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 Ghent and Melle, and that it had been engaged at Quatrecht.
Our own orders were to stick to Melle.
I suppose from the way the ambulances were massed there that the end had been foreseen. That afternoon the battle began to sweep round from Quatrecht to Melle; and on our third journey out a rumour reached us at the barrier where the sentry stood guard. It was one of those preposterous rumours that run before disaster and are started God knows how when a retreat begins. I think it was the Belgian Red Cross men who spread it, for I heard the guide who went with Jimmy's Field Ambulance assuring him seriously that seven thousand British had been surrounded and cut to pieces on the road between Quatrecht and Melle. To be sure the number diminished with each repetition of the tale, dropping from seven thousand to seven hundred and from seven hundred to seventy. But in another hour we were bringing in the men of the ——shires.
And towards the end of the day the real bombardment of Melle began, and on our last journey out we and Jimmy's Field Ambulance were in the thick of it.
I can remember nothing of that bombardment but the three shells.
The first ripped open the roof of the Town Hall and set fire to it.