21

It was dark when we reached Poperinghe and halted our cars in the square outside the Town Hall, among a crowd of other motor-cars, naval lorries, mitrailleuses, and wagons.  Groups of British soldiers stood about smoking cigarettes and staring at us curiously through the gloom as though not quite sure what to make of us.  And indeed we must have looked an odd party, for some of us were in khaki and some of us in civilian clothes with Belgian caps, and among the crowd of nurses was a carriage-load of nuns, huddled up in their black cloaks.  Warning of our arrival in Poperinghe should have been notified to the municipal authorities, so that they might find lodgings for us; and the Queen of the Belgians had indeed sent through a message to that effect, But there seemed to be some trouble about finding a roof under which to lay our heads, and an hour went by in the square while the lady in charge of the domesticity department interviewed the mayor, cajoled the corporation, and inspected convents down side streets.  She came back at last with a little hopelessness in her eyes.

“Goodness knows where we can go!  There doesn’t seem room for a mouse in Poperinghe, and meanwhile the poor nurses are dying of hunger.  We must get into some kind of shelter.”

I was commissioned to find at least a temporary abode and to search around for food; not at all an easy task in a dark town where I had never been before and crowded with the troops of three nations.  I was also made the shepherd of all these sheep, who were commanded to keep their eyes upon me and not to go astray but to follow where I led.  It was a most ridiculous position for a London journalist of a shy and retiring nature, especially as some of the nurses were getting out of hand and indulging in private adventures.  One of them, a most buxom and jolly soul, who, as she confided to me, “didn’t care a damn,” had established friendly relations with a naval lieutenant, and I had great trouble in dragging her away from his engaging conversation.  Others had discovered a shop where hot coffee was being served to British soldiers who were willing to share it with attractive ladies.  A pretty shepherd I looked when half my flock had gone astray!

Then one of the chauffeurs had something like an apoplectic stroke in the street—­the effect of a nervous crisis after a day under shell-fire—­ and with two friendly “Tommies” I helped to drag him into the Town Hall.  He was a very stout young man, with well-developed muscles, and having lain for some time in a state of coma, he suddenly became delirious and tried to fight me.  I disposed of him in a backyard, where he gradually recovered, and then I set out again in search of my sheep.  After scouting about Poperinghe in the darkness, I discovered a beer tavern with a fair-sized room in which the party might be packed with care, and then, like a pocket patriarch with the children of Israel, I led my ladies on foot to the place of sanctuary and disposed the nuns round the bar, with the reverend mother in the centre of them, having a little aureole round her head from the glamour of the pewter pots.  The others crowded in anyhow and said in a dreadful chorus, like Katherine in “The Taming of the Shrew,” “We want our supper!”