The visitor may see about as much of what is going on in the La Bassée region as an ant can see of the surrounding landscape when promenading in the grass. The only variation in the flatness of the land is the overworked ditches which try to drain it. Look upward, and rows of poplar trees along the level, and a hedge, a grove, a cottage, or trees and shrubs around it, limit your vision. Thus, if a breeze starts timidly in a field it is stopped before it goes far. That "hot corner" is all the hotter for a burning July sun. The army water-carts which run back to wells of cool water are busy filling empty canteens, while shrapnel trims the hedges. A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the wounded. Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded men. Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and one a bandage around his arm. They had been stunned, which was only natural when you have been as close as they had to a shell- burst--a shell that made a hit. The concussion was bound to have this effect. A third man was the best illustration of shell-destructiveness. Bullets make only holes. Shells make gouges, fractures, pulp. He, too, had a bandaged head and had been hit in several places; but the worst wound was in the leg, where an artery had been cut. He was weak, with a sort of where-am-I look in his eyes. If the fragment which had hit his leg had hit his head, or his neck, or his abdomen, he would have been killed instantly. He was also an illustration of how hard it is to kill a man even with several shell-fragments, unless some of them strike in the right place. For he was going to live; the surgeon had whispered the fact in his ear, that one important fact. He had beaten the German shell, after all. Returning by the same road by which we came a motor-car ran swiftly by, the only kind of car allowed on that road. We had a glimpse of the big, painted red cross on an ambulance side, and at the rear, where the curtains were rolled up for ventilation, of four pairs of soldier boot- soles at the end of four stretchers, which had been slid into place at the estaminet by the sturdy, kindly, experienced medical corps men.