houses to
rest--but by the end of the week these civilities ceased.

Tales of the German atrocities began to creep in--stories of Liege and
Louvain were circulated from mouth to mouth, and doubtless lost nothing
by being repeated.

[Illustration: MAP OF BELGIUM]

There was no _real_ news at all. Think how cut off we were--certainly it
was nothing in comparison with what it was afterwards--but we could
not know that then--and anyway we learnt to accommodate ourselves to the
lack of news by degrees. Imagine a Continental capital suddenly without
newspapers, without trains, telephones, telegraphs; all that we had
considered up to now essentials of civilized life. Personally, I heard a
good deal of Belgian news, one way and another, as I visited all my
flock each day in their various hospitals and ambulances stationed in
every part of the city.

The hospital that we had to improvise at the fire-station was one of the
most interesting pieces of work we had to do in Brussels. There were 130
beds altogether in six large wards, and the Sisters had to sleep at
first in one, later in two large dormitories belonging to firemen absent
on active service. The firemen who were left did all the cooking
necessary for the nursing staff and patients, and were the most charming
of men, leaving nothing undone that could augment the Sisters' comfort.

It is a great strain on temper and endurance for women to work and sleep
and eat together in such close quarters, and on the whole they stood
the test well. In a very few days the fire-station was transformed into
a hospital, and one could tell the Sisters with truth that the wards
looked _almost_ like English ones. Alas and alas! At the end of the week
the Germans put in eighty soldiers with sore feet, who had over-marched,
and the glorious vision of nursing Tommy Atkins at the front faded into
the prosaic reality of putting hundreds of cold compresses on German
feet, that they might be ready all the sooner to go out and kill our
men. War is a queer thing!!

* * * * *

On the following Tuesday afternoon the Burgomaster of Charleroi came
into Brussels in an automobile asking for nurses and bringing with him a
permit for this purpose from the German authorities. Charleroi, which
was now also in German hands, was in a terrible state, and most of the
city burnt down to the ground. It was crammed with wounded--both French
and German--every warehouse and cotta