her but me. + +And there can be no doubt that three motor ambulances, with possibly the +entire Corps inside them, certainly with the five women and the Chaplain +and the Commandant, would presently have been seen tearing along the +road to Ghent, one in violent pursuit of the other, if we had not +telephoned and received news of Miss Ashley-Smith's safe arrival at the +"Flandria," and orders that no more women were to return to Ghent. + +Among all the variously assorted anguish of that halt at Ecloo the +figures and the behaviour of Mrs. E. and her husband and their children +are beautiful to remember--their courtesy, their serenity, their gentle +and absolving wonder that anybody should see anything in the least +frightful or distressing, or even disconcerting and unusual, in the +situation; the little girl who sat beside me, showing me her +picture-book of animals, accepting gravely and earnestly all that you +had to tell her about the ways of squirrels, of kangaroos and opossums, +while we waited for the ambulance cars to take us to Bruges; the boy who +ran after us as we went, and stood looking after us and waving to us in +the lane; the aspect of that Flemish house and garden as we left +them--there is no word that embraces all these things but beauty. + +We stopped in the village to take up our wounded from the Convent. The +nuns brought us through a long passage and across a little court to the +refectory, which had been turned into a ward. Bowls steaming with the +morning meal for the patients stood on narrow tables between the two +rows of beds. Each bed was hung round and littered with haversacks, +boots, rifles, bandoliers and uniforms bloody and begrimed. Except for +the figures of the nuns and the aspect of its white-washed walls and its +atmosphere of incorruptible peace, the place might have been a barracks +or the dormitory in a night lodging, rather than a convent ward. + +When we had found and dressed our men, we led them out as we had come. +As we went we saw, framed through some open doorway, sunlight and vivid +green, and the high walls and clipped alleys of the Convent garden. + +Of all our sad contacts and separations, these leave-takings at the +convents were the saddest. And it was not only that this place had the +same poignant and unbearable beauty as the place we had just left, but +its beauty was unique. You felt that if the friends you had just left +were turned out of their house and garden to-morrow, they might still +return some day. But here you saw a carefully guarded and fragile +loveliness on the very eve of its dissolution. The place was fairly +saturated with holiness, and the beauty of holiness was in the faces and +in every gesture of the nuns. And you felt that they and their faces and +their gestures were impermanent, that this highly specialized form of +holiness had continued with difficulty until now, that it hung by a +single thread to a world that had departed very far from it. + +Yet, for the moment while you looked at it, it maintained itself in +perfection. + +We shall never know all that the War has annihilated. But for that +moment of time while it lasted, the Convent at Ecloo annihilated the +nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, every century between now and the +fifteenth. What you saw was a piece of life cut straight out of the +Middle Ages. What you felt was the guarded and hidden beauty of the +Middle Ages, the beauty of obedience, simplicity and chastity, of souls +set apart and dedicated, the whole insoluble secret charm of the +cloistered life. The very horror of the invasion that threatened it at +this hour of the twentieth century was a horror of the Middle Ages. + +But these devoted women did not seem aware of it. The little high-bred +English nun who conducted us talked politely and placidly of England and +of English things as of things remembered with a certain mortal +affection but left behind without regret. It was as if she contemplated +the eternal continuance of the Convent at Ecloo with no break in its +divine tranquillity. One sister went so far as to express the hope that +their Convent would be spared. It was as if she were uttering some +merely perfunctory piety. The rest, without ceasing from their +ministrations, looked up at us and smiled. + + * * * * * + +On the way up to Bruges we passed whole regiments of the Belgian Army in +retreat. They trooped along in straggling disorder, their rifles at +trail; behind them the standard-bearers trudged, carrying the standard +furled and covered with black. The speed of our cars as we overtook them +was more insufferable than ever. + + +[_Bruges._] + +We thought that the Belgian Army would be quartered in Bruges, and that +we should find a hospital there and serve the Army from that base. + +We took our wounded to the Convent, and set out to find quarters for +ourselves in the town. We had orders to meet at the Convent again at a +certain hour. + +Most of the Corps were being put up at the Convent. The rest of us had +to look for rooms. + +In the search I got separated from the Corps, and wandered about the +streets of Bruges with much interest and a sense of great intimacy and +leisure. By the time I had found a _pension_ in a narrow street behind +the market-place, I felt it to be quite certain that we should stay in +Bruges at least as long as we had stayed in Ghent, and what moments I +could spare from the obsession of Ghent I spent in contemplating the +Belfry. Very soon it was time to go back to the Convent. The way to the +Convent was through many tortuous streets, but I was going in the right +direction, accompanied by a kind Flamand and her husband, when at the +turn by the canal bridge I was nearly run over by one of our own +ambulance cars. It was Bert's car, and he was driving with fury and +perturbation away from the Convent and towards the town. Janet McNeil +was with him. They stopped to tell me that we had orders to clear out of +Bruges. The Germans had taken Ghent and were coming on to Bruges. We had +orders to go on to Ostend. + +We found the rest of the cars drawn up in a street near the Convent. We +had not been two hours in Bruges, and we left it, if anything, quicker +than we had come in. The flat land fairly dropped away before our speed. +I sat on the back step of the leading car, and I shall never forget the +look of those ambulances, three in a line, as they came into sight +scooting round the turns on the road to Ostend. + +Besides the wounded we had brought from Ghent, we took with us three +footsore Tommies whom we had picked up in Bruges. They had had a long +march. The stoutest, biggest and most robust of these three fainted just +as we drew up in the courtyard of the _Kursaal_ at Ostend. + + +[_Ostend._] + +The _Kursaal_ had been taken by some English and American women and +turned into