Chapter M: C---- was the Belgian Red Cross guide who took us into Antwerp. To M

C---- I said simply and firmly that I was going. The functions of the Secretary and Reporter had never been very clearly defined, and this was certainly not the moment to define them. M. C----, in his innocence, accepted me with confidence and a chivalrous gravity that left nothing to be desired.

The chauffeur Newlands (the leaner and darker one) declared himself ready for anything. All he wanted was to get to work. Poor Ascot, who was so like my friend the editor, had to be content with his vigil in the back yard.

At last we got off. I might have trusted Heaven. The getting off was a foregone conclusion, for we went along the south-east road, which had not worked its mysterious fascination for nothing.

At a fork where two roads go into Ghent we saw one of our old ambulance cars dashing into Ghent down the other road on our left. It was beyond hail. Heaven _meant_ us to go on uninterrupted and unchallenged.

I had not allowed for trouble at the barrier. There always is a barrier, which may be anything from a mile to four miles from the field or village where the wounded are. Yesterday on the way to Lokeren the barrier was at Z----. To-day it was somewhere half-way between Ghent and Melle.

None of us had ever quite got to the bottom of the trouble at the barrier. We know that the Belgian authorities wisely refused all responsibility. Properly speaking, our ambulances were not supposed to go nearer than a certain safe distance from the enemy's firing-line. For two reasons. First, it stood the chance of being shelled or taken prisoner. Second, there was a very natural fear that it might draw down the enemy's fire on the Belgians. Our huge, lumbering cars, with their brand-new khaki hoods and flaming red crosses on a white ground, were an admirable mark for German guns. But as the Corps in this case went into the firing-line on foot, I do not think that the risk was to the Belgians. So, though in theory we stopped outside the barriers, in practice we invariably got through.

The new car was stopped at the barrier now by the usual Belgian Army Medical Officer. We were not to go on to Melle.

I said that we had orders to go on to Melle; and I meant to go on to Melle. The Medical Officer said again that we were not to go, and I said again that we were going.

Then that Belgian Army Medical Officer began to tell us what I imagine is the usual barrier tale.

There were any amount of ambulances at Melle.

There were no wounded at Melle.

And in any case this ambulance wouldn't be allowed to go there. And then the usual battle of the barrier had place.

It was one against three. For M. C---- went over to the enemy, and the chauffeur Newlands, confronted by two official adversaries in uniform, became deafer and deafer to my voice in his right ear.

First, the noble and chivalrous Belgian Red Cross guide, with an appalling treachery, gave the order to turn the car round to Ghent. I gave the counter order. Newlands wavered for one heroic moment; then he turned the car round.

I jumped out and went up to the Army Medical Officer and delivered a frontal attack, discharging execrable French.

"No wounded? You tell us that tale every day, and there are always wounded. Do you want any more of them to die? I mean to go on and I shall go on."

I didn't ask him how he thought he could stop one whom Heaven had predestined to go on to Melle.