The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 9 - The Cellar-House

 

'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'

A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm

A Story of Two British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front

Chapter IX -The Cellar-House

By the third week in November, 1914, the Two were established in Pervyse. 

A vast area of flood-water, lying flat and white in the cold light, covered acres upon acres of submerged land north of a line between Nieuport and Dixmude. The Belgians had opened the sea- sluices, and those salt waters which had ever lapped hungrily at their small country now proved a strength and protection in enabling them to keep at bay a far more dangerous foe. Reaching up to the margin of the water was a hideous huddle of gaunt stone houses which had once been the peaceful little village of Pervyse. 

Gipsy had said with decision that there was not a house to lodge in, and she was right; but there was a cellar—two, in fact—and in one of these the two friends were domiciled for living and sleeping both. It was reached by a rough stairway leading from the battered shell above, which had once been the house it belonged to. The dim project had taken shape. 

When the two friends had returned to their work after being a few days in England, unfortunate Mairi had been taken ill, and was unable to go at once to the cellar-house; but now she was all right again, and they were installed in surely the very oddest circumstances two women had ever managed to get themselves into before. In the other remaining cellar across the road were the officers of the Mitrailleuse Third Division, to which Dr. Van der Ghinst was attached. 

To get a clear idea of Pervyse, it is necessary to enter it from the direction of Furnes, where the road makes several curves, and at the last goes quite straight and gives evidence that it comes well within the range of the German shells. The village which once lay along the sides of this road was rather like a Scotch village, for the houses were built of stone, and stood right on to the edge of the road, so they had that bare, unfinished appearance which is so disappointing to the stranger first visiting Scotland, who is accustomed to the bright little flower-gardens of the south-country villages of England. Every one of these houses had been smashed up by the continual rain of missiles. Houses without man are the most melancholy sight, it is the soul without the body, though, oddly enough, it is when they are broken up that they bear most resemblance to the body, showing a series of distorted faces. 

At the top of the village stood the church, which had originally had a dumpy spire; but the top of this had been shot away, so that it was left square. Of this church the late Miss Macnaughtan wrote: "A haggard-looking church, like a sentinel with both eyes shot out. Nothing was left but a blind face. The tower had great holes in it, and the aisles had fallen. The churchyard looked as though some devil had stalked through it tearing up crosses and digging up graves." 

This churchyard is as thickly crowded with bodies as the old London city churchyards before they were cleared out. Not only Belgians, but hundreds of Germans have been buried there. The remnants of tombstones had been hurled this way and that, graves gaped, giving up their dead, and the scrubby trees were withered and stripped by the fiery blasts. The two cellars were at the church end of the village, the dangerous end, nearest to the German guns. Water was scarce, and when they first went there the Two had to use the flood-water in the ditch, so it is probably true, as one paper remarked, that they drank water which had filtered down from the graveyard, where lay scores of dead Germans! 

At right angles to the main road run both the railway line and the Nieuport-Dixmude road, which crosses the other just on the Pervyse side of the line, and all along by the railway line are the Belgian trenches commanding the flooded area beyond. It must be remembered that in Belgian flood-areas trenches are not exactly what one usually understands by that term. Instead of being "dug- outs," they are "throw-ups." It would be obviously impossible in that saturated soil to make any trench which did not immediately become a ditch, and therefore earth-works are thrown up, which serve the same purpose, and even then the men are most of their time in water, in spite of much pumping. Many of them constantly trudged through the village carrying great bundles of straw, which they threw down to give them for a short time a dry standing space. Their little shelters are built along by the earth-work, then roofed over and filled with straw, and at night comes a faint glow through the insufficient roofs, telling of dim lights and smoky fires within, where the men lie huddled upon their primitive cribs. 

The Furnes road does not end at the line, but goes on across it, and runs out into the great waste of water like a pointing finger. It is raised, as nearly all main Belgian roads are, and forms a sort of pier or bund, so has to be strongly guarded. The Belgian outposts are established far out upon it. Behind the wide belt of water is still preserved the "very small remnant" of their fertile land left to King and people; small as it is, it forms a well-spring of hope and good omen for the future. 

The blessed belt encircling such a priceless territory is comparatively shallow, but very unequal in depth, and therein lies its value. Even if the German infantry could start knee-deep to march across it, they might any minute find themselves up to their necks in ditch or hole, and at the best the heavy guns of the artillery would stick in the plastic paste beneath. In the shroud of the shallow grey water are buried German guns which had to be left in the headlong flight when the sluices were opened, and the invaders fled pell-mell, to escape the fate which overtook so many. An uncertain grey hump floating here and there suggesting a water-turtle, betrays the drowned bodies. Simple as it seems, this stretch of shallow water is at once the slightest and most permanent barrier that could be found. On that grey November day, when Gipsy and Mairi wandered out to get some idea of their surroundings, great bars of yellow drifted through the pervading fog, and made spots of colour on the water, where the dead fish, killed by the effects of the salt water, were floating dismally, with their white undersides turned to the sky. 

The sides of that raised road were sprinkled with dead animals. Twenty-seven cows, five sheep, eight pigs, and three horses could be counted before the outpost was reached. Standing on the Belgian side, and looking out from an observation-post across the water, it seemed like a shallow sea, broken here and there by islands. On one of them was a picturesque ruin which had once been a pleasant château; on another, nearer, was a farmhouse in a clump of trees. It was not often that the moisture-laden atmosphere permitted a glimpse of the far side, but when it could be seen it showed itself as a low line of trees, behind which were the German guns, from which ever and again at stated times tongues of fire belched forth and missiles leaped across the water, sometimes falling short of their objective and generating huge geysers, sometimes pitching well into the village, and with a thunderous roar shattering into a heap one more of the tottering walls. 

It was here the Two settled down in a crumbling house, with every pane of glass shattered to splinters and the walls gaping. A musty smell of the dust of ancient bricks and mortar, compounded with dirt and damp, hung over it all. There was no comfort, no convenience of any kind. To have to sleep there one night would have been considered a hardship by most people. The light was always dim, for the cellar was lit only by gratings in the pavement above. It was, perhaps, ten feet by about twelve feet, and so low that Gipsy, who is not much above medium height, could just stand upright in it. Mairi, of course, found plenty of space for her lesser inches, also it suited most of the little Belgian soldiers well enough, but there came a day when a King----- But that must be told in its own place! 

Yet they set to work at once to make it cheery. They marked it outside by a Union Jack and the Belgian and French flags, and it was not long before they were joined by the Lion of Scotland, for a Scot is never so Scottish as when away from his, or her, own land. 

The first need was some sort of a fire to cook by. They found a stove, which they humoured like the family cat, for it had all the attributes of that animal, taking everything for granted and immovably refusing to do what was required of it in return, and behaving generally as if the cellar had been built for its convenience. Two soldiers had been sleeping in the cellar on some straw when the new tenants arrived. They were good, willing lads, called Alphonse and Desire, and they at once set themselves to be useful, and helped to loot a few necessary bits of furniture from the deserted houses round. When all was done there was not very much; a table, a few chairs, and some straw held in its place by a board, were the principal items, and even then there was hardly room to move. Here the Two settled down. At night they lay down as they were in their clothes; as Mairi explains, "To dress, that means to brush one's hair and put on one's boots." They were seldom alone; the Cockney chauffeur, Woffington, slept in one corner, and the little cook, Alexandre, in another. This was of necessity also, for the cellar was the only place in Pervyse which provided even a measure of safety from the shells. If other members of the ambulance party turned up, as they sometimes did, they generally went back to Furnes the same day, but if any of them stayed they had to sleep there too. The first night the American lady and Dr. van der Ghinst were both there. How they all fitted in is a puzzle. Certainly one could not have set a boot on the ground between them. 

The details of settling in and finding household requisites were work after Mairi's own heart. She was never so satisfied as when she was giving everything a "good turn-out" and ma-king all comfortable! Aided by some of the Belgian Engineer officers, quartered in a ruined house at the other end of the village, she climbed by means of a plank over to a farm-house on an island which had been left desolate. Here they found spoons, forks, plates, knives, and other necessaries. A few cabbages and potatoes might still be scraped up in the gardens and patches of ground, and these were most welcome for the soldiers' soup. A little lean-to outhouse, in which there was, most fortunately, a copper in working order, had been made into a kitchen, and here the soup for the weary, frozen men in the trenches was made. 

Alexandre, the cook, was a cheery little Belgian lad of seventeen; he had a bullet head and a seriocomic expression that made one laugh to look at him. He had been through all the fighting, and considered this relegation to the kitchen as a "soft thing." He had an immense sense of his own importance, and very quickly let people know that, in spite of his lack of inches and years, he was master of his own quarter-deck; even the officers who hung around, drawn by the savoury whiffs that came forth, were quickly sent about their business. Alexandre was no longer a private, but a chef! It was the difference between an ordinary seaman in the Navy and the captain of a merchant ship. He soon became known far and wide as "le magnifique petit cuisinier." He and the other two worked of their own accord, for at this time the military authorities gave no countenance to this astounding project. 

Alphonse and Desire were Walloons, and manifested all the striking divergencies which lie between Walloon and Fleming, countrymen though they be. The Walloon is excitable, talkative, and inclined to be frivolous. It is true that when he works he generally puts his whole heart into it, but he is only too ready to knock off and have a chat with anyone who will oblige him. He is very intelligent and fond of mechanical inventions; he readily grasps the idea of new machinery, and makes a good chauffeur. He has a great deal in common with the Frenchman, which is hardly wonderful. Youth seems his most characteristic feature; the simplest things amuse him, and he runs eagerly, like the Athenians, after "any new thing." He is up and down, extravagant, careless, attractive—all by turns. He wins your heart and hurts you, and brings you round again, so that you forgive him and would do anything for him; but you are left with a conviction, after all, that he does not much care. It is hardly to be supposed that with all this the Walloon is going to submit easily to discipline, and as most of the chauffeurs which the Two had from time to time were Walloons, there was frequent trouble. As Mairi explains, "If you say to him, 'Do that,' he will immediately not do it! If you say, ‘Will you please do that’ he will think about it. You must lead them, not drive them, or you'll never get a thing done." About their courage, however, there cannot be two opinions. And it was something to have a couple of men who could do heavy lifting when it got beyond women's strength. The atmosphere in the cellar naturally got a little dense after a night, and it was very early in the morning when Gipsy climbed the ladder, and, putting her head out, indulged in a long in-drawn breath of the sharp morning air. It was keenly cold, everything was frozen hard, and the white cat-ice snapped on the puddles in the road. She had hardly been there a second when she was joined by Mairi. 

