E-text prepared by Irma Spehar and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17587-h.htm or 17587-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/8/17587/17587-h/17587-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/8/17587/17587-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/fieldhosflyingcolumn00thuruoft FIELD HOSPITAL AND FLYING COLUMN Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by VIOLETTA THURSTAN London and New York G. P. Putnam's Sons 1915 First Impression April 1915 M. R. _Allons! After the great Companions, and to belong to them. They too are on the road. They are the swift and majestic men, they are the greatest women. They know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, As roads for travelling souls. Camerados, I will give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money. Will you give me yourselves, will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?_ Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL 1 II. CHARLEROI AND ROUND ABOUT 16 III. OUR HOSPITAL AND PATIENTS 37 IV. THE RETURN TO BRUSSELS 53 V. A MEMORABLE JOURNEY 76 VI. A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE 92 VII. OUR WORK IN WARSAW 113 VIII. THE BOMBARDMENT OF LODZ 128 IX. MORE DOINGS OF THE FLYING COLUMN 144 X. BY THE TRENCHES AT RADZIVILOW 161 INDEX 179 I THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL War, war, war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo on Salisbury Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in July when the peace of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when most of us had a heartache in case--_in case_ England, at this time of internal crisis, did not rise to the supreme sacrifice. It was just the night for a tattoo--dark and warm and still. Away across the plain a sea of mist was rolling, cutting us off from the outside world, and only a few pale stars lighted our stage from above.