back there."

Only the day before, Furnes had received a long-distance bombardment
that had killed thirty persons and wounded one hundred.

At a word from the Commandant, the orderly left the room. The women
heard him drive their ambulance out from shelter, crank up the engine,
and run it for five minutes to get it thoroughly heated. Then he turned
the engine off, and put a blanket over the radiator, tucking it well in
to preserve the heat.

"Let's put what we need into the car," suggested Mrs. Bracher.

They picked up their bags, and went toward the ambulance.

It was pleasant to do something active under that tension. They stepped
out into a night of chill and blackness. They could not see ten feet in
front of them. It was moon-time but no moon. Heavy clouds were in
possession of the sky, weaving a thick texture of darkness.

"There they start," said the Commandant.

Shell fire was beginning from the north, from the direction of the sea.

"They are covering their advance," he went on.

"Those are 21 or 28 Point shells. They are falling short about 1800
yards, but they are coming straight in our direction."

They walked past their car and down the road. They looked across the
fields into the black night. Straight down the road a lamp suddenly
shone in the gloom. It moved to and fro, and up and down. There was
regularity in its motion. A great shaft of answering white light shot up
into the night from the north.

"They are signalling from inside our line here," said the Commandant,
"over there to the enemy guns beyond Ramskappele. Some spy down here
with a flash-lamp is telling them that we're out of ammunition."

"But can't we catch the spy?" urged Hilda. "That light doesn't look to
be more than a few hundred yards away."

"That is further away than it looks," answered Jost; "that's all of a
mile away. He's hidden somewhere in a field."

Mrs. Bracher seized Victor by the arm, and faced the Commandant.

"I know where he's hidden," she cried. "Let me show you."

The Commandant nodded assent.

"Messieurs, les Belges," she commanded in a sharp, high voice, "come
with me and move quickly!"

She brought them back to the car.

"Send for four of your men," she said to Jost. They came.

"Wait in the house," she said to Hilda.

"Now we start," Mrs. Bracher ordered. "Victor, you take the wheel. Drive
down the Furnes road."

They drove in silence for five minutes, till her quick eye picked a
landmark o