At first it was very difficult to get accustomed to the perpetual feeling of dirt and being tumbled. After a day or two camping out anyone knows how "lived in" one's clothes feel; but the clean, natural surroundings of woods are Paradise compared with a dank cellar. The sense of discomfort was very great, but there was nothing for it but to grin and bear it; and there was so much to do, it was forgotten after a while. The very first morning job was to see that Alexandre did his duty in getting the fire under the copper alight and the appetizing soup heated. It was soon bubbling away, with cabbage, turnips, and potatoes and other ingredients in, and was poured out still scalding hot into pans, which the orderlies carried to the trenches, following the Two. The trenches were only fifty yards away, and the men who had been on watch or trying to sleep in their icy little shelters, insufficiently clad, were thankful to see this vision of Paradise, and greeted these wonderful English ladies with enthusiasm, holding out their little mugs in stiff, frozen fingers. Oh, the joy of being able to do it! It was worth while to have gone through all the weary days of waiting and the disagreeables for this! But, alas! though there seemed quantities of soup when they started, it was never enough—they could have done with much more. 

The difficulty of dealing it out into the small mugs was considerable, and the Two usually came back to their own breakfast splashed with soup but glowing with pleasure. 

In the days that followed, the grand success of the soup was almost eclipsed by the charms of the chocolate which succeeded it later in the day. Cauldron after cauldron of this was emptied as quickly as it could be made. When the men were relieved in the trenches they came over to the little cellar-house, and swarmed around it like bees, waiting patiently for their turn, and holding out those endless mugs which became like a nightmare to the fillers. Hour after hour chocolate was scooped up and poured in, and the stains of dirty brown formed a pattern with the stains of greasy soup on the khaki suits of the two patient workers, whose backs ached after this really hard manual toil. Yet there was nowhere to rest; it was impossible, even had there been time, to go and lie down on the dank straw in the cellar, with people coming in and out, and there was nowhere else to go. 

What the perpetual dirt and cold and discomfort meant to these Two can hardly be put into words. There was no privacy and no possibility of a good wash: their hands quickly became engrained with scrubbing, potato-peeling, and other rough work. To keep the place habitable at all, with the continual incursion of wet and wounded men, was difficult. To get rid of soiled, stained bandages was difficult. There was a constant smell of disinfectants and stagnant or rotting things. Continual wet penetrated everywhere, and in those early days they had not learned, as they did later, the best way to equip themselves against this. 

The news of this extraordinary little centre of light and comfort right up in the actual firing-line spread like wild-fire, and every Belgian officer discovered that urgent business took him to Pervyse at one time or another in the next few weeks. They appreciated the chocolate just as much as the soldiers did, and also the English way of making tea, "the four o'clock," and the tiny cellar was generally packed about that hour, while Mairi, with a flushed face, hastened to and fro, wondering if the supply would last out for all these guests. The very fact that the ladies were there in the midst of them, English ladies, backing them up and believing in them, sent the spirits of the whole Division up degrees higher. It was the 9th Regiment that was then stationed at Pervyse, and they began to look upon the ladies as their particular property, and crowed over the other unfortunates who had no such luck. 

In the ruin of the house above the cellar was a half-buried piano, and one day one of the officers, being unable at that moment to squeeze into the cellar, try he never so hard, cleared away the stones and rubbish that had fallen on it, and discovered that though it missed a part of the keyboard in the treble, the rest went all right, so he sat down and played a waltz to fill up the time. Immediately those of the rank and file who were hanging about outside started dancing, their heavy boots clashing on the frosty road, until the party in the cellar emerged to see what was going on. As the ladder disgorged man after man it seemed a miracle where so many had managed to pack themselves. 

Mairi, flourishing the immense kitchen spoon with which the soup was stirred, beat time for the dancers. The rattling piano, with its occasional lapses, wheezed gaily away in the wind-swept ruin, the ruddy-faced men and the two handsome women laughed helplessly, while the hidden death waited ready to pounce. It was like laughing in a lions' den; it was all right for the moment, but anything might happen. 

A strange life, indeed! 

There was even a worse job to be faced than that of carrying the soup to the trenches in the morning. This was to visit the sentries and outposts at night, over the railway line, towards l'Yser, and carry the warm comfort to feed their bodies, and the cheery thought, they were remembered, to brace up their minds. 

After tea this hung ominously over the girls; it was the worst bit of the day, but it had to be faced. It could not be done until it got dark, and then, as often as not, the shelling began. So they took their lives in their hands, and never knew when they started out if they would come back. 

They were always accompanied by an officer, who had the password, and the mission had to be carried out in perfect silence, so as not to attract the enemy's unwelcome attentions. Sometimes there was a gleam from the stars if it were frosty, but generally, frosty or not, the damp from the ground rose in a white winding- sheet and shut out all such light. Their feet rang on the iron-bound road in spite of all their care; they carried the heavy jugs of scalding liquid, and the sudden challenge, "Halte là!" ringing out in the night, always made them jump, though they knew, or perhaps because they knew, it would come. "Officier Belge," was the reply. "Un homme en avance," commanded the voice of the unseen sentry, and the officer moved slowly forward within five paces of him, while the others waited till the password and countersign had been softly given and received. 

Three times this ceremony had to be repeated as they went out and three times on their return, but on the outward journey each grateful sentry received a cup of hot chocolate as a delightful reward. 

Out across the bleak raised road, with the water lapping at its sides, or with the thin crackle of ice settling down, they went. There was a pale line of radiance from their own side where the trenches lay, and sometimes the flashes of the German artillery shone out across the water, or occasionally a star-shell, making a radiance more glorious than the heart of the lightning. Then they had to catch their steps at once and stand still as stocks, jug in hand, until the star burst and faded. The air was full of portent and menace. Once as a doctor advanced on this very road to meet Gipsy a shell caught him, so that he died. "Why was it he, and not I?" Any sensitive mind must ask that question. 

The men of the mitrailleuse who guarded the outpost lived in a hole in the ground. In pitch darkness a hand groped for the jug and drew it in, and then, their work accomplished, the little party started back again on their eerie journey. 

Back across the railway line night after night, with the woolly fog touching damp faces like unearthly fingers, then good-night to the officer, and the stumble down into the little "cave," where the stove was perhaps giving off a warm glow, reflected on the red blankets and the slumbering form of Woffington. They crawled into their sleeping-sacks, and slept the dead sleep of those whose whole being has endured to the utmost during the run of daylight. 

The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 8 - The Great Idea

'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'

A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm

A Story of Two British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front

Chapter VIII - The Great Idea

The brilliant idea which Gipsy had conceived the day she met Dr. Van der Ghinst grew like Jack's beanstalk, one night at Oudecappelle, when for the first time the two friends together slept among the soldiers in the fire-zone. They had been up and down, up and down, under the direction of Gilbert, almost all day, and when they heard their services would possibly be required at night too, it seemed the obvious thing to do to sleep at this tiny village instead of going back that long, weary way to Fumes. The French marines were occupying a wee café, and as one of them advanced to ask the ladies to share it with them, they thought for the moment he was suffering from some new and horrible kind of wound, because he never looked the same for two seconds together; as a matter of fact, he had a face of the gutta-percha variety, and in his civilian days had earned many a penny by displaying this eccentricity, of which he was obviously proud. He did not want to let his talent rust for want of use, and so as he came forward he displayed one moment a large, flat, vacant-looking visage, with two tiny eyes like currants, and the next it was shrunk and wizened up as if he had lived to the end of all time. They watched, fascinated, until he turned and led the way to shelter. This was a very low, dirty little Flemish house with a filthy stained wooden table, greasy soiled chairs, and a floor which might have belonged to a cow-byre. Two chairs were pulled out and put in a corner, and here the two friends sat together, while, as dusk gathered, the gloom was lightened by a guttering candle stuck in a wine-bottle. Just behind them was a Belgian battery, and the heavy guns sent out a roar every few seconds which shook the tumble-down place, so that it was marvellous it did not fall in a heap. Every scrap of glass in the small window-panes had long since vanished. The French soldiers were sitting in the filthy damp straw on the ground, smoking and chatting, spitting, and playing cards with a pack on which the stains looked like a weird new variety of suits. The place was fairly stuffy, but every now and then the door opened to let in an icy draught. "Rubber Face," as they had christened him, noticed that his guests had nothing with them in the way of food, and in his large-hearted generosity immediately did his best to provide for them. He produced an egg from his pocket with the air of doing a conjuring trick-as indeed it was, for Heaven alone knew how he had managed to keep that egg unbroken since he had obtained it. One would have thought the concussion of the guns would have been enough to shatter it. He promised an omelette, and finding an old tin plate, which he assured them had "déjà de la graisse," he broke the egg on to it, holding it over an improvised fire. He would have probably died of a broken heart if they had refused it, and being out to heal and not to break, they had to go through with it. 

