e last point in the German
advance on Ghent. The taking of Melle would be a sign to us that the game
was up.

For three days Jimmy operated joyously in the village and over the
leagues of turnip-fields that lay outside it.

Of the first two days I remember an endless tramping over endless furrows
that were ditches for the dead; an endless staggering under stretchers
that dripped blood; an endless struggling with Viola to keep her under
shelter of the walls; each of those acts seemed to be endless, though one
gave place to the other, and it was only the firing that went on all the
time, till even Jimmy complained once or twice that he was fed up with
it.

I remember that Jimmy's Field Ambulance played a great part in these
adventures. I remember feeling a malicious satisfaction in the thought
that at the same time it was compelled to witness _his_ performances. It
couldn't miss him.

I remember all these things; but of Melle itself I remember nothing but
the Town Hall, with its double flight of steps up to its door, and the
two tall stone pillars, one on each side of the door, and the Greek
pediment above it; that and the little old Flemish house that stood back
by itself on the other side of the road, and its white walls and its
red-tiled roof, and the two green poplars in its garden, mounting guard.
The house and its garden and its poplars are always vivid and still; they
always appear to me as charged with mystery and significance and as
connected in some secret way with Jimmy's fate.

In the pauses of our movements the Field Ambulance and Jimmy's car and
Viola's were always drawn up before the Town Hall, facing the little
house.

Then came Sunday, the eleventh, the third day of Melle, when Viola was
left behind at Ghent.

Jimmy had made her promise on her honour to be brave, _this_ time, and
stay in the hotel and wait for orders.

Colville stayed with her. They were to pack our things and be ready to
leave at a minute's notice. Colville had secret orders that, if we were
not back by midnight, he was to take Viola on to Bruges in his car, and
wait for us there.

For we knew now that we were in for it.

And we knew that the war, which was coming closer and closer to the
city, was coming closer to us. It had been Charlie Thesiger first,
now it might be Reggie. At least, we knew that Reggie's regiment, the
Third ----shires, had come up from Ostend the day before, that it was
quartered somewhere between Ghen