He was simply “done,” he said—­and he looked it.  He had found every hotel was full, and, seeing a few gleams of light behind the shutters, he had knocked in the hope of finding shelter for the night.  I knew that the woman at the canteen who would go off duty at midnight was scheduled to go immediately to the hospital to work until seven in the morning and that I could occupy her bed after I came back from the hospital, and I offered my apartment to the officer for the night.  He was most grateful, and I rushed over to the canteen to get him a pitcher of hot water and a cup of chocolate.  But there I found a group of French officers, who said they had neither sleep nor rest for three days and nights, pleading for some place to lie down.  As there was a comfortable leather couch in my office, besides a wide soft couch over which I had laid my steamer rug, and, in addition, an exceedingly soft double bed in my room which I thought the tired Englishman ought to be willing to share with an equally tired man, I proffered my hospitality, which was gratefully accepted.  I piloted them across to the office, and returned to the canteen, hoping to find an American ambulance boy who would run me over to the hospital.

[Sidenote:  A new raid begins.]

[Sidenote:  Directing men to shelter.]

[Sidenote:  Help from American boys.]

I sighted a group of the familiar uniforms, and was heading for it when, bang! went a falling bomb, without any warning alerte.  The next instant all lights were out, and the French soldiers were swarming through the door.  As all the other women in the canteen had set duties to perform—­putting out fires, locking up money and food—­and I, not being on duty, had none, I stationed myself at the door, calling out to the soldiers where they would find shelter.  Being transients, they did not know where to find refuge.  But long before the canteen was empty, the machine-gun bullets were sweeping the street and the shrapnel was raining down.  Two American boys came up in the darkness, and one said in the quietest tone of authority, “Get between us, lady!” They backed me up against the side of the canteen, close under the shelter of the eaves, and stood one on each side of me.  I had no trench-helmet, so one of them took his sheepskin driving coat, folded it, and put it over his head and mine.  As soon as a lull in the firing permitted, we ran across the street to the abris.  The Germans went back several times for more ammunition and continued the bombing for nearly two hours.

[Sidenote:  The nurses stay with the wounded.]

One of our workers, who was at the hospital, told me that her first impulse was to run for an abris as we would do at the canteen, but when she looked about her and saw everybody composedly going on with duty, she gathered herself together and did the same—­“Although,” she added, “my teeth just rattled at first.”  Some of the wounded were terrified and begged not to be left; and that called out the mother instinct in the women, so that they forgot to be afraid.