Poor Ostend!
Once she had been the very gayest of birds; but now her feathers are stripped, she is bare and shivery. Her big, white, beautiful hotels have dark blinds over all their windows. Her long line of blank, closed fronts of houses and hotels seems to go on for miles. Just here and there one is open. But for the most, everything is dead; and indeed, it is almost impossible to recognise in this haunted place the most brilliant seaside city in Europe.
It is only half-past seven; but all Ostend seems up and about as I enter the big salon and order coffee and rolls.
Suddenly a noise is heard,—shouts, wheels, something indescribable.
Everyone jumps up and runs down the long white restaurant.
Out on the station we run, and just then a motor dashes past us, coming right inside, under the station roof.
It is full of men.
And one is wounded.
My blood turns suddenly cold. I have never seen a wounded soldier before. I remember quite well I said to myself, "Then it is true. I had never really believed before!"
Now they are lifting him out, oh, so tenderly, these four other big, burly Belgians, and they have laid him on a stretcher.