On leaving every place of beauty one wonders how long it will remain safe from the Vandals—one leaves it with a sentimental longing to linger for "one last look."
October 27th, Boulogne. The sky was a lurid red as our train steamed into Boulogne, and an evening mist hung over the town. On all sides high masts rose into the sky; hospital ships, ambulance trains, little fishing-smacks, one does not know to which to give most attention. Everywhere the population of picturesque fisherfolk in their brown blouses gives way admiringly to the Red Cross ambulances and officials who carry on their work on such an enormous scale.
HOSPITAL SHIP
The journey had seemed long enough in spite of its many incidents, as day by day we watched the pretty though uninteresting fields slip by, or restlessly paced the stations during the interminable halts, with little food for thought, save vague surmises as to the future, and little to eat save the slightly bitter bread of the people and apples, the only things obtainable at wayside stations already ransacked by the hordes of hungry soldiers who had passed through earlier; and oftentimes we had been glad enough to descend from the carriages to refresh ourselves at the station pumps, marked "drinkable" or "non-drinkable," as the case might be.
We had formed an odd trio. The tall, bent figure of the clergyman, with his dreamy demeanour and utter obliviousness of all things practical; my commandant, a young woman who, having spent most of her life at hospital work, hailed every diversion from the same gleefully. Everything to her was new, for she had never been out of England before, and to a veteran traveller her joy at the ways of this new country was extraordinarily interesting. Thirdly, there was myself, fresh from the salutary discipline of the wards of a London hospital.
And now it is all over, that journey. The destination is reached. The Unknown will soon be revealed.
The Commissioner to whom we were directed received us with open arms.
"Nurses—thank God!" was the exclamation as we were turned over to the mercies of the billeting officer, who designated an airy room overlooking the quayside, on the third floor of the Red Cross headquarters, for our use.
Yet it appears that in spite of the dearth of nurses there are many formalities to be gone through before we can begin work; and as only nurses who have had three years' training in a big London hospital are to be accepted (for is anything but the best good enough for our fighting men?), there may be some difficulty for probationers.