We thought that the Belgian Army would be quartered in Bruges, and that we should find a hospital there and serve the Army from that base.
We took our wounded to the Convent, and set out to find quarters for ourselves in the town. We had orders to meet at the Convent again at a certain hour.
Most of the Corps were being put up at the Convent. The rest of us had to look for rooms.
In the search I got separated from the Corps, and wandered about the streets of Bruges with much interest and a sense of great intimacy and leisure. By the time I had found a pension in a narrow street behind the market-place, I felt it to be quite certain that we should stay in Bruges at least as long as we had stayed in Ghent, and what moments I could spare from the obsession of Ghent I spent in contemplating the Belfry. Very soon it was time to go back to the Convent. The way to the Convent was through many tortuous streets, but I was going in the right direction, accompanied by a kind Flamand and her husband, when at the turn by the canal bridge I was nearly run over by one of our own ambulance cars. It was Bert's car, and he was driving with fury and perturbation away from the Convent and towards the town. Janet McNeil was with him. They stopped to tell me that we had orders to clear out of Bruges. The Germans had taken Ghent and were coming on to Bruges. We had orders to go on to Ostend.
We found the rest of the cars drawn up in a street near the Convent. We had not been two hours in Bruges, and we left it, if anything, quicker than we had come in. The flat land fairly dropped away before our speed. I sat on the back step of the leading car, and I shall never forget the look of those ambulances, three in a line, as they came into sight scooting round the turns on the road to Ostend.
Besides the wounded we had brought from Ghent, we took with us three footsore Tommies whom we had picked up in Bruges. They had had a long march. The stoutest, biggest and most robust of these three fainted just as we drew up in the courtyard of the Kursaal at Ostend.
[Ostend.]
The Kursaal had been taken by some English and American women and turned into a Hospital. It was filled already to overflowing, but they found room for our wounded for the night. Ostend was to be evacuated in the morning. In fact, we were considered to be running things rather fine by staying here instead of going on straight to Dunkirk. It was supposed that if the Germans were not yet in Bruges they might be there any minute.
But we had had so many premature orders to clear out, and the Germans had always been hours behind time, and we judged it a safe risk. Besides, there were forty-seven Belgian wounded in Bruges, and three of our ambulance cars were going back to fetch them.
There was some agitation as to who would and who wouldn't be allowed to go back to Bruges. The Commandant was at first inclined to reject his Secretary as unfit. But if you take him the right way he is fairly tractable, and I managed to convince him that nothing but going back to Bruges could make up for my failure to go back to Ghent. He earned my everlasting gratitude by giving me leave. As for Mrs. Torrence, she had no difficulty. She was obviously competent.