Early Tuesday morning saw me at Charing Cross Station.  There were not many people crossing—­two well-known surgeons on their way to Belgium, Major Richardson with his war-dogs, and a few others.  A nurse going to Antwerp, with myself, formed the only female contingent on board.  It was asserted that a submarine preceded us all the way to Ostend, but as I never get further than my berth on these occasions, I cannot vouch for the truth of this.

Ostend in the middle of August generally means a gay crowd of bathers, Cook’s tourists tripping to Switzerland and so on; but our little party landed in silence, and anxious faces and ominous whispers met us on our arrival on Belgian soil.  It was even said that the Germans were marching on Brussels, but this was contradicted afterwards as a sensational canard.  The Red Cross on my luggage got me through the douane formalities without any trouble.  I entered the almost empty train and we went to Brussels without stopping.

At first sight Brussels seemed to be en fete, flags were waving from every window, Boy Scouts were everywhere looking very important, and the whole population seemed to be in the streets.  Nearly every one wore little coloured flags or ribbons—­a favourite badge was the Belgian colours with the English and French intertwined.  It did not seem possible that war could be so near, and yet if one looked closer one saw that many of the flags giving such a gay appearance were Red Cross flags denoting that there an ambulance had been prepared for the wounded, and the Garde Civile in their picturesque uniform were constantly breaking up the huge crowds into smaller groups to avoid a demonstration.

The first thing to arrange was about the coming of my nurses, whether they were really needed and if so where they were to go.  I heard from the authorities that it was highly probable that Brussels would be occupied by the Germans, and that it would be best to put off their coming, for a time at any rate.  Private telegrams had long been stopped, but an official thought he might be able to get mine through, so I sent a long one asking that the nurses might not be sent till further notice.  As a matter of fact it never arrived, and the next afternoon I heard that twenty-six nurses—­instead of sixteen as was originally arranged—­were already on their way.  There were 15,000 beds in Brussels prepared for the reception of the wounded, and though there were not many wounded in the city just then, the nurses would certainly all be wanted soon if any of the rumours were true that we heard on all sides, of heavy fighting in the neighbourhood, and severe losses inflicted on the gallant little Belgian Army.

It was impossible to arrange for the nurses to go straight to their work on arrival, so it was decided that they should go to a hotel for one night and be drafted to their various posts the next day.  Anyhow, they could not arrive till the evening, so in the afternoon I went out to the barriers to see what resistance had been made against the possible German occupation of Brussels.  It did not look very formidable—­some barbed-wire entanglements, a great many stones lying about, and the Gardes Civiles in their quaint old-fashioned costume guarding various points.  That was all.