d nurses and doctors, but I think they do not question
anything much. They only want to go to sleep.

[Page Heading: A VISIT FROM SOME DESERTERS]

I suppose that women would always be tender-hearted towards deserters.
Three of them arrived at the hospital to-day with some absurd story
about having been told to report themselves. We got them supper and a
hot bath and put them to bed. One can't regret it. I never saw men sleep
as they did. All through the noise of the wounded being brought in, all
through the turned-up lights and bustle they never even stirred, but a
sergeant discovered them, and at 3 a.m. they were marched away again. We
got them breakfast and hot tea, and at least they had had a few hours
between clean sheets. These men seem to carry so much, and the roads are
heavy.

At 5 o'clock I went to bed and slept till 8. Mrs. Stobart never rests. I
think she must be made of some substance that the rest of us have not
discovered. At 5 a.m. I discovered her curled up on a bench in her
office, the doors wide open and the dawn breaking.

_2 October._--Here is a short account of one whole day. Firing went on
all night, sometimes it came so near that the vibration of it was rather
startling. In the early morning we heard that the forts had been heavily
fired on. One of them remained silent for a long time, and then the
garrison lighted cart-loads of straw in order to deceive the Germans,
who fell into the trap, thinking the fort was disabled and on fire, and
rushed in to take it. They were met with a furious cannonade. But one of
the other forts has fallen.

At 7 a.m. the men's bread had not arrived for their 6 o'clock breakfast,
so I went into the town to get it. The difficulty was to convey home
twenty-eight large loaves, so I went to the barracks and begged a
motor-car from the Belgian officer and came back triumphant. The
military cars simply rip through the streets, blowing their horns all
the time. Antwerp was thronged with these cars, and each one contained
soldiers. Sometimes one saw wounded in them lying on sacks stuffed with
straw.

I came down to breakfast half-an-hour late (8 o'clock) and we had our
usual fare--porridge, bread and margarine, and tea with tinned
milk--amazingly nasty, but quite wholesome and filling at the price. We
have reduced our housekeeping to ninepence per head per day. After
breakfast I cleaned the two houses, as I do every morning, made nine
beds, swept floors and dusted stai