h four holes, fore and aft and on either side of her,
their machine-guns rake the horizon. The Major and Mr. ---- sit inside,
hidden behind the matchboard plating. They scour the country. When they
see any Germans they fire and bring them down. It is quite simple. When
you inquire how they can regard that old wooden rabbit-hutch as an
armoured cover, they reply that their car isn't for defence, it's for
attack. The Germans have only to see their guns and they're off. And
really it looks like it, since the two are actually here before your
eyes, drinking whiskies-and-sodas, and the rest of the armoured car
corps are alive somewhere in Ghent.

Dear Major R. and Mr. ---- (whom I never met before), unless they read
this Journal, which isn't likely, they will never know how my heart
warmed towards them, nor how happy I count myself in being allowed to
see them. They showed me how good it is to be alive; how excellent,
above all things, to be a man and to be young for ever, and to go out
into the most gigantic war in history, sitting in an armoured car which
is as a rabbit-hutch for safety, and to have been a pacifist, that is to
say a sinner, like Mr. ----, so that on the top of it you feel the whole
glamour and glory of conversion. Others may have known the agony and the
fear and sordid filth and horror and the waste, but they know nothing
but the clean and fiery passion and the contagious ecstasy of war.

If you were to tell Mr. ---- about the mystic fascination of the
south-east road, the road that leads eventually to Waterloo, he would
most certainly understand you, but it is very doubtful whether he would
let you venture very far down it. Whereas the Commandant, sooner or
later, will.

[_Thursday, 8th._]

Had breakfast with Mr. L.

Went down to the "Flandria." They say Zele has been taken. There has
been terrific anxiety here for Ursula Dearmer and the two Belgian nurses
(Madame F.'s daughter and niece), who were left there all night in the
convent, which may very well be in the hands of the Germans by now. An
Ambulance car went off very early this morning to their rescue and has
brought them back safe.

We are told that the Germans are really advancing on Ghent. We have
orders to prepare to leave it at a minute's notice. This time it looks
as if there might be something in it.

I attend to the Commandant's correspondence. Wired Mr. Hastings. Wired
Miss F. definitely accepting the Field Ambulance Corps and nur