A Woman's Experiences in the Great War

by Louise Mack 1915



Chapter I

Crossing The Channel

"What do you do for mines?"

I put the question to the dear old salt at Folkestone quay, as I am waiting to go on board 
the boat for Belgium, this burning August night.

The dear old salt thinks hard for an answer, very hard indeed.

Then he scratches his head.

"There ain't none!" he makes reply.

All the same, in spite of the dear old salt, I feel rather creepy as the boat starts off that 
hot summer night, and through the pitch-black darkness we begin to plough our way to 
Ostend.

Over the dark waters the old English battleships send their vivid flashes unceasingly, but 
it is not a comfortable feeling to think you may be blown up at any minute, and I spend 
the hours on deck.

I notice our little fair-bearded Belgian captain is looking very sad and dejected.

"They're saying in Belgium now that our poor soldiers are getting all the brunt of it," he 
says despondently to a group of sympathetic war-correspondents gathered round him 
on deck, chattering, and trying to pick up bits of news.

"But that will all be made up," says Mr. Martin Donohue, the Australian War- 
Correspondent, who is among the crowd. "All that you lose will be given back to Belgium 
before long."

"But they cannot give us back our dead," the little captain answers dully.

And no one makes reply to that.

There is no reply to make.

It is four o'clock in the morning, instead of nine at night, when we get to Ostend at last, 
and the first red gleams of sunrise are already flashing in the east.

We leave the boat, cross the Customs, and, after much ringing, wake up the Belgian 
page-boy at the Hotel. In we troop, two English nurses, twenty War-Correspondents, 
and an "Australian Girl in Belgium."

Rooms are distributed to us, great white lofty rooms with private bathrooms attached, 
very magnificent indeed.

Then, for a few hours we sleep, to be awakened by a gorgeous morning, golden and 
glittering, that shews the sea a lovely blue, but a very sad deserted town.

Poor Ostend!

Once she had been the very gayest of birds; but now her feathers are stripped, she is 
bare and shivery. Her big, white, beautiful hotels have dark blinds over all their windows. 
Her long line of blank, closed fronts of houses and hotels seems to go on for miles. Just 
here and there one is open. But for the most, everything is dead; and indeed, it is almost 
impossible to recognise in this haunted place the most brilliant seaside city in Europe.

It is only half-past seven; but all Ostend seems up and about as I enter the big salon 
and order coffee and rolls.

Suddenly a noise is heard,shouts, wheels, something indescribable.

Everyone jumps up and runs down the long white restaurant.

Out on the station we run, and just then a motor dashes past us, coming right inside, 
under the station roof.

It is full of men.

And one is wounded.

My blood turns suddenly cold. I have never seen a wounded soldier before. I remember 
quite well I said to myself, "Then it is true. I had never really believed before!"

Now they are lifting him out, oh, so tenderly, these four other big, burly Belgians, and 
they have laid him on a stretcher.

He lies there on his back. His face is quite red. He has a bald head. He doesn't look a 
bit like my idea of a wounded soldier, and his expression remains unchanged. It is still 
the quiet, stolid, patient Belgian look that one sees in scores, in hundreds, all around.

And now they are carrying him tenderly on to the Red Cross ship drawn up at the station 
pier, and after a while we all go back and try and finish our coffee.

Barely have we sat down again before more shouts are heard.

Immediately, everybody is up and out on to the station, and another motor-car, full of 
soldiers, comes dashing in under the great glassed roofs.

Excitement rises to fever heat now.

Out of the car is dragged a German.

And one can never forget one's first German. Never shall I forget that wounded Uhlan! 
One of his hands is shot off, his face is black with smoke and dirt and powder, across 
his cheek is a dark, heavy mark where a Belgian had struck him for trying to throttle one 
of his captors in the car.

He is a wretch, a brute. He has been caught with the Red Cross on one arm, and a 
revolver in one pocket. But there is yet something cruelly magnificent about the fellow, 
as he puts on that tremendous swagger, and marches down the long platform between 
two lines of foes to meet his fate.

As he passes very close to me, I look right into his face, and it is imprinted on my 
memory for all time.

He is a big, typical Uhlan, with round close-cropped head, blue eyes, arrogant lips, large 
ears, big and heavy of build. But what impresses me is that he is no coward.

He knows his destiny. He will be shot for a certaintyshot for wearing the Red Cross 
while carrying weapons. But he really is a splendid devil as he goes strutting down the 
long platform between the gendarmes, all alone among his enemies, alone in the last 
moments of his life. Then a door opens. He passes in. The door shuts. He will be seen 
no more!

All is panic now. We know the truth. The Germans have made a sudden sortie, and are 
attacking just at the edge of Ostend.

The gendarmes are fighting them, and are keeping them back.

Then a boy scout rushes in on a motor cycle, and asks for the Red Cross to be sent out 
at once; and then and there it musters in the dining-room of the Hotel, and rushes off in 
motor cars to the scene of action.

Then another car dashes in with another Uhlan, who has been shot in the back.

And now I watch the Belgians lifting their enemy out. All look of fight goes out of their 
faces, as they raise him just as gently, just as tenderly as they have raised their own 
wounded man a few moments ago, and carry him on to their Red Cross ship, just as 
carefully and pitifully.

"Quick! Quick!" A War-Correspondent hastens up. "There's not a minute to lose. The 
Kaiser has given orders that all English War-Correspondents will be shot on sight. The 
Germans will be here any minute. They will cut the telegraph wires, stop the boats, and 
shoot everyone connected with a newspaper."

The prospect finally drives us, with a panic-stricken crowd, on to the boat. And so, 
exactly six hours after we landed, we rush back again to England. Among the crowd are 
Italians, Belgians, British and a couple of Americans. An old Franciscan priest sits down, 
and philosophically tucks into a hearty lunch. Belgian priests crouch about in attitudes of 
great depression.

Poor priests!

They know how the Germans treat priests in this well-named "Holy War!"



Chapter II

On the Way to Antwerp

A couple of days afterward, however, feeling thoroughly ashamed of having fled, and 
knowing that Ostend was now reinforced by English Marines, I gathered my courage 
together once more, and returned to Belgium.

This time, so that I should not run away again so easily, I took with me a suit-case, and 
a couple of trunks.

These trunks contained clothes enough to last a summer and a winter, the MS. of a 
novel "Our Marriage," which had appeared serially, and all my chiffons.

In fact I took everything I had in my wardrobe. I thought it was the simplest thing to do. 
So it was. But it afterwards proved an equally simple way of losing all I had.

Getting back to Ostend, I left my luggage at the Maritime Hotel, and hurried to the 
railway station.

I had determined to go to Antwerp for the day and see if it would be possible to make 
my headquarters in that town.

"Pas de train!" said the ticket official.

"But why?"

"C'est la guerre!"

"Comment!"

"Cest la guerre, Madame!"

That was the answer one received to all one's queries in those days.

If you asked why the post had not come, or why the boat did not sail for England, or why 
your coffee was cold, or why your boots were not cleaned, or why your window was 
shut, or why the canary didn't sing,you would always be sure to be told, "c'est la 
guerre!"

Next morning, however, the train condescended to start, and three hours after its proper 
time we steamed away from Ostend.

Slowly, painfully, through the hot summer day, our long, brown train went creeping 
towards Anvers!

Anvers!

The very name had grown into an emblem of hope in those sad days, when the Belgians 
were fleeing for their lives towards the safety of their great fortified city on the Scheldt.

Oh, to see them at every station, crushing in! In they crowd, and in they crowd, herding 
like dumb, driven cattle; and always the poor, white-faced women with their wide, 
innocent eyes, had babies in their arms, and little fair-haired Flemish children hanging to 
their skirts. Wherever we stopped, we found the platforms lined ten deep, and by the 
wildness with which these fugitives fought their way into the crowded carriages, one 
guessed at the pent-up terror in those poor hearts!

They must, they must get into that train! You could see it was a matter of life and death 
with them. And soon every compartment was packed, and on we went through the 
stifling, blinding August dayonwards towards Antwerp.

But when a soldier came along, how eager everyone was to find a place for him! Not 
one of us but would gladly give up our seat to any soldat! We would lean from the 
windows, and shout out loudly, almost imploringly, "Here, soldat! Here!" And when two 
wounded men from Malines appeared, we performed absolute miracles of compression 
in that long, brown train. We squeezed ourselves to nothing, we stood in back rows on 
the seats, while front rows sat on our toes, and the passage between the seats was 
packed so closely that one could scarcely insert a pin, and still we squeezed ourselves, 
and still fresh passengers came clambering in, and so wonderful was the spirit of 
goodwill abroad in these desperate days in Belgium, that we kept on making room for 
them, even when there was absolutely no more room to make!

Then a soldier began talking, and how we listened.

Never did priest, or orator, get such a hearing as that little blue-coated Belgian, white 
with dust, clotted with blood and mud, his yellow beard weeks old on his young face, 
with his poor feet in their broken boots, the original blue and red of his coat blackened 
with smoke, and hardened with earth where he had slept among the beetroots and 
potatoes at Malines.

He told us in a faint voice: "I often saw King Albert when I was fighting near Malines. 
Yes, he was there, our King! He was fighting too, I saw him many times, I was quite 
near him. Ah, he has a bravery and magnificence about him! I saw a shell exploding just 
a bare yard from where he was. Over and over again I saw his face, always calm and 
resolute. I hope all is well with him," he ended falteringly, "but in battle one knows 
nothing! "

"Yes, yes, all is well," answered a dozen voices. "King Albert is back at Antwerp, and 
safe with the Queen!"

A look of radiant happiness flashed over the poor fellow's face as he heard that.

Then he made us all laugh.

He said: "For two days I slept out in the fields, at first among the potatoes and the beet- 
roots. And then I came to the asparagus." He drew himself up a bit. "Savez vous? The 
asparagus of Malines! It is the best asparagus in the world? Cest ca! AND I SLEPT ON 
IT, ON THE MALINES ASPARAGUS!"

About noon that day we had arrived close to Ghent, when suddenly the train came to a 
standstill, and we were ordered to get out and told to wait on the platform.

"Two hours to wait!" the station-master told us.

The grey old city of Ghent, calm and massive among her monuments, looked as though 
war were a hundred miles away. The shops were all open. Business was being briskly 
done. Ladies were buying gloves and ribbons, old wide-bearded gentlemen were 
smoking their big cigars. Here and there was a Belgian officer. The shops were full of 
English papers.

I went into the Cathedral. It was Saturday morning, but great crowds of people, 
peasants, bourgeoisie and aristocracy, were there praying and telling their rosaries, and 
as I entered, a priest was finishing his sermon.

"Remember this, my children, remember this," said the little priest. "Only silence is 
great, the rest is weakness!"

It has often seemed to me since that those words hold the key-note to the Belgian 
character.

"Seul la silence est grande; la reste est faiblesse".

For never does one hear a Belgian complain!

At last, over the flat, green country, came a glimpse of Antwerp, a great city lying 
stretched out on the flat lands that border the river Scheldt.

From the train-windows one saw a bewildering mass of taxi-cabs all gathered together in 
the middle of the green fields at the city's outskirts, for all the taxi-cabs had been 
commandeered by the Government. And near them was a field covered with 
monoplanes and biplanes, a magnificent array of aircraft of every kind, with the sunlight 
glittering over them like silver; they were all ready there to chase the Zeppelin when it 
came over from Cologne, and in the air-field a ceaseless activity went on.

Slowly and painfully our train crept into Antwerp station. The pomp and spaciousness of 
this building, with its immense dome-like roof, was very striking. It was the second 
largest station in the world. And in those days it had need to be large, for the crowds 
that poured out of the trains were appalling. All the world seemed to be rushing into the 
fortified town. Soldiers were everywhere, and for the first time I saw men armed to the 
teeth, with bayonets drawn, looking stern and implacable, and I soon found it was a very 
terrible affair to get inside the city. I had to wait and wait in a dense crowd for quite an 
hour before I could get to the first line of sentinels. Then I shewed my passport and 
papers, while two Belgian sentinels stood on each side of me, their bayonets horribly 
near my head.

Out in the flagged square I got a fiacre, and started off for a drive.

My first impression of Antwerp, as I drove through it that golden day, was something 
never, never to be forgotten.

As long as I live I shall see that great city, walled in all round with magnificent 
fortifications, standing ready for the siege. Along the curbstones armed guards were 
stationed, bayonets fixed, while dense crowds seethed up and down continually. In the 
golden sunlight thousands of banners were floating in the wind, enormous banners of a 
size such as I had never seen before, hanging out of these great, white stately houses 
along the avenues lined with acacias. There were banners fluttering out of the shops 
along the Chausse de Malines, banners floating from the beautiful cathedral, banners, 
banners, everywhere. Hour after hour I drove, and everywhere there were banners, 
golden, red and black, floating on the breeze. It seemed to me that that black struck a 
curiously sombre notealmost a note of warning, and I confess that I did not quite like 
it, and I even thought to myself that if I were a Belgian, I would raise heaven and earth 
to have the black taken out of my national flag. Alas, one little dreamed, that golden 
summer day, of the tragic fate that lay in wait for Antwerp! In those days we all believed 
her utterly impregnable.

After a long drive, I drove to the Hotel Terminus to get a cup of tea and arrange for my 
stay.

It gave me a feeling of surprise to walk into a beautiful, palm-lined corridor, and see 
people sitting about drinking cool drinks and eating ices. There were high-spirited 
dauntless Belgian officers, in their picturesque uniforms, French and English business 
men, and a sprinkling of French and English War-Correspondents. A tall, charming 
grey-haired American lady with the Red Cross on her black chiffon sleeve was having 
tea with her husband, a grey-moustached American Army Doctor. These were Major 
and Mrs. Livingstone Seaman, a wealthy philanthropic American couple, who were 
devoting their lives and their substance to helping Red Cross work.

Suddenly a man came towards me.

"You don't remember me," he said. "You are from Australia! I met you fifteen years ago 
in Sydney."

It was a strange meeting that, of two Australians, who were destined later on to face 
such terrific odds in that city on the Scheldt.

"My orders are," Mr. Frank Fox told me as we chatted away, "to stick it out. Whatever 
happens, I've got to see it through for the Morning Post."

"And I'm going to see it through, too," I said.

"Oh no!" said Mr. Fox. "You'll have to go as soon as trouble threatens!"

"Shall I?" I thought.

But as he was a man and an Australian, I did not think it was worth while arguing the 
matter with him. Instead, we talked of Sydney, and old friends across the seas, the Blue 
mountains, and the Bush, and our poets and writers and painters and politicians, friends 
of long ago, forgetting for the moment that we were chatting as it were on the edge of a 
crater.



Chapter III

Germans on the Line

I was coming back with my luggage from Ostend next day when the train, which had 
been running along at a beautiful speed, came to a standstill somewhere near Bruges.