a Hospital. It was filled already to overflowing, but they +found room for our wounded for the night. Ostend was to be evacuated in +the morning. In fact, we were considered to be running things rather +fine by staying here instead of going on straight to Dunkirk. It was +supposed that if the Germans were not yet in Bruges they might be there +any minute. + +But we had had so many premature orders to clear out, and the Germans +had always been hours behind time, and we judged it a safe risk. +Besides, there were forty-seven Belgian wounded in Bruges, and three of +our ambulance cars were going back to fetch them. + +There was some agitation as to who would and who wouldn't be allowed to +go back to Bruges. The Commandant was at first inclined to reject his +Secretary as unfit. But if you take him the right way he is fairly +tractable, and I managed to convince him that nothing but going back to +Bruges could make up for my failure to go back to Ghent. He earned my +everlasting gratitude by giving me leave. As for Mrs. Torrence, she had +no difficulty. She was obviously competent. + +Then, just as I was congratulating myself that the shame of Ecloo was to +be wiped out (to say nothing of that ignominious overthrow at Melle), +there occurred a _contretemps_ that made our ambulance conspicuous among +the many ambulances in the courtyard of the Hospital. + +We had reckoned without the mistimed chivalry of our chauffeurs. + +They had all, even Tom, been quite pathetically kind and gentle during +and ever since the flight from Ghent. (I remember poor Newlands coming +up with his bottle of formamint just as we were preparing to leave +Ecloo.) It never occurred to us that there was anything ominous in this +mood. + +Mrs. Torrence and I were just going to get into (I think) Newlands' car, +when we were aware of Newlands standing fixed on the steps of the +Hospital, looking like Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in khaki, and flatly +refusing to drive his car into Bruges, not only if we were in his car, +but if one woman went with the expedition in any other car. + +He stood there, very upright, on the steps of the Hospital, and rather +pale, while the Commandant and Mrs. Torrence surged up to him in fury. +The Commandant told him he would be sacked for insubordination, and Mrs. +Torrence, in a wild flight of fancy, threatened to expose him "in the +papers." + +But Newlands stood his ground. He was even more like Lord Kitchener than +Tom. He simply could not get over the idea that women were to be +protected. And to take the women into Bruges when the Germans were, for +all we knew, _in_ Bruges, was an impossibility to Newlands, as it would +have been to Lord Kitchener. So he went on refusing to take his car into +Bruges if one woman went with the expedition. In retort to a charge of +cold feet, he intimated that he was ready to drive into any hell you +pleased, provided he hadn't got to take any women with him. He didn't +care if he _was_ sacked. He didn't care if Mrs. Torrence _did_ report +him in the papers. He wouldn't drive his car into Bruges if one woman-- + +Here, in his utter disregard of all discipline, the likeness between +Newlands and Lord Kitchener ends. Enough that he drove his car into +Bruges on his own terms, and Mrs. Torrence and I were left behind. + +The expedition to Bruges returned safely with the forty-seven Belgian +wounded. + +We found rooms in a large hotel on the Digue, overlooking the sea. +Before evening I went round to the Hospital to see Miss Ashley-Smith's +three wounded men. The _Kursaal_ is built in terraces and galleries +going all round the front and side of it. I took the wrong turning round +one of them and found myself in the doorway of an immense ward. From +somewhere inside there came loud and lacerating screams, high-pitched +but appallingly monotonous and without intervals. I thought it was a man +in delirium; I even thought it might be poor Fisher, of whose attacks we +had been warned. I went in. + +I had barely got a yard inside the ward before a kind little rosy-faced +English nurse ran up to me. I told her what I wanted. + +She said, "You'd better go back. You won't be able to stand it." + +Even then I didn't take it in, and said I supposed the poor man was +delirious. + +She cried out, "No! No! He is having his leg taken off." + +They had run short of anæsthetics. + +I don't know what I must have looked like, but the little rosy-faced +nurse grabbed me and said, "Come away. You'll faint if you see it." + +And I went away. Somebody took me into the right ward, where I found +Fisher and Williams and the other man. Fisher was none the worse for +his journey, and Williams and the other man were very cheerful. Another +English nurse, who must have had the tact of a heavenly angel, brought +up a bowl of chicken broth and said I might feed Fisher if I liked. So I +sat a little while there, feeding Fisher, and regretting for the +hundredth time that I had not had the foresight to be trained as a nurse +when I was young. Unfortunately, though I foresaw this war ten years +ago, I had not foreseen it when I was young. I told the men I would come +and see them early in the morning, and bring them some money, as I had +promised Miss Ashley-Smith. I never saw them again. + +Nothing happened quite as I had planned it. + +To begin with, we had discovered as we lunched at Bruges that the funds +remaining in the leather purse-belt were hardly enough to keep the +Ambulance going for another week. And our hotel expenses at Ostend were +reducing its term to a problematic three days. So it was more or less +settled amongst us that somebody would have to go over to England the +next day and return with funds, and that the supernumerary Secretary +was, on the whole, the fittest person for the job. + +I slept peaceably on this prospect of a usefulness that seemed to +justify my existence at a moment when it most needed vindication. + + +[_Tuesday, 13th._] + +I got up at six. Last thing at night I had said to myself that I must +wake early and go round to the Hospital with the money. + +With my first sleep the obsession of Ghent had slackened its hold. And +though it came back again after I had got up, dressed and had realized +my surroundings, its returns were at longer and longer intervals. + +The first thing I did was to go round to the _Kursaal_. The Hospital was +being evacuated, the wounded were lying about everywhere on the terraces +and galleries, waiting for the ambulances. Williams and Fisher and the +other man were nowhere to be seen. I was told that their ward had been +cleared out first, and that the three were now safe on their way to +England. + +I went away very grieved that they had not got their money. + +At the Hotel I find the Commandant very cheerful. He has made Miss ---- +his Secretary and Reporter till my return.