We commandeered it.
Winter came. The soldiers needed a dressing station somewhere along the
front from Nieuport to Dixmude. Mrs. Knocker established one thirty
yards behind the front line of trenches at Pervyse. Miss Chisholm and I
joined her. In its cellar we found a rough bedstead of two pieces of
unplaned lumber, with clean straw for a mattress, awaiting us. Any
Englishwoman is respected in the Belgian lines. The two soldiers who had
been living in our room had given it up cheerily. They had searched the
village for a clean sheet, and showed it to us with pride. They lumped
the straw for our pillows, and stood outside through the night,
guarding our home with fixed bayonets. It was the most moving courtesy
we had in the twelve months of war. The air in the little room was both
foul and chilly. We took off our boots, and that was the extent of our
undressing.
[Illustration: SLEEPING QUARTERS FOR BELGIAN SOLDIERS.
Disguised as a haystack, this shelter stands out in a field within easy
shell fire of the enemy. A concealed battery, in which these boys are
gunners, is near by. In their spare time they smoke, read, swim, carve
rings out of shrapnel, play cards and forget the strain of war.]
The dreariness of war never came on us till we went out there to live
behind the trenches. To me it was getting up before dawn, and washing in
ice-cold water, no time to comb the hair, always carrying a feeling of
personal mussiness, with an adjustment to dirt.
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