There was a long wait, and at last it became evident that something was wrong.

A brilliant-looking Belgian General, accompanied by an equally brilliant Belgian Captain, 
who had travelled up in the train with me from Ostend, informed me courteously, that it 
was doubtful if the train would go on to-day.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"Les Allemands sont sur la ligne!" was the graphic answer.

With the Belgians' courteous assistance, I got down my suit-case, and a large brown 
paper parcel, for of course in those day, no one thought anything of a brown paper 
parcel; in fact it was quite the correct thing to be seen carrying one, no matter who you 
were, king, queen, general, prince, or war-correspondent.

"Do you see that station over there?" Le Capitaine said. "Well, in a few hours' time, a 
train may start from there, and run to Antwerp. But it will not arrive at the ordinary 
station. It will go as far as the river, and then we shall get on board a steamer, and cross 
the river, and shall arrive at Antwerp from the quay."

Picking up my suit-case he started off, with the old General beside him carrying my 
parasols, while I held my brown paper parcel firmly under one arm, and grasped my 
hand-bag with the other hand. I was just thinking to myself how nice it was to have a 
General and a Capitaine looking after me, when, to my supreme disgust, my brown 
paper parcel burst open, and there fell out an evening shoe. And such a shoe! It was a 
brilliant blue and equally brilliant silver, with a very high heel, and a big silver buckle. It 
was a shoe I loved, and I hadn't felt like leaving it behind. And now there it fell on the 
station, witness to a woman's vanity. However, the Belgian Captain was quite equal to 
the occasion. He picked it up, and presented it to me with a bow, and said, in 
unexpected English, "Yourra Sabbath shoe!"

It was good to have little incidents like that to brighten one's journey, for a very long and 
tedious time elapsed before we arrived at Antwerp that night. The crowded, suffocating 
train crawled along, and stopped half an hour indiscriminately every now and then, and 
we wondered if the Germans were out there in the flat fields to either side of us.

When we arrived at the Scheldt, I trudged wearily on to the big river steamboat, more 
dead than alive. The General was still carrying my parasols, and the Capitaine still clung 
to my suit-case, and at last we crossed the great blue Scheldt, and landed on the other 
side, where a row of armed sentinels presented their bayonets at us, and kept us a 
whole hour examining our passports before they would allow us to enter the city.

Thanks to the kindly General, I got a lift in a motor-car, and was taken straight to the 
Hotel Terminus. I had eaten nothing since the morning. But the sleepy hotel night-porter 
told me it was impossible to get anything at that hour; everything was locked up; "C'est 
la guerre!" he said.

Well, he was right; it was indeed the War, and I didn't feel that I had any call to complain 
or make a fuss, so I wearily took the lift up to my bedroom on the fourth floor, and 
speedily fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was three o'clock in the morning, and a most terrific noise was going 
on.

It was pitch dark, darker than any words can say, up there in my bedroom, for we were 
forbidden lights for fear of Zeppelins.

All day long I had been travelling through Belgium, and all day long, it seemed to me, I 
had been turned out of one train into another, because "les Allemands" were on the line.

So, when the noise awoke me, I knew at once it was those Germans that I had been 
running away from all day long, between Ostend and Bruges, and Bruges and Ghent, 
and Ghent and Boom, and Antwerp.

I lay quite still.

"They're come at last," I thought. "This is the real thing."

Vaguely I wondered what to do.

The roar of cannon was enormous, and it seemed to be just outside my window.

And cracking and rapping through it, I heard the quick, incessant fire of musketry 
crack, crack, crack, a beautiful, clean noise, like millions of forest boughs sharply 
breaking in strong men's hands.

Vaguely I listened.

And vaguely I tried to imagine how the Germans could have got inside Antwerp so 
quickly.

Then vaguely I got out of bed.

In the pitch blackness, so hot and stifling, I stood there trying to think, but my room 
seemed full of the roar of cannon, and I experienced a queer sensation as though I was 
losing consciousness in the sea, under the loud beat of waves.'

"I mustn't turn up the light," I said to myself, "or they will see where I am! That's the one 
thing I mustn't do."

Again I tried to think what to do, and then suddenly I found myself listening, with a 
subconsciousness of immense and utter content, to the wild outcry of those cannons 
and muskets, and I felt as if I must listen, and listen, and listen, till I knew the sounds by 
heart.

As for fear, there was none, not any at all, not a particle.

Instead, there was something curiously akin to rapture.

It seemed to me that the supreme satisfaction of having at last dropped clean away from 
all the make-believes of life, seized upon me, standing there in my nightgown in the 
pitchblack, airless room at Antwerp, a woman quite alone among strangers, with danger 
knocking at the gate of her world.

Make-believe! Make-believe! All life up to this minute seemed nothing else but make- 
believe. For only Death seemed real, and only Death seemed glorious.

All this took me about two minutes to think, and then I began to move about my room, 
stupidly, vaguely.

I seemed to bump up against the noise of the cannons at every step.

But I could not find the door, and I could not find a wrapper.

My hands went out into the darkness, grabbing, reaching.

But all the while I was listening with that deep, undisturbed content to the terrific fire that 
seemed to shake the earth and heaven to pieces.

All I could get hold of was the sheet and blankets.

I had arrived back at my bed again.

Well, I must turn away, I must look elsewhere.

And then I quietly and unexpectedly put out my hand and turned up the light in a fit of 
desperate defiance of the German brutes outside.

In a flash I saw my suit-case. It was locked. I saw my powder puff. I saw my bag. Then I 
put out the light and picked up my powder-puff, got to my bag, and fumbled for the keys, 
and opened my suit-case and dragged out a wrapper, but no slippers came under my 
fingers, and I wanted slippers in case of going out into the streets.

But by this time I had discovered that nothing matters at all, and I quietly turned up the 
light again, being by then a confirmed and age-old fatalist.

Standing in front of the looking-glass, I found myself slowly powdering my face.

Then the sound of people rushing along the corridor reached me, and I opened my door 
and went: out.

"C'est une bataille! Ce sont les Allemands, n'est-ce-pas?" queried a poor old lady.

"Mais non, madame," shouts a dashing big aeronaut running by. "Ce n'est pas une 
bataille. C'est le Zeppelin!"

And so it was.

The Zeppelin had come, for the second time, to Antwerp! And the cannons and 
musketry were the onslaughts upon the monster by the Belgian soldiers, mad with rage 
at the impudent visit, and all ready with a hot reception for it.

Down the stairs I fled, snatched away now from those wonderful moments of reality, 
alone, with the noise of the cannons in the pitch-blackness of that stifling bedroom; 
down the great scarlet-carpeted stairs, until we all came to a full stop in the hotel lounge 
below.

One dim light, shaded half into darkness, revealed the silhouettes of tall, motionless 
green palms and white wicker chairs and scarlet carpets and little tables, and the 
strangest crowd in all the world.

The Zeppelin was sailing overhead just then, flinging the ghastliest of all ghastly deaths 
from her cages as she sped along her craven way across the skies, but that crowd in 
the foyer of the great Antwerp Hotel remained absolutely silent, absolutely calm.

There was a tiny boy from Lige, whose trembling pink feet peeped from the blankets in 
which he had been carried down.

There was a lovely heroic Lige lady whose gaiety and sweetness, and charming 
toilettes had been making "sunshine in a shady place" for us all in these dark days.

Everyone remembered afterwards how beautiful the little Lige lady looked with her 
great, black eyes, still sparkling, and long red-black hair falling over her shoulders, and 
a black wrapper flung over her white nightgown.

And her husband, a huge, fair-haired Belgian giant with exquisite manners and a little- 
boy lispa daring aviatornever seen except in a remarkable pair of bright yellow bags 
of trousers. His lisp was unaffected, and his blue eyes bright and blue as spring flowers, 
and his heart was iron-strong.

And there was Madame la Patronne, wrapped in a good many things; and an 
Englishman with a brown moustache, who must have had an automatic toilette, as he is 
here fully dressed, even to his scarf-pin, hat, boots and all; and some War- 
Correspondents, who always have the incontestable air of having arranged the War 
from beginning to end, especially when they appear like this in their pyjamas; and a 
crowd of Belgian ladies and children, and all the maids and garons, and the porters 
and the night-porters, and various strange old gentlemen in overcoats and bare legs, 
and strange old ladies with their heads tied, who will never be seen again (not to be 
recognised), and the cook from the lowest regions, and the chasseur who runs 
messagesthere we all were, waiting while the Zeppelin sailed overhead, and the 
terrific crash and boom and crack and deafening detonations grew fainter and fainter as 
the Belgian soldiers fled along through the night in pursuit of the German bastard that 
was finally driven back to Cologne, having dashed many houses to bits.

Then the little "chass," who has run through the street-door away down the road, comes 
racing back breathless across the flagged stone court-yard.

"Oh, mais c'est chic, le Zepp," he cries enthusiastically, his young black eyes afire. 
"C'est tout a fait chic, vous savez!"

And if that's not truly Belge, I really don't know what is!



Chapter IV

In the Track of the Huns

When I look back on those days, the most pathetic thing about it all seems to me the 
absolute security in which we imagined ourselves dwelling.

The King and Queen were in their Palace, that tall simple flat-fronted grey house in the 
middle of the town. Often one saw the King, seated in an open motor car coming in and 
out of the town, or striding quickly into the Palace. Tall and fair, his appearance always 
seemed to me to undergo an extraordinary change from the face as shewn in 
photographs. It was because in real life those beautiful wide blue eyes of his, mirrors of 
truth and simple courage, were covered with glasses.

And "la petite Reine," equally beloved, was very often to be seen too, driving backwards 
and forwards to the hospitals, the only visits she ever paid.

All theatres were closed, all concerts, all cinemas. All the galleries were shut. Never a 
note of song or music was to be heard anywhere. To open a piano at one's hotel would 
have been a crime.

And yet, that immense crowd gathered together in Antwerp for safety, Ambassadors, 
Ministers and their wives and families, Consuls, Echevins, merchants, stockbrokers, 
peasants, were anything but gloomy. A peculiar tide of life flowed in and out through that 
vast cityful of people. It was life, vibrant with expectation, thrilling with hope and fear, 
without a moment's loneliness. They walked about the shady avenues. They sat at their 
cafes, they talked, they sipped their coffee, or their "Elixir d'Anvers" and then they went 
home to bed. After seven the streets were empty, the cafs shut, the day's life ended.

Never a doubt crossed our minds that the Germans could possibly get through those 
endless fortifications surrounding Antwerp on all sides.

Getting about was incredibly difficult. In fact, without a car, one could see nothing, and 
there were no cars to be had, the War Office had taken them all over. In despair I went 
to Sir Frederick Greville, the English Ambassador, and after certain formalities and 
inquiries, Sir Frederick very kindly went himself to the War Office, saw Count Chabean 
on my behalf, and arranged for my getting a car.

Many a dewy morning, while the sun was low in the East, I have started out and driven 
along the road to Ghent, or to Lige, or to Malines, and looking from the car I observed 
those endless forests of wire, and the mined waters whose bridges one drove over so 
slowly, so softly, in such fear and trembling. And then, set deep in the great fortified 
hillsides, the mouths of innumerable cannon pointed at one; and here and there great 
reflectors were placed against the dull earth-works to shew when the enemy's air-craft 
appeared in the skies. Nothing seemed wanting to make those fortifications complete 
and successful. It was heart-breaking to see the magnificent old chateaux and the 
beautiful little houses being ruthlessly cut down, razed to the earth to make clear ground 
in all directions for the defence-works. The stumps of the trees used to look to me like 
the ruins of some ancient city, for even they represented the avenues of real streets and 
roads, and the black, empty places behind them were the homes that had been 
demolished in this overwhelming attempt to keep at least one city of Belgium safe and 
secure from the marauding Huns.

Afterwards, when all was over, when Antwerp had fallen, I passed through the 
fortifications for the last time on my way to Holland. And oh, the sadness of it! There 
were the wire entanglements, untouched, unaltered! The great reflectors still mirrored 
the sunlight and the stars. The demolition of the chateaux and house had been all in 
vain. On this side there had been little fighting, they had got in on the other side.

Every five minutes one's car would be held up by sentinels who rushed forward with 
poised bayonets, demanding the password for the day.

That always seemed to me like a bit of mediaeval history.

"Arretez!" cried the sentinels, on either side the road, lifting their rifles as they spoke.

Of course we came to a stop immediately.

Then the chauffeur would lean far out, and whisper in a hoarse, low voice, the 
password, which varied with an incessant variety. Sometimes it would be "Ostend" or 
"Termond" or "Demain" or "General" or "Bruxelles" or "Belgique," or whatever the War 
Office chose to make it. Then the sentinel would nod. "Good," he would say, and on we 
would go.

The motor car lent me by the Belgian War Office, was driven by an excitable old 
Belgian, who loved nothing better than to get into a dangerous spot. His favourite 
saying, when we got near shell-fire, and one asked him if he were frightened, was: "One 
can only die once." And the louder the shells, the quicker he drove towards them; and I 
used to love the way his old eyes flashed, and I loved too the keenly disappointed look 
that crept over his face when the sentinels refused to let him go any nearer the danger 
line, and we had to creep ignominiously back to safety.

"Does not your master ever go towards the fighting?" I asked him.

"Non, madame," he answered sadly, "Mon general, he is the PAPA of the Commissariat! 
He does not go near the fighting. He only looks after the eating."

We left Antwerp one morning about nine o'clock, and sped outwards through the 
fortifications, being stopped every ten minutes as usual by the sentinels and asked to 
show our papers. On we ran along the white tree-lined roads through exquisite green 
country. The roads were crowded constantly with soldiers coming and going, and in all 
the villages we found the Headquarters of one or other Division of the Belgian Army, 
making life and bustle indescribable in the flagged old streets, and around the steps of 
the quaint mediaeval Town Halls and Cathedrals.

We had gone a long way when we were brought to a standstill at a little place called 
Heyst-opden Berg, where the sentinels leaned into our car and had a long friendly chat 
with us.

"You cannot go any further," they said. "The Germans are in the next town ahead; they 
are only a few kilometres away."

"What town is it?" I asked.

"Aerschot," they replied.

That is on the way to Louvain, is it not?" I asked. "I have been trying for a long time to 
get to Louvain!"

You can never get to Louvain, Madam," the sentinels told me smilingly, "Between here 
and Louvain lies the bulk of the German Army."

Just then, a chasseur, mounted on a beautiful fiery little brown Ardennes horse, came 
galloping along, shouting as he passed, "The Germans have been turned out of 
Aerschot; we have driven them out, les sales cochons!" I He jumped off his horse, gave 
the reins to a soldier and leapt into a train that was standing at the station.

A sudden inspiration flashed into my head. Without a word I jumped out of the motor 
car, ran through the station, and got into that train just as it was moving off, leaving my 
old Belgian to look after the car.

Next moment I found myself being carried along through unknown regions, and as I 
looked from the windows I soon discovered that I had entered now into the very heart of 
German ruin and pillage and destructiveness. Pangs of horror attacked me at the sight 
of those blackened roofless houses, standing lonely and deserted among green, thriving 
fields. I saw one little farm after another reduced to a heap of blackened ashes, with 
some lonely animals gazing terrifiedly into space. Sometimes just one wall would be 
standing of what was once a home, sometimes only the front of the house had been 
blown out by shells, and you could see right inside,see the rooms spread out before 
you like a panorama, see the children's toys and frocks lying about, and the pots and 
pans, even the remains of dinner still on the table, and all the homely little things that 
made you feel so intensely the difference between this chill, deathly desolation and the 
happy domestic life that had gone on in such peaceful streams before the Huns set their 
faces Belgium-wards.

Mile after mile the train passed through these ravaged areas, and I stood at the window 
with misty eyes and quickened breath, looking up and down the lonely roads, and over 
the deserted fields where never a soul was to be seen, and in my mind's eye, I could 
follow those peasants, fleeing, fleeing, ever fleeing from one village to another, from one 
town to another, hunted and followed by the cruel menace of War which they, poor 
innocent ones, had done so little to deserve.

The only comfort was to think of them getting safely across to England, and as I looked 
at those little black and ruined homes, I could follow the refugees in their flight and see 
them streaming out of the trains at Victoria and Charing Cross, and being taken to 
warm, comfortable homes and clothed and fed by gentle-voiced English people. And 
then, waking perhaps in the depths of the night to find themselves in a strange land, 
how their thoughts would fly, with what awful yearning, back to those little blackened 
homes, back to the memories of the cow and the horse and the faithful dogs, and the 
corn in the meadows, and the purple cabbages uncut and the apples ungarnered! Yes, I 
could see it all, and my heart ached as it had never ached before.

When I roused myself from these sad thoughts, I looked about me and discovered that I 
was in a train full of nothing but soldiers and priests. I sat very still in my corner. I asked 
no questions, and spoke to no one. I knew by instinct that this train was going to take 
me to a place that I never should have arrived at otherwise, and I was right. The train 
took me to Aerschot, and I may say now that only one other War-Correspondent arrived 
there.

Alighting at the station at Aerschot, I looked about me, scarcely believing that what I saw 
was real.

The railway station appeared to have fallen victim to an earthquake.

,

Chapter V

Aerschot

I think until that day I had always cherished a lurking hope that the Huns were not as 
black as they were painted.

I had been used to think of the German race, as tinged with a certain golden glamour, 
because to it belonged the man who wrote the Fifth Symphony; the man who wrote the 
divine first part of "Faust," and still more that other, whose mocking but sublime laughter 
would be a fitting accompaniment of the horrors at Aerschot.

Oh, Beethoven, Goethe, Heine! Not even out of respect for your undying genius can I 
hide the truth about the Germans any longer.

What I have seen, I must believe!

In the pouring rain, wearing a Belgian officer's great-coat, I trudged along through a city 
that might well have been Pompeii or Herculaneum; it was a city that existed no longer; 
it was absolutely the shell of a town. The long streets were full of hollow, blackened 
skeletons of what had once been housesstreet upon street of them, and street upon 
street. The brain reeled before the spectacle. And each of those houses once a home. A 
place of thought, of rest, of happiness, of work, of love.

All the inhabitants have fled, leaving their lares and penates just as the people of 
Pompeii and Herculaneum sought to flee when the lava came down on them.

Here a wall stands, there a pillar and a few bricks.

But between the ruins, strange, touching, unbelievable, gleaming from the background, 
are the scarlet and white of dahlias and roses in the gardens behind, that have 
somehow miraculously escaped the ruin that has fallen on the solid walls and ceilings 
and floors so carefully constructed by the brain of man, and so easily ruined by man's 
brutality.

It is as though the flowers had some miraculous power of self-preservation, some secret 
unknown to bricks and mortar, some strange magic, that keeps the sweet blossoms 
laughing and defiant under the Hun's shell-fire. And the red and the pure white of them, 
and the green, intensify, with a tremendous potency, the black horrors of the town!

In every street I observed always the same thing; hundreds of empty bottles. "Toujours 
les bouteilles," one of my companions kept saying a brilliant young Brussels lawyer 
who was now in this regiment. The other officer was also a Bruxellois, and I was told 
afterwards that these two had formerly been the "Nuts" of Brussels, the two smartest 
young men of the town. To see them that day gave little idea of their smartness; they 
both were black with grime and smoke, with beards that had no right to be there, 
creeping over their faces, boots caked with mud to the knees, and a general air of 
having seen activities at very close quarters.

They took me to the church, and there the little old brown-faced sacristan joined us, 
punctuating our way with groans and sobs of horror.

This is what I see.

Before me stretches a great dim interior lit with little bunches of yellow candles. It is in a 
way a church. But what has happened to it? What horror has seized upon it, turning it 
into the most hideous travesty of a church that the world has ever known?

On the high altar stand empty champagne bottles, empty rum bottles, a broken bottle of 
Bordeaux, and five bottles of beer.

In the confessionals stand empty champagne bottles, empty brandy bottles, empty beer 
bottles.

In the Holy Water fonts are empty brandy bottles.

Stacks of bottles are under the pews, or on the seats themselves.

Beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy; and again beer, brandy, rum, 
champagne, bordeaux, burgundy.

Everywhere, everywhere, in whatever part of the church one looks, there are bottles 
hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhapseverywhere, bottles, bottles, bottles.

The sacred marble floors are covered everywhere with piles of straw, and bottles, and 
heaps of refuse and filth, and horse-dung.

"Mais Madame," cries the burning, trembling voice of the distracted sacristan, "look at 
this."

And he leads me to the white marble bas-relief of the Madonna.

The Madonna's head has been cut right off!

Then, even as I stand there trying to believe that I am really looking at such nightmares, 
I feel the little sacristan's fingers trembling on my arm, turning me towards a sight that 
makes me cold with horror.

They have set fire to the Christ, to the beautiful wood-carving of our Saviour, and burnt 
the sacred figure all up one side, and on the face and breast.

And as they finished the work I can imagine them, with a hiccup slitting up the priceless 
brocade on the altar with a bayonet, then turning and slashing at the great old oil 
paintings on the Cathedral walls, chopping them right out of their frames, but leaving the 
empty frames there, with a German's sense of humour that will presently make 
Germany laugh on the wrong side of its face.

A dead pig lies in the little chapel to the right, a dead white pig with a pink snout.

Very still and pathetic is that dead pig, and yet it seems to speak.

It seems to realise the sacrilege of its presence here in God's House.

It seems to say,"Let not the name of pig be given to the Germans. We pigs have done 
nothing to deserve it."

"And here, Madame, voyez vous! Here the floor is chipped and smashed where they 
stabled their horses, these barbarians!" says the young Lieutenant on my left.

And now we come to the Gate of Shame. It is the door of a small praying-room. Still 
pinned outside, on the door, is a piece of white paper, with this message in German, 
"This room is private. Keep away." And inside?

Inside are women's garments, a pile of them tossed hastily on the floor, torn perhaps 
from the wearers. A pile of women's garments! In silence we stand there. In silence 
we go out. It is a long time before anyone can speak again, though the little sacristan 
keeps on moaning to himself.

As we step out of the horrors of that church some German prisoners that have just been 
brought in, are being marched by.

And then rage overcomes one of the young Lieutenants. White, trembling, beside 
himself, he rushes forward. He shouts. He raves. He is thinking of that room; they were 
of Belgium, those girls and women; he is of Belgium too; and he flings his scorn and 
hatred at the Uhlans marching past, he lashes and whips them with his agony of rage 
until the cowering prisoners are out of hearing.

The other Lieutenant at last succeeds in silencing him.

"What is the use, mon ami!" he says. "What is the use?"

Perhaps this outburst is reported to headquarters by somebody. For that night at the 
Officers' Mess, the Captain of the regiment has a few words to say against shewing 
anger towards prisoners, and very gently and tactfully he says them.

He is a Belgian, and all Belgians are careful to a point that is almost beyond human 
comprehension in their criticisms of their enemies.

"Let us be careful never to demean ourselves by humiliating prisoners," says the 
Captain, looking round the long roughly-set table. "You see, my friends, these poor 
German fellows that we take are not all typical of the crimes that the Germans commit; 
lots of them are only peasants, or men that would prefer to stay by their own fireside!"

"What about Aerschot and the church?" cry a score of irritated young voices.

The Captain draws his kindly lips together, and attacks his black bread and tinned 
mackerel.

"Ah," he says, "we must remember they were all drunk!".

And as he utters these words there flash across my mind those old, old words that will 
never die: 

"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."



Chapter VI

The Swift Retribution

As I stood in the rain, down there in the ruined blackened piazza of Aerschot, someone 
drew my attention to the hole in the back-window of the Burgomaster's house.

In cold blood, the Germans had shot the Burgomaster.

And they had shot two of his children.

And as they could not find the Burgomaster's wife, who had fled into the country, they 
had offered 4,000 francs reward for her.

A hoarse voice whispered that in that room with the broken window, the German Colonel 
who had ordered the murder of the good, kind, beloved Burgomaster, had met his own 
fate.

Yes! In the room of the dead Burgomaster's maidservant, the German colonel had fallen 
dead from a shot fired from without.

By whose hand was it fired, that shot that laid the monster at his victim's feet?

"By the hand of an inferieur!" someone whispers.

And I put together the story, and understand that the girl's village sweetheart avenged 
her.

They are both dead nowthe girl and her village swainshot down instantly by the 
howling Germans.

But their memory will never die; for they stand that martyred boy and girl,for 
Belgium's fight for its women's honour and the manliness of its men.



Chapter VII

They Would Not Kill the Cook

Besides myself, I discover only one woman in the whole of Aerschota little fair-haired 
Fleming, with a lion's heart. She is the bravest woman in the world. I love the delightful 
way she drops her wee six-weeks-old baby into my arms, and goes off to serve a 
hundred hungry Belgians with black bread and coffee, confident that her little treasure 
will be quite safe in the lap of the "Anglaise."

Smiling and running about between the kitchen, the officers' mess, and the bar, this 
brave, good soul finds time to tell us how she remained all alone in Aerschot for three 
whole weeks, all the while the Germans were in possession of the town.

"I knew that cooking they must have," she says, "and food and drink, and for that I knew 
I was safe. So I remained here, and kept the hotel of my little husband from being 
burned to the ground! But I slept always with my baby in my arms, and the revolver 
beside the pillow. In the night sometimes I heard them knocking at my door. Yes, they 
would knock, knock, knock! And I would be there, the revolver ready, if needs be, for 
myself and the petite both! But they never forced that door. They would go away as 
stealthily as they had come! Ah! they knew that if they had got in they would have found 
a dead woman, not a live one! "

And I quite believed her.



Chapter VIII

"You'll Never Get There"

As the weeks went on a strange thing happened to me.

At first vaguely, faintly, and then with an ever-deepening intensity, there sprang to life 
within me a sense of irritation at haying to depend on newspapers, or hearsay, for one's 
knowledge of the chief item in this War,the Enemy.

An overwhelming desire seized upon me to discover for myself what a certain darksome 
unknown quantity was like; that darksome, unknown quantity that we were always 
hearing about but never saw; that we were always moving away from if we heard it was 
anywhere near; that was making all the difference to everything; that was at the back of 
everything; that mattered so tremendously; and yet could never be visualized.

The habit of a life-time of groping for realities began to assert itself, and I found myself 
chafing at not being able to find things out for myself.

In the descriptions I gleaned from men and newspapers I was gradually discovering 
many puzzling incongruities.

There are thinkers whose conclusions one honours, and attends to: but these thinkers 
were not out here, looking at the War with their own eyes. Maeterlinck, for instance, 
whose deductions would have been invaluable, was in France. Tolstoi was dead. Mr. 
Wells was in England writing.

To believe what people tell you, you must first believe in the people.

If you can find one person to believe in in a lifetime, and that one person is yourself, you 
are lucky!

One day, towards the end of September, I heard an old professor from Lige University 
talking to a young Bruxellois with a black moustache and piercing black eyes, who had 
arrived that day at our hotel.

"So you are going back at once to Brussels, Monsieur?" said the old professor in his 
shaky voice.

"Yes, Monsieur! Why don't you come with me?"

"I have not the courage!"

"Courage! But there is nothing to fear! You come along with me, and I'll see you through 
all right. I assure you the trains run right into Brussels now. The Germans leave us 
Bruxellois alone. They're trying to win our favour. They never interfere with us. There is 
not the slightest danger. And there is not half so much trouble and difficulty to get in and 
out of Brussels as there is to get in and out Antwerp. You get into a train at Ghent, go to 
Grammont, and there change into a little train that takes you straight to Brussels. They 
never ask us for our passports now. For myself, I have come backwards and forwards 
from Brussels half a dozen times this last fortnight on special missions for our 
Government. I have never been stopped once. If you'll trust yourself to me, I'll see you 
safely through!"

"I desire to go very much!" muttered the old man. "There are things in Lige that I must 
attend to. But to get to Lige I must go through Brussels. It seems to me there is a great 
risk, a very great risk."

"No risk at all!" said the young Bruxellois cheerfully.

That evening at dinner, the young man aforesaid was introduced to me by Mr. Frank 
Fox of the Morning Post, who knew him well.

It was not long before I said to him: "Do you think it would be possible for an 
Englishwoman to get into Brussels? I should like very much to go. I want to get an 
interview with M. Max for my newspaper."

He was an extremely optimistic and cheerful young man.

He said, "Quite easy! I know M. Max very well. If you come with me, I'll see you safely 
through, and take you to see him. As a matter of fact I've got a little party travelling with 
me on Friday, and I shall be delighted if you will join us."

"I'll come," I said.

Extraordinary how easy it is to make up one's mind about big things.

That decision, which was the most important one I ever made in my life, gave me less 
trouble than I have sometimes been caused by such trifles as how to do one's hair or 
what frock to wear.

Next day, I told everyone I was going to try to get into Brussels.

"You'll be taken prisoner!"

"You're mad!"

"You'll be shot!"

"You will be taken for a spy!"

"You will never get there!"

All these things, and hosts of others, were said, but perhaps the most potent of all the 
arguments was that put up by the sweet little lady from Lige, the black-eyed mother 
with two adorable little boys, and a delightful big husbandthe gallant chevalier, in 
yellow bags of trousers, whom I have already referred to in an earlier chapter.

This little Ligoise and I were now great friends; I shall speak of her as Alice. She had a 
gaiety and insouciance, and a natural childlike merriment that all her terrible disasters 
could not overcloud. What laughs we used to have together, she and I, what talks, what 
walks! And sometimes the big husband would give Alice a delightful little dinner at the 
Criterium Restaurant in the Avenue de Kaiser, where we ate such delicious things, it 
was impossible to believe oneself in a Belgian city, with War going on at the gates.

