l attentions. We
chose it (the "Terminus") because it lay close to the landing-stage and
saved us the trouble of going into the town to look for quarters. It was
under the same roof as the railway station, where we proposed to leave
our ambulance cars and heavy luggage. And we had no difficulty whatever
in getting rooms for the whole thirteen of us. There was no sort of
competition for rooms in that hotel. I said to myself, "If Ostend ever
is bombarded, this railway station will be the first to suffer. And the
hotel and the railway station are one." And when I was shown into a
bedroom with glass windows all along its inner wall and a fine glass
front looking out on to the platforms under the immense glass roof of
the station, I said, "If this hotel is ever bombarded, what fun it will
be for the person who sleeps in this bed between these glass windows."

We were all rather tired and hungry as we met for dinner at seven
o'clock. And when we were told that all lights would be put out in the
town at eight-thirty we only thought that a municipality which was
receiving all the refugees in Belgium must practise _some_ economy, and
that, anyway, an hour and a half was enough for anybody to dine in; and
we hoped that the Commandant, who had gone to call on the English
chaplain at the Grand Hotel Littoral, would find his way back again to
the peaceful and commodious shelter of the "Terminus."

He did find his way back, at seven-thirty, just in time to give us a
chance of clearing out, if we chose to take it. The English chaplain, it
seemed, was surprised and dismayed at our idea of a suitable hotel, and
he implored us to fly, instantly, before a bomb burst in among us (this
was the first we had heard of the bombardment of the night before). The
Commandant put it to us as we sat there: Whether would we leave that
dining-room at once and pack our baggage all over again, and bundle out,
and go hunting for rooms all through Ostend with the lights out, and
perhaps fall into the harbour; or stay where we were and risk the
off-chance of a bomb? And we were all very tired and hungry, and we had
only got to the soup, and we had seen (and smelt) the harbour, so we
said we'd stay where we were and risk it.

And we stayed. A Taube hovered over us and never dropped its bomb.

[_Saturday, 26th._]

When we compared notes the next morning we found that we had all gone
soundly to sleep, too tired to take the Taube seriously, all except our