NKIRK]

_13 October._--We had an early muddly breakfast, at which everyone spoke
in a high voice and urged others to hurry, and then we collected luggage
and went round to see the General. Afterwards we all got into our motor
ambulances _en route_ for Dunkirk. The road was filled with flying
inhabitants, and down at the dock wounded and well struggled to get on
to the steamer. People were begging us for a seat in our ambulance, and
well-dressed women were setting out to walk twenty miles to Dunkirk. The
rain was falling heavily, and it was a dripping day when we and a lot of
English soldiers found ourselves in the square in Dunkirk, where the
few hotels are. We had an expensive lunch at a greasy restaurant, and
then tried to find rooms.

I began to make out of whom our party consists. There is Lady Dorothy
Fielding--probably 22, but capable of taking command of a ship, and
speaking French like a native; Mrs. Decker, an Australian, plucky and
efficient; Miss Chisholm, a blue-eyed Scottish girl, with a thick coat
strapped around her waist and a haversack slung from her shoulder; a
tall American, whose name I do not yet know, whose husband is a
journalist; three young surgeons, and Dr. Munro. It is all so quaint.
The girls rule the company, carry maps and find roads, see about
provisions and carry wounded.

We could not get rooms at Dunkirk and so came on to St. Malo les Bains,
a small bathing-place which had been shut up for the winter. The owner
of an hotel there opened up some rooms for us and got us some ham and
eggs, and the evening ended very cheerily. Our party seems, to me,
amazingly young and unprotected.

_St. Malo les Bains. 14 October._--To-day I took a car into Dunkirk and
bought some things, as I have lost nearly all I possess at Antwerp. In
the afternoon I went to the dock to get some letters posted, and tramped
about there for a long time. War is such a disorganizer. Nothing starts.
No one is able to move because of wounded arms and legs; it seems to
make the world helpless and painful. In minor matters one lives nearly
always with damp feet and rather dirty and hungry. Drains are all
choked, and one does not get much sleep. These are trifles, of course.

[Page Heading: WOMEN AT THE FRONT]

To-night, as we sat at dinner, a message was brought that a woman
outside had been run over and was going to have a baby immediately in a
tram-way shelter, so out we went and got one of our ambulances, and a
young