A quarter of a million dollars would be needed to install a water supply for the Belgian Army and for the civilians—­residents and refugees—­gathered behind the lines.  To ask the American people to shoulder this additional burden is out of the question.  But perhaps, somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a sterile and soothing wet compress.

Dunkirk was full of hospitals when I was there.  Probably the subsequent shelling of the town destroyed some of them.  I do not know.  A letter from Calais, dated May 21st, 1915, says: 

“I went through Dunkirk again.  Last time I was there it was a flourishing and busy market day.  This time the only two living souls I saw were the soldiers who let us in at one gate and out at the other.  In the interval, as you know, the town had been shelled by fifteen-inch guns from a distance of twenty-three miles.  Many buildings in the main streets had been reduced to ruins, and nearly all the windows in the town had been smashed.”

There is, or was, a converted Channel steamer at Dunkirk that is now a hospital.  Men in all stages of mutilation are there.  The salt winds of the Channel blow in through the open ports.  The boat rises and falls to the swell of the sea.  The deck cabins are occupied by wounded officers, and below, in the long saloon, are rows of cots.

I went there on a bright day in February.  There was a young officer on the deck.  He had lost a leg at the hip, and he was standing supported by a crutch and looking out to sea.  He did not even turn his head when we approached.

General M——­, the head of the Belgian Army medical service, who had escorted me, touched him on the arm, and he looked round without interest.

“For conspicuous bravery!” said the General, and showed me the medal he wore on his breast.

However, the young officer’s face did not lighten, and very soon he turned again to the sea.  The time will come, of course, when the tragedy of his mutilation will be less fresh and poignant, when the Order of Leopold on his breast will help to compensate for many things; but that sunny morning, on the deck of the hospital ship, it held small comfort for him.

We went below.  At our appearance at the top of the stairs those who were convalescent below rose and stood at attention.  They stood in a line at the foot of their beds, boys and grizzled veterans, clad in motley garments, supported by crutches, by sticks, by a hand on the supporting back of a chair.  Men without a country, where were they to go when the hospital ship had finished with them?  Those who were able would go back to the army, of course.  But what of that large percentage who will never be whole again?  The machinery of mercy can go so far, and no farther.  France cannot support them.  Occupied with her own burden, she has persistently discouraged Belgian refugees.  They will go to England probably—­a kindly land but of an alien tongue.  And there again they will wait.