I turned away, haunted by the cries of the dead and dying I had seen. Not the most solid edifices of masonry can obliterate the gruesome realities of a vivid memory.
A cheer went forth from the lower deck as two mine-sweepers, bearing a prize intended to send us to our doom, swept majestically into the harbour. The canteen workers, who had been allowed aboard with food for the men, moved off, the gangway was hauled in. Another troopship, alongside ours, partially obstructed our final view of the old town.
Convoys of ambulances stand, as they have stood for nigh on two years, in front of the old Red Cross Headquarters. Coal carts, their owners crying their goods in the low, monotonous wail peculiar to themselves, still ply along the roads, side by side with cars of every description, from Rolls-Royces to the "Rolls-Fords" (no one is ashamed to be seen in a Ford in the war zone). Uniforms of every kind, khaki and the grey, red-tipped nurses, predominate.
Tinkling their bells, the trams wend their way in and out of the town, driven mostly by decrepit Belgian réformés whose tales of sorrow and wonder would fill volumes. Picturesque groups of saboted fisherwomen cluster round a skiff as the gleaming fish are unloaded.
Tiens! We are off! The watertight compartments are shut. The sun, already sinking low, tints the pinnacles of the old church, lights up the windows of the fishing village with fairy-like colours. One last look at the masts that rise out of the mists, the gleaming, winding river, the camps, the tents, all that goes to make that wonderful elusive thing "The Base" in the war zone.
Gulls follow our course and swoop down in vain search of a meal!
In my throat is a stifled sob. So this is the end. Broken in body, I am to leave the work I love, and with it youth and vitality—and this whilst the fighting wages hardest in the West.
One last look at the sun-bathed shore, and then the boats swing outwards on their davits and hide it all from view.