My War Experiences in Two Continents | Page 8

be taken till
the last man in it was dead.
The Marines are getting horribly knocked about. Yesterday Mrs.
O'Gormon went out in her own motor-car and picked wounded out of
the trenches. She said that no one knew why they were in the trenches
or where they were to fire--they just lay there and were shot and then
left.
[Page Heading: HOW WE KEPT UP OUR COURAGE]
I think I have seen too much pain lately. At Walworth one saw women
every day in utter pain, and now one lives in an atmosphere of
bandages and blood. I asked some of the orderlies to-day what it was
that supported them most at a crisis of this sort. The answers varied,
and were interesting. I myself am surprised to find that religion is not
my best support. When I go into the little chapel to pray it is all too
tender, the divine Mother and the Child and the holy atmosphere. I
begin to feel rather sorry for myself, I don't know why; then I go and
move beds and feel better; but I have found that just to behave like a
well-bred woman is what keeps me up best. I had thought that the Flag
or Religion would have been stronger incentives to me.
Our own soldiers seem to find self-respect their best asset. It is amazing
to see the difference between them and the Belgians, who are terribly

poor hands at bearing pain, and beg for morphia all the time. An officer
to-day had to have a loose tooth out. He insisted on having cocaine, and
then begged the doctor to be careful!
The firing now is furious--sometimes there are five or six explosions
almost simultaneously. I suppose we shall read in the Times that "all is
quiet," and in Le Matin that "pour le reste tout est calme."
The staff are doing well. They are generally too busy to be frightened,
but one has to speak once or twice to them before they hear.
On Wednesday night, the 7th October, we heard that one more ship was
going to England, and a last chance was given to us all to leave. Only
two did so; the rest stayed on. Mrs. Stobart went out to see what was to
be done. The ---- Consul said that we were under his protection, and
that if the Germans entered the town he would see that we were treated
properly. We had a deliberately cheerful supper, and afterwards a man
called Smits came in and told us that the Germans had been driven
back fifteen kilometres. I myself did not believe this, but we went to
bed, and even took off our clothes.
At midnight the first shell came over us with a shriek, and I went down
and woke the orderlies and nurses and doctors. We dressed and went
over to help move the wounded at the hospital. The shells began to
scream overhead; it was a bright moonlight night, and we walked
without haste--a small body of women--across the road to the hospital.
Here we found the wounded all yelling like mad things, thinking they
were going to be left behind. The lung man has died.
Nearly all the moving to the cellars had already been done--only three
stretchers remained to be moved. One wounded English sergeant
helped us. Otherwise everything was done by women. We laid the men
on mattresses which we fetched from the hospital overhead, and then
Mrs. Stobart's mild, quiet voice said, "Everything is to go on as usual.
The night nurses and orderlies will take their places. Breakfast will be
at the usual hour." She and the other ladies whose night it was to sleep
at the convent then returned to sleep in the basement with a Sister.

[Page Heading: THE BOMBARDMENT]
We came in for some most severe shelling at first, either because we
flew the Red Cross flag or because we were in the line of fire with a
powder magazine which the Germans wished to destroy. We sat in the
cellars with one night-light burning in each, and with seventy wounded
men to take care of. Two of them were dying. There was only one line
of bricks between us and the shells. One shell fell into the garden,
making a hole six feet deep; the next crashed through a house on the
opposite side of the road and set it on fire. The danger was two-fold, for
we knew our hospital, which was a cardboard sort of thing, would
ignite like matchwood, and if it fell we should not be able to get out of
the cellars. Some people on our staff were much against our making use
of a cellar at all for this reason. I myself felt it was the