The inside of the car was packed with wounded men; and, wedged up against Jimmy, and standing on the steps, and sitting on the bonnet, and hanging on wherever they could find a foothold and hang, were seven officers and soldiers of the Belgian Army.

Kendal—­bleeding profusely from a flesh wound on his forehead, but otherwise unhurt—­sat inside among the wounded.

It had been a victory for Jimmy.  He had advanced within fifty yards of the German lines, he had picked up two of his wounded from under their sentry’s fire, and the rest of the men and the officers he had gathered on his way.

We sent them all to Ghent with Colville.

Before he left, Kendal implored us just to look at Mr. Jevons’s car.

Mr. Jevons’s car was worth looking at.  It had a hole in the back of it where a bullet had gone clean through and buried itself in the cushions.  There were five bullet-holes in its hood.  Its flank was scraped by a flying fragment of shell, the same that had tilted its right rear splash-board.  Inside, its canvas covers and its rubber mat were stained with blood.

Drawn up motionless in that village street and stared at, Jimmy’s car had something of its old self-conscious air.  It looked pleased, and at the same time surprised at itself.

And while Jevons was dressing and bandaging his flesh-wound for him an idea struck Kendal and he grinned.

“D’you remember the time, sir, when you wouldn’t let her out if there was a spot of rain?”

“I do,” said Jevons.

“And look at her now—­not three weeks.  What a life she’s ’ad!”

And when Kendal (he was as pleased as Punch with his bandage) when Kendal had climbed into Colville’s car, Jimmy turned his round again; though the officers implored him to come on, for the Germans were on our backs.  But Jimmy only jerked his thumb in the direction of Lokeren and made his third bolt.  I scrambled in beside him as he started.

I don’t mind saying that I hated this adventure.  It was one thing to go into Antwerp when the Germans were so busy storming it that they couldn’t attend to you, and quite another thing to be alone with Jimmy on that horrid grey road with the Germans coming every minute round the turn of it.

Jimmy explained that there was a wounded man hiding in a ditch about a mile from Lokeren, and he’d got to fetch him.

We fetched him and another car-load without any misadventure.

When we got back to our village we found a Field Ambulance there.  Jimmy said, “I believe that’s my Field Ambulance.”  Presently he gave a start that made the car swerve as if he had run over a dog.

“Well, I’m damned if there isn’t Viola.”

Yes, there she was.  She had come out with the Field Ambulance.  And it was Jimmy’s Field Ambulance, the one that had been sent out without him.  It had come on into Ghent from Antwerp yesterday, and Viola had found it.