e made into seats and piles of extra blankets
were covered and made into "tumpties," while round the stove stood the
interminable clothes horses airing the shirts and sheets, etc., which
Lieutenant Franklin brooded over with a watchful eye! It was in this
room we all congregated at ten o'clock every morning for twenty precious
minutes during which we had tea and biscuits, read our letters, swanked
to other wards about the bad cases we had got in, and generally talked
shop and gossiped. There was an advanced dressing station at Oostkerke
where three of the girls worked in turn, and we also took turns to go up
to the trenches on the Yser at night, with fresh clothes for the men and
bandages and dressings for those who had been wounded.

At one time we were billeted in a fresh house every three nights which,
as the reader may imagine in those "moving" times, had its
disadvantages. After a time, as a great favour, an empty shop was
allowed us as a permanency. It rejoiced in the name of "Le Bon Genie"
and was at the corner of a street, the shop window extending along the
two sides. It was this "shop window" we used as a dormitory, after
pasting the lower panes with brown paper. When they first heard at home
that we "slept in a shop window" they were mildly startled. We were so
short of beds that the night nurses tumbled into ours as soon as they
were vacated in the morning, so there was never much fear of suffering
from a damp one.

Our patients were soldiers of the Belgian line and cavalry regiments and
at first I was put in a _blesse_ ward. I had originally gone out with
the idea of being one of the chauffeurs; but we were so short of nurses
that I willingly went into the wards instead, where we worked under
trained sisters. The men were so jolly and patient and full of gratitude
to the English "Miskes" (which was an affectionate diminutive of
"Miss"). It was a sad day when we had to clear the beds to make ready
for fresh cases. I remember going down to the Gare Maritime one day
before the Hospital ship left for Cherbourg, where they were all taken.
Never shall I forget the sight. In those days passenger ships had been
hastily converted into Hospital ships and the accommodation was very
different from that of to-day. All the cases from my ward were
"stretchers" and indeed hardly fit to be moved. I went down the
companion way, and what a scene met my eyes. The floor of the saloon was
packed with stretchers all as close tog