"
"Are there no nurses at all along the British front?"
"None whatever. There are no women here in any capacity. That is why
the men are so surprised to see you."
Here and there, behind the protection of groves and small thickets,
were temporary camps, sometimes tents, sometimes tent-shaped shelters
of wood. There were batteries on the right everywhere, great guns
concealed in farmyards or, like the guns I had seen on the French
front, in artificial hedges. Some of them were firing; but the firing
of a battery amounts to nothing but a great noise in these days of
long ranges. Somewhere across the valley the shells would burst, we
knew that; that was all.
The conversation turned to the Prince of Wales, and to the
responsibility it was to the various officers to have him in the
trenches. Strenuous efforts had been made to persuade him to be
satisfied with the work at headquarters, where he is attached to Sir
John French's staff. But evidently the young heir to the throne of
England is a man in spite of his youth. He wanted to go out and fight,
and he had at last secured permission.
"He has had rather remarkable training," said the young officer, who
was also his friend. "First he was in Calais with the transport
service. Then he came to headquarters, and has seen how things are
done there.
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