chance of being taken when the
Commandant comes and goes out again.

[_4.45._]

He is not back yet. I am very anxious. The Germans may be in Melle by
now.

One of the old officials in peaked caps has called on me solemnly this
afternoon. He is the most mysterious of them all, an old man with a
white moustache, who never seems to do anything but hang about. He is
certainly not an _infirmier_. He called ostensibly to ask some question
and remained to talk. I think he thought he would pump me. He began by
asking if we women enjoyed going out with the Field Ambulance; he
supposed we felt very daring and looked on the whole thing as an
adventure. I detected some sinister intention, and replied that that was
not exactly the idea; that our women went out to help to save the lives
of the wounded soldiers, and that they had succeeded in this object over
and over again; and that I didn't imagine they thought of anything much
except their duty. We certainly were not out for amusement.

Then he took another line. He told me that the reason why our Ambulance
is to be put under the charge of the British General here (we had heard
that the whole of the Belgian Army was shortly to be under the control
of the British, and the whole of the Belgian Red Cross with it)--the
reason is that its behaviour in going into the firing-line has been
criticized. And when I ask him on what grounds, it turns out that
somebody thinks there is a risk of our Ambulance drawing down the fire
on the lines it serves. I told him that in all the time I had been with
the Ambulance it had never placed itself in any position that could
possibly have drawn down fire on the Belgians, and that I had never
heard of any single instance of this danger; and I made him confess that
there was no proof or even rumour of any single instance when it had
occurred. I further told the old gentleman very plainly that these
things ought not to be said or repeated, and that every man and woman in
the English Ambulance would rather lose their own life than risk that of
one Belgian soldier.

The old gentleman was somewhat flattened out before he left me; having
"_parfaitement compris_."

It is a delicious idea that Kitchener and Joffre should be reorganizing
the Allied Armies because of the behaviour of our Ambulance.

There are Gordon Highlanders in Ghent.[29]

* * * * *

Went over to the Couvent de Saint Pierre, where Miss Ashley-Smith is