A troop train with a thousand Belgian soldiers came in. They looked
terribly dirty, but awfully earnest. They seemed delighted to meet an
Englishman, and always wanted to shake hands. I reckon I shook hands
with a couple of hundred of them. When they saw an English officer they
jumped to the salute. As they passed a major of one of the Scottish
regiments who was lying on a stretcher, having been shot in the chest
twice, and also other parts, they saluted him, too. The major, although
he was very weak, cried to his orderly, “Hold me up. I can’t take a
salute lying down.” His orderly told him he was too ill to move, but he
persisted, and he was propped up, and acknowledged the salutes, with
hardly sufficient strength to hold his hand to his forehead. It was a
pathetic sight: _Anonymous_.