is excited.

There is something about it that reminds me now of the eager little
Englishman at Melle. These figures spring up everywhere in the track of
a field ambulance.

When Tom sees it he groans in despair.

The Commandant gets out and appears to be offering it the hospitality of
the car. I am introduced.

To my horror the figure skips round in front of the car, levels its
kodak at my head and implores me to sit still.

I am very rude. I tell it sternly to take that beastly thing away and go
away itself.

It goes, rather startled.

And we get off, somehow, without it, and arrive at the end of the
street.

Here Tom has orders to stop at the first hat-shop he comes to.

The Commandant has lost his hat at Melle (he has been wearing little
Janet's Arctic cap, to the delight of everybody). He has just remembered
that he wants a hat and he thinks that he will get it now.

At this point I break down. I hear myself say "Damn" five times, softly
but distinctly. (This after reproving Tom for unfettered speech and
potential insubordination.)

Tom stops at a hat-shop. The Commandant to his doom enters, and
presently returns wearing a soft felt hat of a vivid green. He asks me
what I think of it.

I tell him all I think of it, and he says that if I feel like that about
it he'll go in again and get another one.

I forget what I said then except that I wanted to get on to Melle. That
Melle was the place of all places where I most wished to be.

Then, lest he might feel unhappy in his green hat, I said that if he
would leave it out all night in the rain and then sit on it no doubt
time and weather and God would do something for it.

This time we were off, and when I realized it I said "Hurray!"[23]

Tom had not said anything for some considerable time.

We found the British lines in a little village just outside of Ghent.
No place there for a base hospital.

We hung about here for twenty minutes, and the women and children came
out to stare at us with innocent, pathetic faces.

Somebody had stowed away one of the trophies--the spiked German
helmet--in the ambulance car, and the chauffeur Tom stuck it on a stick
and held it up before the British lines. It was greeted with cheers and
a great shout of laughter from the troops; and the villagers came
running out of their houses to look; they uttered little sharp and
guttural cries of satisfaction. The whole thing was a bit savage and
barbaric and horribly imp