dshaking over our meeting.

[Page Heading: THE UNIT RETURNS TO ENGLAND]

Miss Donnisthorpe and I got decent rooms at the Littoral Hotel, and
brought our luggage there, and had baths, which we much needed. Dr.
Hanson had got out of the train at Bruges to bandage a wounded man, and
she was left behind, and is still lost. I suppose she has gone home. She
is the doctor I like best, and she is one of the few whose nerves are
not shattered. It was a sorry little party which Mrs. Stobart took back
to England.

CHAPTER II

WITH DR. HECTOR MUNRO'S FLYING AMBULANCE CORPS

_12 October._--Everyone has gone back to England except Sister Bailey
and me. She is waiting to hand over the wounded to the proper
department, and I am waiting to see if I can get on anywhere. It does
seem so hard that when men are most in need of us we should all run home
and leave them.

The noises and racket in Ostend are deafening, and there is panic
everywhere. The boats go to England packed every time. I called on the
Villiers yesterday, and heard that she is leaving on Tuesday. But they
say that the British Minister dare not leave or the whole place would go
wild with fear. Some ships lie close to us on the grey misty water, and
the troops are passing along all day.

_Later._--We heard to-night that the Germans are coming into Ostend
to-morrow, so once more we fly like dust before a broom. It is horrible
having to clear out for them.

I am trying to discover what courage really consists in. It isn't only a
lack of imagination. In some people it is transcendent, in others it is
only a sort of stupidity. If proper precautions were taken the need for
courage would be much reduced--the "tight place" is so often the result
of sheer muddle.

This evening Dr. Hector Munro came in from Ghent with his oddly-dressed
ladies, and at first one was inclined to call them masqueraders in their
knickerbockers and puttees and caps, but I believe they have done
excellent work. It is a queer side of war to see young, pretty English
girls in khaki and thick boots, coming in from the trenches, where they
have been picking up wounded men within a hundred yards of the enemy's
lines, and carrying them away on stretchers. Wonderful little Walkueres
in knickerbockers, I lift my hat to you!

Dr. Munro asked me to come on to his convoy, and I gladly did so: he
sent home a lady whose nerves were gone, and I was put in her place.

[Page Heading: ON THE ROAD TO DU