ily and all that he loves
and follow the beckoning finger of empire.

"For king and country!"

The Commandant said that when a German soldier surrenders he throws
down his gun, takes off his helmet and jerks off his shoulder straps,
saying over and over, "_Pater familias_." Sometimes, by way of
emphasising that he is a family man, he holds up his fingers--two
children or three children, whatever it may be. Even boys in their
teens will claim huge families.

I did not find it amusing after the postcard and the photograph. I
found it all very tragic and sad and disheartening.

It was growing late and the General was impatient to be off. We had
still a long journey ahead of us, and riding at night was not
particularly safe.

I got into the car and they bundled in after me the damaged pictures,
the horseshoe, the piece of gargoyle from the Cloth Hall and the nose
of the shell.

The orderly reported that a Zeppelin had just passed overhead; but the
General shrugged his shoulders.

"They are always seeing Zeppelins," he said. "Me, I do not believe
there is such a thing!"

* * * * *

That night in my hotel, after dinner, Gertrude, Lady Decies, told me
the following story:

"I had only twelve hours' notice to start for the front. I am not a
hospital nurse, but I have taken for several years three months each
summer of special training. So I felt that I would be useful if I
could get over.

"It was November and very cold. When I got to Calais there was not a
room to be had anywhere. But at the Hotel Centrale they told me I
might have a bathroom to sleep in.

"At the last moment a gentleman volunteered to exchange with me. But
the next day he left, so that night I slept in a bathtub with a
mattress in it!

"The following day I got a train for Dunkirk. On the way the train was
wrecked. Several coaches left the track, and there was nothing to do
but to wait until they were put back on.

"I went to the British Consul at Dunkirk and asked him where I could
be most useful. He said to go to the railroad station at once.

"I went to the station. The situation there was horrible. Three
doctors and seven dressers were working on four-hour shifts.

"As the wounded came in only at night, that was when we were needed. I
worked all night from that time on. My first night we had eleven
hundred men. Some of them were dead when they were lifted out onto the
stone floor of the station shed. On