This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister.  The Lieutenant, very cool and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro.  Lady Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their cars, waiting for the password.  There were four stretcher-bearers, including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party around Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet courage at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order to bring in a wounded man.

It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars.  Lieut. de Broqueville anticipated a heavy day’s work.  He invited me to accompany the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.

We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes.  We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded.  It is about ten miles away from Furnes.  As we went along the road, nearer to the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been firing incessantly, we passed many women and children.  They were on their way to some place further from the firing.  Poor old grandmothers in black bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with younger women, who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with the other they carried heavy bundles of household goods.

Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted guards.  Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished, terror-stricken look.

At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone of fire.  Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town of Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter away.  From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which met at the top in a great black pall.  At every moment this blackness was brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells burst in the air.  From the mass of houses in each town came jets of flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks.  On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade.  The farthest villages were already on fire.

Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the left, there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many trenches.  We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came screeching over our heads.  The German shells were dropping quite close to us, plowing up the fields with great pits.  We could hear them burst and scatter and could see them burrow.

[Illustration:  ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE Commanding the British Fleets (Photo from Rogers.)]

[Illustration:  GEN.  VICTOR DANKL The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign (Photo from Bain News Service.)]