h. He had worked it this time.

When he got back from Antwerp at the end of his three days we knew that
something had happened, something that he was keeping from us. It wasn't
only the fate of Antwerp that was hanging over him, as it hung over all
of us in that awful second week. It was as if he had seen something
intimate and terrible that he couldn't talk about.

That night after Viola had gone to her room he told me what had happened.
He had seen Charlie Thesiger's regiment at Saint Nicolas on Sunday. And
to-day--which was Tuesday--he had seen Charlie Thesiger. He had found him
lying dangerously wounded in the British Hospital at Antwerp. That, he
said, was what had kept him there. And he had brought him back with him
to Ghent. He was in the Couvent de Saint Pierre.

He thought, perhaps, it would be better not to tell Viola just yet.
Charlie didn't know, he said, that she was here.

The war was beginning to close round us.

* * * * *

The next day (Wednesday) he announced that he was going to Zele; but he
didn't, he really didn't want me to take Viola there. I could go by
myself, of course, if I liked, though he didn't care about her being
left.

But we did go. Viola's blood was up, after what she called Jimmy's
meanness, and there was no keeping her back.

We were a little uncertain of our way, for following Jimmy as we did, or
rather, following the direction Colville swore he had seen him start in,
took us much too far to the north. We found ourselves on the Antwerp
road, jammed in the traffic, and caught by a stream of refugees. We were
obliged to turn back to Ghent to get our bearings, but the business of
transporting women and children kept us on the Antwerp road all morning,
and it was past two o'clock before we started for Zele.

I remember this particular chase after Jimmy for many reasons. First, we
lost our way and never got to Zele at all.

Down in the south-east on the sky-line we saw a fleet of little clouds
that seemed to be anchored to the earth, and every cloud of the fleet was
the smoke from a burning village. West of the fleet was an enormous cloud
blown by the wind across miles of sky.

Viola was certain that the big cloud was Zele being burned to the ground,
and that Jimmy would be burned with it.

When I told her that it wasn't likely that Jimmy would stay in Zele when
it was burning she said that I didn't know Jimmy, and anyhow it was there
that she