When I told Alice that I was going to Brussels, she set to work with all her womanly 
powers of persuasion to make me give up my project.

There was nothing she did not urge.

The worst of all was that we might never see each other again.

"But I don't feel like that," I told her. "I feel that I must go! It's a funny feeling, I can't 
describe it, because it isn't exactly real. I don't feel exactly that I must go. Even when I 
am telling you that, it isn't exactly true."

"I am afraid this is too complicated for me," said Alice gravely.

"I admit it sounds complicated! I suppose what it really mean is that I want to go, and I 
am going!"

"But my husband says we may be in Brussels ourselves in three weeks' time: Why not 
wait and come in in safety with the Belgian Army! "

Other people gathered round us, there in the dimly-lit palm court of the big Antwerp 
Hotel, and a lively discussion went on.

A big dark man, with a melancholy face, said wistfully, "I wish I could make up my mind 
to go too!"

This was Cherry Kearton, the famous naturalist and photographer. He was out at the 
front looking for pictures, and in his mind's eye, doubtless, he saw the pictures he would 
get in Brussels, pictures sneakingly and stealthily taken from windows at the risk of 
one's life, glorious pictures, pictures a photographer would naturally see in his mind's 
eye when he thought of getting into Brussels during the German occupation.

Mr. Kearton's interpreter, a little fair-haired man, however, put in a couple of sharp 
words that were intended to act as an antidote to the great photographer's uncertain 
longings.

"You'll be shot for a dead certainty, Cherry?" he said. "You get into Brussels with your 
photographic apparatus! Why, you might as well walk straight out to the Germans and 
ask them to finish you off!"

"Cherry" had his. old enemy, malaria, hanging about him at that time, or I quite believe 
he would have risked it and come.

But as events turned out it was lucky for him he didn't! For his King and his Country 
have called him since then in a voice he could not resist, and he has gone to his beloved 
Africa again, in Colonel Driscoll's League of Frontiersmen.

When I met him out there in Antwerp, he had just returned from his famous journey 
across Central Africa. His thoughts were all of lions, giraffes, monkeys, rhinoceros. He 
would talk on and on, quite carried away. He made noises like baboons, boars, lions, 
monkeys. He was great fun. I was always listening to him, and gradually I would forget 
the War, forget I was in Antwerp, and be carried right away into the jungle watching a 
crowd of giraffes coming down to drink.

Indeed the vividness of Cherry's stories was such, that, when I think of Antwerp now, I 
hear the roar of lions, the pad pad of wild beasts, the gutteral uncouthness of 
monkeysall the sounds in fact that so excellently represent Antwerp's present 
occupiers! But the faces of Cherry's wild beasts were kinder, humaner faces than the 
faces that haunt Antwerp now.



Chapter IX

Setting Out on the Great Adventure

It was on Friday afternoon, September 24th, that I ran down the stairs of the Hotel 
Terminus, with a little brown bag in my hand.

Without saying good-bye to anybody, I hurried out, and jumped into a cab at the door, 
accompanied by the old professor from Lige, and the young Brussels lawyer.

It was a gorgeous day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, with brilliant sunlight flooding 
the city; and a feeling of intense elation came over me as our cab went rattling along 
over the old flagged streets.

Overhead, in the bright blue sky, aeroplanes were scouting. The wind blew sweet from 
the Scheldt, and the flat green lands beyond. All the banners stirred and waved. French, 
English, Belgian and Russian. And I felt contented, and glad I had started.

"First we call for Madame Julie!" said the young lawyer.

We drove along the quay, and stopped at a big white house.

To my surprise, I found myself now suddenly precipitated into the midst of a huge 
Belgian party,mamma, papa, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, friends, officers, little 
girls, little boys, servants gathered in a great high-ceiled and be-windowed drawing-
room crowded to the full. I was introduced to everybody, and a lot of handshaking went 
on.

I thought to myself, "This is a new way to get to Brussels!"

Servants were going round with trays laden with glasses of foaming champagne, and 
little sweet biscuits.

"We shall drink to the health of Julie!" said someone.

And we drank to Julie.

The sun poured in through the windows, and the genial affectionate Belgian family all 
gathered closer round the beloved daughter, who was going bravely back to-day to 
Brussels to join her husband there at his post.

It was a touching scene.

But as I think of it now, it becomes poignant with the tragedy hidden beneath the 
glittering sunlight and foaming champagne. That fine old man, with the dignified grey 
head and beard, was a distinguished Belgian minister, who has since met with a sad 
death. He was Julie's father, a father any woman might have been proud of. He said to 
me, "Je suis content that a lady is going too in this little company. It is hard for my 
daughter to be travelling about alone. Yet she is brave; she does not lack courage; she 
came alone all the way from Brussels three days ago in order to bring her little girl to 
Antwerp and leave her in our care. And now she feels it is her duty to go back to her 
husband in Brussels, though we, of course, long to have her remain with us."

Then at last the parting came, and tall, brown-eyed, buxom Julie kissed and was kissed 
by everybody, and everybody shook hands with me, and wished me luck, and I felt as if I 
was one with them, although I had never seen them in my life before, and never saw 
them in my life again.

We ran down the steps. And now, instead of getting into the old ricketty fiacre, we 
entered a handsome motor car belonging to the Belgian Ministry, and drove quickly to 
the quay. The father came with us, his daughter clinging to his arm. At the quay we went 
on board the big river steamer, and Julie bade her father farewell. She flung herself into 
his arms, and he clasped her tight. He held her in silence for a long minute. Then they 
parted.

They never met again.

As we moved away from the quay, it seemed to me that our steamer was steering 
straight for the Hesperides.

All the west was one great blazing field of red and gold, and the sun was low on the 
broad water's edge, while behind us the fair city of Antwerp lit sparkling lights in all her 
windows, and the old Cathedral rose high into the sunlight, with the Belgian banner 
fluttering from a pinnacle; and that is how I shall always see Antwerp, fair, and stately, 
and sun-wreathed, as she was that golden September afternoon.

When I think of her, I refuse to see her any other way!

I refuse to see her as she was when I came back to her.

Or as when I left her again for the Last Time.



Chapter X

From Ghent to Grammont

I dont know why we were all in such high spirits, for we had nothing but discomfort to 
endure.

And yet, out of that very discomfort itself, some peculiar psychic force seemed to spring 
to life and thrive, until we became as merry as crickets.

A more inherently melancholy type than the old Lige professor could scarcely be 
imagined.

Poor old soul!

He had lost his wife a week before the war, and in the siege of Lige one of his sons 
had fallen, and he had lost his home, and everything he held dear. He was an enormous 
man, dressed in deep black, the most pronounced mourning you can possibly imagine, 
with a great black pot-hat coming well down on his huge face. His big frame quivered 
like a jelly, as he sat in the corner of the train, and was shaken by the rough movements 
and the frequent stoppages. Yet he became cheerful, just as cheerful as any of us.

Strange as it seems in the telling, this cheerfulness is a normal condition of the people 
nearest the front. There is only one thing that kills it, loss of freedom when loss of 
freedom means loss of companionship. Ruin, danger, cold, hunger, heat, dirt, 
discomfort, wounds, suffering, death, are all dashed with glory, and become acceptable 
as part of the greatest adventure in the world. But loss of freedom wrings the colour 
from the brain, and shuts out this world and the next when it entails loss of comradeship.

When I first realised this strange phenomenon I thought it would take a volume of 
psychology to explain it.

And then, all suddenly, with no effort of thought, I found the explanation revealing itself 
in one magic blessed word,Companionship.

Out here in the danger-zones, the irksome isolation of ordinary lives has vanished.

We are no longer alone; there are no such things as strangers; we are all together 
wherever we are; in the trenches, on the roads, in the trams, in the cities, in the villages, 
we all talk to each other, we all know each other's histories, we pour out our hopes and 
fears, we receive the warm, sweet stimulus of human comradeship multiplied out of all 
proportion to anything that life has ever offered any single one of us before, till even 
pain and death take on more gentle semblance seen with the eyes of a million people all 
holding hands.

Young men who have not gone, go now! Find out for yourselves whether this wonderful 
thing that I tell you is not true, that the battlefield, apart from its terrific and glorious 
qualities, holds also that secret of gaiety of heart that mankind is ever searching for!

We were at St. Nicolla now, and it was nearly dark, and our train was at a standstill.

"I'll get out and see what's the matter," said the young lawyer, whom I shall refer to 
hereafter as Jean.

He came back in a minute looking serious.

"The train doesn't go any further!" he said. "There's no train for Ghent to-night."

We all got out, clutching our bags, and stood there on the platform in the reddened dusk 
that was fast passing into night.

A Pontonnier, who had been in the train with us, came up and said he was expecting an 
automobile to meet him here, and perhaps he could give some of us a lift as far as 
Ghent.

However, his automobile didn't turn up, and that little plan fell through.

Jean began to bite his moustache and walk up and down, smiling intermittently, a queer 
distracted-looking smile that showed his white teeth.

He always did that when he was thinking how to circumvent the authorities. He had a 
word here with an officer, and a word there with a gendarme. Then he came back to us:

"We shall all go and interview the stationmaster, and see what can be done!"

So we went to the stationmaster, and Jean produced his papers, and Julie produced 
hers, and the old professor from Lige produced his, and I produced my English 
passport.

Jean talked a great deal, and the station-master shook his head a great deal, and there 
was an endless colloquy, such as Belgians dearly love; and just as I thought everything 
was lost, the stationmaster hastened off into the dark with a little lantern and told us to 
follow him right across the train lines, and we came to a bewildering mass of lights, and 
at last we reached a spot in the middle of many train lines which seemed extremely 
dangerous, when the stationmaster said, "Stand there! And when train 57 comes along 
get immediately into the guard's van! There is only one."

We waited a long time, and the night grew cold and dark before 57 came along.

When it puffed itself into a possible position we all performed miracles in the way of 
climbing up an enormous step, and then we found ourselves in a little wooden van, with 
one dim light burning, and one wooden seat, and in we got, seating ourselves in a row 
on the hard seat, and off we started through the night for Ghent.

Looking through a peep-hole, I suddenly stifled an exclamation.

Pointing straight at me were the muzzles of guns.

"Mais oui," said Jean. "That is what this train is doing. It is taking guns to Ghent. There 
are big movements of troops going on."

We were shaken nearly to pieces. And we went so slowly that we scarcely moved at all.

But we arrived at Ghent at last, arrived of course, as usual in war time, at a station one 
had never seen or heard of before, in a remote, far-off portion of the town, and then we 
had to find our way back to the town proper, a long, long walk. It was twelve o'clock 
when we got into the beautiful old dream-like town.

First we went to the Hotel Ganda.

"Full up!" said the fat, white-faced porter rudely. "No room even on the floor to sleep."

"Can you give us something to eat?" we pleaded.

"Impossible! The kitchens are shut up."

He was a brute of a porter, an extraordinary man who never slept, and was on duty all 
night and all day.

He was hand in glove with the Germans all the time, his face did not belie him; he 
looked the ugliest, stealthiest creature, shewing a covert rudeness towards all English- 
speaking people, that many of us remember now and understand.

In the pitch darkness we set out again, clattering about the flagged streets of Ghent, a 
determined little party now, with our high spirits quite unchecked by hunger and fatigue, 
to try to find some sleeping place for the night.

From hotel to hotel we wandered; everyone was full; evidently a vast body of troops had 
arrived at Ghent that day. But, finally, at one o'clock we went last of all to the hotel we 
should have gone to first.

That was the Hotel de la Poste. It being the chief hotel at Ghent, we had felt certain it 
would be impossible to get accommodation there. But other people had evidently 
thought so too, and the result was we all got a room.

From the outside, the hotel appeared to be in pitch darkness, but when we got within we 
found, lights burning, and great companies of Belgian cavalry officers gathered in the 
lounge, and halls, finishing their supper.

"There are great movements of troops going on," said Jean. "This is the first time I have 
seen our army in Ghent."

To my delight I recognised my two friends from Aerschot, the "Brussels nuts."

On hearing that I was going to Brussels one of them begged me to go and see his 
father and sister, if I got safely there. And I gladly promised to do so.

After that (about two o'clock in the morning it was then) we crawled down some steps 
into the cellar, where the most welcome supper I have ever eaten soon pulled us all 
round again. Cold fowl, red wine, delicious bread and butter. Then we went up to our 
rooms, giving strict injunctions to be called at six o'clock, and for four hours we slept the 
sleep of the thoroughly tired out.

Next morning at half-past six, we were all down, and had our cafe-au-lait in the 
restaurant, and then started off cheerfully to the principal railway station.

So far so good!

All we had to do now was to get into a train and be carried straight to Brussels.

Why, then, did Jean look so agitated when we went to the ticket office and asked for our 
tickets?

He turned to us with a shrug.

"Ah! Ces allemands! One never knows what the cochons are going to do! The 
stationmaster here says that the trains may not run into Brussels to-day. He won't book 
us further than Grammont! He believes the lines are cut from there on!"

I was so absorbed in watching the enormous ever-increasing crowds on the Ghent 
station that the seriousness of that statement passed me by. I did not realise where 
Grammont was. And it did not occur to me to wonder by what means I was going to get 
from Grammont to Brussels. I only urged that we should go on.

The old Professor and Madame Julie argued as to whether it would not be better to 
abandon their plans and return to Antwerp.

That seemed to me a tedious idea, so I did my best to push on.

Jean agreed.

"At any rate," he said, "we will go as far as Grammont and see what happens there. 
Perhaps by the time we get there we shall find everything alright again."

So at seven o'clock we steamed away from Ghent, out into the fresh bright countryside.

Now we were in the region of danger. We were outside the derniere ligne of the Belgian 
Army. If one came this way one came at one's risk. But as I looked from the train 
windows everything seemed so peaceful that I could scarcely imagine there was danger. 
There were no ruins here, there was no sign of War at all, only little farms and villages 
bathed in the blue September sunlight, with the peasants working in the fields.

As I tried to push my window higher, someone who was leaning from the next window, 
spoke to me in English, and I met a pair of blue English-looking eyes.

"May I fix that window for you? I guess you're English, aren't you, ma'am?"

I gave him one quick hard look.

It was the War Look that raked a face with a lightning glance.

By now, I had come to depend absolutely on the result of my glance.

"Yes! " I said, " and you are American."

He admitted that was so.

Almost immediately we fell into talk about the War.

"How long do you think it will last?" asked the American.

"I don't know, what do you think?"

"I give it six weeks, I'll be over then."

And he assured me that was the general opinion of those he knewsix weeks or less.

"But what are you doing in this train?" he added interestedly.

"Going to Brussels!"

"Brussels!"

He looked at me with amazed eyes.