[37] + +He goes down to the quay to make arrangements for my transport and +returns after some considerable time. There have been difficulties +about this detail. And the Commandant has an abhorrence of details, even +of easy ones. + +He comes back. He looks abstracted. I inquire, a little too anxiously, +perhaps, about my transport. It is all right, all perfectly right. He +has arranged with Dr. Beavis of the British Field Hospital to take me on +his ship. + +He looks a little spent with his exertions, and as he has again become +abstracted I forbear to press for more information at the moment. + +We breakfasted. Presently I ask him the name of Dr. Beavis's ship. + +Oh, the _name_ of the ship is the _Dresden_. + +Time passes. And presently, just as he is going, I suggest that it would +be as well for me to know what time the _Dresden_ sails. + +This detail either he never knew or has forgotten. And there is +something about it, about the nature of stated times, as about all +things conventional and mechanical and precise, that peculiarly +exasperates him. + +He waves both hands in a fury of nescience and cries, "Ask me another!" + +By a sort of mutual consent we assume that the _Dresden_ will sail with +Dr. Beavis at ten o'clock. After all, it is a very likely hour. + +More time passes. Finally we go into the street that runs along the +Digue. And there we find Dr. Beavis sitting in a motor-car. We approach +him. I thank him for his kindness in giving me transport. I say I'm sure +his ship will be crowded with his own people, but that I don't in the +least mind standing in the stoke-hole, if _he_ doesn't mind taking me +over. + +He looks at me with a dreamy benevolence mixed with amazement. He would +take me over with pleasure if he knew how he was to get away himself. + +"But," I say to the Commandant, "I thought you had arranged with Dr. +Beavis to take me on the _Dresden_." + +The Commandant says nothing. And Dr. Beavis smiles again. A smile of +melancholy knowledge. + +"The _Dresden_," he says, "sailed two hours ago." + +So it is decided that I am to proceed with the Ambulance to Dunkirk, +thence by train to Boulogne, thence to Folkestone. It sounds so simple +that I wonder why we didn't think of it before. + +But it was not by any means so simple as it sounded. + +First of all we had to collect ourselves. Then we had to collect Dr. +Hanson's luggage. Dr. Hanson was one of Mrs. St. Clair Stobart's women +surgeons, and she had left her luggage for Miss ---- to carry from +Ostend to England. There was a yellow tin box and a suit-case. Dr. +Hanson's best clothes and her cases of surgical instruments were in the +suit-case and all the things she didn't particularly care about in the +tin box. Or else the best clothes and the surgical instruments were in +the tin box, and the things she didn't particularly care about in the +suit-case. As we were certainly going to take both boxes, it didn't seem +to matter much which way round it was. + +Then there was Mr. Foster's green canvas kit-bag to be taken to +Folkestone and sent to him at the Victoria Hospital there. + +And there was a British Red Cross lady and her luggage--but we didn't +know anything about the lady and her luggage yet. + +We found them at the _Kursaal_ Hospital, where some of our ambulances +were waiting. + +By this time the courtyard, the steps and terraces of the Hospital were +a scene of the most ghastly confusion. The wounded were still being +carried out and still lay, wrapped in blankets, on the terraces; those +who could sit or stand sat or stood. Ambulance cars jostled each other +in the courtyard. Red Cross nurses dressed for departure were grouped +despairingly about their luggage. Other nurses, who were not dressed +for departure, who still remained superintending the removal of their +wounded, paid no attention to these groups and their movements and their +cries. The Hospital had cast off all care for any but its wounded. + +Women seized hold of other women for guidance and instruction, and +received none. Nobody was rudely shaken off--they were all, in fact, +very kind to each other--but nobody had time or ability to attend to +anybody else. + +Somebody seized hold of the Commandant and sent us both off to look for +the kitchen and for a sack of loaves which we would find in it. We were +to bring the sack of loaves out as quickly as we could. We went off and +found the kitchen, we found several kitchens; but we couldn't find the +sack of loaves, and had to go back without it. When we got back the lady +who had commandeered the sack of loaves was no more to be seen on the +terrace. + +While we waited on the steps somebody remarked that there was a German +aeroplane in the sky and that it was going to drop a bomb. There was. It +was sailing high over the houses on the other side of the street. And it +dropped its bomb right in front of us, above an enormous building not +fifty yards away. + +We looked, fascinated. We expected to see the building knocked to bits +and flying in all directions. The bomb fell. And nothing happened. +Nothing at all. + +It was soon after the bomb that my attention was directed to the lady. +She was a British Red Cross nurse, stranded with a hold-all and a green +canvas trunk, and most particularly forlorn. She had lost her friends, +she had lost her equanimity, she had lost everything except her luggage. +How she attached herself to us I do not know. The Commandant says it was +I who made myself responsible for her safety. We couldn't leave her to +the Germans with her green canvas trunk and her hold-all. + +So I heaved up one end of the canvas trunk, and the Commandant tore it +from me and flung it to the chauffeurs, who got it and the hold-all into +Bert's ambulance. I grasped the British Red Cross lady firmly by the +arm, lest she should get adrift again, and hustled her along to the +Hotel, where the yellow tin box and the suit-case and the kit-bag +waited. Somebody got them into the ambulance somehow. + +It was at this point that Ursula Dearmer appeared. (She had put up at +some other hotel with Mrs. Lambert.) + +My British Red Cross lady was explaining to me that she had by no means +abandoned her post, but that she was doing the right thing in leaving +Ostend, seeing that she meant to apply for another post on a hospital +ship. She was sure, she said, she was doing the right thing. I said, as +I towed her securely along by one hand through a gathering crowd of +refugees (we were now making for the ambulance cars that were drawn up +along the street by the Digue), I said I was equally sure she was doing +the right thing and that nobody could possibly think otherwise. + +And, as I say, Ursula Dearmer appeared. + +The youngest but one was seated with Mr. Riley in the military +scouting-car that was to be our convoy to Dunkirk. I do not know