t rescued from the firing line.
The officer in command was a young Belgian gentleman, Lieutenant
de Broqueville, the son of the Belgian Prime Minister, and a man of
knightly valour. He was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro,
who had organized the ambulance convoy, leading it through a series
of amazing adventures and misadventures--not yet to be written in
history--to this halting-place at Furnes. Three ladies in field kit stood
by their cars waiting for the day's commands, and there were four
stretcher-bearers, of whom I was the newest recruit. Among them
was an American journalist named Gleeson, who had put aside his
pen for a while to do manual work in fields of agony, proving himself
to be a man of calm and qifiet courage, always ready to take great
risks in order to bring in a stricken soldier. I came to know him as a
good comrade, and in this page greet him again.

The story of the adventure which we went out to meet that day was
written in the night that followed it, as I lay on straw with a candle by
my side, and because it was written with the emotion of a great
experience still thrilling in my brain and with its impressions
undimmed by any later pictures of the war I will give it here again as it
first appeared in the columns of the Daily Chronicle, suppressing only
a name or two because those whom I wished to honour hated my
publicity.

9

We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of
Furnes, which were still crowded with soldiers and wagons. In the
Town Hall square we passed through a mass of people who
surrounded a body of 150 German prisoners who had just been
brought in from the front. It was a cheering sight for Belgians who had
been so long in retreat before an overpowering enemy. It was a sign
that the tide of fortune was changing. Presently we were out in open
country, by the side of the Yser Canal. It seemed very peaceful and
quiet. Even the guns were silent now, and the flat landscape, with its
long, straight lines of poplars between the low-lying fields, had a spirit
of tranquillity in the morning sunlight. It seemed impossible to believe
that only a few kilometres away great armies were ranged against
each other in a death-struggle. But only for a little while. The spirit of
war was forced upon our imagination by scenes upon the roadside. A
squadron of Belgian cavalry rode by on tired horses. The men were
dirty in the service of war, and haggard after long priva