They wondered what would happen when sleeping-time came. It would be a weary performance to sit upright all night, and yet to fall upon that wet and fetid straw, among the French soldiers, many of whom were heartily asleep already, seemed equally impossible. But Gilbert, by exploring, discovered a small inner room and managed to procure a certain amount of fairly clean straw, and there they retired. It was indeed to Mairi not the first experience of such a kind, because a night or two before, when Gipsy had gone over to Dunkirk, she had slept here alone among the men with the fearless freedom of a child. She had had her own pile of straw in the corner, and was hedged in by Gilbert and Tom, the trustworthy chauffeur. They had had some cushions from the car as pillows, and a couple of rugs, and she says, "I was well protected, for Gilbert had his revolver under his pillow, and lay between me and the soldiers." 

It speaks highly indeed for the men that her confidence was justified. And in all the most difficult circumstances arising out of the crude conditions these two women encountered, there is never once a hint that they were annoyed in any way. Main had lain down now with her knitted khaki wool cap pulled well down to prevent the straw from tickling her ears, and she was asleep within five minutes. Like the soldiers, she had become so much accustomed to the thunder of the guns that she hardly heard it. But Gipsy was more highly strung, and she found sleep impossible. There was a faint gleam from the candle, which burnt all night, and though she tried hard to sleep, at first she found it out of the question; her imagination was too active. 

"The place was so eerie and small, and the rats worried me. I thought of all sorts of stories of rats eating one's nose and nibbling one's finger-nails. The men through the doorway snored, too, horribly. I wondered what would happen if the Germans came suddenly, as they might quite easily do. The springing to life of those slumbering men, and the awful carnage there would be in that tiny space!" It was only when there was a lull in the firing for a moment that the snores could be heard; they were ordinarily drowned in the hullabaloo. When there was a louder crash than usual, so that Gipsy started up thinking the whole house was coming down to bury them, not one of the sleepers stirred. So she sat up and wrote her diary, the little green book that accompanied her everywhere, and was stained and soiled with the weather, matching the red one that Mairi faithfully carried and looked upon as an inestimable confidant. To have the privilege of seeing those two diaries is to get a peep into two uncommonly fine souls, of very different and in many ways complementary characteristics. 

At 2.30 Gipsy got up to creep outside to see if anything was happening, and as she moved her girl companion stirred, turned, and flung back the cap from her fair hair and opened her sleepy eyes; so they crept out together. There they stood, feeling very, very small under the arch of that immense plain, with the flashes on the horizon, the red glare over devastated Dixmude, and a bitter wind sweeping around. It was impossible not to recall the solemn words of the prophet Isaiah: "Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence." 

The solemnity of the night, with Death stalking close at hand ready to spring upon them at any second, impressed them. What was going to happen in the future? Were they prepared to go on with this work in spite of all the dirt and rats and smells? Were they able to say to each other fearlessly and confidently, "I will go through with it; I will devote myself to helping the little soldier in the trenches, whatever comes. No more will I think of myself. I will sleep whenever and wherever I can. I will live, if need be, under fire as he lives. I will carry my life lightly if I can succour, help, and comfort him." The glamour had all evaporated; they knew what such a vow involved, but quite steadily they both agreed to take it. There were no heroics; there was no romance; there, in that bitter wind, standing in front of the poor little house full of snoring soldiers, with that horrible glare in their eyes, and the thunder of the guns shaking the ground they stood on, they held each other's hands, and determined to thrust away all idea of fears, nerves, or feminine weaknesses. In the early grey light of the morning they consummated that heroic resolve with a real sacrifice. They saw it must be; there was no escaping it. So, with a pair of surgical scissors, Mairi cut and hacked and chopped until she had shorn her friend's dark silky hair to a length of about two inches all round, and then Gipsy did the same for the strong fair crop so unlike her own. They looked at it, laughing queerly, the fair and the dark, before they knotted the tresses together and sent them floating down the canal. When one is grown up, hair completely cut off can never grow quite the same again. Later on, recounting how little one member of the party had really done for the cause, Mairi remarks significantly, "She never cut off her hair." 

They pulled down their woolly caps well over their shorn heads, so that the men should not notice anything, and returned to the hut. Gipsy says, "With that little bundle of hair went all our nervousness, all our fear of rats, our dislike of dirty food, and our ideas of home comforts. We became soldiers from that hour." 

It was very shortly after this that they met Dr. Van der Ghinst again. He had stuck to his wounded in Dixmude until the Germans actually came into the town and took him prisoner; but he was allowed to continue his work, which he did for three days, and then, when he went out to the German trenches under escort to collect the wounded, he managed to give his captors the slip, and, after it was dark, got clear away. 

During the many hours of waiting since they had first met him, Mrs. Knocker had thought out many things. It seemed to her that a great deal of the ambulance work was running to waste; there was too much careering backwards and forwards, with too little result. Huge ambulances, consuming a great deal of petrol, were sent on trivial errands. One night she and Main had been ordered miles away with a great car merely to carry a bundle of bandages. At another time she had actually been asked to take out "sight-seers" from England in one of the cars! 

It was after the wounded were collected that the shaking up over the vile roads, and the long interval before they could be properly attended to, often resulted in death. There must surely be some way of preventing this. It seemed to Gipsy that a poste de secours right up as near to the firing-line as possible, where the men could be treated for shock, and restored somewhat before they had to undergo the awful journey, would be the means of saving many. The question was whether such a poste was feasible. Dr. Van der Ghinst warmly approved the idea, but he stood alone, for when it was mooted to the rest of the Corps it met with disapproval all round. Dr. Munro, indeed, told Mrs. Knocker plainly that if she did this she would do it in disobedience to his orders, and all funds would cease—she must finance herself. Ambulance work had the cachet of respectability; everyone knew what it was, and approved of it; but this other— whoever in their senses had heard of women living right up among the actual fighting soldiers, miles from any hospital? It had never been done, and therefore, of course, it was useless to try it—so argued the official mind. The other members of the Corps had had the same experiences as Gipsy, but though they saw they did not perceive as she did. 

Yet Gipsy never wavered for one moment in her determination. She had the sense and foresight to see that in this original idea lay a field of mighty usefulness; she had the courage to look out over the edge of the rut of custom and convention. She knew instinctively where her own strength lay; she could put through a big thing where others might fail. Opposition only hardened her determination. She began to piece out this great idea, to fit it together. Practical points must be considered. In the first place, she could not run the poste herself, and who so suitable to help her as Mairi, the brave little assistant who had been her right hand all along? It was not because Mairi had been her friend in that far-away, almost forgotten life in England that she chose her, but because she had proved herself the possessor of the right kind of qualities, and in spite of her age had a steadiness far removed from that excitable feminine love of rushing about which many women think displays their enthusiasm. It was tolerably certain that she and Mairi together could do more for the lives of the Belgian soldiers than had heretofore been done by all the ambulances together. 

A night or two later (November 7) Furnes was shelled in earnest, forty or fifty shells falling into the town. Gipsy and Mairi were still in their disused house, and slept peacefully through it all. One doctor, who occupied the room above them, had a cheerful habit of walking about on the parquet flooring in his thick boots at unearthly hours, so when Gipsy heard of the shelling she expressed surprise at not having been wakened by it; but added: "Though, to be sure, I should never have known the difference between the shells and the doctor's boots, even if I had!" So are the small, near things and the great, far-away things merged into one size by our human limitations. 

As the German advance seemed imminent, the time was ripe for the new experiment, and the place chosen must, of course, be approved by the military authorities. Dr. Van der Ghinst was himself now established at Pervyse, which he considered suitable. A road from Dixmude runs westward, and bifurcates at Pervyse. From here the roads form a sort of isosceles triangle, with the base on the sea- coast, one branch running through Furnes and the other to Nieuport. Pervyse therefore lies roughly about half-way between Dixmude and either Furnes or Nieuport. Gipsy, who never let go of anything which she had determined to carry through, one day took out Dr. Van der Ghinst in a car to Pervyse to survey the place and to consider its suitability. 

It was obvious that this part of the country was being bludgeoned to death. A week earlier there had been some houses still standing at the sides of the road, but now there was little, not even an upright ruin, only heaps of stones; while the road, which had once boasted a shell-pit here and there, was now pock-marked with them, converted into black cauldrons filled with water by the incessant rain. Driving a car resolved itself into a perpetual gamble, with the odds against one. 

All along the road were abandoned motor-cars dashed to pieces even as they ran along, or smashed by a collision with a heavier waggon, which had sent them hurtling into the deep ditch. The prodigal waste of it all was appalling! There was plenty of evidence that the passengers had not always escaped the fate of the cars. In one of them the charred body of the chauffeur was mixed up in grisly fashion with the wrenched and distorted wheel. The air was tainted by the revolting charnel smell, not to be imagined by those who have not experienced it, nor to be forgotten by those who have. The first challenge of it is unmistakable, carrying certainty as to its origin, and it seems to curdle the very blood with its loathsomeness. 

Bloated cows like inflated balloons, humped sheep, and horses looking terribly clumsy in grotesque attitudes, lay in the fields; and when they drove into Pervyse, Gipsy exclaimed with conviction: "There is not a house one could even pig it in!" 

She little foresaw how long it would be her home! 

Dr. Van der Ghinst promised to look out and find, if possible, a shelter for her head among the ruined houses. He advised her, however, to take a rest and go over to England before starting on this new work, as she and Mairi had now been under almost continuous strain, in very trying conditions, for over six weeks. She agreed, and resolved to arrange it. When she returned to the house in Furnes, which she had now grown to look upon as quite her own, to tell her comrade and pack a few clothes, she found Mairi standing speechless before a furiously enraged bonne, who was pouring out upon her, in the dialect of her particular native part of France, what she thought of thieves and robbers in general, and of these Two in particular. Even Gipsy's French, which was better than the average Englishwoman's, was unequal to the situation. The woman flew at them like a hornet, and refused to admit them. She had cautiously returned to collect some clothes for her mistress, and the first glad surprise at finding Furnes still standing, had turned to wrath in her frugal soul when she found evidences of occupation; and they were bound to admit that she was not unjustified from her point of view. They had to fetch the Belgian on whose authority they had established themselves, to explain and set matters right before they could collect their things. 