how it +had happened, but in this hour, at any rate, she had taken over the +entire control and command of the Ambulance; and this with a coolness +and competence that suggested that it was no new thing. It suggested, +also, that without her we should not have got away from Ostend before +the Germans marched into it. In fact, it is hardly fair to say that she +had taken everything over. Everything had lapsed into her hands at the +supreme crisis by a sort of natural fitness. + +We were all ready to go. The only one we yet waited for was the +Commandant, who presently emerged from the Hotel. In his still dreamy +and abstracted movements he was pursued by an excited waiter flourishing +a bill. I forgot whose bill it was (it may have been mine), but anyhow +it wasn't _his_ bill. + +We may have thought we were following the retreat of the Belgian Army +when we went from Ghent to Bruges. We were, in fact, miles behind it, +and the regiments we overtook were stragglers. The whole of the Belgian +Army seemed to be poured out on to that road between Ostend and Dunkirk. +Sometimes it was going before us, sometimes it was mysteriously coming +towards us, sometimes it was stationary, but always it was there. It +covered the roads; we had to cut our way through it. It was retreating +slowly, as if in leisure, with a firm, unhasting dignity. + +Every now and then, as we looked at the men, they smiled at us, with a +curious still and tragic smile. + +And it is by that smile that I shall always remember the look of the +Belgian Army in the great retreat. + +Our own retreat--the Ostend-Dunkirk bit of it--is memorable chiefly by +Miss ----'s account of the siege of Antwerp and the splendid courage of +Mrs. St. Clair Stobart and her women. + +But that is her story, not mine, and it should be left to her to tell. + + +[_Dunkirk._] + +At Dunkirk the question of the Secretary's transport again arose. It +contended feebly with the larger problem of where and when and how the +Corps was to lunch, things being further complicated by the Commandant's +impending interview with Baron de Broqueville, the Belgian Minister of +War. I began to feel like a large and useless parcel which the +Commandant had brought with him in sheer absence of mind, and was now +anxious to lose or otherwise get rid of. At the same time the Ambulance +could not go on for more than three days without further funds, and, as +the courier to be despatched to fetch them, I was, for the moment, the +most important person in the Corps; and my transport was not a question +to be lightly set aside. + +I was about to solve the problem for myself by lugging my lady to the +railway station, when Ursula Dearmer took us over too, in her stride, as +inconsiderable items of the business before her. I have nothing but +admiration for her handling of it. + +We halted in the main street of Dunkirk while Mr. Riley and the +chauffeurs unearthed from the baggage-car my hold-all and suit-case and +the British Red Cross lady's hold-all and trunk and Mr. Foster's +kit-bag and Dr. Hanson's suit-case with her best clothes and her +surgical instruments and the tin--No, not the tin box, for the +Commandant, now possessed by a violent demon of hurry, resisted our +efforts to drag it from its lair.[38] + +All these things were piled on Ursula Dearmer's military scouting-car. +The British Red Cross lady (almost incredulous of her good luck) and I +got inside it, and Ursula Dearmer and Mr. Riley drove us to the railway +station. + +By the mercy of Heaven a train was to leave for Boulogne either a little +before or a little after one, and we had time to catch it. + +There was a long line of refugee _bourgeois_ drawn up before the station +doors, and I noticed that every one of them carried in his hand a slip +of paper. + +Ursula Dearmer hailed a porter, who, she said, would look after us like +a father. With a matchless celerity he and Mr. Riley tore down the pile +of luggage. The porter put them on a barrow and disappeared with them +very swiftly through the station doors. + +At least I suppose it was through the doors. All we knew was that he +disappeared. + +Then Ursula Dearmer handed over to me three cables to be sent from +Dunkirk. I said good-bye to her and Mr. Riley. They got back into the +motor-car, and they, too, very swiftly disappeared. + +Mr. Riley went away bearing with him the baffling mystery of his +personality. After nearly three weeks' association with him I know that +Mr. Riley's whole heart is in his job of carrying the wounded. Beyond +that I know no more of him than on the day when he first turned up +before our Committee. + +But with Ursula Dearmer it is different. Before the Committee she +appeared as a very young girl, docile, diffident, only half-awake, and +of dubious efficiency. I remember my solemn pledges to her mother that +Ursula Dearmer should not be allowed to go into danger, and how, if +danger insisted on coming to her, she should be violently packed up and +sent home. I remember thinking what a nuisance Ursula Dearmer will be, +and how, when things are just beginning to get interesting, I shall be +told off to see her home. + +And Ursula Dearmer, the youngest but one, has gone, not at all docilely +and diffidently, into the greatest possible danger, and come out of it. +And here she is, wide awake and in full command of the Ostend-Dunkirk +expedition. And instead of my seeing her off and all the way home, she +is very thoroughly and competently seeing _me_ off. + +At least this was her beautiful intention. + +But getting out of France in war-time is not a simple matter. + +When we tried to follow the flight of our luggage through the station +door we were stopped by a sentry with a rifle. We produced our +passports. They were not enough. + +At the sight of us brought to halt there, all the refugees began to +agitate their slips of paper. And on the slips we read the words +"_Laissez-passer_." + +My British Red Cross lady had no "_laissez-passer_." I had only my +sixteenth part in the "_laissez-passer_" of the Corps, and that, hidden +away in the Commandant's breast-pocket, was a part either of the +luncheon-party or of the interview with the Belgian Minister of War. + +We couldn't get military passes, for military passes take time; and the +train was due in about fifteen minutes. + +And the fatherly porter had vanished, taking with him the secret of our +luggage. + +It was a fatherly old French gentleman who advised us to go to the +British _Consulat_. And it was a fatherly old French _cocher_ who drove +us there, or rather who drove us through interminable twisted streets +and into blind alleys and out of them till we got there. + +As for our luggage, we renounced it and Mr. Foster's and Dr. Hanson's +luggage in the interests of our own safety. + +At last we got to the British _Consulat_. Only I think