Shells may be amusing in the daytime, but they are not a bit amusing at night.  Only two women with real solid courage could have slept, night after night, in that empty house in a ruined and deserted village, with no sounds to be heard but the rain and the wind, the splutter of the mitrailleuse, and the shriek of shells.  Courage is as infectious as fear, and I think that the soldiers, watching through the night in the trenches near by, must have blessed the women who were waiting there to help them, and must have felt braver men for their presence.

Pervyse was protected by a wide screen of flood, and across this there was one way only—­a slightly raised road going straight across six miles of water.  No advance by either side was possible, for the road was swept by mitrailleuses, and to advance down it would have meant certain death.  Half a mile down the road was a farmhouse held by a Belgian outpost, and beyond this, and perhaps half a mile away from it, were two other farms occupied by the Germans.  We could see them moving amongst the trees.  That piece of road between Pervyse and the Belgian farm was the scene of one of the very few lapses of the Germans into humanity.

It was known one morning in the trenches at Pervyse that several of their comrades in the farm had been injured in an outpost engagement.  It was, however, impossible to reach them before nightfall as the road was swept by the German guns.  Two Belgian priests, taking their lives in their hands, walked out to the farm, but they found that the wounded were beyond their powers of carriage.  Nothing daunted, they went on to one of the German farms and asked for help, and a few minutes later the astounded Belgians saw a little procession coming up the road.  In front walked the two priests, and behind them came four wounded Belgians, lying on stretchers carried by German soldiers.  They came right into the lines, and they had a royal welcome.  They all shook hands, and the little party of Germans walked back down the road amid the cheers of their opponents.

The spirit of chivalry is not dead in Germany; it is only stifled by her present rulers.  Is it too much to hope that some day its voice may be heard and may command?

XXIII.  Ypres

One morning early in December I was asked by Dr. Munro to run down with him in one of our motors to Ypres.  A message had arrived saying that the town had been heavily shelled during the night, and that there were a number of children and of wounded there, who ought if possible to be removed to some less dangerous situation.  So we started off to see what we could do for them.  It was a dismal morning, and the rain was coming down in a steady drizzle which continued all day long, but fortunately we had a closed car, and we were protected from the elements.  The road to Ypres is a broad avenue between long lines of tall trees, and to-day it was crowded with soldiers and transport motors.