with difficulties like these that the rules of the Geneva
Convention were framed, so that men wearing a Red Cross on
their arms might be able to go where no combatant of either
side dare venture, and succour the wounded, whether they
were friend or foe, in safety both for themselves and for the
wounded. It is, after all, possible to fight as gentlemen.

Or at least it was until a few months ago. Since then we have
had a demonstration of "scientific" war such as has never
before been given to mankind. Now, to wear a Red Cross is
simply to offer a better mark for the enemy's fire, and we only
wore them in order that our own troops might know our business
and make use of our aid. A hospital is a favourite mark for the
German artillery, whilst the practice of painting Red Crosses on
the tops of ambulance cars is by many people considered unwise,
as it invites any passing aeroplane to drop a bomb. But the
Germans have carried their systematic contempt of the rules of war
so far that it is now almost impossible for our own men to
recognize their Red Crosses. Time after time their Red Cross
cars have been used to conceal machine-guns, their flags have
floated over batteries, and they have actually used stretchers to
bring up ammunition to the trenches. Whilst I was at Furnes two
German spies were working with an ambulance, in khaki uniforms,
bringing in the wounded. They were at it for nearly a week before
they were discovered, and then, by a ruse, they succeeded in
driving straight through the Belgian lines and back to their
own, Red Cross ambulance, khaki and all. The problems, then, that
have to be faced by an ambulance corps in the present war are
fairly perplexing, and they demand a degree of resource and
cool courage beyond the ordinary. That these qualities are
possessed by the members of the ambulance corps of which
Dr. Hector Munro and Lady Dorothie Feilding are the leading
members is merely a matter of history. They have been in as
many tight corners in the last few months as many an old and
seasoned veteran, and they have invariably come out triumphant.

They started in Ghent under the Belgian Red Cross with a party
of four surgeons, five women, and three men for the stretchers,
and two chauffeurs to drive the two ambulances. Now they have
grown into an organization which takes on a great part of the
ambulance work of the Belgian Army. At Ghent they were attached
to the big Red Cross hospital in the Flandria Pa