r the roofs, with a track that was luminous in
the dusk, like a curved sheet of lightning. I don't know where it fell
and burst.

We were told to stand out from under the station building for fear it
should be struck.

When we got back into the village we went into the inn and waited there
in a long, narrow room, lit by a few small oil-lamps and crammed with
soldiers. They were eating and drinking in vehement haste. Wherever the
light from the lamps fell on them, you saw faces flushed and scarred
under a blur of smoke and grime. Here and there a bandage showed up,
violently white. On the tables enormous quantities of bread appeared and
disappeared.

These soldiers, with all their vehemence and violence, were exceedingly
lovable. One man brought me a chair; another brought bread and offered
it. Charming smiles flashed through the grime.

At last, when we had found one man with a wounded hand, we got into the
ambulance and went back to Ghent.

[_Saturday, 10th._]

I have got something to do again--at last!

I am to help to look after Mr. ----. He has the pick of the Belgian Red
Cross women to nurse him, and they are angelically kind and very
skilful, but he is not very happy with them. He says: "These dear people
are so good to me, but I can't make out what they say. I can't tell them
what I want." He is pathetically glad to have any English people with
him. (Even I am a little better than a Belgian whom he cannot
understand.)

I sat with him all morning. The French boy has gone and he is alone in
his room now. It seems that the kind Chaplain sat up with him all last
night after his hard day at Melle. (I wish now I had stood by the
Chaplain with his Matins. He has never tried to have them again--given
us up as an unholy crew, all except Mr. Foster, whom he clings to.)

The morning went like half an hour, while it was going; but when it was
over I felt as if I had been nursing for weeks on end. There were so
many little things to be done, and so much that you mustn't do, and the
anxiety was appalling. I don't suppose there is a worse case in the
Hospital. He is perhaps a shade better to-day, but none of the medical
staff think that he can live.

Madame E---- and Dr. Bird have shown me what to do, and what not to do.
I must keep him all the time in the same position. I must give him sips
of iced broth, and little pieces of ice to suck every now and then. I
must not let him try to raise himself in bed. I must