"Remain here," he said, "I will see what it is!" He entered the room at the side, nimbly closing the door after him. It was very malicious! We looked at each other with stupor and regret. Then we cautiously approached the crack in the boards that separated the two spaces. It was, in effect, a woman, a young woman deliciously beautiful, I assure you—an indelible vision in this terrible, stricken little city. Lady Dorothy, with her pretty khaki costume, appeared before us for the first time! She had the air of a warlike Amazon which became her perfectly, and, at first sight, we all had fallen in love with her——
She was engaged in a lengthy conversation with our corporal-secretary to whom she had been sent to do her bit among the soldiers, all unknown to us.
We all thought: "Little Lady Dorothy, the gold of your blonde hair which we see through the slit in the partition is as precious a bit as that you are offering to our corporal——"
After that we saw several times the fugitive vision of this angel with the blonde locks searching among the ruins for our wounded. She drove her own automobile with a steady hand, with enemy shells breaking around her, vainly seeking to blow her to bits.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS POILU, BEFORE ST. GEORGES.
May, 1915.
The nights are still very cold and to warm ourselves we have builded a comfortable fire by the sea. Sacks of sand, skillfully fixed by Richard, mask the flashes from the brazier, for otherwise they would certainly invite 77's and 105's which the enemy would not lose time dropping among us to disturb our momentary comfort in the first line.
Reymond and I have many things to discuss and the hours pass relatively fast; the Marine Fusiliers come and go in the trenches and communicating lines with a sort of nervous activity that never leaves them night or day, a trait found only in men that follow the sea.
The sector is extremely calm, the tide has gone out a bit and Reymond has sent a patrol to the other side of the evacuation canal.
Soon the poilu in charge of the patrol returns and, walking up to his superior, says: