ed and irritated. It was a
characteristic English trick, he thought, this getting other people to
do their work. Why could they not have taken the child to one of their
own hospitals, since he had been wounded in their lines, or else have
taken him to the hospital provided for Belgian civilians, where, full as
it was, there was always room for people as small as this. The surgeon
worked himself up into quite a temper. There is one thing about members
of the _Entente_--they understand each other. The French surgeon's
thoughts travelled round and round in an irritated circle, and always
came back to the fact that the English ambulance had gone, and here lay
the patient, and something must be done. So he stood considering.

A Belgian civilian, aged ten. Or thereabouts. Shot through the abdomen,
or thereabouts. And dying, obviously. As usual, the surgeon pulled and
twisted the long, black hairs on his hairy, bare arms, while he
considered what he should do. He considered for five minutes, and then
ordered the child to the operating room, and scrubbed and scrubbed his
hands and his hairy arms, preparatory to a major operation. For the
Belgian civilian, aged ten, had been shot through the abdomen by a
German shell, or piece of shell, and there was nothing to do but try to
remove it. It was a hopeless case, anyhow. The child would die without
an operation, or he would die during the operation, or he would die
after the operation. The French surgeon scrubbed his hands viciously,
for he was still greatly incensed over the English authorities who had
placed the case in his hands and then gone away again. They should have
taken him to one of the English bases, St. Omer, or Hazebrouck--it was
an imposition to have dumped him so unceremoniously here simply because
"here" was so many kilometres nearer. "Shirking," the surgeon called it,
and was much incensed.

After a most searching operation, the Belgian civilian was sent over to
the ward, to live or die as circumstances determined. As soon as he came
out of ether, he began to bawl for his mother. Being ten years of age,
he was unreasonable, and bawled for her incessantly and could not be
pacified. The patients were greatly annoyed by this disturbance, and
there was indignation that the welfare and comfort of useful soldiers
should be interfered with by the whims of a futile and useless civilian,
a Belgian child at that. The nurse of that ward also made a fool of
herself over this