Miss Ashley-Smith and her friend are staying in the Couvent de Saint Pierre, where the British Field Hospital has taken some of its wounded.
Towards one o'clock news came of heavy fighting. The battle is creeping nearer to us; it has stretched from Zele and Quatrecht to Melle, four and a half miles from Ghent. They are saying that the Germans may enter Ghent to-day, in an hour—half an hour! It will be very awkward for us and for our wounded if they do, as both our ambulance cars are out.
Later news of more fighting at Quatrecht.
[Afternoon.]
The Commandant has come back. They were at Quatrecht, not Lokeren.
Mr. —— is awake now. The Commandant has taken me to see him.
He is lying in one of the officers' wards, a small room, with bare walls and a blond light, looking south. There are two beds in this room, set side by side. In the one next the door there is a young French officer. He is very young: a boy with sleek black hair and smooth rose-leaf skin, shining and fresh as if he had never been near the smoke and dirt of battle. He is sitting up reading a French magazine. He is wounded in the leg. His crutches are propped up against the wall.
Stretched on his back in the further bed there is a very tall young Englishman. The sheet is drawn very tight over his chest; his face is flushed and he is breathing rapidly, in short jerks. At first you do not see that he, too, is not more than a boy, for he is so big and tall, and a little brown feathery beard has begun to curl about his jaw and chin.
When I came to him and the Commandant told him my name, he opened his eyes wide with a look of startled recognition. He said he knew me; he had seen me somewhere in England. He was so certain about it that he persuaded me that I had seen him somewhere. But we can neither of us remember where or when. They say he is not perfectly conscious all the time.
We stayed with him for a few minutes till he went off to sleep again.