Driving meant drawing all her nervous forces into her directing brain
and her two hands. A village on fire at night is an eerie sight. A dark
road, pitted with shell holes and slimy with mud, is chancy. The car
with its human freight, swaying, bumping, sliding, is heavy on the
wrist. The whole focused drive of it falls on the muscles of the
forearm. And when on the skill of that driver depends the lives of three
men the situation is one that calls for nerve. It was only luck that the
artillery from beyond the Yser did not begin tuning up. The Germans had
shelled that road diligently for many days and some evenings. Back to
the crossroads Mrs. Knocker brought her cargo, and on to Oudecappelle,
and so to the hospital at Furnes, a full ten miles. Safely home in the
convent yard, the journey done, the wounded men lifted into the ward,
she broke down. She had put over her job, and her nerves were tired.
Womanlike she refused to give in till the work was successfully
finished.
How would a man have handled such a strain? I will tell you how one man
acted. Our corporal drove his touring car toward Dixmude one morning. He
ordered Tom, the cockney driver, to follow with the motor ambulance. In
it were Mrs. Knocker and Miss Chisholm, sitting with Tom on the front of
the car. Things looked thick. The corporal slowed up, and so did Tom
just behind him. Now there is one sure rule for rescue work at the
front--when you hear the guns close, always turn your car toward home,
away from the direction of the enemy.
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