They picked it up at once then, and went off at a good swinging trot over the paving-stones that jolted my poor Flamand most horribly. I told them to go on the smooth track at the side. They hailed this suggestion as a most brilliant and original idea.
As the Flamand was brought into the village, the Ambulance had got its wounded in, and was ready to go. But he had to have his wound dressed.
He lay there on his stretcher in the middle of the village street, my beloved Flamand, stripped to the waist, with the great red pit of his wound yawning in his white flesh. I had to look on while the Commandant stuffed it with antiseptic gauze.
I had always supposed that the dressing of a wound was a cautious and delicate process. But it isn't. There is a certain casual audacity about it. The Commandant's hands worked rapidly as he rammed cyanide gauze into the red pit. It looked as if he were stuffing an old crate with straw. And it was all over in a moment. There seemed something indecent in the haste with which my Flamand was disposed of.
When the Commandant observed that my Flamand's wound looked much worse than it was, I felt hurt, as if this beloved person had been slighted; also as if there was some subtle disparagement to my "find."
I rather hoped that we were going to wait till the men I had left behind in the plantation had come up. But the car was fairly full, and Ursula Dearmer and Janet and Mrs. Lambert were told off to take it in to Z——, leave the wounded there and come back for the rest. I was to walk to Z—— and wait there for the returning car.
Nothing would have pleased me better, but the distance was farther than the Commandant realized, farther, perhaps, than was desirable in the circumstances, so I was ordered to get on the car and come back with it.
(Tom the chauffeur is perfectly right. There are too many of us.)
We got away long before the Germans turned the corner, if they ever did turn it. In Z——, which is half-way between Lokeren and Ghent, we came upon six or seven fine military ambulances, all huddled together as if they sought safety in companionship (why none of them had been sent up to our village I can't imagine). Ursula Dearmer, with admirable presence of mind, commandeered one of these and went back with it to the village, so that we could take our load of wounded into Ghent. We did this, and went back at once.
The return journey was a tame affair. Before we got to Z—— we met the Commandant and the Chaplain and two refugees, in Mr. Lambert's scouting-car, towed by a motor-wagon. It had broken down on the way from Lokeren. We took them on board and turned back to Ghent.