e long dark hours
between twilight and the late winter morning? Like the sentry, many of
them must wonder if it is worth while. These are people, most of them,
who have lived by their labour. What will they do when the war is
over, or when, having made such recovery as they may, the hospital
opens its doors and must perforce turn them out on the very threshold
of war?

And yet they cling to life. I met a man who crossed the Channel--I
believe it was from Flushing--with the first lot of hopelessly wounded
English prisoners who had been sent home to England from Germany in
exchange for as many wrecked and battered Germans on their way back to
the Fatherland.

One young boy was all eagerness. His home was on the cliff above the
harbour which was their destination. He alternately wept and cheered.

"They'll be glad enough to see me, all right," he said. "It's six
months since they heard from me. More than likely they think I'm lying
over there with some of the other chaps."

He was in a wheeled chair. In his excitement the steamer rug slipped
down. Both his legs were gone above the knees!

Our hands were full. The General had picked up a horseshoe on the
street at Ypres and given it to me to bring me luck; the Commandant
had the framed pictures. The General carried the gargoyle wrapped in a
newspaper. I had the nose of the shell.

We walked through the courtyard, with its broken fountain and cracked
walks, out to the machine. The password for the night was "Ecosse,"
which means "Scotland." The General gave the word to the orderly and
we went on again toward Poperinghe, where we were to have coffee.

The firing behind us had ceased. Possibly the German gunners were
having coffee also. We went at our usual headlong speed through almost
empty roads. Now and then a lantern waved. We checked our headlong
speed to give the password, and on again. More lanterns; more
challenges.

Since we passed, a few hours before, another car had been wrecked by
the road. One sees these cars everywhere, lying on their sides, turned
turtle in ditches, bent and twisted against trees. No one seems to be
hurt in these accidents; at least one hears nothing of them, if they
are. And now we were back at Poperinghe again.

The Commandant had his headquarters in the house of a notary. Except
in one instance, all the houses occupied by the headquarters' staffs
that I visited were the houses of notaries. Perhaps the notary is the
important man