It is awful work.  The great bell rings, and we say, “More wounded,” and the men get stretchers.  We go down the long, cold covered way to the gate and number the men for their different beds.  The stretchers are stiff with blood, and the clothes have to be cut off the men.  They cry out terribly, and their horror is so painful to witness.  They are so young, and they have seen right into hell.  The first dressings are removed by the doctors—­sometimes there is only a lump of cotton-wool to fill up a hole—­and the men lie there with their tragic eyes fixed upon one.  All day a nurse has sat by a man who has been shot through the lungs.  Each breath is painful; it does not bear writing about.  The pity of it all just breaks one’s heart.  But I suppose we do not see nearly the worst of the wounded.

The lights are all off at eight o’clock now, and we do our work in the dark, while the orderlies hold little torches to enable the doctors to dress the wounds.  There are not half enough nurses or doctors out here.  In one hospital there are 400 beds and only two trained nurses.

[Page Heading:  ARRIVAL OF BRITISH TROOPS]

Some of our own troops came through the town in London omnibuses to-day.  It was quite a Moment, and we felt that all was well.  We went to the gate and shook hands with them as they passed, and they made jokes and did us all good.  We cheered and waved handkerchiefs.

5-6 October.—­I think the last two days have been the most ghastly I ever remember.  Every day seems to bring news of defeat.  It is awful, and the Germans are quite close now.  As I write the house shakes with the firing.  Our troops are falling back, and the forts have fallen.  Last night we took provisions and water to the cellars, and made plans to get the wounded taken there.

They say the town will be shelled to-morrow.  All these last two days bleeding men have been brought in.  To-day three of them died, and I suppose none of them was more than 23.  We have to keep up all the time and show a good face, and meals are quite cheery.  To-day, Tuesday, was our last chance of leaving, and only two went.

The guns boom by day as well as by night, and as each one is heard one thinks of more bleeding, shattered men.  It is calm, nice autumn weather; the trees are yellow in the garden and the sky is blue, yet all the time one listens to the cries of men in pain.  To-night I meant to go out for a little, but a nurse stopped me and asked me to sit by a dying man.  Poor fellow, he was twenty-one, and looked like some brigand chief, and he smiled as he was dying.  The horror of these two days will last always, and there are many more such days to come.  Everyone is behaving well, and that is all I care about.

7 October.—­It is a glorious morning:  they will see well to kill each other to-day.

The guns go all day and all night.  They are so close that the earth shakes with them.  Last night in the infernal darkness we were turning wounded men away from the door.  There was no room for them even on the floor.  The Belgians scream terribly.  Our own men suffer quite quietly.  One of them died to-day.