Here he was found by the British column of field ambulances, who took away the old people and relieved him of the last batch of blesses.  They told the story of that doctor over the supper-table that night, and hoped he would be remembered by his own people.

17

There were picnic parties on the Belgian roadsides.  Looking back now upon those luncheon hours, with khaki ambulances as shelters from the shrewd wind that came across the marshes, I marvel at the contrast between their gaiety and the brooding horror in the surrounding scene.  Bottles of wine were produced and no man thought of blood when he drank its redness, though the smell of blood reeked from the stretchers in the cars.  There were hunks of good Flemish cheese with’ fresh bread and butter, and it was extraordinary what appetites we had, though guns were booming a couple of kilometres away and the enemy was smashing the last strongholds of the Belgians.  The women in their field kit, so feminine though it included breeches, gave a grace to those wayside halts, and gave to dirty men the chance of little courtesies which brought back civilization to their thoughts, even though life had gone back to primitive things with just life and death, hunger and thirst, love and courage, as the laws of existence.  The man who had a corkscrew could command respect.  A lady with gold-spun hair could gnaw a chicken bone without any loss of beauty.  The chauffeurs munched solidly, making cockney jokes out of full mouths and abolishing all distinctions of caste by their comradeship in great adventures when their courage, their cool nerve, their fine endurance at the wheel, and their skill in taking heavy ambulances down muddy roads with skidding wheels, saved many men’s lives and won a heartfelt praise.  Little groups of Belgian soldiers came up wistfully and lingered round us as though liking the sight of us, and the sound of our English speech, and the gallantry of those girls who went into the firing-lines to rescue their wounded.

“They are wonderful, your English ladies,” said a bearded man.  He hesitated a moment and then asked timidly:  “Do you think I might shake hands with one of them?”

I arranged the little matter, and he trudged off with a flush on his cheeks as though he had been in the presence of a queen, and graciously received.

The Belgian officers were eager to be presented to these ladies and paid them handsome compliments.  I think the presence of these young women with their hypodermic syringes and first-aid bandages, and their skill in driving heavy motor-cars, and their spiritual disregard of danger, gave a sense of comfort and tenderness to those men who had been long absent from their women-folk and long-suffering in the bleak and ugly cruelty of war.  There was no false sentiment, no disguised gallantry, in the homage of the Belgians to those ladies.  It was the simple, chivalrous respect of soldiers to dauntless women who had come to help them when they were struck down and needed pity.