A new assistant orderly was there as well. A pious looking individual in
specs. He worked as if manual labour pained him, and was always studying
out of a musty little book. He was desperately keen to learn English and
spoke it on every possible occasion; was intensely stupid as an orderly
and obstinate as a mule. He was trying in the extreme. One day he told
me he was intended for higher things and would soon be a priest in the
Church. Sister Lampen, who was so quick and thorough herself, found him
particularly tiresome, and used to refer to him as her "cross" in life!
One day she called him to account, and, in an exasperated voice said,
"What are you supposed to be doing here, Louis, anyway? Are you an
orderly or aren't you?" "_Mees_," he replied piously, rolling his eyes
upwards, "I am learning to be a father!" I gave a shriek of delight and
hastened up to tea in the top room with the news.

We were continually having what was known as _alertes_, that the Germans
were advancing on the town. We had boxes ready in all the Wards with a
list on the lid indicating what particular dressings, etc., went in
each. None of the _alertes_, however, materialized. We heard later it
was only due to a Company of the gallant Buffs throwing themselves into
the breach that the road to Calais had been saved.

There were several exciting days spent up at our Dressing Station at
Hoogstadt, and one day to our delight we heard that three of the
F.A.N.Y.'s, who had been in the trenches during a particularly bad
bombardment, were to be presented with the Order of Leopold II. A daily
paper giving an account of this dressing station headed it, in their
enthusiasm, "Ten days without a change of clothes. Brave Yeomanry
Nurses!"

It was a coveted job to post the letters and then go down to the Quay to