All that night refugees from Louvain and Termonde poured in a steady stream into Brussels, seeking safety.  I have never seen a more pitiful sight.  Little groups of terror-stricken peasants fleeing from their homes, some on foot, some more fortunate ones with their bits of furniture in a rough cart drawn by a skeleton horse or a large dog.  All had babies, aged parents, or invalids with them.  I realized then for the first time what war meant.  We do not know in England.  God grant we never may.  It was not merely rival armies fighting battles, it was civilians—­men, women, and children—­losing their homes, their possessions, their country, even their lives.  This invasion of unfortunates seemed to wake Brussels up to the fact that the German army was indeed at her gate.  Hordes of people rushed to the Gare du Nord in the early dawn to find it entirely closed, no trains either entering or leaving it.  It was said that as much rolling-stock as was possible had been sent to France to prevent it being taken by the Germans.  There was then a stampede to the Gare du Midi, from whence a few trains were still leaving the city crammed to their utmost capacity.

In the middle of the morning I got a telephone message from the Belgian Red Cross that the Germans were at the barriers, and would probably occupy Brussels in half an hour, and that all my nurses must be in their respective posts before that time.

Oh dear, what a stampede it was.  I told the nurses they must leave their luggage for the present and be ready in five minutes, and in less than that time we left the hotel, looking more like a set of rag-and-bone men than respectable British nursing sisters.  One had seized a large portmanteau, another a bundle of clean aprons, another soap and toilet articles; yet another provident soul had a tea-basket.  I am glad that the funny side of it did not strike me then, but in the middle of the next night I had helpless hysterics at the thought of the spectacle we must have presented.  Mercifully no one took much notice of us—­the streets were crowded and we had difficulty in getting on in some places—­just at one corner there was a little cheer and a cry of “Vive les Anglais!”

It took a long time before my flock was entirely disposed of.  It had been arranged that several of them should work at one of the large hospitals in Brussels where 150 beds had been set apart for the wounded, five in another hospital at the end of the city, two in an ambulance station in the centre of Brussels, nine were taken over to a large fire-station that was converted into a temporary hospital with 130 beds, and two had been promised for a private hospital outside the barriers.  It was a work of time to get the last two to their destinations; the Germans had begun to come in by that time, and we had to wait two hours to cross a certain street that led to the hospital, as all traffic had been stopped while the enemy entered Brussels.