was settling down into a
regular routine. The sleepy little town of Furnes had been for
some weeks in a state of feverish activity. After the evacuation
of Antwerp and the retirement of the Belgian Army from Ostend,
it had become the advanced base of the Belgian troops, and it
was very gay with Staff officers, and of course packed with
soldiers. The immense Grand Place lined with buildings, in
many cases bearing unmistakable signs of a birth in Spanish
times, was a permanent garage of gigantic dimensions, and the
streets were thronged day and night with hurrying cars. We in
the hospital hoped that the passage of the Yser would prove
too much for the Germans, and that we should be left in peace,
for we could not bear to think that all our labour could be thrown
to the winds, and that we might have to start afresh in some
other place. But one of the massed attacks which have formed
such a prominent feature of this terrible war had temporarily
rolled back the defence in the Dixmude district, and it was
deemed unwise to submit the hospital to the risk of possible
disaster.

We were fortunate in having Dr. Munro's ambulance at our
disposal, and in rather over two hours more than a hundred
wounded had been transferred to the Red Cross train which lay
at the station waiting to take them to Calais. An evacuation is
always a sad business, for the relations between a hospital and
its patients are far more than professional. But with us it was
tragic, for we knew that for many of our patients the long
journey could have only one conclusion. Only the worst cases
were ever brought to us, in fact only those whose condition
rendered the long journey to Calais a dangerous proceeding,
and we felt that for many of them the evacuation order was a
death warrant, and that we should never see them again. They
were brave fellows, and made the best of it as they shook
hands with smiling faces and wished us "Au revoir," for though
they might die on the way they preferred that to the danger of
falling into the hands of the Germans. And they were right. They
knew as well as we did that we are not fighting against a
civilized nation, but against a gang of organized savages.

Three hours later we were mingling with the crowds who
thronged the road, wondering with them where our heads would
rest that night, and filled with pity at the terrible tragedy which
surrounded us. Carts, wheelbarrows, perambulators, and in fact
any vehicle which could