Part 29 (1/2)

I wish you would come out and have dinner with us. There is to be mutton.”

I accepted promptly, but it was the situation and not the mutton that appealed to me. It was arranged that they should go ahead and set things in motion for the meal, and that I should follow later.

At the door one of them turned and smiled at me.

”They are sh.e.l.ling the village,” she said. ”You don't mind, do you?”

”Not at all,” I replied. And I meant it. For I was no longer so gun-shy as I had been earlier in the winter. I had got over turning pale at the slamming of a door. I was as terrified, perhaps, but my pride had come to my aid.

It was the English officers who disapproved so thoroughly who told me about them when they had gone.

”Of course they have no business there,” they said. ”It's a frightful responsibility to place on the men at that part of the line. But there's no question about the value of what they are doing, and if they want to stay they deserve to be allowed to. They go right into the trenches, and they take care of the wounded until the ambulances can come up at night. Wait until you see their house and you will understand why they got those medals.”

And when I had seen their house and spent an evening with them I understood very well indeed.

We gathered round the fire; conversation was desultory. Muddy and weary young officers, who had been at the front all day, came in and warmed themselves for a moment before going up to their cold rooms.

The owner of the broken wind s.h.i.+eld arrived and was placated.

Continuous relays of tea were coming and going. Colonel ----, who had been in an observation balloon most of the day, spoke of balloon sickness.

”I have been in balloons of one sort and another for twenty years,” he said. ”I never overcome the nausea. Very few airmen do.”

I spoke to him about a recent night attack by German aviators.

”It is remarkable work,” he commented warmly, ”hazardous in the extreme; and if anything goes wrong they cannot see where they are coming down. Even when they alight in their own lines, landing safely is difficult. They are apt to wreck their machines.”

The mention of German aeroplanes reminded one of the officers of an experience he had had just behind the firing line.

”I had been to the front,” he said, ”and a mile or so behind the line a German aeroplane overtook the automobile. He flew low, with the evident intention of dropping a bomb on us. The chauffeur, becoming excited, stalled the engine. At that moment the aviator dropped the first bomb, killing a sow and a litter of young pigs beside the car and breaking all the gla.s.s. Cranking failed to start the car. It was necessary, while the machine manoeuvred to get overhead again, to lift the hood of the engine, examine a spark-plug and then crank the car.

He dropped a second bomb which fell behind the car and made a hole in the road. Then at last the engine started, and it took us a very short time to get out of that neighbourhood.”

The car he spoke of was the car in which I had come out to the station. I could testify that something had broken the gla.s.s!

One of the officers had just received what he said were official percentages of casualties in killed, wounded and missing among the Allies, to the first of February.

The Belgian percentage was 66 2-3, the English 33 1-3 and the French 7. I have no idea how accurate the figures were, or his authority for them. He spoke of them as official. From casualties to hospitals and nurses was but a step. I spoke warmly of the work the nurses near the front were doing. But one officer disagreed with me, although in the main his views were not held by the others.

”The nurses at the base hospitals should be changed every three months,” he said. ”They get the worst cases there, in incredible conditions. After a time it tells on them. I've seen it in a number of cases. They grow calloused to suffering. That's the time to bring up a new lot.”

I think he is wrong. I have seen many hospitals, many nurses. If there is a change in the nurses after a time, it is that, like the soldiers in the field, they develop a philosophy which carries them through their terrible days. ”What must be, must be,” say the men in the trenches. ”What must be, must be,” say the nurses in the hospital. And both save themselves from madness.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE LITTLE ”SICK AND SORRY” HOUSE

And now it was seven o'clock, and raining. Dinner was to be at eight.

I had before me a drive of nine miles along those slippery roads. It was dark and foggy, with the ground mist of Flanders turning to a fog.

The lamps of the car s.h.i.+ning into it made us appear to be riding through a milky lake. Progress was necessarily slow.