n way. They seemed to be coming closer. Yet there was no
panic. There was even laughter in the courtyard of the hospital, where
the doctors tossed blankets, mattresses, food stores and stoves into
the motor ambulances. They were in no hurry to go. It was not the
first or the second time they had to evacuate a house menaced by
the enemy. They had made a habit of it, and were not to be flurried. I
helped the blue-eyed boy to lift the great stoves. They were "some"
weight, as an American would say, and both the blue-eyed boy and
myself were plastered with soot, so that we looked like sweeps calling
round for orders. I lifted packing-cases which would have paralysed
me in times of peace and scouted round for some of the thousand
and one things which could not be left behind without a tragedy. But
at last the order was given to start, and the procession of motor-cars
started out for Poperinghe, twenty-five kilometres to the south. Little
by little the sound of the guns died away, and the cars passed
through quiet fields where French troops bivouacked round their
camp fires. I remember that we passed a regiment of Moroccans half-
way to Poperinghe, and I looked back from the car to watch them
pacing up and down between their fires, which glowed upon their red
cloaks and white robes and their grave, bearded Arab faces. They
looked miserably cold as the wind flapped their loose garments, but
about these men in the muddy field there was a sombre dignity which
took one's imagination back to the day when the Saracens held
European soil.

21

It was dark when we reached Poperinghe and halted our cars in the
square outside the Town Hall, among a crowd of other motor-cars,
naval lorries, mitrailleuses, and wagons. Groups of British soldiers
stood about smoking cigarettes and staring at us curiously through
the gloom as though not quite sure what to make of us. And indeed
we must have looked an odd party, for some of us were in khaki and
some of us in civilian clothes with Belgian caps, and among the
crowd of nurses was a carriage-load of nuns, huddled up in their
black cloaks. Warning of our arrival in Poperinghe should have been
notified to the municipal authorities, so that they might find lodgings
for us; and the Queen of the Belgians had indeed sent through a
message to that effect, But there seemed to be some trouble about
finding a roof under which to lay our heads, and an hour went by in
the square while the lady in cha