They were soon well known at the trenches, and wherever
the fighting was heaviest you might be sure to find one of them. Many
were the hairbreadth escapes of which they had to tell, for if there
were wounded they brought them out of danger, shells or no shells.
And it says as much for the coolness of the drivers as for their good
luck that no one was ever injured; for danger is halved by cool
judgment, and a bold driver will come safely through where timidity
would fail.

X. The Siege

It is difficult to say exactly when the Siege of Antwerp began. For
weeks we heard the distant boom of the guns steadily drawing nearer
day by day, and all night the sky was lit up by distant flashes. But so
peculiar was the position of Antwerp that it was not till the last ten
days that our life was seriously affected, and not till the very end that
communication with our friends and the getting of supplies became
difficult. Our first real domestic tragedy was the destruction of the
waterworks on the 30th of September. They lay just behind Waelhem,
some six miles south of Antwerp, and into them the Germans poured
from the other side of Malines a stream of 28-centimetre shells, with
the result that the great reservoir burst. Until one has had to do
without a water-supply in a large city it is impossible to realize to what
a degree we are dependent upon it. In Antwerp, fortunately, a water-
supply has been regarded as somewhat of an innovation, and almost
every house, in the better class quarters at least, has its own wells
and pumps. It was, however, the end of the summer, and the wells
were low; our own pumps would give us barely enough water for
drinking purposes. The authorities did all they could, and pumped up
water from the Scheldt for a few hours each day, enabling us, with
considerable difficulty, to keep the drainage system clear. But this
water was tidal and brackish, whilst as to the number of bacteria it
contained it was better not to inquire. We boiled and drank it when we
could get nothing else, but of all the nauseous draughts I have ever
consumed, not excluding certain hospital mixtures of high repute, tea
made with really salt water is the worst. Coffee was a little better,
though not much, and upon that we chiefly relied. But I really think
that that was one of the most unpleasant of our experiences. A more
serious matter from the point of view of our work was the absence of
water in the operating theatre. W