er of roads lead in various directions to Ypres,
Dixmude, Nieuport, and the coast, making it a convenient
centre for an organization such as ours, requiring, as we
did, ready means of reaching the front in any direction, and
open communication with our base of supplies.
We crossed from Dover in the Government transport, and
arrived at Dunkirk about ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. There
we met Dr. Munro's party, the famous Flying Ambulance Corps,
with whom we were to enter on our new venture. They had not
come over to England at all, but had come down the coast in
their cars, and had spent the last few days in Malo, the seaside
suburb of Dunkirk. The Belgian Government very kindly lent us
a couple of big motor-lorries in which to take out our stores, and
with our own motors we made quite a procession as we started
off from the wharf of Dunkirk on our fifteen-mile drive to Furnes.
It was late in the afternoon when we reached our new home. It
was a large school, partly occupied by the priests connected
with it, partly by officers quartered there, and one of the larger
classrooms had been used as a dressing-station by some Belgian
doctors in Furnes. For ourselves, the only accommodation
consisted of a few empty classrooms and a huge dormitory
divided into cubicles, but otherwise destitute of the necessaries
for sleep. Several hours' hard work made some change in the
scene, mattresses and blankets being hauled up to the dormitory,
where the nursing staff was accommodated, while straw laid
down in one of the classrooms made comfortable if somewhat
primitive beds for the male members. Meanwhile, in the kitchen
department miracles had been accomplished, and we all sat down
to dinner with an appetite such as one rarely feels at home, and for
which many of our patients over in England would be willing to pay
quite large sums. The large room was lit by two candles and a
melancholy lamp, there was no tablecloth, the spoons were of
pewter, with the bowls half gone, and the knives were in their
dotage. But the scales had fallen from our eyes, and we realized
what trifles these things are. Madame, the genius who presided
over our domestic affairs, and many other affairs as well, and
her assistants, had produced from somewhere food, good food,
and plenty of it; and what in the world can a hungry man want more?
Truly there are many people who require a moral operation
for cataract, that they might see how good is the world in which
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