"Mr. Lambert" and the scouting-car was one of
those things that ought never to have happened. It turned out that the
car was not the property of his paper, but his own car, hired and
maintained by him at great expense; that this brave and devoted young
American had joined our Corps before it left England and gone out to the
front to wait for us. And he was kept waiting long after we got there.

But if he didn't see as much service at Ghent as he undertook to see
(though he did some fine things on his own even there), it was made up
to him in Flanders afterwards, when, with the Commandant and other
members of the Corps, he distinguished himself by his gallantry at
Furnes and in the Battle of Dixmude.

(For an account of his wife's services see Postscript.)]

[Footnote 23: I record these details (March 11th, 1915) because the
Commandant accused me subsequently of a total lack of "balance" upon
this occasion.]

[Footnote 24: This is no reflection on Tom's courage. His chief
objection was to driving three women so near the German lines. The same
consideration probably weighed with the Commandant and M. ----.]

[Footnote 25: The whole thing was a piece of rank insubordination. The
Commandant was entirely right to forbid the expedition, and we were
entirely wrong in disobeying him. But it was one of those wrong things
that I would do again to-morrow.]

[Footnote 26: Antwerp had surrendered on Friday, the 9th.]

[Footnote 27: All the same it was splendidly equipped and managed.]

[Footnote 28: Even now, when I am asked if I did any nursing when I was
in Belgium I have to think before I answer: "Only for one morning and
one night"--it would still be much truer to say, "I was nursing all the
time."]

[Footnote 29: My Day-Book ends abruptly here; and I have no note of the
events that followed.]

[Footnote 30: Incorrect. It was, I believe, the uniform of the First Aid
Nursing Yeomanry Corps.]

[Footnote 31: It was so bad that it made me forget to pack the
Commandant's Burberry and his Gillette razors and his pipe.]

[Footnote 32: The Commandant had had an adventure. The Belgian guide
mistook the road and brought the car straight into the German lines
instead of the British lines where it had been sent. If the Germans
hadn't been preoccupied with firing at that moment, the Commandant and
Ascot and the Belgian would all have been taken prisoner.]

[Footnote 33: Even now, five months after, I cannot tell whether it was