"Well, I will look, but I can do nothing until this evening. I have no stuff with me."
We went into the church. Heavens! what a sight met our eyes; the atmosphere was choking. It was like a charnel-house. Crowds of old men, women, and children of all ages were crowded together with their belongings. They had been evacuated from dozens of other villages by the Huns. Women were hugging their children to them. In one corner an old woman was bathing the head of a child with an old stocking dipped in water. The child, I could see, was in a high fever. There must have been at least three hundred people lying about in all directions, wheezing and coughing, moaning and crying.
The doctor spoke to one old woman, who had hobbled forward and sank down near a pillar. The doctor bent down and told her that he would bring medicine in the evening. Everybody there seemed to hear that magic word, and scrambled forward begging for medicine for themselves, but mostly for the children. The scene was pitiable in the extreme.
I asked one women where they had come from. She told me from many villages. The Bosche had turned them all out of their homes, then burnt their houses and their belongings. They had walked miles exposed to the freezing cold rains and winds, they had been packed into this church like a lot of sheep without covering, without fires. She was begging for medicine for her three-months-old babe.
"She will die, monsieur, she will die!" And the poor woman burst into a flood of tears.
I calmed her as much as possible by telling her that everything would be done for them without delay, and that medicine, food, and comfort would be given them.
I turned and left the building, for the air was nearly choking me. Outside I met the doctor, who was arranging to send a cyclist back for an ambulance.
"They cannot be treated here, it's impossible. I've never seen such a sight."
I left him and went into the house where the cyclist C.O. had made his temporary headquarters.
"I want to get on further, is there any other village near by?"