Then away to that glad, strange England, which seemed almost like a foreign country after such amazing experiences. It is hardly to be wondered at that fair-haired Mairi, in her well-worn khaki and knitted soldier's cap, carrying part of a Uhlan's lance given to her as a trophy, created quite a sensation in Waterloo Station. 

Armistice Day 1918 - by an American Soldier.

This article entitled 'War is Over' a Memoir by an American Soldier,

“I was fully awake long before reveille, sleepy and unrefreshed, and when reveille came we received orders to move within two hours.

Four of us and one N.C.O. were left behind to load a lorry. And then we too packed up and set out to follow the unit.

Thinking to take a short cut across country, we ascended the hill-slope, jumping and clambering across shell-holes and striding through long grass An Australian soldier lay on a lom and weeds. Now and again we would chance upon some narrow winding track that soon lost itself again amid the tangled growth. Low clouds burdened the sky and a fine rain began to fall. The top of the hill was hidden in grey mist.

We passed a heap of broken concrete blocks from which the twisted ends of iron rods projected. A little farther on a concrete shelter stood intact except for deep vertical fissures. I peered into the narrow entrance that sloped steeply down. I slipped in the soft mud, but by stretching out my arms and clasping the outer wall I just saved myself from falling flat on to a rotting corpse that lay half-immersed in greenish-black water. I drew slowly back, sick with horror.

The devastation increased with every mile and the shell-holes came closer and closer together. Dead horses, shattered guns, wagons, and limbers lay overturned in the ditches. At one spot on the roadside the legs and buttocks of a man, all brown and shrivelled, slanted upwards from a deep, wide rut, many heavy wheels having passed across the small of his back.

Gradually the houses, trees and bushes disappeared entirely. We reached the site of a village that before the war had sheltered several thousands of people. Nothing remained except small bits of brick mingling with the bare soil, piled up and scooped and churned and tossed by shell fire.

Here, too, there were many dead. A little way off the road lay an Englishman who could not have fallen more than a few days before. His hands were clenched, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed and staring. Near him was a tall German. He lay at full length with arms outstretched and legs crossed. His left hand, immersed in a pool, was white and puffy. His right hand was half closed and only slightly wrinkled. His side had been ripped open and fragments of entrail projected from the rent. The water beneath and around him was stained with blood. His pockets were turned inside out and papers and postcards lay scattered around in the usual manner. His cloak had been thrown across his face.

Other bodies had lain unburied for several months; others for several years, and of these only the mud-stained bones were left.

We marched in silence through this dismal land of ruin and desolation. At length, in the distance, we saw a solitary fragment of a brick wall standing in a wide hollow, a sign that we were nearing a habitable region once again.

We passed by riddled German sign-boards, and came to a litter of wreckage that had once been a village, and then we left the main road and entered a little wood, or rather an assembly of scarred tree-trunks leaning at all angles. It was crossed by a zigzag trench and all the refuse of battle lay scattered about.

An Australian soldier lay on a low mound. His head had dropped off and rolled backwards down the slope. The lower jaw had parted from the skull. His hands had been devoured by rats and two little heaps of clean bones were all that remained of them. The body was fully clothed and the legs encased in boots and puttees. One thigh-bone projected through a rent in the trousers and the rats had gnawed white grooves along it. A mouldy pocket-book lay by his side and several postcards and a soiled photograph of a woman and a child.

An attempt had been made to bury some of the dead, and several lay beneath heaps of loose earth with their boots projecting. But the rats had reached them all, and black, circular tunnels led down into the fetid depths of the rotting bodies. The stench that filled the air was so intolerable that we hastened to get out of this dreadful place.

As we walked on, the scattered houses drew closer and closer together until they formed continuous rows. A civilian passed by, pushing a wheelbarrow that clattered over the cobbles. Then there followed a woman with a bundle on her back.

We turned a corner and entered another street in which the houses had not been rifled. Several were occupied by civilians.

Before us, in an open field, lay our camp. Scribbled in chalk on a piece of board nailed across a broken window were the words:

"Der Friede wird stundlich erwartet"-Peace is expected every hour.

Ever since we had received news of the German peace offers and President Wilson's replies, rumours had multiplied enormously - the Kaiser had been assassinated, the German Fleet had surrendered, German troops were deserting in masses, German submarines were floating on the surface and flying white flags, a German Republic had been proclaimed with Liebknecht as President. One evening after a day of unusually hard labour, we were laying exhausted in our tent. Suddenly the flap was thrown open, a man pushed his head in and shouted excitedly:

"I say, you chaps, the Armistice has been signed-it's official!"

" Who says so? Did you see it in print?"

"No, I just heard it from a despatch-rider. He got it from his C.O. it's official."

"Don't believe it. We've heard that tale too often."

"All right, then, don't!" the man shouted angrily, and walked off.

No sooner had he gone when our Corporal said:

"It wouldn't surprise me if he were right. In any case, even if the Germans haven't signed yet, they'll have to do so soon. Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria have collapsed. The Germans have decreasing resources and no reserves. The Allies have increasing resources and unlimited reserves. The longer the war goes on, the more desperate is Germany's position. She must accept our terms, she can't help herself."

"I do not think they will sign," I replied. "I think we can expect at least another year of war. I know Germany is in a bad way, but our terms mean unconditional surrender. The Germans will not be silly enough to imagine that, once they are disarmed and helpless, we shall stick to the Fourteen points or be bound by any promises of any kind. No, the Germans will fight on, they will shorten their front, and they will at least keep the Allies off German territory for an indefinite period until they can secure better terms."

"You overrate the strength of the Germans. I think the German army is becoming completely demoralized. I also think that the blockade has done its work amongst the civilian population. We shall have an armistice within the next few days. Perhaps rumour is correct for once and the war is already over. We haven't heard any guns for a long time-the front is extraordinarily quiet."

"Yes, but we would have heard officially - news like that would never be kept from us."
"That's true enough - I expect the thing is being discussed and a decision will be reached before long."

We all agreed that as soon as the fighting ceased, we would be informed. The news of the Armistice would be telegraphed to every unit and it would reach us within a few minutes from the actual signature. And then, what would we do then? How would our feelings find an outlet? It was impossible to say. Shouting, singing, dancing, would they give us relief? Speculation was useless, painfully useless. And yet what else could we think about?

It was Sunday, the 10th of November. We had no work to do and wandered restlessly round the town. An official communiqué was posted up outside the Mairie, but it contained nothing new. There was a crowd of soldiers round a Belgian boy who was selling English papers. We bought the last copies, but they were of the previous Thursday and did not add to our knowledge. The suspense was becoming unbearable. My conviction that the Germans would reject the terms of the Allies was shaken-not by any further evidence, but by the general atmosphere of excitement and hopeful expectation which communicated itself to me. I kept on repeating to myself, "They will not sign, they will not sign," and intellectually I believed my own words. And yet I was continually imagining the war already over and what I merely thought seemed unessential and irrelevant. The stress of wild hopes and mental agitation became almost a physical pain.

Darkness came on and we retired to our tents. I gradually became aware of a faint noise, so faint that I hardly knew whether it was real or not. As soon as I listened intently I could hear nothing. Then one of us said: "What's that funny noise?" There it was again, a low, hollow sound like that of a distant sea. It grew louder and then ceased. Then it became audible once more and grew louder and still louder. Suddenly we realized what it was-it was the sound of cheering. It came nearer and nearer, gathering speed. It flooded the whole town with a great rush, paused a moment, and then burst over our camp.

Everybody went mad. The men rushed out of the tents and shouted: "It's over - it's over - it's over!" I could hear one shrill voice screaming wildly: "No more bombs-no more shells-no more misery." The deafening clamor from innumerable throats was topped by the piercing blasts of whistles and the howling of cat calls. A huge bonfire was fit in the camp and sheets of flame shot skyward. The brilliant stars of signal-rockets rose and fell in tall parabolae and lit up all the neighbourhood. The Sergeant- Major blew his whistle with the intention of restoring order. He was answered by a hullabaloo of derisive hoots and yells. He gave up the attempt and instead he headed a procession that marched into the town, banging empty tins and whirling french-rattles. An anti-aircraft battery opened fire with blank charges. Aeroplanes flew overhead with all lights on.

Many of us went back into our tents and sang with all the power of our lungs.

So the war was over! The fact was too big to grasp all at once, but nevertheless I felt an extraordinarily serene satisfaction. Then someone said: "The people who've lost their sons and husbands - now's the time they'll feel it." The truth of his remark struck me with a sudden violence. My serenity was broken and looked into the blackness beneath it. I knew what I was going to see, but, nevertheless, I looked, in spite of myself ' and saw innumerable rotting dead that lay unburied in all postures on the bare, shell-tossed earth. A horror of death such as I had never known before came upon me - a crushing, annihilating horror that seemed to impart a fiendish character to the shouting and singing in the camp, as though millions of demonic spirits were howling and dancing with devilish glee over the accomplishment of the greatest iniquity every known. At the same time I felt ashamed of not joining in the general jubilation, and bitterly disappointed that my own thoughts should obsess me at this supreme hour. But I knew that the war had lasted too long and that the world's misery had been too great ever to be shaken off, I also knew that all the dead had died in vain. In order to escape from my intolerable meditations I sat up and began to talk to my neighbour: "I suppose it'll be read out officially tomorrow morning?"

"Sure - and we'll get a day off at least."

We continued to talk of commonplace things. It was several hours after midnight and the uproar was dying down a little. I felt sleepy and something like contentment was beginning to steal over me once again.

Reveille did not sound until nine o'clock on the Monday morning. The whistle blew for parade. There would, of course, be an official announcement that the Armistice had been signed, and perhaps a letter of thanks to the "splendid troops who had won the war" (which would bore us extremely) and a holiday (which would be welcomed with loud cheers).

