The cars have come back from Lokeren and Nazareth, full of wounded.
Mrs. Lambert and her husband have come back from Lokeren. They drove right into the German lines to fetch two wounded. They were promptly arrested and as promptly released when their passports had shown them to be good American citizens. They brought back their two wounded. Altogether, ten or fifteen wounded have been brought back from Lokeren this morning.
[Afternoon.]
The Commandant has taken me out with the Ambulance for the first time. We were to go to Lokeren.
On the way we came up with the Lamberts in their scouting-car. They asked me to get out of the Ambulance car and come with them. On the whole, after this morning, it looked as if the scouting-car promised better incident. So I threw in my lot with the Lamberts.
It was a little disappointing, for no sooner had the Ambulance car got clean away than the scouting-car broke down. Also Mr. Lambert stated that it was not his intention to take Mrs. Lambert into the German lines again to-day if he could possibly help it.
We waited for an exasperating twenty minutes while the car got righted. From our street, in a blue transparent sky, so high up that it seemed part of the transparency, we saw a Taube hanging over Ghent. People came out of their houses and watched it with interest and a kind of amiable toleration.
At last we got off; and the scouting-car made such good running that we came up with our Ambulance in a small town half-way between Ghent and Lokeren. We stopped here to confer with the Belgian Army Medical officers. They told us it was impossible to go on to Lokeren. Lokeren was now in the hands of the Germans. The wounded had been brought into a small village about two miles away.
When we got into the village we were told to go back at once, for the Germans were coming in. The Commandant answered that we had come to fetch the wounded and were certainly not going back without them. It seemed that there were only four wounded, and they had been taken into houses in the village.
We were given five minutes to get them out and go.