From a few miles away came the boom
of great guns, and the black sky quivered with tremulous bars of light
as shell after shell burst somewhere over the heads of men waiting
for death. With one of the doctors, two of the nurses, and a man who
led the way, I climbed up to a high room in the convent roof. Through
a dormer window we looked out across the flat country beyond
Furnes and saw, a few miles away, the lines of battle. Some village
was burning there, a steady torch under a heavy cloud of smoke
made rosy and beautiful as a great flower over the scarlet flames.
Shells were bursting with bouquets of light and then scattered stars
into the sky. Short, sharp stabs revealed a Belgian battery, and very
clearly we could hear the roll of field guns, followed by enormous
concussions of heavy artillery.
"There will be work to do to-morrow!" said one of the nurses. Work
came before it was expected in the morning Quite early some Belgian
ambulances came up to the great gate of the convent loaded with
wounded. A few beds were made ready for them and they were
brought in by the stretcher-bearers and dressers. Some of them
could stagger in alone, with the help of a strong arm, but others were
at the point of death as they lay rigid on their stretchers, wet with
blood.
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