them back to their field hospital at the rear. After the beds ran out, the wounded were laid on the floor or propped up against the wall. As the dead piled up, the two nurses were told to remove them to the mortuary. Chisholm wrote in her diary: “No one can understand...unless one has seen the rows of dead men laid out. One sees men with their jaws blown off, arms and legs mutilated.” Chisholm and Knocker soon came to the conclusion that they could save more lives by treating the wounded directly on the front lines. In November, they decided to leave the corps and set up their own dressing station five miles east in a town named Pervijze, north of Ypres, just one hundred yards from the trenches. Here, in a vacant cellar which they named "Poste de Secours Anglais" ("British First Aid Post"), the two would spend the next three and a half years tending to the wounded. No longer affiliated with the Belgian Red Cross, they began acting completely as free agents and had to support their work by raising their own funds. Through sheer perseverance Knocker was able to arrange for the two of them to be officially seconded to the Belgian garrison stationed there. In January 1915, they were both decorated by King Albert I of Belgium with the Order of Léopold II, Knights Cross (with palm) for their courageous work on the front lines. They were also awarded the British Military Medal and both made Officers of the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Chisholm was also decorated with the Queen Elisabeth Medal of Belgium and the British campaign medals, including the 1914 Star. In 1916, Chisholm became engaged to a Royal Naval Air pilot named Jack Petrie, who died a year later during flying practice. In 1918, both women were badly affected by a massive bombing raid and gas attacks on their makeshift field hospital. Chisholm recovered enough to return to the front, before being forced to abandon her post just months before the end of the war. She returned to Britain, where both she and Knocker saw out the rest of the war as members of the newly formed Women's Royal Air Force. Chisholm became engaged for the second time in August 1918 to Royal Air Force Second Lieutenant William Thomas James Hall whom she had met while training