The hospital was burning fiercely, just as that at Mons had done. Such a building, with its Red Cross flag, was always a convenient ranging point for the enemy. In it there had been some 400 wounded and other casualties. A large number of these had been got away, but a number had, perforce, to be left. Their end must have been too cruel to dwell upon. Up the main street everywhere was horrible evidence that _they_ had been at work. Mingled with dead or wounded combatants were bodies of women and children, many terribly mutilated, while other women knelt beside them, with stone-set faces or gasping through hysterical weeping. From behind shutters or half-closed doors others looked out, blinded with terror. But there was one thing which, for the men who saw it, dwarfed all else. Hanging up in the open window of a shop, strung from a hook in the cross-beam, like a joint in a butcher's shop, was the body of a little girl, five years old, perhaps. Its poor little hands had been hacked off, and through the slender body were vicious bayonet stabs. Yes, close your eyes in horror, but it is right that our people should hear and know these things. There must be no false, vapid sentiment in refusing to think about them. There should not be a home in the British Empire where the facts of German atrocities are not known, and where, in realising them, hearts are not nerved to yield their last drop of blood in stamping out from the world of men the hideous Thing which has done them. After that the Brigade "saw red." There was no more talk of taking prisoners, and if there was another ounce they could put into their work they did it. The sight of those poor distracted women kneeling down in the road before our men, or hanging round their knees praying to be taken away, would have melted the stoniest hearts. The situation was serious enough, for another German attack in force was bound to follow, and the Brigade had little hope of getting away safely themselves. But they could not possibly leave the women behind again--nor did they. Somehow or other they escorted, on guns, limbers and vehicles, all they could find safely on to the southward road, sullenly retiring once more before the new counter-attack. CHAPTER XII WEDNESDAY, THE 26TH OF AUGUST (_continued_) _A many of our bodies shall, no doubt Find native graves; upon the which, I trust, Shall witness live in brass of this day's work; And those that leave their valiant bones in France, Dying like men, ... They shall be fam'd._