[Page Heading:  THE UNIT RETURNS TO ENGLAND]

Miss Donnisthorpe and I got decent rooms at the Littoral Hotel, and brought our luggage there, and had baths, which we much needed.  Dr. Hanson had got out of the train at Bruges to bandage a wounded man, and she was left behind, and is still lost.  I suppose she has gone home.  She is the doctor I like best, and she is one of the few whose nerves are not shattered.  It was a sorry little party which Mrs. Stobart took back to England.

CHAPTER II

WITH DR. HECTOR MUNRO’S FLYING AMBULANCE CORPS

12 October.—­Everyone has gone back to England except Sister Bailey and me.  She is waiting to hand over the wounded to the proper department, and I am waiting to see if I can get on anywhere.  It does seem so hard that when men are most in need of us we should all run home and leave them.

The noises and racket in Ostend are deafening, and there is panic everywhere.  The boats go to England packed every time.  I called on the Villiers yesterday, and heard that she is leaving on Tuesday.  But they say that the British Minister dare not leave or the whole place would go wild with fear.  Some ships lie close to us on the grey misty water, and the troops are passing along all day.

Later.—­We heard to-night that the Germans are coming into Ostend to-morrow, so once more we fly like dust before a broom.  It is horrible having to clear out for them.

I am trying to discover what courage really consists in.  It isn’t only a lack of imagination.  In some people it is transcendent, in others it is only a sort of stupidity.  If proper precautions were taken the need for courage would be much reduced—­the “tight place” is so often the result of sheer muddle.

This evening Dr. Hector Munro came in from Ghent with his oddly-dressed ladies, and at first one was inclined to call them masqueraders in their knickerbockers and puttees and caps, but I believe they have done excellent work.  It is a queer side of war to see young, pretty English girls in khaki and thick boots, coming in from the trenches, where they have been picking up wounded men within a hundred yards of the enemy’s lines, and carrying them away on stretchers.  Wonderful little Walkueres in knickerbockers, I lift my hat to you!

Dr. Munro asked me to come on to his convoy, and I gladly did so:  he sent home a lady whose nerves were gone, and I was put in her place.

[Page Heading:  ON THE ROAD TO DUNKIRK]

13 October.—­We had an early muddly breakfast, at which everyone spoke in a high voice and urged others to hurry, and then we collected luggage and went round to see the General.  Afterwards we all got into our motor ambulances en route for Dunkirk.  The road was filled with flying inhabitants, and down at the dock wounded and well struggled to get on to the steamer.  People were begging us for a seat in our ambulance, and well-dressed women were setting out to walk twenty miles to Dunkirk.  The rain was falling heavily, and it was a dripping day when we and a lot of English soldiers found ourselves in the square in Dunkirk, where the few hotels are.  We had an expensive lunch at a greasy restaurant, and then tried to find rooms.