It was seven o'clock of the evening. The night was
dark. He pitched a bag of bandages into the motor ambulance.
"Take those to the dressing station that lies two miles to the west of
Caeskerke," he ordered Mrs. Knocker. I cranked up the machine; Mrs.
Knocker sat at the wheel. We were at Oudecappelle. The going was halfway
decent as far as the crossroads of Caeskerke. Here we turned west on a
road through the fields which had been intermittently shelled for
several days. The road had shell holes in it from one to three feet
deep. We could not see them because we carried no lights and the sky
overhead was black. A mile to our right a village was burning. There
were sheets of flame rising from the lowland, and the flame revealed the
smoke that was thick over the ruins. We bumped in and out of the holes.
All roads in Belgium were scummy with mud. It is like butter on bread.
The big brown-canopied ambulance skidded in this paste.
We reached the dressing station and delivered one bag of bandages. In
return we received three severely wounded men, who lay at length on the
stretched canvas and swung on straps. Then we started back over the same
mean road. This was the journey that tested Mrs. Knocker's driving,
because now she had helpless men who must not be jerked by the swaying
car. Motion tore at their wounds. Above all, they must not be
overturned. An overturn would kill a man who was seriously wounded.
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