It was Gleeson and another stretcher-bearer who with great gallantry
volunteered to go back and search for our leader. They took the light
car and sped back towards the burning town.

The ambulances went on with their cargo of wounded, and I was left
in a car with one of the ladies while Dr. Munro was ministering to a
man on the point of death. It was the girl whom I had seen on the
lawn of an old English house in the days before the war. She was
very worried about the fate of de Broqueville, and anxious beyond
words as to what would befall the three friends who were now
missing. We drove back along the road towards Dixmude, and
rescued another wounded man left in a wayside cottage. By this time
there were five towns blazing in the darkness, and in spite of the
awful suspense which we were now suffering, we could not help
staring at the fiendish splendour of that sight. Dr. Munro joined us
again, and after a consultation we decided to get as near Dixmude as
we could, in ease our friends had to come out without their car or
wounded.

The enemy's bombardment was now terrific. All its guns were
concentrated upon Dixmude and the surrounding trenches. In the
darkness close under a stable wall I stood listening to the great
crashes for an hour, when I had not expected such a grace of life.
Inside the stable, soldiers were sleeping in the straw, careless that
any moment a shell might burst through upon them and give them
unwaking sleep. The hour seemed a night. Then we saw the gleam of
headlights, and an English voice called out.

Our two friends had come back. They had gone to the entry of
Dixmude, but could get no further owing to the flames and shells.
They, too, had waited for an hour, but had not found de Broqueville. It
seemed certain that he was dead, and very sorrowfully, as there was
nothing to be done, we drove back to Furnes.

At the gate of the convent were some Belgian ambulances which had
come from another part of the front with their wounded. I helped to
carry one of them in, and strained my shoulders with the weight of the
stretcher. Another wounded man put his arm round my neck, and
then, with a dreadful cry, collapsed, so that I had to hold him in a
strong grip. A third man, horribly smashed about the head, walked
almost unaided into the operating-room. Gleeson and I led him, with
just a touch on his arm. Next morning he lay dead on a little pile of
straw in a quiet corner of the courtyard.

I sat down