ith her best clothes and her
surgical instruments and the tin--No, not the tin box, for the
Commandant, now possessed by a violent demon of hurry, resisted our
efforts to drag it from its lair.[38]

All these things were piled on Ursula Dearmer's military scouting-car.
The British Red Cross lady (almost incredulous of her good luck) and I
got inside it, and Ursula Dearmer and Mr. Riley drove us to the railway
station.

By the mercy of Heaven a train was to leave for Boulogne either a little
before or a little after one, and we had time to catch it.

There was a long line of refugee _bourgeois_ drawn up before the station
doors, and I noticed that every one of them carried in his hand a slip
of paper.

Ursula Dearmer hailed a porter, who, she said, would look after us like
a father. With a matchless celerity he and Mr. Riley tore down the pile
of luggage. The porter put them on a barrow and disappeared with them
very swiftly through the station doors.

At least I suppose it was through the doors. All we knew was that he
disappeared.

Then Ursula Dearmer handed over to me three cables to be sent from
Dunkirk. I said good-bye to her and Mr. Riley. They got back into the
motor-car, and they, too, very swiftly disappeared.

Mr. Riley went away bearing with him the baffling mystery of his
personality. After nearly three weeks' association with him I know that
Mr. Riley's whole heart is in his job of carrying the wounded. Beyond
that I know no more of him than on the day when he first turned up
before our Committee.

But with Ursula Dearmer it is different. Before the Committee she
appeared as a very young girl, docile, diffident, only half-awake, and
of dubious efficiency. I remember my solemn pledges to her mother that
Ursula Dearmer should not be allowed to go into danger, and how, if
danger insisted on coming to her, she should be violently packed up and
sent home. I remember thinking what a nuisance Ursula Dearmer will be,
and how, when things are just beginning to get interesting, I shall be
told off to see her home.

And Ursula Dearmer, the youngest but one, has gone, not at all docilely
and diffidently, into the greatest possible danger, and come out of it.
And here she is, wide awake and in full command of the Ostend-Dunkirk
expedition. And instead of my seeing her off and all the way home, she
is very thoroughly and competently seeing _me_ off.

At least this was her beautiful intention.

But getting o