As we made our way slowly in, through the crowded harbor, full of transports, of ammunition ships, of food carriers, of destroyers and small naval craft of all sorts, I began to be able to see more and more of what was afoot ashore.  It was near noon; the day that had been chosen for my arrival in France was one of brilliant sunshine and a cloudless sky.  And my eyes were drawn to other hospital ships that were waiting at the docks.  Motor ambulances came dashing up, one after the other, in what seemed to me to be an endless stream.  The pity of that sight!  It was as if I could peer through the intervening space and see the bandaged heads, the places where limbs had been, the steadfast gaze of the boys who were being carried up in stretchers.  They had done their task, a great number of them; they had given all that God would let them give to King and country.  Life was left to them, to be sure; most of these boys were sure to live.

But to what maimed and incomplete lives were they doomed!  The thousands who would be cripples always—­blind, some of them, and helpless, dependent upon what others might choose or be able to do for them.  It was then, in that moment, that an idea was born, vaguely, in my mind, of which I shall have much more to say later.

There was beauty in that harbor of Boulogne.  The sun gleamed against the chalk cliffs.  It caught the wings of airplanes, flying high above us.  But there was little of beauty in my mind’s eye.  That could see through the surface beauty of the scene and of the day to the grim, stark ugliness of war that lay beneath.

I saw the ordered piles of boxes and supplies, the bright guns, with the sun reflected from their barrels, dulled though these were to prevent that very thing.  And I thought of the waste that was involved—­of how all this vast product of industry was destined to be destroyed, as swiftly as might be, bringing no useful accomplishment with its destruction—­save, of course, that accomplishment which must be completed before any useful thing may be done again in this world.

Then we went ashore, and I could scarcely believe that we were indeed in France, that land which, friends though our nations are, is at heart and in spirit so different from my own country.  Boulogne had ceased to be French, indeed.  The port was like a bit of Britain picked up, carried across the Channel and transplanted successfully to a new resting-place.

English was spoken everywhere—­and much of it was the English of the cockney, innocent of the aitch, and redolent of that strange tongue.  But it is no for me, a Scot, to speak of how any other man uses the King’s English!  Well I ken it!  It was good to hear it—­had there been a thought in my mind of being homesick, it would quickly have been dispelled.  The streets rang to the tread of British soldiers; our uniform was everywhere.  There were Frenchmen, too; they were attached, many of them, for one reason and another, to the British forces.  But most of them spoke English too.