but which is in reality the backbone of the hospital's work.

When we first started in Antwerp, the rush of cases was so great as to
be positively overwhelming. For more than twenty-four hours the
surgeons in the theatre were doing double work, two tables being
kept going at the same time. During that time a hundred and fifty
wounded were admitted, all of them serious cases, and the hospital
was full to overflowing. For the next ten days we were kept busy, but
then our patients began to recover, and many of them had to go away
to military convalescent hospitals. The wards began to look deserted,
and yet no more patients arrived. We began to think that it was all a
mistake that we had come, that there would be no more fighting round
Antwerp, and that we were not wanted. Indeed, we canvassed the
possibilities of work in other directions, and in the meantime we drew
up elaborate arrangements to occupy our time. There were to be
courses of lectures and demonstrations in the wards, and supplies of
books and papers were to be obtained. Alas for the vanity of human
schemes, the wounded began to pour in again, and not a lecture was
given.

During that slack week we took the opportunity to see a certain
amount of Antwerp, and to call on many officials and the many friends
who did so much to make our work there a success and our stay a
pleasure. To one lady we can never be sufficiently grateful. She
placed at our disposal her magnificent house, a perfect palace in the
finest quarter of the city. Several of our nurses lived there, we had a
standing invitation to dinner, and, what we valued still more, there
were five bathrooms ready for our use at any hour of the day. Their
drawing-room had been converted into a ward for wounded officers,
and held about twenty beds. One of the daughters had trained as a