The whole system of Field Medical Service has altered since South Africa. The wounded are picked up on the field by the _regimental stretcher-bearers_, who are generally the band, trained in First Aid and Stretcher Drill. They take them to the Bearer Section of the _Field Ambulance_ (which used to be called Field Hospital), who take them to the Tent Section of the same Field Ambulance, who have been getting the _Dressing Station_ ready with sterilisers, &c., while the Bearer Section are fetching them from the regimental stretcher-bearers. They are all drilled to get this ready in twenty minutes in tents, but it takes longer in farmhouses. The Field Ambulance then takes them in ambulance waggons (with lying down and sitting accommodation) to the _Clearing Hospital_, with beds, and returns empty to the Dressing Station. From the Clearing Hospital they go on to the _Stationary Hospital_--200 beds--which is on a railway, and finally in hospital trains to the _General Hospital_, their last stopping-place before they get shipped off to _Netley_ and all the English hospitals. The General Hospitals are the only ones at present to carry Sisters; 500 beds is the minimum, and they are capable of expanding indefinitely. There is a large staff of harassed-looking landing officers here, with A.M.L.O. on a white armband for the medical people; a great many troopships are coming from Southampton; you hear them booing their signals in the harbour all night and day. I've had my first letter from England, from a patient at ----. The Field Service post-card is quite good as a means of communication, but frightfully tantalising from our point of view. We had a very good night on our mattresses, but it was rather cold towards morning with only one rug. They have a Carter-Paterson motor-van for the Military mail-cart at the M.P.O., and two Tommies sit by a packing-case with a slit in the lid for the letter-box. _Saturday, August 22nd._--The worst has happened. No.-- is to stop at Havre; in camp three miles out. So No.-- and No.-- are both staying here. Meanwhile to-day Nos.--, --, and -- have all arrived; 130 more Sisters besides the 86 already here are packed into this Convent, camping out in dining-halls and schoolrooms and passages. The big Chapel below and the wee Chapel on this floor seem to be the only unoccupied places now. Havre is a big base for the France part of our Expeditionary Force. Troopships are arriving every day, and every fighting man is being hurried up to the Front, and they cannot block the lines and trains with all these big hospitals yet. The news from the Front looks bad to-day--Namur under heavy fire, and the Germans pressing on Antwerp, and the French chased out of Lorraine.