countered the Colonel (or it may
have been a General) in command. The Colonel (or the General) seems to
have broken down very badly, for the car and Ursula Dearmer and the
Commandant went on towards Termonde. Young Haynes was with them this
time, and on the way they had picked up Mr. G. L----, War Correspondent
to the _Daily Mail_ and _Westminster_. They left the car behind
somewhere in a safe place where the fire from the machine-guns couldn't
reach it. There is a street or a road--I can't make out whether it is
inside or outside the town; it leads straight to the bridge over the
river, which is about as wide there as the Thames at Westminster. The
bridge is the key to the position; it has been blown up and built again
several times in the course of the War, and the Germans are now
entrenched beyond it. The road had been raked by their _mitrailleuses_
the day before.

It seems to have struck the four simultaneously that it would be quite a
good thing to walk down this road on the off-chance of the machine-guns
opening fire again. The tale told by the Commandant evokes an awful
vision of them walking down it, four abreast, the Commandant and Mr. G.
L---- on the outside, fairly under shelter, and Ursula Dearmer and young
Haynes a little in front of them down the middle, where the fire comes,
when it does come. This spectacle seems to have shaken the Commandant in
his view of bombarded towns as suitable places of amusement for young
girls. Young Haynes ought to have known better. You tell him that as
long as the world endures young Haynes will be young Haynes, and if
there is danger in the middle of the road, it is there that he will walk
by preference. And as no young woman of modern times is going to let
herself be outdone by young Haynes, you must expect to find Ursula
Dearmer in the middle of the road too. You cannot suppress this
competitive heroism of young people. The roots strike too deep down in
human nature. In the modern young man and woman competitive heroism has
completely forgotten its origin and is now an end in itself.

And if it comes to that--how about Alost?

At the mention of Alost the Commandant's face becomes childlike again in
its utter simplicity and innocence and candour. Alost was a very
different thing. Looking for shells at Alost, you understand, was like
looking for shells on the seashore. At Alost Ursula Dearmer was in no
sort of danger. For at Alost she was under the Commandant's wing (you