for if we did Mr. L.'s head would stand out like a
noble monument and he would be hit as infallibly as any cathedral in
Belgium.

It seems that the soldiers were not particularly pleased at our
blundering up against their trench in our noisy car, which, they said,
might draw down the German fire at any minute on the Belgian lines.

We got into Ghent after dark by the way we came.

[_Evening._]

Called at the "Flandria." Ursula Dearmer and two Belgian nurses have
been sent to the convent at Zele to work there to-night.

Mr. ---- is here. But you wouldn't know him. I have just been introduced
to him without knowing him. Before the War he was a Quaker,[19] a
teetotaller, and a pacifist at any price. And I suppose he wore clothes
that conformed more or less to his principles. Now he is wearing
the uniform of a British naval officer. He is drinking long
whiskies-and-sodas in the restaurant, in the society of Major R. And the
Major's khaki doesn't give a point to the Quaker's uniform. As for the
Quaker, they say he could give points to any able seaman when it comes
to swear words (but this may be sheer affectionate exaggeration). His
face and his high, hatchet nose, whatever colour they used to be, are
now the colour of copper--not an ordinary, Dutch kettle and
coal-scuttle, pacifist, arts-and-crafts copper, but a fine old,
truculent, damn-disarmament, Krupp-&-Co., bloody, ammunition copper, and
battered by the wars of all the world. He is the commander and the
owner of an armoured car, one of the unit of five volunteer armoured
cars. I do not know whether he was happy or unhappy when there wasn't a
war. No man, and certainly no Quaker, could possibly be happier than
this Quaker is now. He and the Major have been out potting Germans all
the afternoon. (They have accounted for nine.) A schoolboy who has hit
the mark nine times running with his first toy rifle is not merrier
than, if as merry as, these more than mature men with their armoured
car. They do not say much, but you gather that it is more fun being a
volunteer than a regular; it is to enjoy delight with liberty, the
maximum of risk with the minimum of responsibility.

And their armoured car--if it is the one I saw standing to-day in the
Place d'Armes--it is, as far as you can make out through its disguises,
an ordinary open touring car, with a wooden hoarding (mere matchboard)
stuck all round it, the whole painted grey to simulate, armoured
painting. Throug