On reaching the village of Zandvoorde, I encountered a terrible sight. The enemy was approaching from two sides, and shelling hard. The place was a slaughter-house; never have I seen so ghastly a sight. The doctors, with their coats off and shirt sleeves rolled up, looked more like butchers than medical men, and for an hour or two I found my hands full in the saddest of all work, dealing with dying men.
As I was eating a hasty breakfast--for in campaigning one learns the value of sleeping and eating whenever a chance presents itself--the O.C. came to me saying that some one must get through to Ypres, to stop the transport that was about to come out, and also to warn the major of the serious condition of affairs at Zandvoorde. Would I go? Such an opportunity of doing 'a real bit' only comes now and again, therefore it was not difficult to decide.
I had a foretaste of what I was presently to pass through, as, sitting on the doorstep of a cottage, I was changing into riding boots, out of the heavy Swiss climbing boots that I had been wearing, and which threatened to be awkward in the stirrups, if by any chance I was thrown, a not unlikely event under fire, when a shrapnel burst some twenty feet from me, with an explosion which almost lifted me from the ground. The door before which I sat, and the front of the cottage, were liberally studded with bullets and pieces of the casing, but in a most providential manner I was untouched. Very quickly I completed my change of boots, and got my kit-bag once more stowed away in a transport wagon. Strictest orders had been given that no kits were to be removed from the wagon, and I hope that the O.C., if ever he discovers my delinquency, will take into consideration the urgency of my desire to fulfil instructions in the carrying of his orders into Ypres.
For three miles, right over 'Hill 60,' I had the ride of my life. Shells were bursting in every direction, but my good horse struggled on gamely. By this time he had come to know the import of the shrieking whistle which betokens the approach of a shell, but he displayed no more concern than a momentary quiver as it burst. As for me I could only place myself in God's hands, and well remember how, as each shell approached, I repeated that comforting word from Isaiah xxvi. 3, 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.' Over and over again I repeated 'because he trusteth in thee.' And then bang! bang! and once more the danger was past.