"Pardon me! Did you say going to Brussels?"

"Yes."

"Pardon me! But how are you going to get to Brussels?"

"I am going there."

"But you are English?"

"Yes."

"Then you can't have a German passport to get into Brussels if you are English."

"No. I haven't got one."

"But, don't you realise, ma'am, that to get into Brussels you have got to go through the 
German lines ?"

We began to discuss the question.

He was an American who had friends in Brussels, and was going there on business. His 
name was Richards. He was a kindly nice man. He could speak neither French nor 
Flemish, and had a Belgian with him to interpret.

"What do you think I ought to do?" I asked.

"Go back," he promptly said. "If the Germans stop you, they'll take you prisoner. And 
even if you do get in," he added, "you will never get out! It is even harder to get out of 
Brussels than it is to get in."

"I'm going to chance it!"

"Well, if that's so, the only thing I can suggest is that if you do manage to get into 
Brussels safely, you go to the American Consulate, and shew them your papers, and 
they may give you a paper that'll help you to get out."

"But would the Americans do that for a British subject?"

"Sure! We're a neutral country. As a little American boy said, 'I'm neutral! I don't care 
which country whips the Germans!' "

Then another idea occurred to Mr. Richards.

"But you mustn't go into Brussels with an English passport about you. You'll have to hide 
that somehow!"

"I shall give it to Monsieur Jean to hide," I said. "He's the conductor of the little Belgian 
party there!"

"Well, let me see your passport! Then, in case you have to part with it, and you arrive in 
Brussels without it, I can satisfy our Consul that I have seen it, and that you are an 
English subject, and that will make things easier for you at the American Consulate."

I showed him my passport, and he examined it carefully and promised to do what he 
could to help me in Brussels.

Then we arrived at Grammont.

And there the worst happened.

The train lines were cut, and we could go no further by rail.

To get to Brussels we must drive by the roads all the way.



Chapter XI

Brabant

It was like a chapter out of quite another story to leave the train at Grammont, and find 
ourselves in the flagged old Brabant square in front of the station, that hot glittering end- 
o'-summer morning, while on the ear rose a deafening babel of voices from the 
hundreds of little Belgian carts and carriages of all shapes and sizes and descriptions, 
that stood there, with their drivers leaning forward over their skinny horses yelling for 
fares.

The American hurried to me, as I stood watching with deep interest this vivacious scene, 
which reminded me of some old piazza in Italy, and quite took away the sharp edge of 
the adventure the sharp edge being the Germans, who now were not very far away, 
judging by the dull roar of cannon that was here distinctly audible.

The American said: "Ma'am, I have found this little trap that will take us to Brussels for 
fourteen francsright into Brussels, and there is a seat for you in that trap if you'd care 
to come. I'd be very pleased and happy to have you come along with me!"

"It is awfully good of you!" I said.

I knew he was running great risks in taking me with him, and I deeply appreciated his 
kindness.

But Jean remonstrated, a little hurt at the suggestion.

"Madame, you are of our party! We must stick together. I've just found a trap here that 
will take us all. There are four other people already in it, and that will make eight 
altogether. The driver will take us to Brussels for twelve francs each, with an extra five 
francs, if we get there safely!"

So I waved good-bye to the little cart with the friendly American, who waved back, as he 
drove away into the sunlight, shouting, "Good luck!"

"Good luck!"

As I heard that deep-sounding English word come ringing across the flagged old 
Brabant village, it was as though I realised its meaning for the first time.

"Good luck!"

And my heart clutched at it, and clung to it, searching for strength, as the heart of 
women and men toowill do in war time!



Chapter XII

Driving Extraordinary

The task of arranging that party in the waggonette was anything but easy.

The old Lige professor, in his sombre black, sat on the back seat, while in front sat an 
equally enormous old banker from Brussels, also in black, and those two huge men 
seemed to stick up out of the carriage like vast black pillars.

They moved their seats afterwards, but it did not make any difference. Wherever they 
sat, they stuck up like huge black pillars, calling attention to us in what seemed to me a 
distinctly undesirable way.

Two horses we had for our long drive to Brussels, and uncommonly bony horses they 
were.

Our carriage was a species of long-drawn-out victoria.

It had an extra seat behind, with its back to the horses, a horrid, tilting little seat, as I 
soon discovered, for it was there that I found myself sitting, with Jean beside me, as we 
started off through the golden Saturday morning.

Jean and I had each to curl an arm round the back of the seat; otherwise we should 
have been tipped out; for a tremendously steep white hill-road, lined with poplars, began 
to rise before us, and we were in constant danger of falling forward on our noses.

But the only thing I cared about by then, was to sit next to Jean.

He seemed to be my only safeguard, my only hope of getting through this risky 
adventure.

And in low voices we discussed what I should do, if we did indeed meet the enemy, a 
contingency which began to grow more and more probable every moment.

All sorts of schemes were discussed between us, sitting there at the back of that jolting 
carriage.

But it was quite evident to both, that, though we might make up a plausible story as to 
why I was going to Brussels, although I might call myself an American, or an Italian, or a 
Spaniard (seeing that I could speak those languages well enough to deceive the 
Germans, and seeing also that I had the letter to the Spanish minister in my bag from 
the Vice-Consul at Antwerp), still, neither I nor Jean could do the one thing necessary; 
we could not produce any papers of mine that would satisfy the Germans if I fell into 
their hands.

"But we're not going to meet them!" said Jean.

He lit a cigarette.

"You had better give me all your papers," he added airily.

"What will you do with them?"

He smoked and thought.

"If we meet the Germans, I'll throw them away somewhere."

"But how on earth shall I ever get them again? And suppose the Germans see you 
throwing them away."

I did not like the phrase, "throw them away."

It seemed like taking from me the most precious thing in the world, the one thing that I 
had firmly determined never to part withmy passport!

But I now discovered that Jean had a thoughtful mood upon him, and did not want to 
talk. He wanted to think. He told me so.

He said, "It is necessary that I think out many little things now! Pardon!"

And he tapped his brow.

So I left him to it!

Along the white sun-bathed road, as we drove, we met a continual procession of carts, 
waggons, fiacres, and vehicles of all shapes, kinds, and descriptions, full of peasants or 
bourgeoisie, all travelling in the direction of Ghent. Every now and then a private motor 
car would flash past us, flying the red, white and blue flag of Holland, or the Stars and 
Stripes of America. They had an almost impudent insouciance with them, those lucky 
neutral motor cars, as they rushed along the sunny Brabant road to Brussels, joyously 
confident that there would be no trouble for them if they met the Germans!

How I envied them! How I longed to be able by some magic to prove myself American or 
Dutch!

Every ten minutes or so we used to shout to people on the road, coming from the 
opposite direction.

"II y a des Allemands?" or

"II y a de danger?"

The answer would come back:

"Pas des Allemands!" or

"Oui, les Allemands sont l," pointing to the right. Or

"Les Allemands sont l" pointing to the left.

I would feel horribly uncomfortable then.

Although apparently I was not frightened in the least, there was one thing that 
undeceived me about myself.

I had lost the power to think as clearly as usual.

I found that my brain refused to consider what I should do if the worst came to the worst. 
Whenever I got to that point my thoughts jibbed. Vagueness seized upon me.

I only knew that I was in for it now: that I was seated there in that old rickety carriage; 
that I was well inside the German lines; and that it was too late to turn back.

In a way it was a relief to feel incapable of dealing with the situation, because it set my 
mind free to observe the exquisite beauty of the country we were travelling through, and 
the golden sweetness of that never-to-be-forgotten September day.

Up and up that long steep white hill our carriage climbed, with rows of wonderful high 
poplars leaving in the breeze on either side of us, and gracious grey Belgian chateaux 
shewing their beautiful lines through vistas of flower-filled gardens, and green undulating 
woods, of such richness, and fertility, and calm happy opulence, that the sound of the 
cannon growing ever louder across the valleys almost lost its meaning in such a fair 
enchanted country. But the breeze blew round us, a soft and gentle breeze, laden with 
the scent of flowers and green things. Red pears of great size and mellowness hung on 
the orchard trees. The purple cabbage that the Brabant peasants cultivate made bright 
spots along the ground. In the villages, at the doors of the little white cottages I saw old 
wrinkled Belgian women sitting. Little fair-haired, blue-eyed children, with peculiarly 
small, sweet faces, stood looking up and down the long roads with an expression that 
often brought the tears to my eyes as I realised the fears that those poor little baby 
hearts must be filled with in those desperate days.

And yet the prevailing note of the people we met along that road was still gaiety, rather 
than sadness or terror.

"Il y a des Allemands?"

"II y a de danger?"

We went on perpetually with our questions, and the answers would come back 
laughingly with shakings of the head.

"No! Not met any Germans!" or:

"They are fighting round Ninove. We've been making detours all the morning to try and 
get out of their way!"

And now the road was so steep, that Jean and I jumped down from our sloping seat at 
the back and walked up the hill to save the bony horses.

Every now and then, we would pause to look back at that wide dreamlike view, which 
grew more and more magnificent the higher we ascended, until at last fair Brabant lay 
stretched out behind us, bathed in a glittering sunlight that had in it, that day, some 
exquisitely poignant quality as though it were more golden than gold, just because, 
across that great plain to the left, the fierce detonations of heavy artillery told of the 
terrific struggles that were going on there for life and death.

Presently we met a couple of black-robed Belgian priests walking down the hill, and 
mopping their pale faces under their black felt hats.

"The Germans are all over the place to-day," they told us. "And yesterday they arrested 
a train-full of people between Enghien and Hall. They suspected them of carrying letters 
into Brussels. So they cut the train lines last night, and marched the people off to be 
searched. The young men have been sent into Germany to-day. Or so rumour says. 
That may or may not be true. But anyway it is quite true that the train-load of 
passengers was arrested wholesale, and that every single one of them was searched, 
and those who were found carrying letters were taken prisoners. Perhaps to be shot."

"C'est a!" said Jean coolly. We bade the priests good-bye, and trudged on.

Jean presently under his breath, said:

"I've got a hundred letters in my pockets. I'm taking them from Antwerp people into 
Brussels. I suppose I shall have to leave them somewhere!"

He smiled, his queer high-up smile, showing all his white teeth, and I felt sure that he 
was planning something, I felt certain he was not going to be baulked.

At the top of the hill we got into our trap again, and off we started, travelling at a great 
rate.

We dashed along, and vehicles dashed past us in the opposite direction, and I had the 
feeling that I was going for a picnic, so bright was the day, so beautiful the surroundings, 
so quick the movements along the road.

"At Enghien," said Jean, turning round and addressing the other people in the carriage 
(by now they had all made friends with each other, and were chattering nineteen to the 
dozen), "at Enghien we shall get lunch!"

"But there is nowhere that one finds lunch at Enghien," protested the fat Brussels 
banker.

"I promise you as good a lunch as ever you have eaten, and good wine to wash it 
down!" was Jean's reply.

At last we arrived at Enghien, and found ourselves in a little brown straggling 
picturesque village on a hillside, full of peasants, who were gathered in a dense crowd in 
the "grand place," which was here the village common.

They had come in out of the fields, these peasants, stained with mud and all the 
discolourations of the soil. Their innocent faces spoke of the calm sweet things of 
nature. But mixed with the innocence was a great wonder and bewilderment now.

All this time, ever since we left Ghent, we had never seen a Belgian militaire.

That of itself told its own story of how completely we were outside the last chance of 
Belgian protectionoutside la derniere ligne.



Chapter XIII

The Lunch At Enghien

Dear little Enghien! I shall always remember you.

It was so utterly-out-of-the-ordinary to drive to the railway station, and have one's lunch 
cooked by the stationmaster.

A dear old man he was, that old grey-bearded Belgian.

A hero too!

His trains were stopped; his lines were cut; he was ever in the midst of the Germans, 
but he kept his bright spirits happy, and when Jean ushered us all in to his little house 
that formed part of the railway station, he received us as if we were old friends, shook us 
all by the hand, and told us, with great gusto, exactly what he would give us.

And he rolled the words out too, almost as though he was an Italian, as he promised us 
a bonne omelette, followed by a bon bifsteak, and fried potatoes, and cheese, and fruit 
and a bon caf!

Then he hurried away into the kitchen, and we heard him cracking the eggs, while his 
old sister set the table in the little dining-room.

We travellers all sat on a seat out in front of the railway line, under the sweet blue sky, 
facing green fields, and refreshed ourselves with little glasses of red, tonic-like Byrrh.

It was characteristic of those dear Belgian souls that they one and all raised their little 
glasses before they drank, and looking towards me said, "Vive lAngleterre!"

To which I responded with my tiny glass, "Leve la Belgique!"

And we all added, "A bas le Kaiser!" And from across the fields the noise of the battle 
round Ninove came towards us, louder and louder every moment.

As we sat there we discussed the cannonading that now seemed very near.

So loud and so close to us were the angry growllings of the guns that I felt amazed at 
not being able to see any smoke.

It was evident that some big encounter was going on, but the fields were green and still, 
and nothing at all was to be seen.

By now I had lost all sense of reality. I was merely a figure in an extraordinary dream, in 
which the great guns pounded on my right hand, and the old stationmaster's omelette 
fried loudly on my left.

Jean strolled off alone, while two of the ladies of the party went away to buy some 
butter.

In Brussels, they said, it was impossible to get good butter under exorbitant prices, so 
they paid a visit to a little farm a few steps away, and came back presently laden with 
butter enough to keep them going for several weeks, for which they had paid only one 
franc each.

And now the old stationmaster comes out and summons us all in to lunch.

He wishes us "bon appdtit" and we seat ourselves round the table under the portraits of 
King Albert and "la petite reine !" in his little sitting-room.

A merrier lunch than that was never eaten. The vast omelette melted away in a twinkling 
before the terrific onslaught made upon it, chiefly by the Liege professor and the 
Brussels banker, who by now had got up their appetites.

The Red Cross lady, who took it upon herself to help out the food, kept up a cheerful 
little commentary of running compliments which included us all, and the beef-steak, and 
the omelette, and the potatoes, and the stationmaster, until we could hardly tell one from 
the other, so agreeable did we all seem!

The old stationmaster produced some good Burgundy, sun-kissed, purply red of a most 
respectable age.

When everything was on the table he brought his chair and joined in with us, asking 
questions about Antwerp, and Ghent, and Ostend, and giving us in return vivid sketches 
of what the Germans had been doing in his part of the world. The extraordinary part of 
all this was that though we were in a region inhabited by the Germans there was no sign 
of destruction. The absence of ruin and pillage seems to conceal the fact that this was 
invested country.

After our bon caf we all shook hands with the stationmaster, wished him good luck, and 
hurried back to the village, where we climbed into our vehicle again.

This time I took a place in the inside of the carriage, leaving Jean and another man to 
hang on to that perilous back seat.

At two o'clock we were off.

