expanding indefinitely.

There is a large staff of harassed-looking landing officers here, with
A.M.L.O. on a white armband for the medical people; a great many
troopships are coming from Southampton; you hear them booing their
signals in the harbour all night and day.

I've had my first letter from England, from a patient at ----. The Field
Service post-card is quite good as a means of communication, but
frightfully tantalising from our point of view.

We had a very good night on our mattresses, but it was rather cold
towards morning with only one rug.

They have a Carter-Paterson motor-van for the Military mail-cart at the
M.P.O., and two Tommies sit by a packing-case with a slit in the lid for
the letter-box.

_Saturday, August 22nd._--The worst has happened. No.-- is to stop at
Havre; in camp three miles out. So No.-- and No.-- are both staying
here.

Meanwhile to-day Nos.--, --, and -- have all arrived; 130 more Sisters
besides the 86 already here are packed into this Convent, camping out in
dining-halls and schoolrooms and passages. The big Chapel below and the
wee Chapel on this floor seem to be the only unoccupied places now.

Havre is a big base for the France part of our Expeditionary Force.
Troopships are arriving every day, and every fighting man is being
hurried up to the Front, and they cannot block the lines and trains with
all these big hospitals yet.

The news from the Front looks bad to-day--Namur under heavy fire, and
the Germans pressing on Antwerp, and the French chased out of Lorraine.

Everybody is hoping it doesn't mean staying here permanently, but you
never know your luck. It all depends what happens farther up, and of
course one might have the luck to be added to a hospital farther up to
fill up casualties among Sisters or if more were wanted.

The base hospitals, of course, are always filling up from up country
with men who may be able to return to duty, and acute or hopeless cases
who have to be got well enough for a hospital ship for home.

There is to be a Requiem Mass to-morrow at Notre Dame for those who have
been killed in the war, and the whole nave and choir is reserved for
officials and Red Cross people. It is a most beautiful church, now hung
all over with the four flags of the Allies. An old woman in the church
this morning asked us if we were going to the Blesses, and clasped our
hands and blessed us and wept. She must have had some sons in the army.

We are simpl