ESCAPE FROM ANTWERP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1335, 10 December 1914, Page 4

ESCAPE FROM ANTWERP.

HEROISM OF NURSES. RACE FOR THE BRIDGE. Probably the last woman to leave Antwerp was Mrs St. Clair Stobart, the organiser and director of a hospital for wounded Belgian soldiers. She gave the following stirring account of the siege and of her hospital party’s escape from the city:— “We arranged, if a bombardment began, to remove our wounded into the cellars —three dirty little caves under our kitchen. At midnight on a Wednesday the bombardment began. We were roused by a rushing, fluttering sound through the air that seemed to go burr — bump. “One shot came into the house next to us, and ripped the roof clean off. The house on the other side received another shot, which went through the middle of it. It caught fire. Another shot made a hole six feet deep near the main door of our hospital. Another fell in the road just outside ; another 30yds. away, and another 10yds. beyond that. They might have been firing at the hospital. “The staff that night walked to their sleeping place in the convent across the road with shells flying about. But first they had got their wounded patients safely to the cellars. Slight, frail nurses carried heavy men on their shoulders —the men’s arms around their necks. Shells were bursting all round, but never once did I see anyone taking the slightest notice of them. The nurses’ coolness was marvellous. In half an hour all our 130 patients were packed in the cellars.

"Next day, Thursday, we found nearly all Antwerp had fled. All the shops were shut; no food, not even bread, was to be got. Not a soul was to be seen. At last I found a motor lorry to take away our six most serious cases. We were left with sixteen, who could not move. At 2 o'clock on Thursday we found another motor lorry, and on this we packed 16 wounded, a woman doctor, three nurses and an interpreter, The loading was done with the shells still dropping around us. "We waited for help—three hours, four, five —and nothing came. Then, in desperation, I went out on to the main road, the Chaussee de Malines, to see if I could see anyone, * Imagine my delight at seeing, whirring along the road towards me at a breakneck pace, three London motor omnibuses. I stood in the middle of the road, stretched out my arms and shouted. They were carrying ammunition. I urged them to carry our staff along. "If you’ll be as quick as lightning,” said the driver of one, "we’ll take you along. But we must get beyond the bridge of boats before it is blown up.” I rushed into our hospital, hurried up the staff, and in a few minutes we were sitting in the omnibus, right on the cases of ammunition they were carrying. .There were sixteen ot us. We rushed down into Antwerp and over the bridge just before it was blown up. "On the other side we were put down, and alter going a short way we found ourselves among the lines of soldiers. A Belgian general and three of his staff were there, I went to him and asked could he lend us motor cars to get to somewhere whence we could get to Ostend, He let us have motor cars to take us as far as St. Gilles. Thence we got to Ostend. and over by boat.”

Mrs Stobart also relates tnat the day before the bombardment, while the hospital was being visited by Sir Francis Villiers, the British Minister from Brussels, and I*ady Villiers, a German aeroplane flew over the hospital. The forts at each side fired at it, but the aeroplane sailed on unharmed, The butt end of a shrapnel case fell through the roof and dropped at the foot of the bed of a wounded Belgian soldier.