We paraded. The Sergeant-Major addressed us:

"I'm sorry, boys, but nothing official's come through. You must go to work as usual. It's a damned shame, I know, but I can't help it. I expect the message'll come during the day and you're sure to get to-morrow off."

There was a murmur in the ranks, but bewilderment deprived us of the power of taking concerted action. A sudden fear seized me-could last night's celebration have been the result of a false alarm? We marched off. But no one did a stroke of work the whole day. All discipline had gone. The N.C.O.'s had no vestige of authority left. Men from other units whom we met knew no more than we did. They said the Armistice had been signed, but there had been no official announcement.

We got back to the camp in the afternoon. No official news.

In the evening the celebrations were renewed. I was troubled by an intense anxiety which began to spread to the others. Still, there would certainly be an announcement the following morning.

We paraded on Tuesday. No announcement of any kind. We marched off to work as usual, but again no work was done. Suddenly I caught sight of a soldier walking along the road a long way off with a newspaper in his hand. I ran after him and caught him up.

"Any news?" I asked.

He gave me the paper. It was dated Monday, the 11th November - only a day old. The headline ran: "No Armistice yet."

So Sunday's demonstration had been a sham and a fraud!

I rejoined the others. They, too, had heard that no Armistice had been signed by Sunday midnight from a despatch-rider, who had, however, added that signature was expected every minute.

We were back in camp. Many new rumours were circulating - the Germans had rejected the terms, the Italians had renewed the offensive. In the evening some of us thought they could hear distinct gunfire. We listened carefully, but our mental tension destroyed our power of hearing very faint sounds.

Wednesday morning, and still no definite news. The suspense was becoming unbearable. No work was done. I questioned men from five other units, but none of them were any better informed than we were.

The expectation of peace had made us forget our bitterness towards the army, but it began to show itself again : "They don't want us to know!"

"They're damned sorry it's all over!"

"There's too many of 'em wi' soft jobs what wants the war to go on for ever!"

"What are you grumbling about? What has the Armistice got to do with us? The Armistice concerns the Staff, not us. It's not our business - we're only common soldiers."
When we got back to camp a boy was selling papers at the entrance.

I bought a Times. It was Tuesday's. The Armistice had been signed on the Monday morning! I went to my tent and sat down and thought it over. The terms were ominous. There was no doubt about it this time - the war had come to an end. I thought of home and of freedom. It almost seemed as though army life had been a dream. I was still in the army, but a few months more or less would make no difference, for my thoughts would be all in the future. In the evening the celebrations were resumed. They lacked the spontaneity of those that were held on the Sunday night. Nevertheless, the rejoicing was genuine, for our suspense had been followed by an immense relief.

As I lay in my tent amid the shouting and singing I again felt that bitter thoughts were gathering, but I was distracted by a man sitting two places from me, who said: "It's a bloody shame we can't get any wine or spirits and get bloody well drunk tonight."

A man lying near him, who had kept very quiet all the evening suddenly sat up erect, glaring with fury, and shouted:

"That's all you think about, getting drunk-you dirty little blackguard! You don't deserve to have peace, you don't! Bloody lot of fools-all shouting and singing and wanting to get drunk! They ought to have more respect for the dead! The war's over, and we're bloody lucky to get out of it unharmed, but it's nothing to shout about when there's hundreds of thousands of our mates dead or maimed for life."

"Don't talk bloody sentimental rot - call yourself a soldier? You ought to be a bloody parson!"

"I don't call myself a soldier - it's a bloody insult to be called a soldier. I'm not a bloody patriot either - I reckon patriotism's a bloody curse. I kept out of the army as long as I could, but they combed me out (that's their polite way of putting it), and shoved me into khaki, but they never made a soldier of me! I've never been any use to them! I only worked when they forced me to. I've been more expense and trouble to them than I'm worth. I haven’t helped to win this wicked war, and I'm proud of it too! Sentimental rot be damned - if everyone had been my way of thinking there wouldn't have been a war, no, not in any country. The war's won, I know, and I'm sorry for it. But Fritz has come off best, not us. He's lost the war, but he's found his bloody soul! I'll tell the civvies something about war when I get home - I'll tell 'em we rob the dead, I'll tell 'em
"For God's sake chuck it. . . ."

"All right, I'll chuck it - I know it's no bloody good talking to fellows like you. Go and get drunk, then, do as you bloody well please. That's all you're fit for. . . ."

He flung himself back into bed, wrapped himself up in his blanket and did not say another word.”

The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 7 - A Hideous Nights Drive

'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'

A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm

A Story of Two British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front

Chapter VII - A Hideous Night Drive

Dixmude was in a terrible state, suffering from a blasting and withering shell-fire, yet there the ambulances went on, hearing that wounded men needed them. They did not stop short of the town itself this time, but went right in. "We worked there all day and all night."

The streets were heaps of débris. Whole walls had fallen flat; others were cracked by great diagonal fissures, and were ready to fall at any moment and bury the party, who crashed along anyhow over huge upturned paving-stones and masses of brick rubble. Every now and again a shell landed somewhere, hitting a house fair and square, and reducing it to the same condition as hundreds of others, which had already lost all semblance of houses; when this occurred a Gargantuan puff of black smoke rose, and on its evaporation, behold, the house was no more!

At one place the whole of such a house had slid across the street, and when the first car arrived at the obstacle the chauffeur looked at the eager for instructions. "Go over it," he said, and the man, with wonderful pluck, did so, landing with a tremendous jolt and crash on the other side. At first the place seemed deserted, but as they advanced hasty figures diving round corners and disappearing in by-streets showed more and more frequently, and at last the first impression was completely wiped out—the place seemed alive with Belgian and French soldiers. The wounded had been collected at the splendid Town Hall, the building which means so much more to Continental nations than it does to us. The mighty pillars at the entrance had fallen this way and that, and one standing grandly upright recalled the majesty of a ruined Egyptian temple.

It was not the wounded only that were to be saved; there were still some few miserable inhabitants living in the haunted desolation, and by peeping down into gaping cellars, and calling softly to see if any living thing would respond, at last four or five old women of ages between eighty and ninety were discovered huddled together, waiting for death. One of these poor old things had had her hand badly hurt; it had been roughly bandaged some four days before, and had remained un-cleansed and unchanged since, so that the wound was in a horrible state. But she did not seem to mind the pain; only as Gipsy attended to her gently she started jabbering hard and very fiercely, as if she was angry about something. As it was a stream of Flemish, nothing was intelligible. Gipsy called to a Flemish soldier outside to come in and interpret, and when he had asked a few questions of the excited old crone he laughed carelessly, and explained in French: "It's all right, Sister; she is only upset because a wisp of her hair is hanging down and she can't get her hands up to tidy it, and she doesn't think she's fit for you to see." So the long wisp of lanky grey hair had to be tenderly fastened back before the dressing proceeded.

The dash into Dixmude was followed by a terrible discovery—M. de B roque ville, who had been in charge, was missing. He had given the order to start back, and then, when the cars had got clear of the town, it was found that he was not with them. After the wounded had been safely landed attempts were unsuccessfully made to find him, but it was not until the next day he turned up smiling, walking quietly in among his comrades, mercifully unhurt. It appeared he had made a dash down a cellar to help someone at the last minute, and when he came up found the cars had gone. He had actually walked back along the shell-torn road and escaped without a scratch-It was nearly the end of October when the first warnings came that Furnes in its turn might have to be evacuated. The great grey host, like a swarm of locusts, was advancing on the unhappy country; thousands had been killed, but there seemed always to be thousands more to take their places. The gallant defenders had nobly played their part, and it must be remembered that they were really more like a trained civil force than an army, for Belgium had had no reason to expect war. They had performed prodigies of valour, nobly backed up by the plucky little French marines and Senegalese. Further to the south, at Ypres, the British had come to the rescue, but the Belgians themselves must have the credit for holding the most western extremity of the line, helped by the British naval guns as the enemy came within range. Some of their feats are worthy of the best traditions of a military nation. They had dashed with armoured cars right into the heart of the enemy's host, spurting leaden death, and retiring unharmed themselves; some of these tales read like the stories of knights in armour attacking dragons in the old days.

But the huge soulless machine in opposition was only scratched by such episodes, not injured. The immensity of it was past all calculation. Its efficiency was the result of years of concentration, and the discipline of the units was such that they were merged in one welded mass; no man had a soul of his own. Stories of the irresistible momentum of this compact mass, of its appliances for continuing and enduring and filling up gaps, its horrible persistency when beaten back again and again, had swelled and gathered, and terror grew. Small wonder was it then, when a few shells fell in Fumes, that imagination quickened its approach. The few people who had not already gone began to go post-haste. It had come within the range of possibility that the hideous cruelties and loathsome brutalities enacted at Louvain and Dinant, Aerschot and other towns, might even be the fate of Furnes. All night long the streets rumbled with departing vehicles, mingled with the clatter of advancing cavalry hoofs, and as a background the roll of the guns gathered force and sounded ominously nearer. Even the ambulance people warned to leave, but they determined to "stick it out" so long as they could be useful.

On the morning of October 29, Gipsy and Mairi got up as usual at six. They washed in that "half-teaspoonful" of water to which they had grown accustomed. Water was very scarce in Furnes and Gipsy remarks casually, "I am so dirty, I feel I shall soon walk without legs!"

The British field hospital had taken a different view of the situation from the members of the ambulance corps, and had gone south at the sound of the alarm. The leaders had already once experienced what it meant to wait to the last minute, and knew what it had cost them, and so were determined not to be caught again. There was an atmosphere of horrible uncertainty everywhere, the confusion of a war seen from the middle instead of from the end.

Yet the cars ran out to Oudecappelle as usual among the dead bodies of horses and cows that lined that road. Some of these had been cut up, and the joints taken for food; others had reached the stage of being pestilential. Gipsy was driving, and rifle-bullets, always a sign of an advance, had begun to hum. She sheltered beside the wall of a house, which does form some protection from this form of attack, though none from shell-fire, and she amused herself by remarking the different notes of the bullets. When one struck anything it made a little smack like the crack of a well- manipulated whip, because the displaced air cracks at the sharp end of the flight.

