"My Christmas! I should rather hope so! Upstairs scraping off the top-crust before I take her to Eccleston Square. Don’t do to startle the Mater. She’s been frightfully off-colour with worry over her precious youngest. You see, Brenda was due home for the Autumn holidays from the Convent of the Dames de l’Annonciation at Huin on the Sambre, when the War broke out. And—Huin’s near Charleroi, where they say the Germans are—and we’d nary a letter, and no answer to a hailstorm of wires from the Mater. So I got passes and permits on the Q.T. and skipped over to Ostend—to see what might be done." "And you got through?" "Did I? Not much! We don’t get things properly rubbed into us—tucked away in our blessed old island. I forgot that Belgian trains wouldn’t be running from Ostend to Brussels, now the Germans have got a grab on there.... As for getting South-East by Courtrai and Valenciennes—all trains were required by the Allies for military purposes. Perhaps if I’d been a hefty War Correspondent or an Army Nursing Sister or a V.A.D. in diamond earrings and a Red Cross armlet, I’d have had a chance. But I’m doubtful! Transport officers, English and Belgian, keep their mouths shut—and once they’ve opened them to say "No!" they never open ’em again. And"—Rhona breathed as though she had been running—"there were Official War News placards stuck up at the Customs Office, and on the quays and at the Préfecture. They said that the Germans under von Buelow have been having a scrap with the 5th French Army on the Sambre—from Namur to Charleroi—and that the French have been beaten back. And the hospitals are crowded with Belgian and German wounded"—she gulped and something twinkled on her pale eyelashes—"and trains crammed with more keep coming in and in. I’ve seen some sights, I tell you, that gave me horrors. That showed me, even more than those Ostend quays and wharves and squares and Places—packed solid with refugees—Great Christmas!—shall I ever forget ’em!—the devilish, hellish work of War!" "Refugees.... Common people?" Margot was a little puzzled. Rhona nodded and repeated: