left on their tree, and gave one to Mrs. Lambert and one to me. I felt
something rather like a pang then. Heaven knows why, for such a little
thing.

Conference in our mess-room. M. ----, the Belgian Red Cross guide who
goes out with our ambulances, is there. He is very serious and
important. The Commandant calls us to come and hear what he has to say.
It seems it had been arranged that one of our cars should be sent
to-morrow morning to Termonde to bring back refugees. But M. ---- does
not think that car will ever start. He says that the Germans are now
within a few miles of Ghent, and may be expected to occupy it to-morrow
morning, and that instead of going to Termonde to-morrow we had very
much better pack up and retreat to Bruges to-night. There are ten
thousand Germans ready to march into Ghent.

M. ---- is weighed down by the thought of his ten thousand Germans. But
the Commandant is not weighed down a bit. On the contrary, a pleasant
exaltation comes upon him. It comes upon the whole Corps, it comes even
upon me. We refuse to believe in his ten thousand Germans. M. ----
himself cannot swear to them. We refuse to pack up. We refuse to retreat
to Bruges to-night. Time enough for agitation in the morning. We prefer
to go to bed. M. ---- shrugs his shoulders, as much as to say that he
has done his duty and if we are all murdered in our beds it isn't his
fault.

Does M. ---- really believe in the advance of the ten thousand? His face
is inscrutable.

[_Tuesday, 29th._]

No Germans in Ghent. No Germans reported near Ghent.

Madame F. and her daughter smile at the idea of the Germans coming into
Ghent. They will never come, and if they do come they will only take a
little food and go out again. They will never do any harm to Ghent.
Namur and Liege and Brussels, if you like, and Malines, and Louvain, and
Termonde and Antwerp (perhaps); but Ghent--why should they? It is
Antwerp they are making for, not Ghent.

And Madame represents the mind of the average Gantois. It is placid,
incredulous, stolidly at ease, superbly inhospitable to disagreeable
ideas. No Gantois can conceive that what has been done to the citizens
of Termonde would be done to him. _C'est triste_--what has been done to
the citizens of Termonde, but it doesn't shake his belief in the
immunity of Ghent.

Which makes M. ----'s behaviour all the more mysterious. _Why_ did he
try to scare us so? Five theories are tenable:

(1.) M. ---- did honest