I had been pacing up and down under the shelter of a red-brick wall leading into the courtyard of a temporary hospital, and presently, acting upon orders from Lieutenant de Broqueville, I ran my car up the road with a Belgian medical officer to a place where some wounded men were lying.  When I came back again the red-brick wall had fallen into a heap.  The Belgian officer described the climate as “quite unhealthy,” as I went away with two men dripping blood on the floor of the car.  They had been brought across the ferry, further on, where the Belgian trenches were being strewn with shrapnel.  Another little crowd of wounded men was there.  Many of them had been huddled up all night, wet to the skin, with their wounds undressed, and without any kind of creature comfort.  Their condition had reached the ultimate bounds of misery, and with two of these poor fellows I went away to fetch hot coffee for the others, so that at last they might get a little warmth if they had strength enough to drink...  That evening, after a long day in the fields of death, and when I came back from the village where men lay waiting for rescue or the last escape, I looked across to Nieuport-les-Bains.  There were quivering flames above it and shells were bursting over it with pretty little puffs of smoke which rested in the opalescent sky.  I thought of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, and wondered if he had insured his house against “Jack Johnsons.”

16

Early next morning I paid a visit to the outskirts of Nieuport town, inland.  It was impossible to get further than the outskirts at that time, because in the centre houses were falling and flames were licking each other across the roadways.  It was even difficult for our ambulances to get so far, because we had to pass over a bridge to which the enemy’s guns were paying great attention.  Several of their thunderbolts fell with a hiss into the water of the canal where some Belgian soldiers were building a bridge of boats.  It was just an odd chance that our ambulance could get across without being touched, but we took the chance and dodged between two shell-bursts.  On the other side, on the outlying streets, there was a litter of bricks and broken glass, and a number of stricken men lay huddled in the parlour of a small house to which they had been carried.  One man was holding his head to keep his brains from spilling, and the others lay tangled amidst upturned chairs and cottage furniture.  There was the photograph of a family group on the mantelpiece, between cheap vases which had been the pride, perhaps, of this cottage home.  On one of the walls was a picture of Christ with a bleeding heart.

I remember that at Nieuport there was a young Belgian doctor who had established himself at a dangerous post within range of the enemy’s guns, and close to a stream of wounded who came pouring into the little house which he had made into his field hospital.  He had collected also about twenty old men and women who had been unable to get away when the first shells fell.  Without any kind of help he gave first aid to men horribly torn by the pieces of flying shell, and for three days and nights worked very calmly and fearlessly, careless of the death which menaced his own life.