to say this to Mrs. Torrence. My voice doesn't
sound at all like the stern voice of duty. It is the voice of somebody
enjoying herself. I am behaving exactly as I behaved this morning at
Ostend; and cannot possibly hope for any sympathy from Mrs. Torrence.

But Mrs. Torrence has unbent a little. She has in fact been unbending
gradually ever since we left Ostend. There is a softer light in her
beautiful eyes. For she is not only a trained nurse but an expert
motorist; and a Daimler is a Daimler even when it's an ambulance car.
From time to time remarks of a severely technical nature are exchanged
between her and Tom. Still, up till now, nothing has passed to indicate
any flagging in the relentless spirit of the ---- Hospital.

The next minute I hear that the desire of Mrs. Torrence's heart is to
get into the greatest possible danger--and to get out of it.

The greatest possible danger is to fall into the hands of the Uhlans. I
feel that I should be very glad indeed to get out of it, but that I'm
not by any means so keen on getting in. I say so. I confess frankly
that I'm afraid of Uhlans, particularly when they're drunk.

But Mrs. Torrence is not afraid of anything. There is no German living,
drunk or sober, who could break her spirit. Nothing dims for her that
shining vision of the greatest possible danger. She does not know what
fear is.

I conceive an adoration for Mrs. Torrence, and a corresponding distaste
for myself. For I do know what fear is. And in spite of the little
steadily-mounting thrill, I remember distinctly those five weeks of
frightful anticipation when I knew that I must go out to the War; the
going to bed, night after night, drugged with horror, black horror that
creeps like poison through your nerves; the falling asleep and
forgetting it; the waking, morning after morning, with an energetic and
lucid brain that throws out a dozen war pictures to the minute like a
ghastly cinema show, till horror becomes terror; the hunger for
breakfast; the queer, almost uncanny revival of courage that follows its
satisfaction; the driving will that strengthens as the day goes on and
slackens its hold at evening. I remember one evening very near the end;
the Sunday evening when the Commandant dropped in, after he had come
back from Belgium. We were stirring soup over the gas stove in the
scullery--you couldn't imagine a more peaceful scene--when he said,
"They are bringing up the heavy siege guns from Namur, and