Went down to the "Flandria." They say Zele has been taken. There has been terrific anxiety here for Ursula Dearmer and the two Belgian nurses (Madame F.'s daughter and niece), who were left there all night in the convent, which may very well be in the hands of the Germans by now. An Ambulance car went off very early this morning to their rescue and has brought them back safe.
We are told that the Germans are really advancing on Ghent. We have orders to prepare to leave it at a minute's notice. This time it looks as if there might be something in it.
I attend to the Commandant's correspondence. Wired Mr. Hastings. Wired Miss F. definitely accepting the Field Ambulance Corps and nurses she has raised in Glasgow. Her idea is that her Ambulance should be an independent unit attached to our corps but bearing her name. (Seems rather a pity to bring the poor lady out just now when things are beginning to be risky and our habitations uncertain.)
The British troops are pouring into Ghent. There is a whole crowd of them in the Place in front of the Station. And some British wounded from Antwerp are in our Hospital.
Heavy fighting at Lokeren, between Ghent and Saint Nicolas. Car 1 has been sent there with the Commandant, Ursula Dearmer, Janet McNeil and the Chaplain (Mr. Foster has been hurt in lifting a stretcher; he is out of it, poor man). Mrs. Torrence, Dr. Wilson and Mr. Riley have been sent to Nazareth. Mrs. Lambert has gone to Lokeren with her husband in his car.
I was sent for this morning by somebody who desired to see the English Field Ambulance. Drawn up before the Hospital I found all that was left of a Hendon bus, in the charge of two British Red Cross volunteers in khaki and a British tar. The three were smiling in full enjoyment of the high comedy of disaster. They said they were looking for a job, and they wanted to know if our Ambulance would take them on. They were keen. They had every qualification under the sun.
"Only," they said, "there's one thing we bar. And that's the firing-line. We've been under shell-fire for fifteen hours—and look at our bus!"
The bus was a thing of heroism and gorgeous ruin. The nose of its engine looked as if it had nuzzled its way through a thousand débâcles; its dark-blue sides were coated with dust and mud to the colour of an armoured car. The letters M. E. T. were barely discernible through the grey. Its windows were shattered to mere jags and spikes and splinters of glass that adhered marvellously to their frames.
I don't know how I managed to convey to the three volunteers that such a bus would be about as much use to our Field Ambulance as an old greenhouse that had come through an earthquake. It was one of the saddest things I ever had to do.
Unperturbed, and still credulous of adventure, they climbed on to their bus, turned her nose round, and went, smiling, away.