[Page Heading: THE SITUATION GETS WORSE]

The news is still the same--"very bad"; sometimes I walk to the gate and
ask returning soldiers how the battle goes, but the answer never varies.
At lunch-time to-day firing ceased, and I heard it was because the
German guns were coming up. We got orders to send away all the wounded
who could possibly go, and we prepared beds in the cellars for those who
cannot be moved. The military authorities beg us to remain as so many
hospitals have been evacuated.

The wounded continue to come in. One sees one car in the endless stream
moving slowly (most of them _fly_ with their officers sitting upright,
or with aeroplanes on long carriages), and one knows by the pace that
more wounded are coming. Inside one sees the horrible six shelves behind
the canvas curtain, and here and there a bound-up limb or head. One of
our men had his leg taken off to-day, and is doing well. Nothing goes on
much behind the scenes. The yells of the men are plainly heard, and
to-day, as I sat beside the lung man who was taking so long to die,
someone brought a sack to me, and said, "This is for the leg." All the
orderlies are on duty in the hospital now. We can spare no one for
rougher work. We can all bandage and wash patients. There are wounded
everywhere, even on straw beds on the platform of the hall.

Darkness seems to fall early, and it is the darkness that is so
baffling. At 5 p.m. we have to feed everyone while there is a little
light, then the groping about begins, and everyone falls over things.
There is a clatter of basins on the floor or an over-turned chair. Any
sudden noise is rather trying at present because of the booming of the
guns. At 7 last night they were much louder than before, with a sort of