the _cocher_ took +us to the Town Hall and the Hospital and the British Embassy and the +Admiralty offices first. + +At intervals during this transit the British Red Cross lady explained +again that she was doing the right thing in leaving Ostend. It wasn't as +if she was leaving her post, she was going on a hospital ship. She was +sure she had done the right thing. + +It was not for me to be unsympathetic to an obsession produced by a +retreat, so I assured her again and again that if there ever was a right +thing she had done it. My heart bled for this poor lady, abandoned by +the organization that had brought her out. + +In the courtyard of the _Consulat_ we met a stalwart man in khaki, who +smiled as a god might smile at our trouble, and asked us why on earth we +hadn't got a passage on the naval transport _Victoria_, sailing at three +o'clock. We said nothing would have pleased us better, only we had +never heard of the _Victoria_ and her sailing. And he took us to the +Consul, and the Consul--who must have been buried alive in detail--gave +us a letter to Captain King of the _Victoria_, and the _cocher_ drove us +to the dock. + +Captain King was an angel. He was the head of a whole hierarchy of +angels who called themselves ship's officers. + +There is no difficulty about our transport. But we must be at the docks +by half-past two. + +We have an hour before us; so we drive back to the station to see if, +after all, we can find that luggage. Not that we in the least expected +to find it, for we had been told that it had gone on by the train to +Boulogne. + +Now the British Red Cross lady declared many times that but for me and +my mastery of the French language she would never have got out of +Dunkirk. And it was true that I looked on her more as a sacred charge +than as a valuable ally in the struggle with French sentries, porters +and officials. As for the _cocher_, I didn't consider him valuable at +all, even as the driver of an ancient _fiacre_. And yet it was the lady +and the _cocher_ who found the luggage. It seems that the station hall +is open between trains, and they had simply gone into the hall and seen +it there, withdrawn bashfully into a corner. The _cocher's_ face as he +announces his discovery makes the War seem a monstrous illusion. It is +incredible that anything so joyous should exist in a country under +German invasion. + +We drive again to the _Victoria_ in her dock. The stewards run about and +do things for us. They give us lunch. They give us tea. And the other +officers come in and make large, simple jokes about bombs and mines and +submarines. We have the ship all to ourselves except for a few British +soldiers, recruits sent out to Antwerp too soon and sent back again for +more training. + +They looked, poor boys, far sadder than the Belgian Army. + +And I walk the decks; I walk the decks till we get to Dover. My sacred +charge appears and disappears. Every now and then I see her engaged in +earnest conversation with the ship's officers; and I wonder whether she +is telling them that she has not really left her post and that she is +sure she has done right. I am no longer concerned about my own post, for +I feel so sure that I am going back to it. + +To-morrow I shall get the money from our Committee; and on Thursday I +shall go back. + +And yet--and yet--I must have had a premonition. We are approaching +England. I can see the white cliffs. + +And I hate the white cliffs. I hate them with a sudden and mysterious +hatred. + +More especially I hate the cliffs of Dover. For it is there that we must +land. I should not have thought it possible to hate the white coast of +my own country when she is at war. + +And now I know that I hate it because it is not the coast of Flanders. +Which would be absurd if I were really going back again. + +Yes, I must have had a premonition. + + +[_Dover._] + +We have landed now. I have said good-bye to Captain King and all the +ship's officers and thanked them for their kindness. I have said +good-bye to the British Red Cross lady, who is not going to London. + +And I go to the station telegraph-office to send off five wires. + +I am sending off the five wires when I hear feet returning through the +station hall. The Red Cross lady is back again. She is saying this time +that she is _really_ sure she has done the right thing. + +And again I assure her that she has. + +Well--there are obsessions and obsessions. I do not know whether I have +done the right thing or not in leaving Flanders (or, for that matter, in +leaving Ghent). All that I know is that I love it and that I have left +it. And that I want to go back. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT + + +There have been changes in that Motor Field Ambulance Corps that set out +for Flanders on the 25th of September, 1914. + +Its Commandant has gone from it to join the Royal Army Medical Corps. A +few of the original volunteers have dropped out and others have taken +their places, and it is larger now than it was, and better organized. + +But whoever went and whoever stayed, its four field-women have remained +at the Front. Two of them are attached to the Third Division of the +Belgian Army; all four have distinguished themselves by their devotion +to that Army and by their valour, and they have all received the Order +of Leopold II., the highest Belgian honour ever given to women. + +The Commandant, being a man, has the Order of Leopold I. Mr. +Ashmead-Bartlett and Mr. Philip Gibbs and Dr. Souttar have described his +heroic action at the Battle of Dixmude on the 22nd of October, 1914, +when he went into the cellars of the burning and toppling Town Hall to +rescue the wounded. And from that day to this the whole Corps--old +volunteers and new--has covered itself with glory. + +On our two chauffeurs, Tom and Bert, the glory lies quite thick. "Tom" +(if I may quote from my own story of the chauffeurs) "Tom was in the +battle of Dixmude. At the order of his commandant he drove his car +straight into the thick of it, over the ruins of a shattered house that +blocked the way. He waited with his car while all the bombs that he had +ever dreamed of crashed around him, and houses flamed, and tottered and +fell. 