We helped the four other wounded men in. They sat in a row alongside the
stretcher.
I sat on the edge of the ambulance, at the feet of the dying man, by the
handles of the stretcher.
At the last minute the Chaplain jumped on to the step. So did the little
eager Englishman. Hanging on to the hood and swaying with the rush of
the car, he talked continually. He talked from the moment we left Melle
to the moment when we landed him at his street in Ghent; explaining over
and over again the qualifications that justified him in attaching
himself to ambulances. He had lived fourteen years in Ghent. He could
speak French and Flemish.
I longed for the eager little Englishman to stop. I longed for his
street to come and swallow him up. He had lived in Ghent fourteen years.
He could speak Flemish and French. I felt that I couldn't bear it if he
went on a minute longer. I wanted to think. The dying man lay close
behind me, very straight and stiff; his poor feet stuck out close under
my hand.
But I couldn't think. The little eager Englishman went on swaying and
talking.
He had lived fourteen years in Ghent.
He could speak French and Flemish.
* * * * *
The dying man was still alive when he was lifted out of the ambulance.
He died that evening.
* * * * *
The Commandant is pleased with his new ambulances. He is not altogether
displeased with me.
We must have been very quick. For it was the Commandant's car that we
passed at the fork of the road. And either he arrived a few minutes
after we got back or we arrived just as he had got in. Anyhow, we met in
the porch.
He and Ursula Dearmer and I went back to Melle again at once, in the new
car. It was nearly dark when we got there.
We found Mrs. Torrence and little Janet in the village. They and Dr.
Wilson had been working all day long picking up wounded off the field
outside it. The German lines are not far off--at the bottom of the
field. I think only a small number of their guns could rake the main
street of the village where we were. Their shell went over our heads and
over the roofs of the houses towards the French batteries on this side
of the village. There must have been a rush from the German lines across
this field, and the French batteries have done their work well, for Mrs.
Torrence said the German dead are lying thick there among the turnips.
She and Janet and Dr. Wilson had been under fire for eight hours on
end, lifting men and carrying stretchers. I don't know whether their
figures (the two girls in khaki tunics and breeches) could be seen from
the German lines, but they just trudged on between the furrows, and over
the turnip-tops, serenely regardless of the enemy, carefully sorting the
wounded from the dead, with the bullets whizzing past their noses.
Of bullets Mrs. Torrence said, indeed, that eight hours of them were
rather more than she cared for; and of carrying stretchers over a
turnip-field, that it was as much as she and Janet could do. But they
came back from it without turning a hair. I have seen women more
dishevelled after tramping a turnip-field in a day's partridge-shooting.
They went off somewhere to find Dr. Wilson; and we--Ursula Dearmer, the
Commandant and I--hung about the village waiting for the wounded to be
brought in. The village was crowded with French and Belgian troops when
we came into it. Then they gathered together and went on towards the
field, and we followed them up the street. They called to us to stay
under cover, or, if we _must_ walk up the street, to keep close under
the houses, as the bullets might come flying at us any minute.
No bullets came, however. It was like Baerlaere--it was like Lokeren--it
was like every place I've been in, so far. Nothing came as long as
there was a chance of its getting me.
After that we drove down to the station. While we were hanging about
there, a shell was hurled over this side of the village from the German
batteries. It careered over the roofs, with a track that was luminous in
the dusk, like a curved sheet of lightning. I don't know where it fell
and burst.
We were told to stand out from under the station building for fear it
should be struck.
When we got back into the village we went into the inn and waited there
in a long, narrow room, lit by a few small oil-lamps and crammed with
soldiers. They were eating and drinking in vehement haste. Wherever the
light from the lamps fell on them, you saw faces flushed and scarred
under a blur of smoke and grime. Here and there a bandage showed up,
violently white. On the tables enormous quantities of bread appeared and
disappeared.
These soldiers, with all their vehemence and violence, were exceedingly
lovable. One man brought me a chair; another brought bread and offered
it. Charming smiles flashed through the grime.
At last, when we had found one man with a wounded hand, we got into the
ambulance and went back to Ghent.
[_Saturday, 10th._]