Dr. Haynes and Dr. Bird have not gone. They and Dr. ---- have joined the surgical staff of the Hospital, and are working in the operating theatre all day. They have got enough to do now in all conscience. All night there has been a sound of the firing of machine guns [?]. At first it was like the barking, of all the dogs in Belgium. I thought it _was_ the dogs of Belgium, till I discovered a deadly rhythm and precision in the barking.[21] [_Friday, 9th._] The Hospital is so full that beds have been put in the entrance hall, along the walls by the big ward and the secretarial bureau. In the recess by the ward there are three British soldiers. There are some men standing about there whose heads and faces are covered with a thick white mask of cotton-wool like a diver's helmet. There are three small holes in each white mask, for mouth and eyes. The effect is appalling. These are the men whose faces have been burned by shell-fire at Antwerp. The Commandant asked me to come with him through the wards and find all the British wounded who are well enough to be sent home. I am to take their names and dress them and get them ready to go by the morning train. There are none in the upper wards. Mr. ---- cannot be moved. He is very ill. They do not think he will live. There are three downstairs in the hall. One is well enough to look after himself (I have forgotten his name). One, Russell, is wounded in the knee. The third, Cameron, a big Highlander, is wounded in the head. He wears a high headdress of bandages wound round and round many times like an Indian turban, and secured by more bandages round his jaw and chin. It is glued tight to one side of his head with clotted blood. Between the bandages his sharp, Highland face looks piteous. I am to dress these two and have them ready by eleven. Dr. ---- of the British Field Hospital, who is to take them over, comes round to enter their names on his list. They are to be dressed in civilian clothes supplied by the Hospital. It all sounded very simple until you tried to get the clothes. First you had to see the President, who referred you to the Matron, who referred you to the clerk in charge of the clothing department. An _infirmier_ (one of the mysterious officials who hang about the hall wearing peaked caps; the problem of their existence was now solved for the first time)--an _infirmier_ was despatched to find the clerk. The clothing department must have been hidden in the remotest recesses of the Hospital, for it was ages before he came back to ask me all over again what clothes would be wanted. He was a little fat man with bright, curly hair, very eager, and very cheerful and very kind. He scuttled off again like a rabbit, and I had to call him back to measure Russell. And when he had measured Russell, with his gay and amiable alacrity, Russell and I had to wait until he came back with the clothes.