[Illustration: AboveEasing the pain of the wounded in an evacuation hospital in France.

It was evident that some extraordinary blunder had been made; and while we were in doubt as to what to do, a second order came to us cancelling entirely the evacuation order which we and all the other hospitals in Antwerp had received a few hours before.

At 11:40 a. m., General Brooke, Admiral Schley and General Gordon, the United States evacuation commissioners, came out of the palace with many naval officers and formed on the right side of the square.

The pulse of the first was raised, the urine high coloured, and the evacuations destitute of their usual quantity of bile.

I must add that this evacuation plan was not intended by me to be a mere threat.