new one of our cooks
lived. She had invited me a few days before, to refuge there instead of
trying to get over the _abris_, because, she said, the whole upper lofts
were full of hay, and it had been demonstrated that bombs will not
penetrate to any depth in hay. But the door was locked, and though I
beat upon it with my electric torch, nobody heard me. I finally took
advantage of a lull in the firing, when the Germans went back to their
own lines for more ammunition, to get over the _abris_.

There one of the women on night duty at the canteen told me that the
directrice and everybody else not on night duty, had gone up to the
evacuation hospital about ten o'clock, in response to a call for aid
from the French authorities.

[Sidenote: Many wounded in the hospitals.]

In E---- there were half a dozen large hospitals. The wounded, chiefly
English, were coming in faster than the hospital corps could handle
them. They needed our help, not only in registering the men--very few of
whom understood any French--but in feeding and giving water.

I got to the hospital the next day and worked steadily till eight
thirty. Then an ambulance driver gave me a lift as far as the canteen,
and I managed to get a cold supper at our mess.

[Sidenote: Dispensing hospitality to worn-out officers.]

I was hardly in my office before I heard a knock at the door, which, as
I was alone in the house, I always locked at night as soon as I entered.
In response to my "Who's there?" a voice, guided by my English, replied,
"I am an English officer." I threw open the door without a second's
hesitation. A young officer, weary, white-faced, stood there, beginning
to apologize as he saw my uniform and white veil. He was simply "done,"
he said--and he looked it. He had found every hotel was full, and,
seeing a few gleams of light behind the shutters, he had knocked in the
hope of finding shelter for the night. I knew that the woman at the
canteen who would go off duty at midnight was scheduled to go
immediately to the hospital to work until seven in the morning and that
I could occupy her bed after I came back from the hospital, and I
offered my apartment to the officer for the night. He was most grateful,
and I rushed over to the canteen to get him a pitcher of hot water and a
cup of chocolate. But there I found a group of French officers, who said
they had neither sleep nor rest for three days and nights, pleading for
some place to lie down. As there