. A green tent in Flanders. we have found him fastasleep. Hours drag in darkened and delirium do not quicken theirpace, and the blesse, with the rest of theworld and with greater reason, has an in-stinct for exaggerating the tale of his sleep-lessness. On such nights we are keenly alive to thedire import of the blaring guns on the onehand and, on the other, to the sleeping still-ness of half a hemisphere where busy mindsforget their arithmetic and predatory handsfor a moment lie inert. During the day the night nurses sleep in atent, pitched for quiet in the middle of afield outside
. A green tent in Flanders. we have found him fastasleep. Hours drag in darkened and delirium do not quicken theirpace, and the blesse, with the rest of theworld and with greater reason, has an in-stinct for exaggerating the tale of his sleep-lessness. On such nights we are keenly alive to thedire import of the blaring guns on the onehand and, on the other, to the sleeping still-ness of half a hemisphere where busy mindsforget their arithmetic and predatory handsfor a moment lie inert. During the day the night nurses sleep in atent, pitched for quiet in the middle of afield outside the hospital enclosure. It is asmall green tent with two beds, a tiny table. A GREEN TENT IN FLANDERS 169 and two oil stoves to take off the chill. Toreach it we climb through a hole in the hedgeand balance ourselves on a slippery plank—-laid precariously across the ditch, and whichunder our weight generally slips into the slime—then across a space thickly set with field the night nurses once shared with. a cow, until the cow became too curiouslyenamoured of the tent and had to beevicted. Some mornings the tent strains and pullsat its moorings and groans as the windlicks furiously around it, until we can al-most imagine ourselves the centre of a whirl-wind, instantly to be caught up in its spiral. 170 A GREEN TENT IN FLANDERS At quieter times as we lie courting sleepand lazily looking out across the beautifulgrass, powdered and glistening with hoarfrost, our eyes can rest on a cottage, thatch-roofed and nestling close behind the hedge,or play along the main road not fifty yardsaway, where silhouettes of soldiers pass con-tinuously in single file trudging to and fromthe front. At six p. M. Madame Madeleine wakes us,a cup of tea in her hand. The horn will sound for la soupe atseven, and duty beginsagain at eight. The horn is blown by anold man who has in hishands the regular runningof the Bolte. He beginsat six-thirty every morn-ing and points the daywith his b
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