The horses, freshened by food and water, galloped along now at a great pace, and the 
day developed into an afternoon as cloudless and glittering as the morning.

But almost immediately after leaving Enghien an ominous note began to be struck.

Whenever we shouted out our query:

"Il y a des Allemands?" the passers-by coming from the opposite direction shouted 
back,

"Oui, oui, beaucoup d Allemands!"

And suddenly there they were!



Chapter XIV

We Meet the Grey-Coats

My first sight of the German Army was just one man.

He was a motor cyclist dressed in grey, with his weapons slung across his back, and he 
flashed past us like lightning.

Everyone in the carriage uttered a deep "Oh!"

It seemed to me an incredible thing that one German should be all alone like that among 
enemies. I said so to my companions.

"The others are coming!" they said with an air of certainty that turned me cold all over.

But it was at least two miles further on before we met the rest of his corps.

Then we discovered fifty German motor cyclists, in grey uniforms, and flat caps, flying 
smoothly along the side path in one long grey line.

Their accoutrements looked perfect and trim, their general appearance was strikingly 
smart, natty, and workmanlike in the extreme.

Just before they reached us Jean got down and walked on foot along the road at the 
edge of the side path where they were riding.

And as they passed quite near him Jean turned his glance towards me and gave me an 
enormous wink.

I don't know whether that was Jean's sense of humour.

I always forgot afterwards to ask him what it meant.

I only know that it had a peculiarly cheering effect on me to see that great black eye 
winking and then turning itself with a quiet, careless gaze on the faces of the fifty 
German cyclists.

They passed without doing more than casting a look at us, and were lost to sight in a 
moment flashing onwards with tremendous speed towards Enghien.

We were now on the brow of a hill, and as we reached it, and began to descend, we 
were confronted with a spectacle that fairly took away my breath.

The long white road before us was literally lined with Germans.



Chapter XV

Face to Face with the Huns

Yes, there they were! And when I found myself face to face with those five hundred 
advancing Germans, about two kilometres out of Enghien, I quite believed I was about 
to lose my chance of getting to Brussels and of seeing the man I was so anxious to see. 
Little did I dream at that moment, out there on the sunny Brabant hillside, seated in the 
old voiture, with that long, never-ending line of Germans filling the tree-lined white dusty 
highway far and wide with their infantry and artillery, their cannon, and the prancing 
horses of their officers, and their gleaming blue and scarlet uniforms, and glittering 
appointments, that it was not I who was going to be taken prisoner by "les Allemands" 
that brilliant Saturday afternoon, but Max of Brussels himself.

Up and down the long steep white road to Brussels the Germans halted, shouting in 
stentorian voices that we were to do likewise.

Our driver quickly brought his two bony horses to a standstill, and in the open carriage 
with me our queer haphazard party sat as if turned to stone.

The Red Cross Belgian lady had already hidden her Red Cross in her stocking, so that 
the Germans, if we met them, should not seize her and oblige her to perform Red Cross 
duties in their hated service.

The guttural voice of an erect old blue-and-scarlet German colonel fell on my ears like a 
bad dream, as he brought his big prancing grey horse alongside our driver and 
demanded roughly what we were doing there, while in the same bad dream as I sat 
there in my corner of the voiture, I watched the expressions written all over those 
hundreds of fierce, fair, arrogant faces, staring at us from every direction.

In a blaze of hatred, I told myself that if ever the brute could be seen rampant in human 
beings' faces there it was, rampant, uncontrolled, unashamed, only just escaping from 
being degraded by the accompanying expressions of burning arrogance, and 
indomitable determination that blazed out of those hundreds of blue Teutonic eyes. The 
set of their lips was firm and grim beyond all words. Often a peculiar ironic smirk, 
caused by the upturning of the corners of their otherwise straight lips, seemed to add to 
their demoniac suggestiveness. But their physique was magnificent, and there was not a 
man among them who did not look every inch a soldier, from his iron-heeled blucher 
boots upwards.

As I studied them, drinking in the unforgettable picture, it gave me a certain amount of 
satisfaction to know that I was setting my own small womanly daring up against that 
great mass of unbridled cruelty and conceit, and I sat very still, very still indeed, stiller 
than any mouse, allowing myself the supreme luxury of a contemptuous curl of my lips. 
Picture after picture of the ruined cities I had seen in Belgium flashed like lightning over 
my memory out there on the sunny Brabant hillside. Again I saw before me the horrors 
that I had seen with my own eyes at Aerschot, Termonde, and Louvain, and then, 
instead of feeling frightened I experienced nothing but a red-hot scorn that entirely lifted 
me above the terrible stress of the encounter; and whether I lived or died mattered not 
the least bit in the world, beside the satisfaction of sitting there, an English subject 
looking down at the German Army, with that contemptuous curl of my lips, and that 
blaze of hatred in my heart.

Meanwhile our driver's passport with his photograph was being examined.

"Who is this?" shouted the silly old German Colonel, pointing to the photograph.

"C'est moi," replied the driver, and his expression seemed to say, "Who on earth did you 
think it was?"

The fat Colonel, who obviously did not understand a word of French, kept roaring away 
for one "Schultz," who seemed to be some distance off.

The roaring and shouting went on for several minutes.

It was a curious manifestation of German lack of dignity and I tried in vain to imagine an 
English Colonel roaring at his men like that.

Then "Schultz" came galloping up. He acted as interpreter, and an amusing dialogue 
went on between the roaring Colonel and the young dashing "Baverois," who was 
obviously a less brutal type than his interrogator.

The old banker from Brussels was next questioned, and his passport to come in and out 
of Brussels being correctly made out in German and French, the Germans seized upon 
Jean and demanded what he was doing there, why he was going to Brussels, and why 
he had been to Grammont. Jean's answer was that he lived in Brussels and had been to 
Grammont to see his relations, and "Schultz's" explanations rendered this so convincing 
that the lawyer's passport was handed back to him.

"You are sure none of you have no correspondence, no newspapers? "roared the 
Colonel. "What is in that bag?"

Leaning into the carriage a soldier prodded at my bag.

I dared not attempt to speak. My English origin might betray me in my French. I sat 
silent. I made no reply. I tried to look entirely uninterested. But I was really almost 
unconscious with dread.

But the Red Cross lady replied with quiet dignity that there was nothing in her bag but 
requisites for the journey.

Next moment, as in a dream, I heard that roaring voice shout:

"Gut! Get on!"

Our driver whipped lightly, the carriage moved forward, and we proceeded on our way, 
filled with queer thoughts that sprang from nerves overstrained and hearts over-quickly 
beating.

Only Jean remained imperturbable.

"Quel Chance! They were nearly all Baverois! Did you see the dragon embroidered on 
their pouches? The Baverois are always plus gentilles than any of the others."

This was something I had heard over and over again. According to the Belgians, these 
Baverois had all through the War, manifested a better spirit towards the Belgians than 
any other German Regiment, the accredited reason being, that the Belgian Queen is of 
Bavarian nationality. When the Uhlans slashed up the Queen's portrait in the Royal 
Palace at Brussels the "Baverois" lost their tempers, and a fierce brawl ensued, in which 
seven men were killed. All the Belgians in our old ramshackle carriage were loud in their 
expressions of thankfulness that we had encountered Baverois instead of Uhlans.

So at last that dread mysterious darksome quantity known as "les Allemands," ever 
moving hither and thither across Belgium, always talked of on the other side of the 
Belgian lines, but never seen, had materialised right under my very eyes!

The beautiful rich Brabant orchard country stretched away on either side of the road, 
and behind us, along the road, ran like a wash of indigo, the brilliant Prussian blue of the 
moving German cavalcade making now towards Enghien and Grammont.

And now the old professor from Lige drew all attention towards himself.

He was shaking and quivering like a jelly.

"J'ai peur!" he said simply.

"Mais non, Monsieur!" cried Jean. "It's all over now."

"Courage! courage! Pas de danger," cried everyone, encouragingly.

"It was only a ruse of the enemy, letting us go," whispered the Professor. "They will 
follow and shoot us from behind!"

Plaintively, as a child, he asked the fat Brussels banker to allow him to change places, 
and sit in front, instead of behind.

In a sudden rebound of spirits, the Red Cross lady and I laughingly sat on the back seat, 
and opened our parasols behind us, while the old Brussels banker, when the two fat 
men had exchanged seats not without difficulty, whispered to us :

"And all the while there are a hundred letters sewn up inside the cushion of the seat our 
friend from Lige is sitting on now !"



Chapter XVI

A Prayer for His Soul

On we drove, on and on.

All the road to Brussels was patrolled now. At the gates of villa gardens, on the side 
paths, grey German sentries were posted, bayonets fixed. We drove through Germans 
all the way. They looked at us quietly. Once only were we stopped again, and this time it 
was only the driver's passport that was looked at.

At last we arrived at Hall, an old-world Brabant town containing a "miracle." As far as I 
can remember, it was a bomb from some bygone War that came through the church 
wall and was caught in the skirts of the Madonna!

"Hall," said Jean, "is now the head-quarters of the German Army in Belgium! The Etat-
Majeur has been moved here from Brussels. He is in residence at the Hotel de Ville. 
Voila! See the Germans. They always pose themselves like that on the steps where 
there are any steps to pose on. Ah, mais c'est triste n'est-ce-pas? Mon pauvre 
Belgique!"

We clattered up the main street and stopped at a little cafe, facing the Hotel de Ville.

Stiffly we alighted from our waggonette, and entering the cafe quenched our thirst in 
lemonade, watching the Germans through the window as we rested.

Nervous as I was myself, I admired the Belgians' sangfroid. They manifested not the 
slightest signs of nervousness. Scorn was their leading characteristic. Then a sad little 
story reached my ears. An old peasant was telling Jean that an English aviator had been 
shot down at Hall the day before, and was buried somewhere near.

How I longed to look for my brave countryman's grave! But that was impossible. Instead, 
I breathed a prayer for his soul, and thought of him and his great courage with 
tenderness and respect.

It was all I could do.



Chapter XVII

Brussels

Finally, after a wild and breathless drive of thirty-five miles through rich orchard-country 
all the way, and always between German patrols, we entered Brussels. Crowds of 
German officers and men were dashing about in motor-cars in all directions, while the 
populace moved by them as though they were ghosts, taking not the slightest notice of 
their presence. The sunlight had faded now, and the lights were being lit in Brussels, 
and I gazed about me, filled with an inordinate curiosity. At first I thought the people 
seemed to be moving about just as usual, but soon I discovered an immense difference 
between these Brussels crowds, and those of normal times and conditions. It was as 
though all the red roses and carnations had been picked out of the garden. The smart 
world had completely disappeared. Those daintily-dressed, exquisite women, and 
elegant young and old men, that made such persuasive notes among the streets and 
shops of Brussels in ordinary times, had vanished completely under the German 
occupation. In their place was now a rambling, roaming crowd of the lower middle-
classes, dashed with a big sprinkling of wide-eyed wrinkled peasants from the Brabant 
country outside, who had come into the big city for the protection of the lights and the 
houses and the companionship, even though the dreaded "Allemands" were there. 
Listlessly people strolled about. They looked in the shop windows, but nobody bought. 
No business seemed to be done at all, except in the provision shops, where I saw 
groups of German officers and soldiers buying sausages, cheese and eggs.

Crowds gathered before the German notices, pasted on the walls so continuously that 
Brussels was half covered beneath these great black and white printed declarations, 
which, as they were always printed in three languagesGerman, French and Flemish 
took up an enormous amount of wall space. Here and there Dutch journalists stood 
hastily copying these "affiches" into their note-books. Now and then, from the crowd 
reading, a low voice would mutter languidly Les sales cochons!" But more often the 
Brussels sense of humour would see something funny in those absurd proclamations, 
and people were often to be seen grinning ironically at the German official war news 
specially concocted for the people of Brussels. It was all the Direct Opposite of the news 
in Belgian and English papers. We, the Allies, had just announced that Austria had 
broken down, and was on the verge of a revolution. They, the Germans, announced 
precisely the same thingonly of Servia! And the Brussels people coolly read the news 
and passed on, believing none of it.

And all the time, while the Belgians moved dawdlingly up and down, and round about 
their favourite streets and arcades, the Germans kept up one swift everlasting rush, 
flying past in motors, or striding quickly by, with their firm, long tread. They always 
seemed to be going somewhere in a hurry, or doing something extraordinarily definite. 
After I had been five minutes in Brussels, I became aware of this curious sense of 
immense and unceasing German activity, flowing like some loud, swift, resistless current 
through the dull, depleted stream of Brussels life. All day long it went without ceasing, 
and all night too. In and out of the city, in and out of the city, in and out of the city. Past 
the deserted lace shops, with their exquisite delicate contents; past the many closed 
hotels; past the great white beauties of Brussels architecture; past the proud but 
yellowing avenues of trees along the heights; past those sculptured monuments of 
Belgians who fell in bygone battles, and now, in the light of 1914, leapt afresh into life 
again, galvanised back into reality by the shriek of a thousand obus, and the blood 
poured warm on the blackened fields of Belgium.

We drove to an old hotel in a quiet street, and our driver jumped down and rang the 
courtyard bell.

Then the door opened, and an old Belgian porter stood and looked at us with sad eyes, 
saying in a low voice, "Come in quickly!"

We all got down and went through the gateway.

We found ourselves in a big old yellow stone courtyard, chilly and deserted.

The driver ran out and returned, carrying in his arms the long flat seat-cushion from the 
carriage.

Then the old porter locked the gate and we all gathered round the brave little Flemish 
driver who was down on his knees now, over the cushion, doing something with a knife.

Next minute he held up a bundle of letters, and then another and then another,

"And here is your English passport, Madame," Jean said to me.

Unknown to most of us, the driver and Jean, while we waited at Enghien, had made a 
slit in the cushion, had taken out some stuffing, and put in instead a great mass of 
letters and papers for Brussels, then they had wired up the slit, turned the cushion 
upside down, and let us sit on it.

It was rather like sitting on a mine.

Only, like the heroine of the song: "We didn't care, we didn't KNOW!"



Chapter XVIII

Burgomaster Max

The hotel is closed to the public.

"We shut it up so that we should not have Germans coming in," says the little Bruxellois 
widow who owns it. "But if Madame likes to stay here for the night we can arrange, 
only there is no cooking!"

The old professor from Lige asks in his pitiful childlike way if he can get a room there 
too. He would be glad, so glad, to be in a hotel that was not open to the public, or the 
Germans.

Leaving my companions with many expressions of friendliness, I now rush of to the 
Hotel de Ville, accompanied by the faithful Jean.

Just as we reach our destination, we run into the man I have come all this way to see.

