thirteen of us to the Town Hall to have our passports
_vises_. And the Commandant is rounding up his Corps, and Ursula Dearmer
is heaven knows where, and Mrs. Lambert only somewhere in the middle
distance, and Mrs. Torrence's beautiful eyes are blazing at the
slip-sloppiness of it all. Things were very different at the ----
Hospital, where she was trained.

Only the President remains imperturbable.

For, after all this fuming and fretting, the President isn't quite ready
himself, or perhaps the Town Hall isn't ready, and we all stroll about
the streets of Ostend for half an hour. And the Commandant goes off by
himself, to buy that hat.

It is a terrible half-hour. But after all, he comes back without it,
judging it better to bear the ills he has.

Very leisurely, and with an immense consumption of time, we stroll and
get photographed for our passports. Then on to the Town Hall, and then
to the Military Depot for our _Laissez-passer_, and then to the Hotel
Terminus for lunch. And at one-thirty we are off.

Whatever happens, whatever we see and suffer, nothing can take from us
that run from Ostend to Ghent.

We go along a straight, flat highway of grey stones, through flat, green
fields and between thin lines of trees--tall and slender and delicate
trees. There are no hedges. Only here and there a row of poplars or
pollard willows is flung out as a screen against the open sky. This
country is formed for the very expression of peace. The straight flat
roads, the straight flat fields and straight tall trees stand still in
an immense quiet and serenity. We pass low Flemish houses with white
walls and red roofs. Their green doors and shutters are tall and slender
like the trees, the colours vivid as if the paint had been laid on
yesterday. It is all unspeakably beautiful and it comes to me with the
natural, inevitable shock and ecstasy of beauty. I am going straight
into the horror of war. For all I know it may be anywhere, here, behind
this sentry; or there, beyond that line of willows. I don't know. I
don't care. I cannot realize it. All that I can see or feel at the
moment is this beauty. I look and look, so that I may remember it.

Is it possible that I am enjoying myself?

I dare not tell Mrs. Torrence. I dare not tell any of the others. They
seem to me inspired with an austere sense of duty, a terrible integrity.
They know what they are here for. To me it is incredible that I should
be here.

I am in Car 1.,