ly the English would come!"
Later they got more bitter and we heard, "Why don't the English come and
help us as they promised? If only the English would come, it would be
all right." And so on, till I almost felt as if I could not bear it any
longer. One morning some one came in and said English soldiers had been
seen ten kilometres away. We heard the sound of distant cannon in a new
direction, and watched and waited, hoping to see the English ride in.
But some one must have mistaken the German khaki for ours, for no
English were ever near that place. There was no news of what was really
happening in the country, no newspapers ever got through, and we had
nothing to go upon but the German _affiches_ proclaiming victories
everywhere, the German trains garlanded with laurels and faded roses,
marked "Destination--Paris," and the large batches of French prisoners
that were constantly marched through the town. An inscription written
over a doorway in Charleroi amused us rather: "Vive Guillaume II, roi de
l'univers." Not yet, not yet, William.

Later on the Belgians issued a wonderful little newspaper at irregular
intervals of three or four days, typewritten and passed from hand to
hand. The most amazing news was published in it, which we always firmly
believed, till it was contradicted in the next issue. I collected two or
three copies of this paper as a curiosity, but unfortunately lost them
later on, with all my papers and luggage. One or two items I remember
quite well. One gave a vivid account of how the Queen of Holland had
killed her husband because he had allowed the Germans to pass through
Maestricht; another even more circumstantial story was that England had
declared war on Holland, Holland had submitted at once, and England
imposed many stringent conditions, of which I only remember two. One
was, that all her trade with Germany should cease at once; secondly,
that none of her lighthouses should show light at night.

One of the German surgeons who used to operate at our hospital was
particularly ingenious in inventing tortures for me; I used to have to
help him in his operations, and he would recount to me with gusto how
the English had retreated from Mons, how the Germans were getting nearer
and nearer to Paris, how many English killed, wounded and prisoners
there were, and so on. One morning he began about the Fleet and said
that a great battle was going on in the North Sea, and going very badly
for the English.