waggons, and the clumsy Flemish carts, with their huge horses, the grey armoured cars, with their blazing headlights, and our four red motor-buses, made a strange scene in the darkness of the night.  At last we reached Ghent utterly tired out, though personally I had slept a sort of nightmare sleep on the top step of a bus which boldly announced its destination as Hendon.  It was five o’clock, and day was breaking as we got our patients out of the buses and deposited them in the various hospitals as we could find room for them.  To our unspeakable relief, we found that the rest of our party had come through by much the same road as we had taken ourselves, but they had reached Ghent quite early the night before.  Their earlier start had given them the advantage of clearer roads and daylight.  With good fortune little short of miraculous, we had all come so far in safety, and we hoped that our troubles were over.  Alas, we were told that though Germans were expected to enter Ghent that very day, and that all British wounded must be removed from the hospitals before ten o’clock.  There was nothing for it but to collect them again, and to take them on to Ostend.  One had died in the night, and two were too ill to be moved.  We left them behind in skilled hands, and the others we re-embarked on our buses en route for Bruges and Ostend.

The First Act in the story of the British Field Hospital for Belgium was drawing to an end.  Our hospital, to which we had given so much labour, was gone, and the patients, for whom we had grown to care, were scattered.  Yet there was in our hearts only a deep gratitude that we had come unharmed, almost by a miracle, through so many dangers, and a firm confidence that in some other place we should find a home for our hospital, where we could again help the brave soldiers whose cause had become so much our own.

XV.  Furnes

A week after we had reached London, we were off again to the front.  This time our objective was Furnes, a little town fifteen miles east of Dunkirk, and about five miles from the fighting-line.  The line of the Belgian trenches ran in a circle, following the course of the River Yser, the little stream which has proved such an insuperable barrier to the German advance.  Furnes lies at the centre of the circle, and is thus an ideal position for an advanced base, such as we intended to establish.  It is easy of access from Dunkirk by a fine main road which runs alongside an important canal, and as Dunkirk was our port, and the only source of our supplies, this was a great consideration.  From Furnes a number of roads lead in various directions to Ypres, Dixmude, Nieuport, and the coast, making it a convenient centre for an organization such as ours, requiring, as we did, ready means of reaching the front in any direction, and open communication with our base of supplies.