case and in every room there is a mixed odour, bitter and
sweet and penetrating, of antiseptics and of ether. When the ambulance
cars come up from the railway stations and the battle-fields, the last
inappropriate detail, the mahogany revolving doors, will disappear, so
that the wounded may be carried through on their stretchers.

I confess to a slight, persistent fear of _seeing_ these wounded whom I
cannot help. It is not very active, it has left off visualizing the
horror of bloody bandages and mangled bodies. But it's there; it waits
for me in every corridor and at the turn of every stair, and it makes me
loathe myself.

We have news this morning of a battle at Alost, a town about fifteen
kilometres south-east of Ghent. The Belgians are moving forty thousand
men from Antwerp towards Ghent, and heavy fighting is expected near the
town. If we are not in the thick of it, we are on the edge of the thick.

They have just told us an awful thing. Two wounded men were left lying
out on the battle-field all night after yesterday's fighting. The
military ambulances did not fetch them. Our ambulance was not sent out.
There are all sorts of formalities to be observed before it can go. We
haven't got our military passes yet. And our English Red Cross brassards
are no use. We must have Belgian ones stamped with the Government stamp.
And these things take time.

Meanwhile we, who have still the appearance of a disorganized Cook's
tourist party, are beginning to realize each other, the first step to
realizing ourselves. We have come from heaven knows where to live
together here heaven knows for how long. The Commandant and I are
friends; Mrs. Torrence and Janet McNeil are friends; Dr. Haynes and Dr.
Bird are evidently friends; our chauffeurs, Bert and Tom, are bound to
fraternize professionally; we and they are all right; but these pairs
were only known to each other a week or two ago, and some of the
thirteen never met at all till yesterday. An unknown fourteenth is
coming to-day. We are five women and nine men. You might wonder how, for
all social purposes, we are to sort ourselves? But the idea, sternly
emphasized by Mrs. Torrence, is that we have no social purposes. We are
neither more nor less than a strictly official and absolutely impersonal
body, held together, not by the ordinary affinities of men and women,
but by a common devotion and a common aim. Differences, if any should
exist, will be sunk in the interest of the