Sometimes at home I have felt a little embarrassed by the love people have shown me—­as if I have somehow deceived them into thinking I was nicer than I really am.  Out here I have to try to remember that I have a few friends!  In London I couldn’t understand it when people praised me or said kind things.

There is only one straight tip for Belgium—­have a car, and understand it yourself.  Never did I feel so helpless without one.  But the roads are too bad and too crowded to begin to learn to drive, and there are difficulties about a garage.

[Page Heading:  MY CAR]

This evening Mr. Wood and I went to Hoogstadt, and towed that corpse—­my car—­up to La Panne for ——­ to inspect.  The whole Belgian army seemed to gather round us as we proceeded on our toilsome journey, with breaking tow-ropes (for the “corpse” is heavy) and defective steering-gear. They were amused.  I was just cracking with fatigue.  Needless to say, ——­ didn’t come.  As the car was a present I can’t send it back without the authority of a chauffeur.  If I keep it any longer they will say I used it and broke it....

There were some fearful bad cases at Hoogstadt to-day, and we were touched to see an old man sitting beside his unconscious son and keeping the flies off him, while he sobbed in great gusts.  One Belgian officer told us that the hardest thing he had to do in the war was to give the order to fire on a German regiment which was advancing with Belgian women and children in front of it.  He gave the order, and saw these helpless creatures shot down before his eyes.

At the Yser the other night two German regiments got across the river and found themselves surrounded.  One regiment surrendered, and the men of the other coolly turned their guns on it and shot their comrades down.

Some of our corps were evacuating women and children the other day.  One man, seeing his wife and daughter stretched out on the ground, went mad, and ran up and down the field screaming.  We see a lot of madness.

8 May.—­The guns sound rather near this morning, and the windows shake.  One never knows what is happening till the wounded come in.  I sat with my watch in my hand and counted the sound of bursting shells.  There were 32 in one minute.  The firing is continuous, and very loud, and living men are under this fire at this moment, “mown down,” “wiped out,” as the horrible terms go.  I loathe even the sound of a bugle now.  This carnage is too horrible.  If people can’t “realise” let them come near the guns.

They were shelling Furnes again when I was at Steenkerke the other day, and it was a strange sound to hear the shells whizzing over the peaceful fields.  One heard them coming, and they passed overhead to fall on the old town.  Under them the brown cattle fed unheeding, and old women hoed undisturbed, and the sinking sun threw long shadows on the grass.  And then a busy ambulance would fly past on the road; one caught a glimpse of blood-covered forms.  “Yes, a few wounded, and two or three killed.”