The sight of the Commandant reminds me that I have got all the funds of the Ambulance upstairs in my suit-case in that leather purse-belt--and if the Ambulance does fly from Ghent without me, and without that belt, it will find itself in considerable embarrassment before it has retreated very far. It is quite certain that I shall have to take my chance. I have asked the Commandant again (either this evening or earlier) so that there may be no possible doubt about it: "If we do have to scoot from Ghent in a hurry I shall have nothing but my wits to trust to?" And he says, "True for you." And he looks as if he meant it.[3] These remarkable words have a remarkable effect on the new War Correspondent. It is as if the coolness and the courage and the strength of a hundred War Correspondents and of fifty Red Cross Ambulances had been suddenly discharged into my soul. This absurd accession of power and valour[4] is accompanied by a sudden immense lucidity. It is as if my soul had never really belonged to me until now, as if it had been either drugged or drunk and had never known what it was to be sober until now. The sensation is distinctly agreeable. And on the top of it all there is a peace which I distinctly recognize as the peace of God. So, while the Commandant talks to the War Correspondents as if nothing had happened, I go upstairs and unlock my suit-case and take from it the leather purse-belt with the Ambulance funds in it, and I bring it to the Commandant and lay it before him and compel him to put it on. As I do this I feel considerable compunction, as if I were launching a three-year-old child in a cockle-shell on the perilous ocean of finance. I remind him that fifteen pounds of the money in the belt is his (he would be as likely as not to forget it). As for the accounts, they are so clear that a three-year-old child could understand them. I notice with a diabolical satisfaction which persists through the all-pervading peace by no means as incongruously as you might imagine--I notice particularly that the Commandant doesn't like this part of it a bit. There is not anybody in the Corps who wants to be responsible for its funds or enjoys wearing that belt. But it is obvious that if the Ambulance can bear to be separated from its Treasurer-Secretary-Reporter, in the flight from Ghent, it cannot possibly bear to be separated from its funds. I am alone with the Commandant while this happens, standing by one of the writing-tables in the lounge. Ursula Dearmer (she grows more mature every day) and the War Correspondents and a few Generals have melted somewhere into the background. The long, lithe pigskin belt lies between us on the table--between my friend and me--like a pale snake. It exerts some malign and poisonous influence. It makes me say things, things that I should not have thought it possible to say. And it is all about the shells at Alost. He is astonished. And I do not care.