They pass down the gangway, and are shepherded into form in the dock shed by the Embarkation Staff, with exactly the same silent briskness that characterises the R.A.M.C., over the way.  Their guard, with fixed bayonets, exhibit no more or no less concern over them than over half-a-dozen Monday morning malefactors paraded for Orderly Room.  Presently they will move off, possibly through the streets of the town; probably they will pass by folk against whose kith and kin they have employed every dirty trick possible in warfare.  But there will be no demonstration:  there never has been.  As a nation we possess a certain number of faults, on which we like to dwell.  But we have one virtue at least—­we possess a certain sense of proportion; and we are not disposed to make subordinates suffer because we cannot, as yet, get at the principals.

They make a good haul.  Fifteen German regiments are here represented—­possibly more, for some have torn off their shoulder-straps to avoid identification.  Some of the units are thinly represented; others more generously.  One famous Prussian regiment appears to have thrown its hand in to the extent of about five hundred.

Still, as they stand there, filthy, forlorn, and dazed, one suddenly realises the extreme appropriateness of a certain reference in the Litany to All Prisoners and Captives.

II

We turn to the hospital ship.

Two great ‘brows,’ or covered gangways, connect her with her native land.  Down these the stretchers are beginning to pass, having been raised from below decks by cunning mechanical devices which cause no jar; and are being conveyed into the cool shade of the dock-shed.  Here they are laid in neat rows upon the platform, ready for transfer to the waiting hospital train.  Everything is a miracle of quietness and order.  The curious public are afar off, held aloof by dock-gates.  (They are there in force to-day, partly to cheer the hospital trains as they pass out, partly for reasons connected with the grey-painted ship.) In the dock-shed, organisation and method reign supreme.  The work has been going on without intermission for several days and nights; and still the great ships come.  The Austurias is outside, waiting for a place at the dock.  The Lanfranc is half-way across the English Channel; and there are rumours that the mighty Britannic[1] has selected this, the busiest moment in the opening fortnight of the Somme Battle, to arrive with a miscellaneous and irrelevant cargo of sick and wounded from the Mediterranean.  But there is no fuss.  The R.A.M.C.  Staff Officers, unruffled and cheery, control everything, apparently by a crook of the finger.  The stretcher-bearers do their work with silent aplomb.

[Footnote 1:  These three hospital ships were all subsequently sunk by German submarines.]