self in the place
where we had stood.

To my horror I saw that Viola had opened the door of the car and was
getting out.

"What on earth are you doing?" I said.

"I'm going to walk to Zele."

I pulled her back and held her down in her seat by main force. She was
horribly strong. And as she struggled with me she said quietly, "It's all
right. You two _must_ go back and I must go to Jimmy."

I shouted to Colville, "Turn her round, can't you, and get out of this."

He turned her. He drew up deftly under the shelter of a barn that still
stood intact. Then he spoke.

"Are you quite sure, sir, that Mr. Jevons is in that place? Because, sir,
I heard Kendal say something this morning about their going to Antwerp."

"Then why the devil didn't you say so?"

"I didn't think of it, sir, until I saw Mrs. Jevons getting out."

He added by way of afterthought, "Besides, I promised Kendal. You and
Mrs. Jevons wasn't to know he was going on to Antwerp."

Viola and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Somewhere behind us from beyond the river a gun boomed and we took no
notice of it. We went on laughing.

"He's had us again," she said.

"Yes. We've been done this time. Well--we'd better scoot."

We made a rush for it between guns and got to Baerlere. Once we were out
of the village and heading for the Ghent road we were safe.

We were hardly out of sound of the guns when I heard Viola saying, "You
know it really _was_ funny of Jimmy."

I said, "He won't think it quite so funny when he hears what we've done."

He didn't think it funny at all. He was furious when he heard what we'd
done. He forbade Viola to follow him again. He threatened to sack
Colville. He said he'd have me sent home to-morrow and kept there, and
Viola should go with me.

And when he'd finished he told us that Antwerp had fallen.

That was how Jevons came to write the story of the Fall of Antwerp
instead of me.

Well, he didn't sack Colville; and he didn't get me packed off with the
other war-correspondents who left Ghent in a body the next day. And he
said nothing about sending Viola away. He did better than that. He told
her he had brought Charlie Thesiger from Antwerp yesterday, and that her
cousin was dying in the Couvent de Saint Pierre, and that perhaps it
would be a bit easier for him if she were with him.

We took her to the convent that morning. On the way there she asked Jimmy
why he hadn't told her about Charlie yesterday