At the "Flandria" we find that the Military Power has put its foot down. The General--he cannot have a spark of the New Chivalry in his brutal breast--has ordered Mrs. Torrence off her chauffeur's job. You see the grizzled Colonel as the image of protest and desolation, helpless in the hands of the implacable Power. You are sorry for Mrs. Torrence (she has seen practically no service with the ambulance as yet), but she, at any rate, has had her fling. No power can take from her the memory of those two days. Still, something is going to be done to-morrow, and this time, even the miserable Reporter is to have a look in. The Commandant has another scheme for a temporary hospital or a dressing-station or something, and to-morrow he is going with Car 1 to Courtrai to reconnoitre for a position and incidentally to see the French troops. A God-sent opportunity for the Reporter; and Janet McNeil is going, too. We are to get up at six o'clock in the morning and start before seven. [_Friday, October 2nd._] We get up at six. We hang about till eight-thirty or nine. A fine rain begins to fall. An ominous rain. Car 1 and Car 2 are drawn up at the far end of the Hospital yard. The rain falls ominously over the yellow-brown, trodden clay of the yard. There is an ominous look of preparation about the cars. There is also an ominous light in the blue eyes of the chauffeur Tom. The chauffeur Tom appears as one inspired by hatred of the whole human race. You would say that he was also hostile to the entire female sex. For Woman in her right place he may, he probably does, feel tenderness and reverence. Woman in a field ambulance he despises and abhors. I really think it was the sight of us that accounted for his depression at Ostend. I have gathered from Mrs. Torrence that the chauffeur Tom has none of the New Chivalry about him. He is the mean and brutal male, the crass obstructionist who grudges women their laurels in the equal field. I know the dreadful, blasphemous and abominable things that Tom is probably thinking about me as I climb on to his car. He is visibly disgusted with his orders. That he, a Red Cross Field Ambulance chauffeur, should be told to drive four--or is it all five?--women to look at the massing of the French troops at Courtrai! He is not deceived by the specious pretext of the temporary hospital. Hospitals be blowed. It's a bloomin' joy-ride, with about as much Red Cross in it as there is in my hat. He is glad that it is raining. Yes, I know what Tom is thinking. And all the time I have a sneaking sympathy with Tom. I want to go to Courtrai more than I ever wanted anything in my life, but I see the expedition plainly from Tom's point of view. A field ambulance is a field ambulance and not a motor touring car.