A vivid impression of Flanders at this time (the end of November) has been recorded by Alice and Claude Askew, who as members of Dr. Hector Munro's Red Cross Ambulance Corps went to the front to distribute woollen comforters, cigarettes, coffee and chocolates: Up at Furnes the cold was terrible. The picturesque old town has been shelled twice, but as yet no great damage has been done, and the doctors and nurses working up at the Field Hospital--once a college--are hoping that their hospital may be spared, for this hospital, with its hundred beds and capable band of workers, is doing splendid service. The patients are so cheerful. Those who are well enough smoke--how the soldier loves his "fag" and how lightly they take their injuries. * * * * * Mr. Seeker was operating in the theatre--a patient had just been brought in from the trenches and immediate operation was necessary. A few oil lamps supplied the only illumination; the room was in complete shadow save round the operating table. Outside the wind howled and moaned, and firing could be heard in the distance. We felt very close to the naked heart of war. The drive back to Dunkirk a few hours later was a strange drive. The road has been broken and battered by the passing of countless military wagons, trodden down by marching feet, it has become a furrow, the plough of war has been over it. On either side gaunt trees lift up gaunt boughs; their branches look like skeleton fingers pointing to the sky, and they look like grim sentinels; the water is half frozen in the dykes. The whole thing seems unreal--the torn road--those blurred lines of men--the distant gun fire. The effect is that of a dream. We have seen the grim and terrible side of war--the bleeding side. The moon--a pale sickle moon--shines out of the dun sky--the cold becomes more intense every moment--more freezing. By continuous labour, however, the entrenchment system developed bit by bit into a vast underground military town. The fire trenches were connected by zigzag communication ways with supports trenches in the rear. From the latter opened the "dug-outs" which were the dwelling places of the men on trench duty. Made and furnished out of the wreckage of towns and villages, some of the "dug-outs" had doors and windows. Here and there the appointments of these underground quarters included desks and long-case clocks. Trench pumps were installed, and the troops provided with sheepskin coats. Entrenchment kitchens, too, were fitted up. The work of improvement went on in fact without a pause.