'Pretty warm, ain't it?' was Tom's comment. + +"Four days later he was waiting at Oudekappele with his car when he +heard that the Hospital of Saint-Jean at Dixmude was being shelled and +that the Belgian military man who had been sent with a motor-car to +carry off the wounded had been turned back by the fragment of a shell +that dropped in front of him. Tom thereupon drove into Dixmude to the +Hospital of Saint-Jean and removed from it two wounded soldiers and two +aged and paralysed civilians who had sheltered there, and brought them +to Furnes. The military ambulance men then followed his lead, and the +Hospital was emptied. That evening it was destroyed by a shell. + +"And Bert--it was Bert who drove his ambulance into Kams-Kappele to the +barricade by the railway. It was Bert who searched in a shell-hole to +pick out three wounded from among thirteen dead; who with the help of a +Belgian priest, carried the three several yards to his car, under fire, +and who brought them in safety to Furnes." + +And the others, the brave "Chaplain," and "Mr. Riley," and "Mr. +Lambert," have also proved themselves. + +But when I think of the Corps it is chiefly of the four field-women that +I think--the two "women of Pervyse," and the other two who joined them +at their dangerous _poste_. + +Both at Furnes and Pervyse they worked all night, looking after their +wounded; sometimes sleeping on straw in a room shared by the Belgian +troops, when there was no other shelter for them in the bombarded town. +One of them has driven a heavy ambulance car--in a pitch-black night, +along a road raked by shell-fire, and broken here and there into great +pits--to fetch a load of wounded, a performance that would have racked +the nerves of any male chauffeur ever born. She has driven the same car, +_alone_, with five German prisoners for her passengers. The four women +served at Pervyse (the town nearest to the firing-line) in "Mrs. +Torrence's" dressing-station--a cellar only twenty yards behind the +Belgian trenches. In that cellar, eight feet square and lighted and +ventilated only by a slit in the wall, two lived for three weeks, +sleeping on straw, eating what they could get, drinking water that had +passed through a cemetery where nine hundred Germans are buried. They +had to burn candles night and day. Here the wounded were brought as they +fell in the trenches, and were tended until the ambulance came to take +them to the base hospital at Furnes. + +Day in, day out, and all night long, with barely an interval for a wash +or a change of clothing, the women stayed on, the two always, and the +four often, till the engineers built them a little hut for a +dressing-station; they stayed till the Germans shelled them out of their +little hut. + +This is only a part of what they have done. The finest part will never +be known, for it was done in solitary places and in the dark, when +special correspondents are asleep in their hotels. There was no +limelight on the road between Dixmude and Furnes, or among the blood and +straw in the cellar at Pervyse. + +And Miss Ashley-Smith (who is now Mrs. McDougall)--her escape from Ghent +(when she had no more to do there) was as heroic as her return. + +Since then she has gone back to the Front and done splendid service in +her own Corps, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. + + M. S. + + July 15th, 1915. + + + + +THE END + + + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: It would be truer to say she was in love with duty which +was often dangerous.] + +[Footnote 2: She very soon let us know why. "Followed" is the wrong +word.] + +[Footnote 3: He didn't. People never do mean these things.] + +[Footnote 4: This only means that, whether you attended to it or not +(you generally didn't), as long as you were in Belgium, your +sub-consciousness was never entirely free from the fear of Uhlans--of +Uhlans in the flesh. The illusion of valour is the natural, healthy +reaction of your psyche against its fear and your indifference to its +fear.] + +[Footnote 5: Nobody need have been surprised. She had distinguished +herself in other wars.] + +[Footnote 6: One is a church and not a cathedral.] + +[Footnote 7: I am puzzled about this date. It stands in my ambulance +Day-Book as Saturday, 3rd, with a note that the British came into Ghent +on their way to Antwerp on the evening of that day. Now I believe there +were no British in Antwerp before the evening of Sunday, the 4th, yet +"Dr. Wilson" and Mr. Davidson, going into Saint Nicolas before us, saw +the British there, and "Mrs. Torrence" and "Janet McNeil" saw more +British come into Ghent in the evening. I was ill with fever the day +after the run into Antwerp, and got behindhand with my Day-Book. So it +seems safest to assume that I made a wrong entry and that we went into +Antwerp on Sunday, and to record Saturday's events as spreading over the +whole day. Similarly the events that the Day-Book attributes to Monday +must have belonged to Tuesday. And if Tuesday's events were really +Wednesday's, that clears up a painful doubt I had as to Wednesday, which +came into my Day-Book as an empty extra which I couldn't account for in +any way. There I was with a day left over and nothing to put into it. +And yet Wednesday, the 7th, was the first day of the real siege of +Antwerp. On Thursday, the 8th, I started clear.] + +[Footnote 8: It wasn't. This was only the first slender trickling. The +flood came three days later with the bombardment of the city.] + +[Footnote 9: Of all the thousands and thousands of refugees whom I have +seen I have only seen three weep, and they were three out of six hundred +who had just disembarked at the Prince of Wales's Pier at Dover. But in +Belgium not one tear.] + +[Footnote 10: This is all wrong. The main stream went as straight as it +could for the sea-coast--Holland or Ostend.] + +[Footnote 11: The outer forts were twelve miles away.] + +[Footnote 12: At the time of writing--February 19th, 1915. My Day-Book +gives no record of anything but the hospitals we visited.] + +[Footnote 13: There must be something wrong here, for the place was, I +believe, a convent.] + +[Footnote 14: Every woman did.] + +[Footnote 15: This was made up to her afterwards! Her cup fairly ran +over.] + +[Footnote 16: I have heard a distinguished alienist say that this +reminiscent sensation is a symptom of approaching insanity. As it is not +at all uncommon, there must be a great many lunatics going about.] + +[Footnote 17: Except that nobody had any time to attend to us, I can't +think why we weren't all four of us arrested for spies. We hadn't any +business to be looking for the position of the Belgian batteries.] + +[Footnote 18: More than likely our appearance there stopped the firing.] + +[Footnote 19: I have since been told that he was not. And I think in any +case I am wrong about his "matchboard" car. It must have been somebody +else's. In fact, I'm very much afraid that "he" was somebody else--that +I hadn't the luck really to meet him.] + +[Footnote 20: He did. She was not a lady whom it was possible to leave +behind on such an expedition.] + +[Footnote 21: I'm inclined to think it may have been the dogs of +Belgium, after all. I can't think where the guns could have been. +Antwerp had fallen. It might have been the bombardment of Melle, +though.] + +[Footnote 22: The fate of "Mr. Lambert" and the scouting-car was one of +those things that ought never to have happened. It turned out that