all so tired and done up
yesterday, M.O.'s, Sisters, and orderlies, that we were glad of the
respite. There was a tremendous banging and flashing to the north about
three o'clock, and this morning it was very noisy, and shaking the
train. Some of it sounds quite close. It is a noise you rather miss when
it leaves off.

One of the last lot of officers told us he had himself seen in a barn
three women and some children, all dead, and all with no hands.

The noise this morning is like a continuous roll of thunder interrupted
by loud bangs, and the popping of the French mitrailleuses, like our
Maxims. The nearest Tommy can get to that word is "mileytrawsers." There
are two other A.T.'s in, but I hear we are to load up first.

This place is full of Belgian women and children refugees in a bad way
from exhaustion.

A long line of our horse ambulances is coming slowly in.

Had a very interesting morning. Got leave to go into the town and see
the Cathedral of St Martin. None of the others would budge from the
train, so I went alone; town chock-full of French and Belgian troops,
and unending streams of columns, also Belgian refugees, cars full of
staff officers. The Cathedral is thirteenth century, glorious as usual.
There are hundreds of German prisoners in the town in the Cloth Hall. It
was a very warrish feeling saying one's prayers in the Cathedral to the
sound of the guns of one of the greatest battles in the world.

An M.O. from the Clearing Hospital, with a haggard face, asked me if I
could give him some eau-de-Cologne and Bovril for a wounded officer
with a gangrenous leg--lying on the station. Sister X. and I took some
down, also morphia, and fed them all--frightful cases on stretchers in
the waiting-room. They are for our train when we can get in. He told me
he had never seen such awful wounds, or such numbers of them. They are
being brought down in carts or anything. He said there are 1500 dead
Germans piled up in a field five miles off. They say that German
officers of ten days' service are commanding.

_Tuesday, October 27th, Boulogne._--We got loaded up and off by about 7
P.M., and arrived back here this morning. There are two trains to unload
ahead of us, so we shall probably be on duty all day. It is the second
night running we haven't had our clothes off--though we did lie down the
night before. Last night we had each a four-hour shift to lie down, when
all the worst were seen to. One man died at 6 A.M.