One day we saw an aeroplane falling.  At first it was hard to believe it was not doing some patent stunt.  Instead of coming down plumb as one would imagine, it fell first this way and then that, like a piece of paper fluttering down from a window.  As it got nearer the earth though where the currents of air were not so powerful, it plunged straight downwards.  Crowds witnessed the descent, and ran to the spot where it had fallen.

Greatly to their surprise the pilot was unhurt and the machine hardly damaged at all.  It had fallen just into the sea, and its wings were keeping it afloat.  The pilot was brought ashore in a boat, and when the tide went down a cordon of guards was placed round the machine till it was removed.

Bridget, our former housekeeper at the hospital, went home to England in the autumn for a rest and I was asked to take on her job.  I moved to the hospital and slept in the top room, behind our sitting-room, together with the chauffeurs and Lieutenant Franklin.

I had to see that breakfast was all right, and at 7.30 lay the table in the big kitchen, get the jam out of our store cupboard, make the tea, etc.  Breakfast over, I had the top room to sweep and dust, the beds to make, the linen to put out to air, and when that was done it was time to get “10 o’clocks” ready.  After that I sallied forth armed with a big basket, a fat purse and a long list, and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the market.

In the afternoons there were always stacks of hospital mending to do, and then tea to get ready.  Sometimes as many as twelve people—­French, Belgian, or English—­used to drop in, and it was no easy task to keep that teapot going; however it was always done somehow.  Luckily we had a gas-ring, as it would have been an impossibility to run up and down the sixty-nine steps to the kitchen every time we wanted more hot water.

At six the housekeeper had to prepare the evening meal for 7.30, and the Flemish cooks looked on with great amusement at my concoctions—­a lot of it was tinned stuff, so the cooking required was of the simplest.  They always cooked the potatoes for me out of the kindness of their hearts.  The reason they did not do the whole thing was that they were really off duty at six, but one of them usually stayed behind and helped.

Work at that time began to slacken off considerably.—­A large hut hospital for typhoids was built and the casualties diminished, partly because most of the Belgians had already been killed or wounded, and partly because the remaining few had not much fighting to do except hold the line behind the inundations.  A faint murmur reached us that a comb-out was going to take place among the British Red Cross Ambulance drivers, and we wondered who would replace them if they were sent up the line.