"The men who were working at the station were English Quakers. They
were splendid men. I have never known more heroic work than they did,
and the cure was a splendid fellow. There was nothing too menial for
him to do. He was everywhere."
* * * * *
This is the story she told me that night, in her own words. I have not
revised it. Better than anything I know it tells of conditions as they
actually existed during the hard fighting of the first autumn of the
war, and as in the very nature of things they must exist again
whenever either side undertakes an offensive.
It becomes a little wearying, sometimes, this constant cry of horrors,
the ever-recurring demands on America's pocketbook for supplies, for
dressings, for money to buy the thousands of things that are needed.
Read Lady Decies' account again, and try to place your own son on that
stone floor on the station platform. Think of that wounded boy,
sitting for hours in a train, and choking to death with diphtheria.
This is the thing we call war.
CHAPTER XV
RUNNING THE BLOCKADE
From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare
Maritime in Calais:
Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after
the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of
being searched by Scotland Yard detectives.
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