They established themselves
in an old convent with large courtyards and many rooms, and they
worked hurriedly as long as light would allow, and afterwards in
darkness, to get things ready for their tasks next day, when many
wounded were expected. This party of doctors and nurses, stretcher-
bearers and chauffeurs, had done splendid work in Belgium. Many of
them were in the siege of Antwerp, where they stayed until the
wounded had to be taken away in a hurry; and others, even more
daring, had retreated from town to town, a few kilometres in advance
of the hostile troops. I had met some of the party in Malo-les-Bains,
where they had reassembled before coming to Fumes, and I had
been puzzled by them. In the "flying column," as they called their
convoy of ambulances, were several ladies very practically dressed in
khaki coats and breeches, and very girlish in appearance and
manners. They did not seem to me at first sight the type of woman to
be useful on a battlefield or in a field-hospital. I should have expected
them to faint at the sight of blood, and to swoon at the bursting of a
shell. Some of them at least were too pretty, I thought, to play about
in fields of war among men and horses smashed to pulp.
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