But the work for which their names will live began in November, 1914, when the two severed their connection with the Ambulance Corps and started to work together in a little cellar in the ruined village of Pervyse. Mrs. Knocker was led to take this step by her conviction, shared by the Belgian doctors, of the necessity of establishing an advanced dressing-post where the severely wounded men might have time to recover from shock before enduring the jolting journey to hospital, which had already proved fatal to many. Thus it was that these women--the eldest little more than a girl--took up their work. Through all these long months up to the present day they have been living the lives of the soldiers themselves--their quarters for the most part a tiny cellar, again and again under shell fire, sometimes suffering fierce bombardments, not taking off their clothes literally for weeks on end, eating anything they could get, and enduring the trials of cold, dirt, exhaustion, and danger with a gaiety and a courage which have been at once an inspiration and a source of astonishment to those who have been privileged to see them at Pervyse. When the cellar was demolished they moved to another tumble-down cottage, only to be shelled out twice more. But wherever they established themselves it became “home” to the soldiers--their presence bringing a ray of comfort and brightness into the stern routine of life in the trenches. When in March, 1915, a decree was passed by the commanders of the Allied armies in Paris forbidding the presence of any women in the firing line, at the request of the Belgian authorities an exception was made for these two, mentioned by name, who were then officially attached to the Third Division of the Belgian army in the field. No honour in the war has been better earned than the decoration which King Albert bestowed on each of them, when he appointed them Chevaliers of the Order of Leopold. As if to crown their wonderful story, romance came to one of them in the midst of that shot-torn village. The young widow, Mrs. Knocker, recently became the wife of a Belgian officer, Baron Harold de T’Serclaes. XII LADY MARY HAMILTON, MISS STELLA DRUMMOND, AND THE SKILLED WOMEN MUNITION WORKERS