Most of the day was given over to a vague running about hither and thither without much result, and the atmosphere was full of a maddening suspense. At last a message came for someone to go out to an outlying post to fetch in wounded men. This could only be done under cover of darkness. So as soon as the dusk came down in a kindly veil several of the party started. Tom was driving the first car, and had Mairi with him, among others; whilst Gipsy drove the second, the big Napier ambulance. This still retained its glass screen, and as it was raining the screen became blurred and added to the difficulty of seeing ahead. It was a matter of crawling along foot by foot in the grease of the pavé. Thus they went to Claeskerke, close to Dixmude, where the Germans might break through at any moment according to reports.

When they came to the cross-roads Gipsy received orders to turn to the left, while the first car went to the right. The first party picked up a number of Senegalese very quickly and took them back to Furnes. Gipsy crawled over the ground at a walking pace toward a lonely farm, where she had been told she would find cases to bring back. The surface was so greasy that the wheels would hardly hold the road at all, but there was a fair light from a village in flames some way off. The farm-house had been used as a depot for the wounded, and they were being brought in thick and fast. When she arrived here the whole available space in the ambulance was quickly filled with stretcher cases. Mr. G------, an American who had done good work with the ambulance, climbed inside the car to help the men whose hold on life was slipping from them, and all alone on that front seat sat one frail woman to guide to safety that huge, heavy car which resembled a motor-bus.

The roads were abominable; never had she known them so bad. Sometimes the steering-wheel was jerked right out of her hands, which, for all their skill, had not the strength to hold up the weight so suddenly thrown upon the wrists. The skids were almost continuous, and jerked the living freight from side to side. At any moment the whole ambulance might topple right over. She had been driving off and on since seven that morning, and was already tired. Her back ached to agony, her eyeballs were strained with trying to pierce the grisly darkness.

The blaze of the burning village died down until only a red glow remained. All at once a shell burst as it seemed right overhead, and in the blinding light she saw something straight across the track, something big and black, which made her shut down the brakes and pull up. Then she could see nothing with that flashing light still repeating itself in her eyes and making the red dusk seem velvet- black; so, after waiting a minute, she clambered down from the seat and felt about with her hands, and ascertained that the body of a great cart-horse was lying across the way. It was far beyond her strength to move, so, groping in the mud, she measured the space left in which to pass, and found she could do it with six inches to spare, but the miscalculation of the six inches would land them all in an awful catastrophe! However, there was nothing else for it: these precious lives inside depended on her; so, bitterly cold and soaked to the skin, she crept back to the steering-wheel and essayed the difficult task. Inch by inch she crept past judging the distance, and as her pupils widened she was enabled to see a little, and then she breathed once more as she gained the pavé, which, compared with the mud at the side, seemed safety. But she was not by any means out of the wood, for not a quarter of a mile further her groping sight revealed another black mass, this time so big that it was visible without the aid of a shell-burst. Once more she had to get down and investigate; it proved to be a shell-hole quite large enough to swallow the whole ambulance and its contents. Once more she had to carry out unaided that manœuvring process with so little margin of safety.

When back again on the road she almost ran into a compact group of cavalry that was coming with uncanny silence toward Dixmude. The background of constant noise obliterated all lesser sounds. She warned the men of the shell-hole and passed on. But the end was not yet. According to agreement, she was to return to Furnes by way of Oudecappelle, where Gilbert was waiting. Numbed and trembling with the shocking strain, she felt a momentary relief when she alighted beside his dark figure. Her muscles were wrenched and her hands were shaking, but here was Gilbert without a car, and possibly he would take over the driver's job. She waited silently.

"How many have you got?" he asked in French.

"It is full inside; there is no room—except"—as an afterthought— "two sitting cases could come alongside me on the front.”

“Then you must go back at once and fetch two sitting cases. There are two waiting, slightly wounded, along that road you came. I will show you where."

"I felt as if my heart would burst," Gipsy says, when recounting this incident in her diary.

But what could she do? She was under orders, and her high spirit would have forced her on like a mettled horse until she dropped dead.

With a little choke, but without a word of protest, she turned the car and proceeded to re-traverse that awful road, with Gilbert sitting on the step beside her as a guide. They found the Wounded men and placed them in front, and then returned. The road was being shelled heavily now, doubtless because the Germans anticipated reinforcements coming along it. The whistling scream of the great shells, like the scream of a railway engine as it dashes through a station, got nearer and nearer, and even Gilbert himself ducked involuntarily as one burst within ten yards of them whereat the patient driver smiled a little in the dark. She was far past minding shells herself, voluntarily or involuntarily.

"To get the car along at all, I had to brace every muscle to breaking- point, and every nerve in my body was strung taut. My head ached from straining my eyes in that drizzle, my arms ached from clutching that heavy wheel. There were moments when I felt I could not go on, and yet I knew I must, and so I did."

On reaching Oudecappelle again, Gilbert alighted and rejoined his own car, which had come back, and for the fifteen miles or so homeward the whole burden of responsibility again fell on this indomitable woman.

How the miles were passed over she did not know. She almost reached the point of insensibility, working like an automaton without feeling before the end; but she came to life on reaching Furnes, and the coming alive was agony. At the entrance into the courtyard of the convent there is almost a right-angled turn up through the gates, a tricky task at the best of times. When she reached it her weak, strained wrist refused to do it. The car had to be stopped, backed, and the chauffeur tried again, failed; tried once more, yet more feebly, and failed again; and then, utterly done, she fell forward on the steering-wheel and for the first time in her life broke down. Faithful little Mairi, who had come home with Gilbert's car and not gone out again, was waiting and watching, and sprang to help her and take her indoors while others brought in the car. No wonder Gipsy says in her diary, "It was one of the most appalling experiences of my life!"

In going through these days of horror during the crisis at Dixmude one is struck with the miraculous way in which the party were preserved. Never shirking, hardly ever out of danger, yet not one of them was hit; they were certainly watched over by a Higher Power.

One time, when they were at Oudecappelle awaiting cases to take home, it seemed quite an ordinary thing to M. de Broqueville to suggest to Gipsy that they should walk up the shell-strewn road after having left the ambulances—just as natural as if he had asked her to go for a stroll in a country lane to wile away the time until the horse had had a feed at a country inn. And it seemed quite as natural to her to accept. She made no comment on the astounding proposition. She simply went.

They could see the shapeless observation balloons of the Germans floating ahead, and Gipsy airily chaffed her companion about the gold tassel on his cap, saying that as it bobbed up and down in the rare gleam of sunlight they were enjoying it made a beacon for the hostile fire. She had hardly said it, and they were about a hundred yards along the road, when a German shell burst in a field on the left; so their pleasant little stroll had to be abruptly curtailed, and they turned to go back. Then a shell sailed straight toward them. They heard it coming, and knew well from experience that the sound portended a very near thing. They stopped dead, waiting tensely through that second that might be the last scrap of time left to them, and the shell pitched not fifteen yards away, covering them both with a pall of dust.

"Ne bougez pas," M. de Broqueville counselled, in his wise, kind, unalarmed tones. So Gipsy stood waiting quietly. Just ahead of them was an old, old peasant man whom they had passed pushing along a barrow full of turnips, and as the "Ne bougez pas" rang out he, too, stopped where he was and raised his withered hand to wipe his forehead. The third shell flew screeching overhead, and burst in the ditch by the side of the road, sending up a great spout of water like a geyser. The splinters flew far and wide. One pierced Gipsy's coat, but left her uninjured; and when the smoke died away they saw that the old peasant had fallen forward across his barrow. They sprang forward to help him, and found a splinter had caught him in the back, and it was all over with him.

Having once started, the two ran back toward the cottages where the ambulances were, and as they ran two more shells broke close to them, one smashing an empty cottage into a heap. It had occurred to them both that with the deadly missiles bursting around like this the precious ambulances must be in danger, and must be secured at any cost; so they backed them off three hundred yards along the road, and returned with stretchers to pick up the wounded, for one of the doctors was injured, and a sergeant had had an arm blown off.

After this episode Gipsy remarks severely: "Shells are not things one likes at all. Anyone who says he likes them is certainly not speaking the truth."

The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 6 - Gipsy and the Major

'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'

A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm

A Story of Two British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front

Chapter VI - Gipsy and the Major

BY this time the resources of food at the hospital had run out—even porridge was not available—but fortunately one small butcher's shop in the town was discovered open, and at the back was a kind of little café where the workers could get something to eat. Through the streets of Fumes they went night by night in the pitch darkness, occasionally brightened by an odd gleam that seemed to come from nowhere until you were right on the top of it and looked down into a cellar opening off the pavement, where some of the few inhabitants who had not fled were crouching together talking in awestruck tones by the gleam of a candle or a few sticks. All lights were strictly suppressed of course, and at first, when there was still a certain amount of meat in the butcher's shop, they had to grope their way out, knocking their faces against the cold, still carcasses that hung suspended stiffly from their hooks.

As for the provender they got, Mairi remarks caustically of the soup: "One tomato in fifteen pints of water, but it was hot."

In desperation she and Gipsy at last descended to the cellars of the house they were in, and found some potatoes, jam, beer, and bottled waters, and carried them back for all to share alike. They had certainly earned their keep by the work they were doing for the Belgians.

