It was growing late and the General was impatient to be off. We had still a long journey ahead of us, and riding at night was not particularly safe.
I got into the car and they bundled in after me the damaged pictures, the horseshoe, the piece of gargoyle from the Cloth Hall and the nose of the shell.
The orderly reported that a Zeppelin had just passed overhead; but the
General shrugged his shoulders.
"They are always seeing Zeppelins," he said. "Me, I do not believe there is such a thing!"
* * * * *
That night in my hotel, after dinner, Gertrude, Lady Decies, told me the following story:
"I had only twelve hours' notice to start for the front. I am not a hospital nurse, but I have taken for several years three months each summer of special training. So I felt that I would be useful if I could get over.
"It was November and very cold. When I got to Calais there was not a room to be had anywhere. But at the Hotel Centrale they told me I might have a bathroom to sleep in.
"At the last moment a gentleman volunteered to exchange with me. But the next day he left, so that night I slept in a bathtub with a mattress in it!
"The following day I got a train for Dunkirk. On the way the train was wrecked. Several coaches left the track, and there was nothing to do but to wait until they were put back on.