the +car was not the property of his paper, but his own car, hired and +maintained by him at great expense; that this brave and devoted young +American had joined our Corps before it left England and gone out to the +front to wait for us. And he was kept waiting long after we got there. + +But if he didn't see as much service at Ghent as he undertook to see +(though he did some fine things on his own even there), it was made up +to him in Flanders afterwards, when, with the Commandant and other +members of the Corps, he distinguished himself by his gallantry at +Furnes and in the Battle of Dixmude. + +(For an account of his wife's services see Postscript.)] + +[Footnote 23: I record these details (March 11th, 1915) because the +Commandant accused me subsequently of a total lack of "balance" upon +this occasion.] + +[Footnote 24: This is no reflection on Tom's courage. His chief +objection was to driving three women so near the German lines. The same +consideration probably weighed with the Commandant and M. ----.] + +[Footnote 25: The whole thing was a piece of rank insubordination. The +Commandant was entirely right to forbid the expedition, and we were +entirely wrong in disobeying him. But it was one of those wrong things +that I would do again to-morrow.] + +[Footnote 26: Antwerp had surrendered on Friday, the 9th.] + +[Footnote 27: All the same it was splendidly equipped and managed.] + +[Footnote 28: Even now, when I am asked if I did any nursing when I was +in Belgium I have to think before I answer: "Only for one morning and +one night"--it would still be much truer to say, "I was nursing all the +time."] + +[Footnote 29: My Day-Book ends abruptly here; and I have no note of the +events that followed.] + +[Footnote 30: Incorrect. It was, I believe, the uniform of the First Aid +Nursing Yeomanry Corps.] + +[Footnote 31: It was so bad that it made me forget to pack the +Commandant's Burberry and his Gillette razors and his pipe.] + +[Footnote 32: The Commandant had had an adventure. The Belgian guide +mistook the road and brought the car straight into the German lines +instead of the British lines where it had been sent. If the Germans +hadn't been preoccupied with firing at that moment, the Commandant and +Ascot and the Belgian would all have been taken prisoner.] + +[Footnote 33: Even now, five months after, I cannot tell whether it was +or was not insanity.] + +[Footnote 34: It is really dreadful to think of the nuisance we must +have been to these dear people on the eve of their own flight.] + +[Footnote 35: The Commandant had his own scheme for going back to Ghent, +which fortunately he did not carry out.] + +[Footnote 36: This girl's courage and self-devotion were enough to +establish our innocence--they needed no persuasion. But I still hold +myself responsible for her going, since it was my failure to control my +obsession that first of all put the idea in her head.] + +[Footnote 37: I saw nothing sinister about this arrangement at the time. +It seemed incredible to me that I should not return.] + +[Footnote 38: Having saved the suit-case, I guarded it as a sacred +thing. But Dr. Hanson's best clothes and her surgical instruments were +in the tin box after all.] + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author +or on kindred subjects. + + + + +By THE SAME AUTHOR + +The Return of the Prodigal + +_Cloth, 12mo. $1.35_ + + +"These are stories to be read leisurely with a feeling for the stylish +and the careful workmanship which is always a part of May Sinclair's +work. They need no recommendation to those who know the author's work +and one of the things on which we may congratulate ourselves is the fact +that so many Americans are her reading friends."--_Kansas City +Gazette-Globe._ + +"They are the product of a master workman who has both skill and art, +and who scorns to produce less than the best."--_Buffalo Express._ + +"Always a clever writer, Miss Sinclair at her best is an exceptionally +interesting one, and in several of the tales bound together in this new +volume we have her at her best."--_N. Y. Times._ + +" ... All of which show the same sensitive apprehension of unusual cases +and delicate relations, and reveal a truth which would be hidden from +the hasty or blunt observer."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"One of the best of the many collections of stories published this +season."--_N. Y. Sun._ + +" ... All these stories are of deep interest because all of them are out +of the rut."--_Kentucky Post._ + +"Let no one who cares for good and sincere work neglect this +book."--_London Post._ + +"The stories are touched with a peculiar delicacy and +whimsicality."--_Los Angeles Times._ + + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +The Three Sisters + +By MAY SINCLAIR + +Author of "The Divine Fire," "The Return of the Prodigal," etc. + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.35_ + + +Every reader of "The Divine Fire," in fact every reader of any of Miss +Sinclair's books, will at once accord her unlimited praise for her +character work. "The Three Sisters" reveals her at her best. It is a +story of temperament, made evident not through tiresome analyses but by +means of a series of dramatic incidents. The sisters of the title +represent three distinct types of womankind. In their reaction under +certain conditions Miss Sinclair is not only telling a story of +tremendous interest but she is really showing a cross section of life. + +"Once again Miss Sinclair has shown us that among the women writers +to-day she can be acclaimed as without rival in the ability to draw a +character and to suggest atmosphere.... In "The Three Sisters" she gives +full measure of her qualities. It is in every way a characteristic +novel."--_London Standard._ + +"Miss Sinclair's singular power as an artist lies in her identification with +nature.... She has seldom written a more moving story."--_Metropolitan._ + +"It is a book powerful alike in its description of the background and in +its analysis of character.... This story confirms the impression of her +unusual ability."--_Outlook._ + +"Miss Sinclair's most important book."--_Reedy's Mirror._ + +"'The Three Sisters' is a powerful novel, written with both vigor and +delicacy, dramatic, absorbingly interesting."--_New York Times._ + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +The Pentecost of Calamity + +By OWEN WISTER + +Author of "The Virginian," etc. + +_Boards, 16mo, 50 cents_ + + +The author of "The Virginian" has written a new book which describes, +more forcibly and clearly than any other account so far published, the +meaning, to America, of the tragic changes which are taking place in the +hearts and minds of the German people. + +Written with ease and charm of style, it is prose that holds the reader +for its very beauty, even as it impresses him with its force. It is +doubtful whether there will come out of the entire mass of war +literature a more understanding or suggestive survey. + +"Owen Wister has depicted the tragedy of Germany and has hinted at the +possible tragedy of the United States.... We wish it could be read in +full by every American."