In another room of the hospital I found about forty children, little children varying from six months to five years. Some gentle nuns were playing with them. "Les pauvres petites!" said one of the sisters compassionately. "They've all been lost, or left behind; there's no one to claim them, so we have brought them here to look after them." And the baby gurgled and laughed, and gave a sudden leap in the sweet nun's arms. Out of the hospital again, over the blood-stained doorstep, and back into the car. There were a few devoted doctors and priests standing about in silence in the flower-wreathed passage entrance to the hospital. They were waiting for The End, waiting for the Germans to come in. I can see them still, standing there in their white coats, or long black cassocks, staring down the passage. A great hush hung over everything, and through the hush we slid into the awful streets again, with the houses lying on the ground. Before we had gone far, we heard shouts, and turning my head I discovered some wounded soldiers, limping along a side-road, who were begging us to give them a lift towards the boat. We filled the car so full that we all had to stand up, except those who could not stand. Bandaged heads and faces were all around me, while bandaged soldiers rode on the foot-board, clinging to whatever they could get hold of, and then we moved towards the quay. It was heart-breaking to have to deny the scores of limping, broken men who shouted to us to stop, but as soon as we had deposited one load we went back and picked up others and ran them back to the quay, and that we did time after time. A few of the men were our own Tommies, but most were Belgians. Backwards and forwards we rushed, backwards and forwards, and now that dear Henri's eyes were shining, his sallow, pie-coloured face was lit up, he no longer looked tired and dull and heavy, he was on fire with excitement. And the car raced like mad backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, venturing right out towards the forts and back again to the quay, until at last reaction set in with Henri and he was obliged to take the car back to the hotel, where he fell in a crumpled heap in a corner of the restaurant. As we came in the patronne handed me a note. "While you were out," she said, looking at me sorrowfully, "M. Fox and M. Jones returned on their bicycles to look for you." Then I read Mr. Fox's kind message. "We have managed to secure passages on a special military boat for Flushing that leaves at half-past eleven and of course we have got one for you. We have come back for you, but you are not here. Your car has arrived, so you will be all right, I hope. You have seen the bombardment through, bravo!" I was glad they had got away. But for myself some absolutely irresistible force held me to Antwerp, and I now slipped quietly out of the hotel and started off on a solitary walk. CHAPTER XXXVI A SOLITARY WALK