[Page Heading:  HOW WE KEPT UP OUR COURAGE]

I think I have seen too much pain lately.  At Walworth one saw women every day in utter pain, and now one lives in an atmosphere of bandages and blood.  I asked some of the orderlies to-day what it was that supported them most at a crisis of this sort.  The answers varied, and were interesting.  I myself am surprised to find that religion is not my best support.  When I go into the little chapel to pray it is all too tender, the divine Mother and the Child and the holy atmosphere.  I begin to feel rather sorry for myself, I don’t know why; then I go and move beds and feel better; but I have found that just to behave like a well-bred woman is what keeps me up best.  I had thought that the Flag or Religion would have been stronger incentives to me.

Our own soldiers seem to find self-respect their best asset.  It is amazing to see the difference between them and the Belgians, who are terribly poor hands at bearing pain, and beg for morphia all the time.  An officer to-day had to have a loose tooth out.  He insisted on having cocaine, and then begged the doctor to be careful!

The firing now is furious—­sometimes there are five or six explosions almost simultaneously.  I suppose we shall read in the Times that “all is quiet,” and in Le Matin that “pour le reste tout est calme.”

The staff are doing well.  They are generally too busy to be frightened, but one has to speak once or twice to them before they hear.

On Wednesday night, the 7th October, we heard that one more ship was going to England, and a last chance was given to us all to leave.  Only two did so; the rest stayed on.  Mrs. Stobart went out to see what was to be done.  The ——­ Consul said that we were under his protection, and that if the Germans entered the town he would see that we were treated properly.  We had a deliberately cheerful supper, and afterwards a man called Smits came in and told us that the Germans had been driven back fifteen kilometres.  I myself did not believe this, but we went to bed, and even took off our clothes.

At midnight the first shell came over us with a shriek, and I went down and woke the orderlies and nurses and doctors.  We dressed and went over to help move the wounded at the hospital.  The shells began to scream overhead; it was a bright moonlight night, and we walked without haste—­a small body of women—­across the road to the hospital.  Here we found the wounded all yelling like mad things, thinking they were going to be left behind.  The lung man has died.

Nearly all the moving to the cellars had already been done—­only three stretchers remained to be moved.  One wounded English sergeant helped us.  Otherwise everything was done by women.  We laid the men on mattresses which we fetched from the hospital overhead, and then Mrs. Stobart’s mild, quiet voice said, “Everything is to go on as usual.  The night nurses and orderlies will take their places.  Breakfast will be at the usual hour.”  She and the other ladies whose night it was to sleep at the convent then returned to sleep in the basement with a Sister.