As we were fifteen miles from Dunkirk, and as everything had to be brought out from there, transport was a serious problem.  Every morning one of our lorries started for our seaport soon after nine, carrying the hospital mailbag and as many messages as a village carrier.  The life of the driver was far more exciting than his occupation would suggest, and it was always a moot point whether or not he would succeed in getting back the same night.  The road was of the usual Belgian type, with a paved causeway in the middle just capable of allowing two motors to pass, and on each side was a morass, flanked on the right by a canal and on the left by a field.  The slightest deviation from the greasy cobbles landed the car in the mud, with quite a chance of a plunge into the canal.  A constant stream of heavy army lorries tore along the road at thirty or more miles an hour, and as a rule absolutely refused to give way.  It took a steady nerve to face them, encouraged as one was by numbers of derelicts in the field on the one side and half in the canal on the other.  On one bridge a car hung for some days between heaven and earth, its front wheels caught over the parapet, and the car hanging from them over the canal—­a heartening sight for a nervous driver.  It was rarely that our lorry returned without some tale of adventure.  The daily round, the common task, gave quite enough occupation to one member of the community.

XVIII.  Work At Furnes

Our work at Furnes differed in many ways from that at Antwerp.  All its conditions were rougher, and, as we had to deal with a number of patients out of all proportion to our size, it was impossible to keep any but a few special cases for any length of time.  We admitted none but the most serious cases, such as would be instantly admitted to any London hospital, and when I mention that in five weeks we had just a thousand cases in our hundred beds, the pressure at which the work was carried on will be realized.  There is no hospital in England, with ten times the number of beds, that has ever admitted to its wards anything like this number of serious surgical cases.  We were essentially a clearing hospital, with this important proviso, that we could, when it was required, carry out at once the heaviest operative work, and retain special cases as long as we thought fit.  Our object was always to get each patient into such a condition that he could be transferred back to the base without injury to his chances of recovery, and without undue pain, and I believe we saved the life of many a patient by giving him a night’s rest in the Straw Ward, and sending him on next day with his wound properly dressed and supported.  The cases themselves were of a far more severe type than those we had at Antwerp.  There, indeed, I was astonished at the small amount of injury that had in many cases resulted from both shrapnel and bullet wounds, and it was certainly worthy