s" and "them Coal-boxes" and "Calamity
Kate," and of our guns and a machine-gun popping. There is a troop train
just behind us that they may be potting at, or some gunners in the
village, or the R.E. camp. There have been two aeroplanes over us this
afternoon. You hear the shell coming a long way off, rather like a
falsetto motor-engine, and then it bursts (twice in the trees of this
wood where we are standing). There is an endless line of French horse
transport winding up the wood on the other side, and now some French
cavalry. The R.T.O. is now having the train moved to a safer place.

The troops have all gone except the 1st Division, who are waiting for
the French to take their place, and then all the British will be on the
Arras line, I believe, where we shall go next. (There's another close to
the train.) They make such a fascinating purring noise coming, ending in
a singing scream; you have to jump up and see. It is a yellowish-green
sound! But you can't see it till it bursts.

None of the twelve taken on need any looking after at night besides what
the orderly can do, so we shall go to bed.

We had another shell over the train, which (not the train) exploded with
a loud bang in the wood the other side; made one jump more than any yet,
and that was in the "safer place" the R.T.O. had the train moved to.

_Friday, October 16th_, 2 P.M.--Have had a very busy time since last
entry. The shelling of the village was aimed at the church, the steeple
of which was being used by the French for signalling. A butcher was
killed and a boy injured, and as the British Clearing Hospital was in
the church and the French Hospital next door they were all cleared out
into our train; many very bad cases, fractured spine, a nearly dying
lung case, a boy with wound in lung and liver, three pneumonias, some
bad enterics (though the worst have not been moved). A great sensation
was having four badly wounded French women, one minus an arm, aged 16;
another minus a foot, aged 61, amputation after shell wounds from a
place higher up. They are in the compartment next three wounded
officers. They are all four angelically good and brave and grateful; it
does seem hard luck on them. It was not easy getting them all settled
in, in a pitch-dark evening, the trains so high from the ground; and a
good deal of excitement all round over the shelling, which only left off
at dusk. One of the C.S.'s had a narrow shave on his way from the train
to th