I see a short, dark man, with an alert military bearing. It seems to me that this idol of 
Brussels is by no means good-looking. Certainly, there is nothing of the hero in his 
piquant, even somewhat droll appearance. But his eyes! They are truly extraordinary! 
They bulge right out of their sockets. They have the sharpness and alertness of a 
terrier's. They are brilliant, humorous, stern, merry, tender, audacious, glistening, bright, 
all at once. His beard is clipped. His moustaches are large and upstanding. His 
immaculate dress and careful grooming give him a dandified air, as befitting the most 
popular bachelor in Europe, who is also an orphan to boot. His forehead is high and 
broad. His general appearance is immediately arresting, one scarcely knows why. Quite 
unlike the conventional Burgomaster type is he.

M. Max briefly explains that he is on his way to an important meeting. But he will see me 
at eleven o'clock next morning if I will come to the Hotel de Ville. Then he hurries off, his 
queer dark face lighting up with a singularly brilliant smile as he bids us "Au revoir!" An 
historic moment that. For M. Max has never been seen in Brussels since!

Of itself, M. Max's face is neither particularly loveable, nor particularly attractive.

Therefore, this man's great hold over hearts is all the more remarkable.

It must, of course, be attributed in part to the deep, warm audacious personality that 
dwells behind his looks.

But, in truth, M. Max's enormous popularity owes itself not only to his electric 
personality, his daring, and sangfroid, but also to his commons sense, which steered 
poor bewildered Brussels through those terribly difficult first weeks of the German 
occupation.

Nothing in history is more touching, more glorious, than the sudden starting up in time of 
danger of some quiet unknown man who stamps his personality on the world, becomes 
the prop and comfort of his nation, is believed in as Christians believe in God, and 
makes manifest again the truth that War so furiously and jealously attempts to crush 
and darkenthe power of mind over matter, the mastery of good over evil.

From this War three such men stand out immortallyKing Albert, Max of Brussels, 
Mercier of Malines.

And Belgium has produced all three! Thrice fortunate Belgium!

Each stone that crumbles from her ruined homes seems, to the watching world, to fly 
into the Heavens, and glow there like a star!

On foot, swinging my big yellow furs closer round me in the true Belgian manner, I 
walked along at Jean's side, trying to convince myself that this was all real, this Brussels 
full of grey-clad and blue-clad Prussians, Saxons, and Baverois, with here and there the 
white uniform of the Imperial Guard. Suddenly I started. Horribly conscious as I was that 
I was an English authoress and with no excuse to offer for my presence there, I felt 
distinctly nervous when I saw a queer young man in a bulky brown coat move slowly 
along at my side with a curious sidling movement, whispering something under his 
breath.

I was not sure whether to hurry on, or to stand still.

Jean chose the latter course.

Whereupon the stranger flicked a look up and down the street, then put his hand in his 
inner breast pocket.

"Le Temps," he whispered hoarsely, flashing looks up and down the street.

"How much?" asked Jean.

"Five francs," he answered. "Put it away toute suite, vous savez c'est dangereux."

Then quickly he added, walking along beside us still, and speaking still in that hoarse, 
melodramatic voice (which pleased him a little, I couldn't help thinking), "Les Allemands 
will give me a year in prison if they catch me, so I have to make it pay, n'est-ce-pas ? 
But the Brussels people must have their newspapers. They've got to know the truth 
about the war, n'est-ce-pas? and the English papers tell the truth!"

"How do you get the newspapers," I whispered, like a conspirator myself.

"I sneak in and out of Brussels in a peasant's cart, all the way to Sottegem," he 
whispered back. "Every week they catch one of us. But still we go onn'est-ce-pas? 
We don't know what fear is in Brussels. That's because we've got M. Max at the head of 
us! Ah, there's a man for you, M. Max!"

A look of pride and tenderness flashed across his dark, crafty face, then he was gone, 
and I found myself longing for the morning, when I should talk with M. Max myself.

But Sunday I was awakened by the loud booming of cannon, proceeding from the 
direction of Malines.

"What is happening?" I asked the maid who brought my coffee "Isn't that firing very 
near?"

"Oui, Madam! On dit that in a few days now the Belgian Army will re-enter Brussels, and 
the Germans will be driven out. That will be splendid, Madam, will it not?"

"Splendid," I answered mechanically.

This optimism was now becoming a familiar phrase to me.

I found it everywhere. But alas! I found it alongside what was continually being revealed 
as pathetic ignorance of the true state of affairs.

And the nearer one was to actual events the greater appeared one's ignorance.

This very day, when we were saying, "In a few days now the Germans will be driven out 
of Brussels," they were commencing their colossal attack upon Antwerp, and we knew 
nothing about it.

The faithful Jean called for me at half-past ten, and hurrying through the rain-wet streets 
to meet M. Max at the Hotel de Ville, we became suddenly aware that something 
extraordinary was happening. A sense of agitation was in the air. People were hurrying 
about, talking quickly and angrily. And then our eyes were confronted by the following 
startling notice, pasted on the walls, printed in German, French and Flemish, and 
flaming over Brussels in all directions: 

"AVIS.

"Le Bourgmestre Max ayant fait default aux engagements encourus envers le 
Gouvernment Allemand je me suis vu force de le suspendre de ses fonctions. Monsieur 
Max se trouve en detention honourable dans une forteresse.

"Le Gouverneur Allemande,

"VON DER GOLTZ."

Bruxelles,

26th Septembre, 1914.

Cries of grief and rage kept bursting from those broken-hearted Belgians.

Not a man or woman in the city was there who did not worship the very ground Max 
walked on.

The blow was sharp and terrible; it was utterly unexpected too. Crowds kept on 
gathering.

Presently, with that never-ceasing accompaniment of distant cannon, the anger of the 
populace found vent in groans and hisses as a body of Uhlans made its appearance, 
conducting two Belgian prisoners towards the Town Hall. And then, all in a moment, 
Brussels was in an uproar. Prudence and fear were flung to the wind. Like mad 
creatures the seething crowds of men, women, and children went tearing along towards 
the Hotel de Ville, groaning and hooting at every German they saw, and shouting aloud 
the name of "Max," while to add to the indescribable tumult, hundreds of little boys ran 
shrieking at the tops of their voices, "Voici le photographie de Monsieur Max, dix 
centimes!"

The Civic Guard, composed now mostly of elderly enrolled Brussels civilians, dashed in 
and out among the infuriated mob, waving their sticks, and imploring the population to 
restrain itself, or the consequences might be fatal for one and all.

Meanwhile the Aldermen were busy preparing a new affiche which was soon being 
posted up in all directions.

"AVIS IMPORTANT.

"Pendant l'absence de M. Max le marche des affaires Communales et le Maintenance 
de l'ordre seront assures par le College Echevinal. Dans l'interet de la cit nous faisons 
un supreme appel au calme et sangfroid de nos concitoyens. Nous comptons sur le 
concours de tous pour assurer le maintien de la tranquilite publique.

Bruxelles. "LE COLLEGE ECHEVINAL."

Accompanied by Jean, I hurried on to the Hotel de Ville.

"Voyez vous!" says Jean under his breath. "Voici les Allemands dans l'Hotel de Ville! 
Quel chose n'est-ce-pas!"

And I hear a sharp note in the poor fellow's voice that told of bitter emotion.

It was an ordeal to walk through that beautiful classic courtyard, patrolled by grey-clad 
German sentinels armed to the teeth. The only thing to do was to pass them without 
either looking or not looking. But once inside I felt safer. The Germans kept to their side 
of the Town Hall, leaving the Belgian Municipality alone. We went up the wide stairs, 
hung with magnificent pictures and found a sad group of Belgians gathered in a long 
corridor, the windows of which looked down into the courtyard below where the 
Germans were unloading waggons, or striding up and down with bayonets fixed.

Looking down from that window, while we waited to be received by M. le Meunier, the 
Acting-Burgomaster who had promptly taken M. Max's place, I interested myself in 
studying the famous German leg. A greater part of it was boot. These boots looked as 
though immense attention had been given to them. In fact there was nothing they didn't 
have, iron heels, waterproof uppers, patent soles an immense thickness, with metal 
intermingled, an infinite capacity for not wearing out. I watched these giant boots 
standing in the gateway of the exquisite Hotel de Ville, fair monument of Belgium's 
genius for the, Gothic! I could see nothing of the upper part of the Germans, only their 
legs, and it was forced upon my observation that those legs were of great strength and 
massive, yet with a curious flinging freedom of gait, that was the direct result of goose- 
stepping.

Then I saw two officers goose-stepping into the courtway. I saw their feet first! then their 
knees.

The effect was curious. They appeared to kick out contemptuously at the world, then 
pranced in after the kick. The conceit of the performance defies all words.

Then Jean's card was taken into the acting Burgomaster, and next moment a Belgian 
Echevin said to us, "Entrez, s'il vous plait," and we passed into the room habitually 
occupied by M. Max.

We found ourselves in a palatial chamber, the walls covered thickly with splendid 
tapestries and portraits. From the high gilded ceiling hung enormous chandeliers, 
glittering and pageantesque. Under one of these giant chandeliers stood an imposing 
desk covered with papers. An elderly gentleman with a grey wide beard was seated 
there. We advanced over the thick soft carpets.

M. le Meunier received us with great courtesy.

"Nous avons perdu notre tete!" he murmured sadly."Without M. Max we are lost!"

The air was full of agitation.

Here was a scene the like of which might well have been presented by the stage, so 
spectacular was it, so dramaticthe lofty chamber with its superb appointments and 
hangings, and these elderly, grey-bearded men of state who had just been dealt the 
bitterest blow that had yet fallen on their poor tortured shoulders.

But this was no stage scene. This was real. If ever anything on earth was alive and real 
it was this scene in the Burgomaster's room in Brussels, on the first day of Max's 
imprisonment. Throbbing and palpitating through it was human agony, human grief, 
human despair, as these grey-bearded Belgians stared with dull heavy eyes at the 
empty space where their heroic chief no longer was. Tragic beyond the words of any 
historian was that scene, which at last however, by sheer intensity of concentrated and 
concealed emotion, seemed to summon again into that chamber the imprisoned body, 
the blazing, dauntless personality of the absent one, until his prison bonds were broken, 
and he was here, seated at this desk, cool, fearless, imperturbable, directing the helm of 
his storm-tossed bark with his splendid sanity, and saying to all:

"Fear nothing, mes enfants! There is no such thing as fear!"



Chapter XIX

His Arrest

The story of Max's arrest was characteristic.

He was busy at the Hotel de Ville with his colleagues when a peremptory message 
arrived from Von der Goltz, bidding him come at once to an interview.

"I cannot come at once!" said Max, "I am occupied in an important conference with my 
colleagues. I'll come at half-past four o'clock."

Presently the messenger returned.

"Monsieur Max, will you come at once!" he said in a worried manner. "Von der Goltz is 
angry!"

"I am busy with my work!" replied Max imperturbably. "As I said before, I shall be with 
Von der Goltz at four-thirty."

At four-thirty he went off, accompanied by his colleagues, and a dramatic conference 
took place between the Germans and Belgians.

Max now fearlessly informed the Germans that he considered it would be unfair for 
Brussels to pay any more at present of the indemnity put upon it by Germany.

One reason he gave was very simple.

The Germans had posted up notices in the city, declaring that in future they would not 
pay for anything required for the service of the German Army, but would take whatever 
they wanted, free.

"You must wait for your indemnity, said Max. "You can't get blood from a stone."

"Then we arrest you all as hostages for the money," was the German's answer.

At first Max and all his Echevins were arrested.

Two hours later the aldermen were released.

But not Max.

He was sent to his honorable detention in a German fortress.

The months have passed.

He is still there!

...

Chapter XX

General Thys

By degrees Brussels calmed down. But the Germans wore startled expressions all that 
grey wet Sunday, as though realising that within that pent-up city was a terribly 
dangerous force, a force that had been restrained and kept in order all this time by the 
very man they had been foolish enough to imprison because Brussels found herself 
unable to pay up her cruelly-imposed millions.

Later, on that Sunday afternoon, I fulfilled my promise and went to call on General Thys, 
the father of one of my Aerschot acquaintances.

I found the old General in that beautiful house of his in the Chause de Charleroi, sitting 
by the fireside in his library reading the Old Testament.

"The only book I can read now!" the General said, in a voice that shook a little, as if with 
some burning secret agitation.

I remember so well that interview. It was a grey Sunday afternoon, with a touch of 
autumn in the air, and no sunlight. Through the great glass windows at the end of the 
library I could see that Brussels garden, with some trees green, and some turning palely 
gold, already on their way towards decay.

Seated on one side of the fire was the beautiful young unmarried daughter of the house, 
sharing her father's terrible loneliness, while on the other side sat the handsome 
melancholy old Belgian hero, whose trembling voice began presently to tell the story of 
his beloved nation, its suffering, its heroism, its love of home, its bygone struggles for 
liberty.

And outside in the streets Germans strode up and down, Germans stood on the steps of 
the Palais de Justice, Germans everywhere.

Mademoiselle Thys, a tall, fair, very beautiful young girl, chats away brightly, trying to 
cheer her father. Presently she talks of M. Max. Brussels can talk of nothing else to-day. 
She shows him to me in a different aspect. Now I see him in society, witty, delightful, 
charming, debonnaire.

"I did so love to be taken into dinner by M. Max!" exclaims the bright young belle. "He 
was so interesting, so amusing. And so nice to flirt with. He did not dance, but he went 
to all the balls, and walked about chatting and amusing himself, and everyone else. 
Before one big fancy dress ballit was the last in Brussels before the warM. Max 
announced that he could not be present. Everyone was sorry. His presence always 
made things brighter, livelier. Suddenly, in the midst of the ball a policeman was seen 
coming up the stairs, his stick in his hand. Gravely, without speaking to anyone he 
moved down the corridors. 'The Police,' whispered everyone. 'What can it mean?' And 
then one of the hosts went up to the policeman, determined to take the bull by the 
horns, as you say in Angleterre, and find out what is wrong. And voila! It is no policeman 
at all. It is M. Max! "

Undoubtedly, the hatred and terror of Germany at this time was all for Russia.

In Russia, Germany saw her deadliest foe. Every Belgian man or woman that I talked 
with in Brussels asserted the same thing. "The Germans are terrified of Russia," said 
the old General. "They see in Russia the greatest enemy to their plans in Asia Minor. 
They fear Russian civilisationor so they say! Civilisation indeed! What they fear is 
Russian numbers!"

It was highly interesting to observe as I was forced to do a little later, how completely 
that hatred for Russia was passed on to England.

The passing on occurred after English troops were sent to the assistance of Antwerp!

From then on, the blaze of hatred in Germany's heart was all for England, deepening 
and intensifying with extraordinary ferocity ever since October 4th, 1914.

And why? The reason is obvious now.

Our effort to save Antwerp, unsuccessful as it was, yet by delaying 200,000 Germans, 
enabled those highly important arrangements to be carried out on the Allies' western 
front that frustrated Germany's hopes in France, and stopped her dash for Calais!



