This long war has settled down to a long wait.  Little goes on except desultory shelling, with its occasional quite useless victims.  At the station we have mostly “malades” and “eclopes”; in the trenches the soldiers stand in the bitter cold, and occasionally are moved out by shells falling by chance amongst them.  The men who are capable of big things wait and do nothing.

If it was not for the wounded how would one stand the life here?  A man looks up patiently, dumbly, out of brown eyes, and one is able to go on again.

La Panne. 27 February.—­I have been staying for three nights at the Kursaal Hotel, but my room was wanted and I had to turn out, so I packed my things and came down to the Villa les Chrysanthemes, and shared Mrs. Clitheroe’s room for a night.  In the morning all our party packed up and left to go to Furnes, and I took on these rooms.  I may be turned out any minute for “le militaire,” but meanwhile I am very comfortable.

The heroic element (a real thing among us) takes queer forms sometimes.  “No sheets, of course,” is what one hears on every side, and to eat a meal standing and with dirty hands is to “play the game.”  Maxine Elliott said, “The nervous exhaustion attendant upon discomfort hinders work,” and she “does herself” very well, as also do all the men of the regular forces.  But volunteer corps—­especially women—­are heroically bent on being uncomfortable.  In a way they like it, and they eat strange meals in large quantities, and feel that this is war.

Lord Leigh took me into Dunkirk in his car to-day, and I managed to get lots of vegetables for the soup-kitchen, and several other things I wanted.  A lift is everything at this time, when one can “command” nothing.  If one might for once feel that by paying a fare, however high, one could ensure having something—­a railway journey, a motor-car, or even a bed!  My work isn’t so heavy at the kitchen now, and the hours are not so long, so I hope to do some work of a literary nature.

* * * * *

[Page Heading:  LA PANNE]

To Miss Macnaughtan’s Sisters.

VILLA LES CHRYSANTHEMES
LA PANNE, BELGIUM,
Sunday, 28 February.

MY DEAR FAMILY,

It is so long since I wrote a decently long letter that I think I must write to you all, to thank you for yours, and to give you what news there is of myself.

Of war news there is none.  The long war is now a long wait, and the huge expense still goes on, while we lock horns with our foes and just sway backwards and forwards a little, and this, as you know, we have done for weeks past.  Every day at the station there is a little stream of men with heads or limbs bandaged, and our work goes on as before, although it is not on quite the same lines now.  I used to make every drop of the soup myself, and give it out all down the train.  Now we have a receiving-room for the wounded, where they stay all day, and we feed them four times, and then they are sent away.  The whole thing is more military than it used to be, the result, I think, of officers not having much to do, and with a passion for writing out rules and regulations with a nice broad pen.  Two orderlies help in the kitchen, the soup is “inspected,” and what used to be “la cuisine de la dame ecossaise” is not so much a charitable institution as it was.