Our hospital occupied one of the largest houses on the south-east side.  A huge doorway led into an outer hall through which the garden was directly reached behind the house.  On the right-hand side of this outer hall a wide flight of steps led to inner glass doors and the great central hall of the building.  As a private house it must have been magnificent; as a hospital it was as spacious and airy as one could desire.  The hall was paved with marble, and on either side opened lofty reception rooms, whilst in front wide marble staircases led to the first floor.  This first floor and another above it were occupied entirely by wards, each containing from six to twelve beds.  On the ground floor on the right-hand side were two large wards, really magnificent rooms, and one smaller, all these overlooking the Boulevard.  On the left were the office, the common room, and the operating theatre.  Behind the house was a large paved courtyard, flanked on the right by a garden border and on the left by a wide glass-roofed corridor.  The house had previously been used as a school, and on the opposite side of the courtyard was the gymnasium, with dormitories above.  The gymnasium furnished our dining-hall, whilst several of the staff slept in the rooms above.

It will be seen that the building was in many ways well adapted to the needs of a hospital and to the accommodation of the large staff required.  We had in all 150 beds, and a staff of about 50.  The latter included 8 doctors, 20 nurses, 5 dressers, lay assistants, and motor drivers.  In addition to these there was a kitchen staff of Belgians, so that the management of the whole was quite a large undertaking, especially in a town where ordinary provisions were becoming more and more difficult to obtain.  In the later days of the siege, when milk was not to be had and the only available water was salt, the lot of our housekeeper was anything but happy.  Providing meals for over 200 people in a besieged town is no small matter.  But it was managed somehow, and our cuisine was positively astonishing, to which I think we largely owe the fact that none of the staff was ever ill.  Soldiers are not the only people who fight on their stomachs.

The management of the hospital centred in the office, and it was so typical of Belgium as to be really worth a few words of description.  It was quite a small room, and it was always crowded.  Four of us had seats round a table in the centre, and at another table in the window sat our Belgian secretary, Monsieur Herman, and his two clerks.  But that was only the beginning of it.  All day long there was a constant stream of men, women, and children pouring into that room, bringing letters, asking questions, always talking volubly to us and amongst themselves.  At first we thought that this extraordinary turmoil was due to our want of space, but we soon found that it was one of the institutions of the country.  In England an official’s room is the very home