shell-fire, their first-aid bandages saturated with mud, their ungainly
and impracticable uniforms oozing mud, ghosts of men-these
"schipperkes" of the nation that was unprepared for war who had
done their part, when the only military thought was for more men,
unwounded men, British, French, Belgian, to stem the German tide.
Yet many of these Belgians, even these, were cheerful. They could
still smile and say, "Bonne chance!"

Indeed, there seemed no limit to the cheerfulness of Belgians. At a
hospital in Calais I met a Belgian professor with his head a white ball
of bandages, showing a hole for one eye and a slit for the mouth. He
had been one of the cyclist force which took account of many
German cavalry scouts in the first two weeks of the war. A staff
motor-car had run over him on the road.

"I think the driver of the car was careless," he said mildly, as if he
were giving a gentle reproof to a student.

By contrast, he had reason to be thankful for his lot. Looked after by a
brave man attendant in another room were the wounded who were
too horrible to see; who must die. Then, in another, you had a picture
of a smiling British regular, with a British nurse and an Englishwoman
of Calais to look after him. They read to him, they talked to him, they
vied with each other in rearranging his pillows or bedclothes. He was
a hero of a story; but it rather puzzled him why he should be. Why
were a lot of people paying so much attention to him for doing his
duty?

In the cavalry, he had been separated from his regiment on the
retreat from Mons. Wandering about the country, he came up with a