But you needn't stand still any more. After the first service the bowls have to be cleared from the tables and washed and laid ready for the next. Round the great wooden tubs there is a frightful competition. It is who can wash and dry and carry back the quickest. You contend with brawny Flemish women for the first dip into the tub and the driest towel. Then you race round the tables with your pile of crockery, and then with your jug, and so on over and over again for three hours, till the last relay is fed and the tables are deserted. You wash up again and it is all over for you till six o'clock to-morrow evening.
You go back to your mess-room and a ten-o'clock supper of cold coffee and sandwiches and Belgian current loaf eaten with butter. And in a nightmare afterwards Belgian refugees gather round you and pluck at your sleeve and cry to you for more bread: "Une petite tranche de pain, s'il vous plaît, mademoiselle!"
[Wednesday, 30th.]
No Germans, nor sign of Germans yet.
Fighting is reported at Saint Nicolas, between Antwerp and Ghent. The Commandant has an idea. He says that if the Belgian Army has to meet the Germans at Saint Nicolas, so as to cut off their advance on Antwerp, the base hospital must be removed from Ghent to some centre or point which will bring the Ambulance behind the Belgian lines. He thinks that working from Ghent would necessarily bring it behind the German lines. This is assuming that the Germans coming up from the south-east will cut in between Saint Nicolas and Ghent.
He consults the President, who apparently thinks that the base hospital will do very well where it is.
[2.30.]
Mrs. Torrence brought her Colonel in to lunch. He is battered and grizzled, but still a fine figure in the dark-green uniform of the Motor Cyclist Corps. He is very polite and gallant à la belge and vows that he has taken on Mrs. Torrence pour toujours, pour la vie! She diverts the flow of urbanity adroitly.
Except the Colonel nothing noteworthy seems to have occurred to-day. The three hours at the Palais des Fêtes were like the three hours last night.
[Thursday, October 1st.]