two chauffeurs, who were downright annoyed because no bomb had entered
their bedroom. Then we all went out and looked at the little hole in the
roof of the fish market, and the big hole in the hotel garden, and
thought of bombs as curious natural phenomena that never had and never
would have any intimate connection with _us_.

And for five weeks, ever since I knew that I must certainly go out with
this expedition, I had been living in black funk; in shameful and
appalling terror. Every night before I went to sleep I saw an
interminable spectacle of horrors: trunks without heads, heads without
trunks, limbs tangled in intestines, corpses by every roadside, murders,
mutilations, my friends shot dead before my eyes. Nothing I shall ever
see will be more ghastly than the things I have seen. And yet, before a
possibly-to-be-bombarded Ostend this strange visualizing process
ceases, and I see nothing and feel nothing. Absolutely nothing; until
suddenly the Commandant announces that he is going into the town, by
himself, to _buy a hat_, and I get my first experience of real terror.

For the hats that the Commandant buys when he is by himself--there are
no words for them.

This morning the Corps begins to realize its need of discipline. First
of all, our chauffeurs have disappeared and can nowhere be found. The
motor ambulances languish in inactivity on Cockerill's Wharf. We find
one chauffeur and set him to keep guard over a tin of petrol. We _know_
the ambulances can't start till heaven knows when, and so, first Mrs.
Lambert, our emergency nurse, then, I regret to say, our Secretary and
Reporter make off and sneak into the Cathedral. We are only ten minutes,
but still we are away, and Mrs. Torrence, our trained nurse, is ready
for us when we come back. We are accused bitterly of sight-seeing. (We
had betrayed the inherent levity of our nature the day before, on the
boat, when we looked at the sunset.) Then the Secretary and Reporter,
utterly intractable, wanders forth ostensibly to look for the
Commandant, who has disappeared, but really to get a sight of the motor
ambulances on Cockerill's Wharf. And Mrs. Torrence is ready again for
the Secretary, convicted now of sight-seeing. And I have seen no
Commandant, and no motor ambulances and no wharf. (Unbearable thought,
that I may never, absolutely never, see Cockerill's Wharf!) It is really
awful this time, because the President of the Belgian Red Cross is
waiting to get the