At last at the Etat Majeur we found our Headquarters, and I sincerely hope that wherever General Paris, Colonel Bridges, and Colonel Seely go, they will always find people as pleased to see them as we were. They very kindly told us something of the situation, and said that, though they had every intention of holding Antwerp, they advised us to clear out, and they placed at our disposal four motor omnibuses for the transport of the wounded. So off we drove back to the hospital to make arrangements for evacuating. It was a lively drive, for I suppose that the Germans had had breakfast and had got to work again; at any rate, shells were coming in pretty freely, and we were happier when we could run along under the lee of the houses. However, we got back to the hospital safely enough, and there we held a council of war.
It was in the office, of course—the most risky room we could have chosen, I suppose—but somehow that did not seem to occur to anyone. It is curious how soon one grows accustomed to shells. At that moment a barrel-organ would have caused us far more annoyance. We sat round the table and discussed the situation. It was by no means straightforward. In the first place several members of the community did not wish to leave at all; in the second, we could not leave any of our wounded behind unattended; and in the third, it seemed unlikely that we could get them all on to four buses. After a long discussion we decided to go again and see General Paris, to ask for absolute instructions as a hospital under his control,