Dixmude was being steadily shelled, and day by day they went on that long, dangerous road to bring in all the survivors they could. But the day's work was not unrelieved tragedy; a note of high comedy was struck the day Gipsy happened to be out in Oostkerke, about four miles west of Dixmude, just off the more direct and northerly road between that place and Furnes. She had made friends with a very odd-looking Belgian Major who, if he had been a little larger, would have done, without any making-up, for the figure of the giant in the old nursery tales, for he had a rubicund face, brilliant red hair, and a flaming moustache and bristly eyebrows of the same hue — therefore the word that fitly describes him is "scarlet." He was on observation duty. The only possible places in this flat country from which any extent of ground can be surveyed are the tall steeples of the churches, or, rather, perhaps they were the only places, for as both sides made the same discovery, and used them for the identical purpose whenever they came across them, they were naturally shelled persistently, and few indeed survive. The stout Major knew no English, but he was greatly impressed by this good- looking, fearless Englishwoman in her war-stained khaki suit, and so, with expressive gestures, he invited her to climb up the church steeple and see for herself where it was that he spent his days surveying. Gipsy never refused an offer like that, especially when the church tower might any moment be crumpled up by a shell. As Miss May Sinclair has said, "she had an irresistible inclination toward the greatest possible danger."

Up they climbed, and as they mounted each ladder became steeper and narrower than the last. When they gained the summit and peered out of the tiny observation hole, shells were bursting around in a way to satisfy the most ardent lover of danger! As they descended, in a very steep and narrow place, the Major stopped, completely barring the way, and drawing from his pocket a little crumpled French-English dictionary, laboriously turned the pages with his thick moistened thumb until he had found what he wanted. Then, looking up, he spluttered out: "Si je n'étais pas marié. Je voudrais dire, 'I luv you.' "

A sense of her own appalling loss must have made Gipsy nearly fall from her perch; it certainly required every bit of her self-control to enable her to keep her countenance and insist on his proceeding. But she had plenty of dignity, and the descent, perilous in more ways than one, was safely accomplished. They descended again, to find at the church door a sight which straightway sent the matter flying from her head. A French officer lay there with his foot in "a lovely mess." He had been scouting along the railway line which runs through Oostkerke, between Furnes and Dixmude, and a bullet had gone clean through his leg low down. He dropped on the ground to apply his first-aid bandage, and suddenly a "Black Maria" burst within ten yards of him, throwing earth all over his bleeding wound. He knew the great danger of the microbes in the soil getting into an open wound, and, having nothing else handy, he used the contents of his flask, which happened to be coffee, to wash it out. But as he told the story he was concerned, not with the pain of the wound, or with the terribly narrow escape he had had of his life, but with indignation that the shell should have dared to spatter him and make him waste his precious coffee! Such is human naturel He had dragged himself back to shelter with his mind full of this detestable outrage, and he poured it forth to a most sympathetic listener. Gipsy attended to him skilfully, and helped him into the little dug-out occupied by the Major. But directly she had entered it she was filled with anxiety to get out in a hurry; such a smell of stale tobacco, burnt fat, and other worse odours, permeated the place that it might be imagined even a shell would rebound harmlessly off the solidity of the atmosphere! However, nothing would satisfy the Major but that she must sit down and have a plate of soup. In whatever circumstances, soup did sound inviting on this bitter day to someone chronically under-fed and over-tired, so she assented.

A plate was promptly produced containing soup of a pale yellow colour, with a layer of grease about half an inch thick on the top. It was accompanied by a spoon which had most obviously been used to "sup soup" by someone else a very short time before. However, Gipsy philosophically remarks, "It looked a little cleaner when it had been in my soup!"

While she was struggling with the mess heroically, unwilling to hurt the feelings of her well-meaning host, his face lit as a happy thought struck him, and, fumbling in his pocket, he produced a little silver- paper pill, which he crushed between his fingers, burying it gaily and firmly in the midst of the plate of soup. The awful thought that it might be some sort of love-potion—nothing seemed too weird for belief in the strange life she now led—seized on Gipsy, and her quick mind visioned a sort of "Midsummer Night's Dream," with the Major in the part of Bottom! Seeing that he was delighted with his own performance, and totally unaware of the feelings he was arousing in her, even while she watched the soup grow darker under the influence of the pill, she nobly swallowed more of the nauseous compound. The taste assured her that the addition must have been some sort of Liebig, and the worst consequences would not result!

In came just then a doctor belonging to the corps, and he was straightway supplied with a similar plate; and as he looked at it wonderingly, and Gipsy thrust hers from her, having had all that human nature could endure, the little Major thereupon crowned his achievements by snatching at the spoon and picking up by its aid what was left of the silver pill—mainly paper by this time— and conveying it and the spoon together into the soup of the new-comer!

The second course of this appetizing meal was a stale and decrepit- looking piece of steak that had evidently won through with its life after a fierce assault by someone. This was too much; good intention carries far, but beyond a point flesh revolts. Gipsy shook her head as pleasantly as she could, but with a decision that was unmistakable, whereupon, the little man, dancing round her in the confined space, hauled out his precious dictionary, and after a mad hunt found the elusive words he was searching for, and with flaming face and eyes thrust them under her nose:

"I am stung to the quick!"

The Cellar House of Pervyse - Chapter 5 - On The Road

'The Cellar-House of Pervyse'

A Tale of Uncommon Things from The Journals and Letters of the Baroness t'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm

A Story of Two British Volunteer Nurses on the Yser Front

Chapter V - On The Road

There was no question about the amount of work waiting to be done at Furnes. Calls from Dixmude, where hot fighting was going on, were incessant, and the ambulances were kept hard at it. Dixmude is about eight miles south-east of Furnes as the crow flies, but much more by road; and the way along the scattered and smashed pavé was rolled out many times in a day by the coming and going of the motors. Chauffeurs were difficult to get, and there were many cars requiring drivers now; so early next morning Gipsy had hardly had time to get on her clothes before there was a shout, and she ran down to find Gilbert waiting outside with the heavy 40 h.p. Napier. There was no one else to take it, and he ordered her to do so. Put upon her mettle, she obeyed at once, but as she climbed into the seat she realized that she did not even know which were the levers for the various gears, for she had never driven that sort of car before. A trifle like that was soon rectified by a few little experiments, and she managed all right. Before she had been in Belgium long she had driven an extraordinary number of different makes of car, including a Daimler, Wolseley, Mercedes, Napier, Pipe, Sunbeam, and Fiat, and she had had to take a great many of them at a moment's notice too.

It was not like driving on an English road, for here the pavé in the centre is made of cobbles, and just wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other with care; it slopes down a little at each side, and is usually, in the winter at all events, greasy with a thin layer of mud, whereas, if you fail to hold on, you land in unfathomable depths of mud like thick porridge which borders the sides. Beyond this again there is usually a ditch filled to the brim with water, and with no sort of guard to protect the sides, so that a plunge into icy water is not outside the bounds of possibility. With a top-heavy ambulance the joys of getting off into the mud are enhanced by knowing that it is quite as likely as not that if your wheel goes deep into that quagmire the whole thing may turn right over, a particularly cheerful prospect if it happens to be full of wounded men! At the very best, the feat of regaining the pavé entails a tearing strain on a woman's hand and arm. There is a choice of two roads between Furnes and Dixmude. The northern one is more direct, but it was not considered feasible at this time, so the party went by the southern one, turning up by Oudecappelle within sight of Dixmude.

It was the last part of the straight, open road, when they were well within range of the German guns, that strained the nerves most. Mairi was beside her friend on the front of the ambulance, and they were the last of the whole cavalcade, so that if anything had happened to them none of the others would have seen it. Gilbert, who was leading, always went "hell for leather," with a disregard of adverse conditions little less than miraculous, and he never went faster than when he was heading straight for danger. The vile road was broken and pitted with the huge, irregular craters where the shells had fallen. Far ahead was the little bunch of houses, of which some were already burning. Shoved to one side of the route by someone who had had to get off his car to do it was a dead horse on his back, with all his legs in the air in a grotesque parody of a comfortable back-scratching roll.

Not far off him was an "awful warning " in the shape of a big car smashed to pieces by a. shell which must have landed plump into the middle of it and wiped out of time and space any occupants it contained. Ahead the firing was like a tropical thunderstorm, with ominous flashes and a deep, menacing growl, and instead of fleeing from it, as would be man's natural instinct, they were steering straight into the heart of it. They could not get actually into Dixmude itself, but reached Caeskerke, where Gilbert, who was in charge of the party, told them to reverse the cars, facing them homewards, ready to plunge off any second. They were up against some small cottages, and about them some of the French soldiers were entrenched, while others lay along the sloping sides of the road along which they had just come. They were there for half an hour watching with a kind of fascination the sharp, stabbing flame, followed by a cloud of white smoke, or a red roar as a shell caught one of the remaining cottages out in the open and sent it up in a furnace of fire. Nearer and nearer came the warning hiss and scream, until at last they could actually see the pieces flying as the shells burst, exactly as sometimes represented in an illustration, a thing pooh-poohed by those who have never been under shell-fire. Then with a roar and a deafening noise a farm-house not more than fifty yards from them received a shell full upon it, and Gilbert waved a commanding arm ordering them to begone.

It required more than common nerve to get the engine started in such conditions, but it was achieved at last, and they went back the way they had come, out into the open, passing by a huge new pit that had been made in the last half-hour, a pit which yawned across the way and would easily have swallowed up the whole car.

They drew up near a church about a mile out, and waited here for further orders; they had not been there ten minutes when an armoured car came bumping painfully along with a burst back tyre. Some Belgian officers jumped down, and after standing round for a few minutes in discussion together, one of them advanced, with the fascinating little tassel swinging from his cap as he saluted, and asked if the ladies would take back to Furnes some German prisoners he had in the armoured car, otherwise he did not know what to do with them. It certainly was a strange request to make to a woman not of his own nationality, and the trust implied in her skill and courage was unbounded. Gipsy rose to the occasion at once.

"I think it was the proudest moment of my life," she says in her diary.

The five Germans, well set up, fair, hard-eyed striplings, were transferred to the ambulance without delay, and as they were installed and the order given to start the two friends saw with a sort of terrified glee that the Belgian officers did not think it necessary to provide an escort; they had too much to do elsewhere. They seemed to take the whole abnormal proceeding very much as a matter of course, and stood in a row and saluted while the two women drove off with the very strangest carload it had ever been woman's fate to convoy.

