But there was a wind blowing, and at the bang of distant doors out
went one candle after another, and nurses carrying other candles and
shielding the little flames with careful hands cried in laughing dismay
as they were puffed out by malicious draughts.
There was chaos in the kitchen, but out of it came order and a good
meal, served in the convent refectory, where the flickering light of
candles in beer-bottles sheltered from the wind, gleamed upon holy
pictures of the Sacred Heart and the Madonna and Child and glinted
upon a silver crucifix where the Man of Sorrows looked down upon a
supper party of men and women who, whatever their creed or faith or
unbelief, had dedicated themselves to relieve a suffering humanity
with a Christian chivalry--which did not prevent the blue-eyed boy
from making most pagan puns, or the company in general from
laughing as though war were all a jest.
Having helped to wash up--the young surgeons fell into queue before
the washtubs--I went out into the courtyard again. Horses were
stabled there, guarded by a man who read a book by the rays of an
old lantern, which was a little oasis of light in this desert of darkness.
The horses were listening. Every now and then they jerked their
heads up in a frightened way.
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