s watched
his home burn to pieces. It was straight across from us. A
soldier came to tell him that his wife was wounded but not
dead. He lay through the night, motionless, and not once did
he turn his eyes away from the blaze of his home. Petrol
burns slowly and thoroughly.

In the early morning, soldiers with stretchers came marching
down the road. They turned in at the smouldering cottages.
From the ruins of the little house which the peasant had
watched so intently, three bodies were carried. He broke
into a long, slow sobbing.

VIII

THE WAR BABY

"A baby?" cried Hilda in amazement.

"A baby, my dear," repeated Mrs. Bracher with emphasis. "Come, hurry up!
We're wanted _tout de suite_."

The women had been sitting quite peacefully after supper. A jerk at the
bell cord, a tiny tinkle, and Mrs. Bracher had answered the door. A big
breathless civilian stood there. He said--

"Please, the Madame Doctor, quick. The baby is coming."

These astonishing peasants! Hilda could never get over her wonder at
their stolidity, their endless patience, their matter-of-fact way of
carrying on life under a cataclysm. They went on with their spading in
the fields, while shrapnel was pinging. They trotted up and down a road
that was pock-marked with shell-holes. They hung out their washings
where machine-gun bullets could aerate them. The fierce, early weeks of
shattering bombardment had sent the villagers scurrying for shelter to
places farther to the west. And for a time, Pervyse had been occupied
only by soldiers and the three nurses. But soon the civilians came
trickling back. They were tired of strange quarters, and homesick for
their own. There were now more than two hundred peasants in
Pervyse--men, women and children. The children, regardless of shell
fire, scoured the fields for shrapnel bullets and bits of shells. They
brought their findings to the nurses, and received pieces of chocolate
in return. There was a family of five children, in steps, who wore
bright red hoods. They liked to come and be nursed. The women had from
six to a dozen peasants a day, tinkling the bell for treatment. Some
came out of curiosity. To these was fed castor-oil. One dose cured
them. They came with every sort of ailment. A store-keeper, who kept on
selling rock candy, had a heel that was "bad" from shrapnel. One mite of
a boy had his right hand burned, and the wound continued to suppurate.