Looking back
now upon those luncheon hours, with khaki ambulances as shelters
from the shrewd wind that came across the marshes, I marvel at the
contrast between their gaiety and the brooding horror in the
surrounding scene. Bottles of wine were produced and no man
thought of blood when he drank its redness, though the smell of
blood reeked from the stretchers in the cars. There were hunks of
good Flemish cheese with' fresh bread and butter, and it was
extraordinary what appetites we had, though guns were booming a
couple of kilometres away and the enemy was smashing the last
strongholds of the Belgians. The women in their field kit, so feminine
though it included breeches, gave a grace to those wayside halts,
and gave to dirty men the chance of little courtesies which brought
back civilization to their thoughts, even though life had gone back to
primitive things with just life and death, hunger and thirst, love and
courage, as the laws of existence. The man who had a corkscrew
could command respect. A lady with gold-spun hair could gnaw a
chicken bone without any loss of beauty. The chauffeurs munched
solidly, making cockney jokes out of full mouths and abolishing all
distinctions of caste by their comradeship in great adventures when
their courage, their cool nerve, their fine endurance at the wheel, and
their skill in taking heavy ambulances down muddy roads with
skidding wheels, saved many men's lives and won a heartfelt praise.
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