I remember Tom's views on the subject of field-women. And suddenly I seem to understand them. Tom is very like Lord Kitchener. He knows nothing about the aims and wants of modern womanhood and he cares less. The modern woman does not ask to be protected, does not want to be protected, and Tom, like Lord Kitchener, will go on protecting. You cannot elevate men like Lord Kitchener and Tom above the primitive plane of chivalry. Tom in the danger zone with a woman by his side feels about as peaceful and comfortable as a woman in the danger zone with a two-year-old baby in her lap. A bomb in his bedroom is one thing and a band of drunken Uhlans making for his women is another. Tom's nerves are racked with problems: How the dickens is he to steer his car and protect his women at the same time? And if it comes to a toss-up between his women and his wounded? You've got to stow the silly things somewhere, and every one of them takes up the place of a wounded man.
I get out of the car and tell the Commandant that I would rather not go than take up the place of a wounded man.
He orders me back to the car again. Tom seems inclined to regard me as a woman who has done her best.
We go on a little way and stop again. And there springs out of the pavement a curious figure that I have seen somewhere before in Ghent, I cannot remember when or where. The figure wears a check suit of extreme horsyness and carries a kodak in its hand. It is excited.
There is something about it that reminds me now of the eager little Englishman at Melle. These figures spring up everywhere in the track of a field ambulance.
When Tom sees it he groans in despair.
The Commandant gets out and appears to be offering it the hospitality of the car. I am introduced.
To my horror the figure skips round in front of the car, levels its kodak at my head and implores me to sit still.
I am very rude. I tell it sternly to take that beastly thing away and go away itself.
It goes, rather startled.