surprising as they said they intended sending the whole lot of us to
Liège. That was not pleasant news. Liège was rather uncomfortably near
Germany, and as we were not being sent to work there it sounded
remarkably like being imprisoned. Every one who could exerted themselves
on our behalf; the American Consul in particular went over and over
again to vainly try to get the commandant to change his mind. We were to
start on Monday morning, and on Sunday at midday the order still stood.
But at four o'clock that afternoon we got a message to say that our
gracious masters had changed our sentence, and that we were to go to
England when it suited their pleasure to send us. But this did not suit
_my_ pleasure at all. Twenty-six nurses had been entrusted to my care by
the St. John's Committee, four were still at M., and one at Tirlemont,
and I did not mean to quit Belgian soil if I could help it, leaving five
of them behind. So I took everything very quietly, meaning to stay
behind at the last minute, and change into civilian dress, which I took
care to provide myself with.

Then began a long period of waiting. Not one of my nurses was working,
though there were a great many wounded in Brussels, and we knew that
they were short-handed. There was nothing to do but to walk about the
streets and read the new _affiches_, or proclamations, which were put up
almost every day, one side in French, the other side in German, so that
all who listed might read. They were of two kinds. One purported to give
the news, which was invariably of important German successes and
victories. The other kind were orders and instructions for the behaviour
of the inhabitants of Brussels. It was possible at that time to buy
small penny reprints of all the proclamations issued since the German
occupation. They were not sold openly as the Germans were said to forbid
their sale, but after all they could hardly punish people for reissuing
what they themselves had published. Unfortunately I afterwards lost my