was going at about twenty-five miles an hour, and how
he ever maintained his hold Heaven only knows. At last they
pulled up, and there they found him, practically unconscious,
his clothes torn to ribbons, his back a mass of bruises, but still
holding on. It was one of the most splendid examples of real
British grit of which I have ever heard. They brought him to the
hospital, and we fixed him up as well as we could. One would
have thought that he might have been a little downhearted, but
not a bit of it. He arrived in the operating theatre smiling and
smoking a cigar, and gave us a vivid account of his experiences.
We sent him over to England, and I heard that he was doing well.
There is one sporting paper in England which is edited by a
real sportsman. May he long live to inspire in others the courage
of which he has given such a splendid example!

XVI. Poperinghe

For a long week the roar of guns had echoed incessantly in our
corridors and wards, and a continuous stream of motor-lorries,
guns, and ammunition waggons had rumbled past our doors;
whilst at night the flash of the guns lit up the horizon with an
angry glare. The flood of wounded had abated, and we were
just beginning to get the hospital into some sort of shape when
the order came to evacuate.

It had been no easy task transforming bare rooms into
comfortable wards, arranging for supplies of food and stores,
and fitting a large staff into a cubic space totally inadequate to
hold them. But wonderful things can be accomplished when
everyone is anxious to do their share, and the most hopeless
sybarite will welcome shelter however humble, and roll himself
up in a blanket in any corner, when he is dead tired. For the first
few days the rush of wounded had been so tremendous that all
we could do was to try to keep our heads above water and not
be drowned by the flood.

But towards the end of the week the numbers diminished, not
because there were not as many wounded, but because the
situation was so critical that the Belgian authorities did not dare
to leave any large number of wounded in Furnes. Supplies
were coming out from England in response to urgent telegrams,
and, through the kind offices of the Queen of the Belgians, we
had been able to obtain a number of beds from the town, in
addition to twenty which she had generously given to us herself.
So that we were gradually beginning to take on the appearance
of an ordinary hospital, and work