--_The Outlook._ + + + + +The Military Unpreparedness of the United States + +By FREDERIC L. HUIDEKOPER + +_Cloth, 8vo_ + + +By many army officers the author of this work is regarded as the +foremost military expert in the United States. For nine years he has +been striving to awaken the American people to a knowledge of the +weaknesses of their land forces and the defencelessness of the country. +Out of his extensive study and research he has compiled the present +volume, which represents the last word on this subject. It comes at a +time when its importance cannot be overestimated, and in the eight +hundred odd pages given over to the discussion there are presented facts +and arguments with which every citizen should be familiar. Mr. +Huidekoper's writings in this field are already well known. These +hitherto, however, have been largely confined to magazines and +pamphlets, but his book deals with the matters under consideration with +that frankness and authority evidenced in these previous contributions +and much more comprehensively. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +AN IMPORTANT NEW WORK + +With the Russian Army + +By Col. ROBERT McCORMICK + +_Illustrated, 8vo_ + + +This book deals with the author's experiences in the war area. The work +traces the cause of the war from the treaty of 1878 through the Balkan +situation. It contains many facts drawn from personal observation, for +Col. McCormick has had opportunities such as have been given to no other +man during the present engagements. He has been at the various +headquarters and actually in the trenches. One of the most interesting +chapters of the volume is the concluding one dealing with great +personalities of the war from first-hand acquaintance. + +The work contains a considerable amount of material calculated to upset +generally accepted ideas, comparisons of the fighting forces, and much +else that is fresh and original. + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +The World War: + +How it Looks to the Nations Involved and What it Means to Us + +By ELBERT FRANCIS BALDWIN + +_Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ + + +The present war in Europe has called forth a great many books bearing on +its different phases, but in the majority of instances these have been +written from the standpoint of some one of the nations. 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One of the most valuable +contributions to the literature of the World War."--_Portland Express._ + +"The dramatic story ... is unusually calm and dispassionate, +after the modern historical manner, with a great deal of fresh +information."--_Philadelphia North American._ + +"Sets down without bias the real causes of the Great War."--_New York +Times._ + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +Russia and the World + +By STEPHEN GRAHAM + +Author of "With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem," "With Poor +Immigrants to America," etc. + +_Illustrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.00_ + + +At the outbreak of the present European war Mr. Graham was in Russia, +and his book opens, therefore, with a description of the way the news of +war was received on the Chinese frontier, one thousand miles from a +railway station, where he happened to be when the Tsar's summons came. +Following this come other chapters on Russia and the War, considering +such questions as, Is It a Last War?, Why Russia Is Fighting, The +Economic Isolation of Russia, An Aeroplane Hunt at Warsaw, Suffering +Poland: A Belgium of the East, and The Soldier and the Cross. + +But "Russia and the World" is not by any means wholly a war book. It is +a comprehensive survey of Russian problems. Inasmuch as the War is at +present one of her problems, it receives its due consideration. It has +been, however, Mr. Graham's intention to supply the very definite need +that there is for enlightenment in English and American circles as to +the Russian nation, what its people think and feel on great world +matters. On almost every country there are more books and more concrete +information than on his chosen land. In fact, "Russia and the World" may +be regarded as one of the very first to deal with it in any adequate +fashion. + +"It shows the author creeping as near as he was allowed to the firing +line. It gives broad views of difficult questions, like the future of +the Poles and the Jews. It rises into high politics, forecasts the terms +of peace and the rearrangement of the world, east and west, that may +follow. But the salient thing in it is its interpretation for Western +minds of the spirit of Russia."--_London Times._ + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +German World Policies + +(Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt) + +By PAUL ROHRBACH + +Translated by DR. EDMUND VON MACH + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ + + +Paul Rohrbach has been for several years the most popular author of +books on politics and economics in Germany. He is described by his +translator as a "constructive optimist," one who, at the same time, is +an incisive critic of those shortcomings which have kept Germany, as he +thinks, from playing the great part to which she is called. In this +volume Dr. Rohrbach gives a true insight into the character of the +German people, their aims, fears and aspirations. + +Though it was written before the war started and has not been hastily +put together, it still possesses peculiar significance now, for in its +analysis of the German idea of culture and its dissemination, in its +consideration of German foreign policies and moral conquests, it is an +important contribution to the widespread speculation now current on +these matters. + +"Dr. von Mach renders an extraordinary service to his country in making +known to English readers at this time a book like Rohrbach's."--_New +York Globe._ + +"A clear insight into Prussian ideals."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"A valuable, significant, and most informing book."--_New York Tribune._ + + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Journal of Impressions in Belgium, by +May Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS IN BELGIUM *** + +***** This file should be named 31332-8.txt or 31332-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/3/3/31332/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tamise Totterdell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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