During this discussion it got whispered about amongst the populace that there were _Bosches_ in the ambulance, and in an incredibly short space of time it was surrounded by an angry mob who shook their fists and swore savagely at the occupants. Apparently they only needed a leader to urge them on, and the Germans would have been torn from their seats. The prisoners remained quiet, but the pallor of their faces showed that they realised the seriousness of their position. Sergeant Mack drew his little revolver and shouted to the driver to make haste and get away. The driver needed no further urging; the danger was too obvious. The car started with a jerk and cleared the crowd before they were aware of Mac’s intentions, but they shouted wrathful oaths after it as it sped up the quay. "Blimey, if them French ayn’t got a bit uv temper too!" Honk ejaculated, as he wiped the sweat from his excited brow; "five minutes more’n they’d ’ave ’ad them blighters inside by the scruff uv their bloomin’ necks." Imagine the surprise and dismay of the nurses as they saw the crowd of broadly smiling Germans coming up the hospital steps. The nurses, who had for two weeks repressed their natural antipathy to these men and had given them good care, felt considerably put out by their return. But the prisoners, like mangy dogs who had found a good home, were so glad to return to us that it was pitiful to see their pleased faces, and we took them in again with the best grace we could assume. The few hours they had had together in the ambulance had given them a chance to compare experiences. They were content. All we could hope was that our own boys under similar circumstances in Germany would be treated as tolerantly and well. Three weeks afterward they all left for England, and even the Prussian was almost reconciled to us, for he said in parting: "_Auf Wiedersehen!_" *CHAPTER XIII* The colonel’s seven-passenger _Berliet_ was chug-chugging softly at the villa door, the drowsy hum of the exhaust hinting of concealed power and speed. The colonel, Reggy, Jack Wellcombe and I were about to commence our long-looked-for trip to that battered corner of Belgium which still remained in British hands. Tim was standing at the door with his master’s "British warm" thrown across his arm, waiting for the colonel to come out. It was a clear cold February morning, the air had in it just the faintest hint of frost, but not a breath of wind stirred the green foliage of the pines. Lady Danby’s runabout stood across the road, and from beneath it peeped a pair of trim limbs encased in thick woollen stockings and ending in a pair of lady’s heavy walking boots; telling Tim that her ladyship’s dainty "chauffeur" was somewhere there below.