Alan had one story of how he was told to wait at a certain spot with 130 men.  “So I waited,” he said, “but the fire was awful.”  His regiment had, it seems, gone round another way.  “I got thirty of the men away,” Alan said, “the rest were killed.”  It means something to be an officer and a gentleman.

Every day the list of casualties grows longer, and I wonder who will be left.

19 November.  Furnes.—­Early on Monday, the 16th, I left Boulogne in Lady Bagot’s car and came to Dunkirk, where I was laid up with a cold for two or three days.  It was singularly uncomfortable, as no one ever answered my bell, etc.; but I had a bed, which is always such a comfort, and the room was heated, so I got my things dry.  Very often I find the only way to do this or to get dry clothing is to take things to bed with one—­it is rather chilly, but better than putting on wet things in the morning.

The usual number of unexpected people keep coming and going.  At Boulogne I met Lady Eileen Elliot, Ian Malcolm, Lord Francis Scott, and various others—­all very English and clean and well fed.  It was quite different from Furnes, to which I returned on Wednesday.  Most of us sleep on mattresses on the floor at Furnes, but even these were all occupied, so I hopped about getting in where I could.  The cold weather “set in in earnest” as newspapers say, and when it does that in Furnes it seems to be particularly in earnest.

* * * * *

To Lady Clementine Waring.

HOTEL DES ARCADES,
DUNKERQUE,
18 November, 1914.

DEAREST CLEMMIE,

Forgive the delay in writing again.  I was too sick about it all at first, then I was sent for to go to Boulogne to see my nephew, who is badly wounded.  I can’t explain the present situation to you because it would only be censored, but I hope to write about it later.

I shall manage the soup-kitchens soon, I hope, but next week will decide that and many things.  The objection to the pattern is that those vans would overturn going round corners when hitched on behind ambulances.  Some wealthy people are giving a regular motor kitchen to run about to various “dressing"-stations—­this will be most useful, but it doesn’t do away with the need of something to eat during those interminable waits at the railway-stations.

[Page Heading:  CHANGES IN THE SITUATION]

To-morrow I begin my own little soup-kitchen at Furnes.  I have a room but no van, and this is most unsatisfactory, as any day the room (so near the station) may be commandeered.  A van would make me quite independent, but I must feel my way.  The situation changes very often, as you will of course see, and when one is quite close to the Front one has to be always changing with it.

I want helpers and I want vans, but rules are becoming stricter than ever.  Even Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, whose good work everyone knows, has waited for a permit for a week at Boulogne, and has now gone home.  When all the useful women have been expelled there will follow the usual tale of soldiers’ suffering and privations:  when women are about they don’t let them suffer.