m is more like a prison than any view from
the "Flandria," but I take it. I am not deceived by appearances, and I
recognize that the peace of God is there.

It is a relief to think that poor Max will have one less to work for.

At the "Flandria" we find that the Military Power has put its foot down.
The General--he cannot have a spark of the New Chivalry in his brutal
breast--has ordered Mrs. Torrence off her chauffeur's job. You see the
grizzled Colonel as the image of protest and desolation, helpless in the
hands of the implacable Power. You are sorry for Mrs. Torrence (she has
seen practically no service with the ambulance as yet), but she, at any
rate, has had her fling. No power can take from her the memory of those
two days.

Still, something is going to be done to-morrow, and this time, even the
miserable Reporter is to have a look in. The Commandant has another
scheme for a temporary hospital or a dressing-station or something, and
to-morrow he is going with Car 1 to Courtrai to reconnoitre for a
position and incidentally to see the French troops. A God-sent
opportunity for the Reporter; and Janet McNeil is going, too. We are to
get up at six o'clock in the morning and start before seven.

[_Friday, October 2nd._]

We get up at six.

We hang about till eight-thirty or nine. A fine rain begins to fall. An
ominous rain. Car 1 and Car 2 are drawn up at the far end of the
Hospital yard. The rain falls ominously over the yellow-brown, trodden
clay of the yard. There is an ominous look of preparation about the
cars. There is also an ominous light in the blue eyes of the chauffeur
Tom.

The chauffeur Tom appears as one inspired by hatred of the whole human
race. You would say that he was also hostile to the entire female sex.
For Woman in her right place he may, he probably does, feel tenderness
and reverence. Woman in a field ambulance he despises and abhors. I
really think it was the sight of us that accounted for his depression at
Ostend. I have gathered from Mrs. Torrence that the chauffeur Tom has
none of the New Chivalry about him. He is the mean and brutal male, the
crass obstructionist who grudges women their laurels in the equal field.

I know the dreadful, blasphemous and abominable things that Tom is
probably thinking about me as I climb on to his car. He is visibly
disgusted with his orders. That he, a Red Cross Field Ambulance
chauffeur, should be told to drive four--or is it all five?--women to