Eight miles lay between them and safety, and at any moment, if those unemotional, ruthless young brutes inside had taken it into their heads, they could have got out and knocked the amateur chauffeurs on the head, and escaped with the car. As they went cautiously along this aspect of it was naturally very much to the fore in the minds of the Two on the front seat, and they spoke of it in whispers; but possibly the Germans themselves were glad enough to get safely out of that hell of shot and shell, for they made no attempt at an escape.

The job was accomplished safely, the men handed over to authority, and the car went on to take a load of wounded soldiers to the station. Then, conscious of having accomplished an excellent day's work, the Two returned to their quarters and supped off bully beef and soldier's biscuit. "It was a great day," they said.

In the days that followed they were constantly backwards and forwards on that long and dangerous road, and recognized without difficulty each new shell-hole along the way. The road was so broken in parts that men were sent out with great faggots of wood on their shoulders to throw into the holes and fill them up, and constant repairing was necessary to keep the route open for the heavy military transport. All this work in the open air, with hard physical lifting and driving, took it out of the Two so much that they were always thankful, when the day's work was done, to get back and drop into bed—a real bed, too, a great luxury in those times. A few other members of the party were installed in the same house, but Mairi and Gipsy retained their bedroom to themselves. They were usually able to obtain food at the hospital, where they fared very simply. Porridge for breakfast was acceptable, and occasionally fried potatoes were added, if they had time to cook them and they did not get spoiled just as they were ready, which is the way of potatoes in the hands of amateur cooks all the world over.

 "These" porridge must have felt gratified at its appreciation; even in Scotland, where it is ennobled by the use of the plural number, it can rarely have been referred to as "a joyful basin of porridge!"

The night work was perhaps the greatest strain, for there could of course be no lights, and the way was lit up grimly by the sudden flare of the exploding shells, or the dim light of distant buildings which they had set on fire. It was a curious sight to see the roof of one of these huge torches collapse suddenly, apparently in absolute silence, for the ceaseless cannonade drowned all lesser sounds; then the flames would shoot up like a great cascade of fireworks, brightening everything for hundreds of yards around, and illuminating the great holes cut in the road till they appeared like an irregular procession of monstrous tortoises who had eaten the "Food of the Gods."

Sometimes so many of these devil's fires were alight at once that they brought back a reminiscence of bonfires on Coronation night. "Farmhouses burning, trees burning, everything burning. It was a grand sight, and one I shall never forget," says Mairi enthusiastically. And in the midst of that great amphitheatre set for a life and death drama Luck and Fate stalking alongside, determined that these particular actors should live to play a great part.

The effect of the shells, even on the presumably tough chauffeurs, was eloquent of the nerve-racking strain. One man was perfectly ill with it, and yet he had the right sort of pluck, for he owned up to the cause of his malady, but set his teeth and went on in grim determination. He stuck to his wheel one day, when he was driving Mrs. Knocker, until he became fairly paralyzed, and was manifestly unable to go on, so she changed places with him and took the driving-wheel herself. They were carrying four wounded men, and she brought them into safety, and then said she must go back, as she had left Mairi at Oudecappelle, but that as he was feeling ill he had better stay at Furnes. He looked at her with a face that was like the face of one of the dead in the convent wards, and said doggedly through stiff lips: "Can't drive, but I ain't going to give in to it. I'm coming back right alongside of you this very minute." She could not but admire this heroic triumph of mind over matter.

"Poor fellow! When we turned the corner of the road and got within range of those big guns, and each flash could be clearly seen, he turned suddenly sick, and I had to stop and give him brandy and cover him with a rug. I begged him not to look. It is a sight which requires a peculiar kind of nerves." She does not add that it requires a kind of courage so peculiar that it is rare indeed!

It was getting dusk, and those great bulbs of flame were horribly vivid, and everywhere the masses of farm-buildings or haystacks showed their effect. The continuous deafening noise was killing, and always above the deep bass of the guns the high alto of the screaming shells never ceased for one instant. It seemed as if it were too frightful to continue for another second, yet if it stopped suddenly one's skull would fall to pieces!

It was no wonder that some of the chauffeurs, who were mostly very young and raw, could hardly face it. They did not do badly considering. It was the custom for the heavy ambulances to be left outside the worst firing, in what might be called the penumbra of the danger-zone, and then the light scout cars were run up into the hotter places to retrieve the wounded. No one was forced to go on this service; volunteers were called for, and among these volunteers were always the women of the party. Just at first of course, they, like the men, were quite ignorant of the fearful danger, and went forward with the excited interest of children into the battle-field; but soon, very soon, their eyes were opened, and they knew what it meant. It was then, when the danger was fully recognized, that the pull came! One young Cockney chauffeur, called Tom, was among the bravest of the brave, and did more than his share, because, besides going fearlessly and light-heartedly into the very mouth of the inferno, he exercised a dry turn of humour, which helped the others through better, possibly, than anything else could have done. It often just tipped the balance the right way when it was swinging dangerously. After all, risky as the fire-zone was, it was quite a question among them whether it was not more risky in another way to stay in the ill-ventilated, over-crowded hospital, with its primitive lack of sanitary arrangements.

The Furnes folk were still in that happy state of simplicity when anything out of sight is considered harmless. It was Tom who expressed the British view when, on coming suddenly one day into the poisonous atmosphere after the freshness of a rush through the air, he exclaimed: "My, but them drines is just crude! Give me busting shells all the time-o."

On the evening in question Mairi had been sitting on a wall in Oudecappelle, waiting for the return of the car, with a few soldiers and one or two peasants to keep her company. She, as well as Gipsy, always had a feeling that it was less dangerous to be out of doors under shell-fire, or, at any rate, that it was preferable to meet death, if it must be met, under the full sail of the sky, rather than the flat straitness of roof and walls. So Mairi sat there in charge of some wounded men who lay just inside the door of a cottage, and she watched the shells getting heavier and heavier. The French and Belgian batteries were quite near, and were answering the challenge of the foe madly, and altogether there was no lack of liveliness. Then some of the soldiers, hurrying up, told her that the Germans were coming—the same old cry—and that they themselves had been ordered further down the road; but the girl only smiled sweetly, and went to look at her charges to be sure that everything was ready for immediate transportation when the ambulance should arrive. And as she went out again to look for its coming another ambulance drove up from the opposite direction, and from it stepped out a man of medium height, with a keen, laughing face and those glinting eyes that carry a signal of personal fearlessness even to the least observant. No wonder he looked a little surprised to find this fair-haired girl, so very young and not over big, in charge by herself in the gathering dusk, at this place, which in a danger competition would have gained high marks. He had just come from Dixmude himself, which would certainly in such a competition have been more successful still. So he began to talk to Mairi with a warm degree of comradeship, and just then Gipsy drove up, with the exhausted chauffeur beside her, as miserable and ashamed as a man could be. Dr. Van der Ghinst thereupon introduced himself, bowing gracefully, and held out to the Two a rose apiece, telling them laughingly that they were the last roses in Dixmude, where he was working at the hospital of St. Jean, looking after the wounded. As Dixmude was then about the centre of the vortex, and most of the houses were either fallen or tottering, he did not lack exhilaration in his daily routine. Brave spirits all the world over have something in common, and these three fraternized at once. There was no need of introductions; they knew each other, for their hearts were set on the same thing.

The doctor was evacuating his wounded, who had to be taken over all the long road to Furnes, with the result that many died by the way, and, looking at them pitifully, an idea which had been germinating for some time in Gipsy's brain suddenly took form. Why should there not be a dressing-station close up to the lines at the front? Could not many lives be saved if the wounded could have immediate rest and care, so as to neutralize the effects of shock and fortify them for what they had to go through in the way of weary journeying and knocking about? At present, many a man died from a comparatively slight wound, because his system was utterly exhausted by shock and he had no strength left. While they were still discussing the project, from which extraordinary results were to spring, a French marine came in screaming with pain; two of his fingers had been severed, and he sobbed and groaned so heart- rendingly that, though they were getting a little hardened, it almost unstrung Mrs. Knocker.

It was still raining hard when, tired out, the two friends returned to their house. It was quite lonely, no other member of the party being there at the time. They found the back-door open and the glass panels smashed. As they stood for a second looking at one another in surprise, they could hear the distant rumble of the guns and the immediate drip and splutter of the rain running down in spouts from the roof. They slowly penetrated into the empty house, not knowing what they might not meet. The front-door also stood wide open, and it looked as if whoever had been there had hastily escaped that way on hearing their approach. However, they searched everywhere, and, having found no sign of anyone, at last literally dropped asleep as they undressed, tumbling into bed dead-beat.

The next morning they were still in bed when they heard a knock at the door, and when Mairi, huddling on a coat, opened it she was confronted by a burly French soldier, who looked uncommonly sheepish. He explained hurriedly and with his eyes anywhere but on her face that he wanted his revolver. "But I have not got your revolver," said Mairi, too surprised for words. "Gipsy, here's a man who wants his revolver—at least, I think that's what he wants, unless there is some other French word which sounds exactly like it."

But it was his revolver he inquired for steadily, and when they pressed him to say where it was, and why he thought they had got it, his eyes roved more wildly than before as he blurted out, "C’est dans votre lit, mesdemoiselles.'1''

Hastily they turned back to the bed, but the man slipped past them, and, putting his grimy hand beneath the pillow, drew forth his heavy revolver. Gipsy snatched it from him. "You shan't have it until you tell us how it came there," she cried, in mingled amusement and indignation; so he confessed that he and the other soldiers who were about the place, and had no regular quarters, used to come and sleep here in the daytime, because they knew the ladies were always out till late. "Ça ne fait rien, et c'est bien confortable," he ended, gripping the revolver and grinning as he rushed out.

French soldiers sleeping in the bed by daytime! Only those who have been among soldiers will understand what that means. It explained so many things!