Chapter XXI

How Max Has Influenced Brussels

In their attitude to the Germans, the Bruxellois undoubtedly take their tone from M. Max.

For his sake they suppressed themselves as quickly as possible that famous Sunday 
and soon went on their usual way. Their attitude towards the Germans revealed itself as 
a truly remarkable one. It was perfect in every sense. They were never rude, never 
sullen, never afraid, and until this particular Sunday and afterwards again, they always 
behaved as though the Germans did not exist at all. They walked past them as though 
they were air.

No one ever speaks to the Huns in Brussels. They sit there alone in the restaurants, or 
in groups, eating, eating, eating. Hour after hour they sit there. You pass at seven and 
they are eating and drinking. You pass at nine, they are still eating and drinking. Their 
red faces grow redder and redder. Their gold wedding rings grow tighter and tighter on 
their fingers.

The Belgians wait on them with an admirable air of not noticing their presence, never 
looking at them, never speaking to them, the waiters bringing them their food with an 
admirable detached air as though they are placing viands before a set of invisible 
spectres.

Always alone are the Germans in Brussels, and sometimes they look extremely bored. I 
can't help noticing that.

They do their best to win a little friendliness from the Belgians. But in vain. At the 
restaurants they always pay for their food. They also make a point of sometimes 
ostentatiously dropping money into the boxes for collecting funds for the Belgians. But 
the Bruxellois never for one moment let down the barriers between themselves and les 
Allemands," although they do occasionally allow themselves the joy of "getting a rise" 
out of the Landsturm when possible,an amusement which the Germans apparently 
find it impolite to resent!

I sat in a tram in Brussels when two Germans in mufti entered and quite politely excused 
themselves from paying their fares, explaining that they were "military" and travel free.

"But how do I know that you are really German soldiers!" says the plucky little tram 
guard, while all the passengers crane forward to listen. "You're not in uniform. I don't 
know who you are. You must pay your fares, Messieurs, or you must get out."

With red annoyed faces the Germans pull out their soldiers' medals, gaudy ornate 
affairs on blue ribbons round their necks.

"I don't recognise these," says the tram guard, examining them solemnly. "They're not 
what our soldiers carry. I can't let you go free on these."

"But we have no money !" splutter the Germans.

"Then I must ask you to get out," says the guard gravely.

And the two Germans, looking very foolish, actually get out of the tram, whereupon the 
passengers all burst into uncontrollable laughter, which gives them a vast amount of 
satisfaction, while the two Germans, very red in the face, march away down the street.

As for the street urchins, they flourish under the German occupation, adopting exactly 
the same attitude towards their conquerors as that manifested by their elders and M. 
Max.

Dressed up in paper uniforms, with a carrot for the point of their imitation German 
helmet they march right under the noses of the Germans, headed by an old dog.

Round the old dog's neck is an inscription: "The war is taking place for the 
aggrandisement of Belgium!"

The truth isthe beautiful truththat the spirit of M. Max hangs over Brussels, steals 
through it, pervades it. It is his ego that possesses the town. It is Max who is really in 
occupation there. It is Max who is the true conqueror. It is Max who holds Brussels, and 
will hold it through all time to come. For all that the Germans are going about the 
streets, and for all that Max is detained in his "honorable" fortress, the man's spirit is so 
indomitable, so ardent, that he makes himself felt through his prison walls, and the 
population of Brussels is able to say, with magnificent sangfroid, and a confidence that 
is absolutely real:

"They may keep M. Max in a fortress! But even les alboches will never dare to hurt a 
hair of his head!"



Chapter XxXII

Under German Occupation

In my empty hotel the profoundest melancholy reigns.

The inherent sadness of the occupied city seems to have full sway here. The palm 
court, with its high glassed roof, is swept with ghostly echoes, especially when the day 
wanes towards dusk, the great deserted dining-salon, with its polished tables and its 
rows of chairs is like a mausoleum for dead revellers, the writing-rooms with their desks 
always so pitifully tidy, the smoking-rooms, the drawing-rooms, the floor upon floor of 
empty, guestless bedrooms, with the beds rolled back and the blinds down; they ache 
with their ghastly silences and seem to languish away towards decay.

The only servant is Antoine, the bent little old faithful white-haired porter, who has 
passed his life-time in the service of the house.

Madame la Patronne, in heavy mourning, with her two small boys clinging to either arm, 
sometimes moves across the palm court to her own little sitting-room.

And sometimes some Belgian woman friend, always in black, drops in, and she and la 
Patronne and the old porter all talk together, dully, guardedly, relating to each other the 
gossip of Brussels, and wondering always how things are going with "les petits Belges" 
outside in the world beyond.

In front, the great doors are locked and barred.

One tiny door, cut in the wooden gate at the side, is one's sole means of exit and 
entrance.

But it is almost too small for the Lige professor, and he tells me plaintively that he will 
be glad to move on to Lige.

"I get broken to pieces squeezing in and out of that little door," he says. "And I am 
always afraid I will stick in the middle, and the Germans in the restaurant will see me, 
and ask who I am, and what I am doing here!"

"I can get through the door easily enough," I answer. "But I suffer agonies as I stand 
there on the street waiting for old Antoine to come and unlock it."

"And then there is no food here, no lunch, no dinner, and I do not like to go in the 
restaurants alone; I am afraid the Germans will notice me. I am so big, you see, 
everybody notices me. Do you think I will ever get to Lige?"

"Of course you will."

"But do you think I will ever get back from Lige to Antwerp?"

"Of course you will."

"J'ai peur!"

"Moi aussi!"

And indeed, sitting there in the dusk, in the eerie silences of the deserted hotel, with the 
German guns booming away in the distance towards Malines, there creeps over me a 
shuddering sensation that is very like fear at the ever-deepening realization of what 
Belgium has suffered, and may have to suffer yet; and I find it almost intolerablethe 
thought of this poor brave old trembling Belgian, weighted with years and flesh, 
struggling so manfully to get back to Lige, and gauge for himself the extent of the 
damage done to his house and properties, to see his servants and help them make 
arrangements for the future. Like all the rest of the Belgian fugitives, he knows nothing 
definite about the destruction of his town. It may be that his home has been razed to the 
ground. It may be that it has been spared. He is sure of nothing, and that is why he has 
set out on this long and dangerous journey, which is not by any means over yet.

Then the old porter approaches, gentle, sorrowful. "Monsieur, good news! there is a 
train for Lige to-morrow morning at five o'clock!"

"Merci bien," says the old professor. "Mais, j'ai peur!"

I rise at four next morning and come down to see him off. We two, who have never seen 
each other before, seem now like the only relics of some bygone far-off event. To see 
his fat, old, enormous face gives me a positive thrill of joy. I feel as if I have known him 
all my life, and when he has gone I feel curiously alone. The melancholy old fat man's 
presence had lent a semblance of life to the hotel, which now seems given over to 
ghosts and echoes. Unable to bear it, I moved into the Mtropole.

It was very strange to be there, very strange indeed! This was the Mtropole and yet not 
the Mtropole! Sometimes I could not believe it was the Mtropole at allthe gay, 
bright, lively, friendly, companionable Mtropoleso sad was this big red-carpeted 
hotel, so full of gloomy echoing silences, and with never a soul to arrive or leave, to ask 
for a room or a time-table.

There were Italians in charge of the hotel, for which I was profoundly thankful.

How nice they were to me, those kindly sons of the South.

They allowed me to look in their visitors' book, and as I expected, I found that the dry 
hotel register had suddenly become transformed into a vital human document, of 
surpassing interest, of intense historic value.

As I glanced through the crowded pages I came at last upon an ominous date in August 
upon which there were no names entered.

It was the day on which Brussels surrendered to the Germans.

On that day the register was blank, entirely blank.

And next day also, and the next, and the next, and the next, were those white empty 
sheets, with never a name inscribed upon them.

For weeks this blankness continued. It was stifling in its significance. It clutched at one's 
heart-strings. It shouted aloud of the agony of those days when all who could do so left 
Brussels, and only those who were obliged to remained. It told its desolate tale of the 
visitors that had fled, or ceased to come.

Only, here and there after a long interval, appeared a German name or two.

Frau Schmidt arrived; Herr Lemberg; Fraulein Gottmituns.

There was a subdued little group of occupants when I was there; Mr. Morse, the 
American pill-maker, Mr. Williams, another American, an ex-Portuguese Minister and his 
wife and son (exiles these from Portugal), a little Dutch Baroness who was said to be a 
great friend of Gyp's, half a dozen English nurses and two wounded German officers. I 
made friends quickly with the nurses and the Americans, and to look into English eyes 
again gave me a peculiarly soothing sense of relief that taught me (if I needed teaching) 
how alone I was in all these dangers and agitations.

Mr. Williams had a queer experience. I have often wondered why America did not resent 
it on his account.

He was arrested and taken prisoner for talking about the horrors of Louvain in a train. 
He was released while I was there. I saw him dashing into the hotel one evening, a 
brown paper parcel under his arm. There was quite a little scene in the waiting-room; 
everyone came round him asking what had happened. It seemed that as he stepped out 
of the tram he was confronted by German officers, who promptly conducted him into a 
"detention honorable."

There he was stripped and searched, and in the meanwhile private detectives visited his 
room at the Mtropole and went through al his belongings.

Nothing of a compromising nature being found, Mr. Williams was allowed to go free after 
twenty-four hours, having first to give his word that in future he would not express 
himself in public.

When I invited him to describe to me what happened in his "detention honorable," he 
answered with a strained smile, "No more talking for me!"

Surely this insult to a free-born American must have been a bitter dose for the American 
Consulate to swallow.

But perhaps they were too busy to notice it! When I called at the Consulate the place 
was crowded with English nurses begging to be helped away from Brussels. I found that 
Mr. Richards had already put in a word on my behalf.

This is what they gave me at the American Consulate in Brussels as a safeguard 
against the Germans. I shouldn't have cared to show it to the enemy! It seemed to me to 
deliver me straight into their hands. I hid it in the lining of my hat with my passport.


Chapter XXIII

Chanson Triste

Chilly and wet to-day in Brussels.

And oh, so triste, so triste!

Never before have I known a sadness like to this.

Not in cemetery, not in ruined town, not among wounded, coming broken from the 
battle, as on that red day at Hyst-op-den-Berg.

A brooding soulmist is in the air of Brussels. It creeps, it creeps. It gets into the bones, 
into the brain, into the heart. Even when one laughs one feels the ghostly visitant. All the 
joy has gone from life. The vision is clouded. To look at anything you must see Germans 
first.

Oh, horrible, horrible it is!

And hourly it grows more horrible.

Its very quietness takes on some clammy quality associated with graves.

Movement and life go on all round. People walk, talk, eat, drink, take the trams, shop. 
But all the while the Germans are there, the Germans are in their hotels, their houses, 
their palaces, their public buildings, Town Hall, Post Office, Palais de Justice, in their 
trams, in their cafes, in their restaurants

At last I find a simile.

It is like being at home, in one's beloved home with one's beloved family all around one, 
and every room full of cockroaches!



Chapter XXIV

The Cult of the Brute

Repellant, unforgettable, was the spectacle of the Germans strutting and posing on the 
steps of the beautiful Palais de Justice.

So ill did they fit the beauty of their background, that all the artist in one writhed with 
pain. Like some horrible vandal attempt at decoration upon pure and flawless 
architecture these coarse, brutish figures stood with legs apart, their flat round caps 
upon their solemn yokel faces giving them the aspect of a body of convicts, while behind 
them reared those noble pillars, yellow and dreamlike, suffering in horror, but with 
chaste dignity, the polluting nearness of the Hun.

The more one studies Hun physiognomy and physique, the more predominant grow 
those first impressions of the Cult of the Brute. Brutish is the clear blue eye, with the 
burning excited brain revealing itself in flashes such as one might see in the eye of a 
rhinoceros on the attack. Brutish is the head, so round and close cropped, resembling 
no other animal save German. Brutish are the ears flapping out so redly. The thick 
necks and incredibly thick legs have the tenacious look of elephants.

And oh, their little ways, their little ways! In the Salle Du Tribunal de Commerce they put 
up clothes-lines, and hung their shirts and handkerchiefs there, while a bucket stood in 
the middle of the beautiful tesselated floor. And then, in exquisite taste, to give the 
Belgians a treat, this interior has been photographed and forced into an extraordinary 
little newspaper published in Brussels, printed in French but secretly controlled by the 
Germans, who splatter it with their photographs in every conceivable (and 
inconceivable) style.

And so we see them in their kitchen installed at the foot of the Monument, wearing 
aprons over their middle-aged tummies, blucher boots, and round flat caps. A pretty 
picture that!

They posed themselves for it; alone they did it. And this is how. They tipped up a big 
basket, and let it lie in the foreground on its side. Two Germans seized a table, lifting it 
off the ground. One man seated himself on a wooden bench with a tin of kerosene. Half 
a dozen others leaned up against the portable stoves, with folded arms, looking as if 
they were going to burst into Moody and Sankey hymns. All food, all bottles, were 
hidden. The dustbin was brought forward instead. And then the photographer said "gut!" 
And there they were! It was the Hunnish idea of a superb photograph of Army Cooks. 
Contrast it with Tommy's! How do you see Tommy when a war photographer gets him?

His first thought is for an effect of "Cheer-oh!" He doesn't hide bottles and glasses. He 
brings them out, and lets you look at them. He doesn't, in the act of being 
photographed, lift a table. He lifts a tea-pot or a bottle if he has one handy. Give us 
Tommy all the time. Yes. All the time!

Another photograph shews the Huns in the Auditoire of the Cour de Cassation! More 
funny effects! They've brought forward all their knapsacks, and piled them on a desk for 
decoration. They themselves lie on the carpeted steps at full length. But they don't 
lounge. They can't. No man can lounge who doesn't know what to do with his hands. 
And Germans never know what to do with theirs.

When I saw that picture, showing the Hun idea of how a photograph should be taken, I 
felt a suffocation in my larynx. Then there was a gem called Un Coin de la Cour de 
Cassation. This shewed dried fish and sausages hanging on an easel! cheeses on the 
floor; and washing on the clothes-line.

And opposite this, on the other page was a photo of General Leman and his now 
famous letters to King Albert, the most touching human documents that were ever 
written to a King.

SIRE,

Aprs des combats honorables livrs les 4, 5, et 6 aot par la 3me division d'arme 
renforce, a partir du 5, par la 15me brigade, j'ai estim que les forts de Lige ne 
pouvaient plus jouer que le rle de forts d'arrt. J'ai nanmoins conserv le 
gouvernement militaire de la place afin d'en coordonner la dfense autant qu'il m'tait 
possible et afin d'exercer une action morale sur les garnisons des forts.

Le bien-fond de ces rsolutions a reu par la suite des preuves srieuses.

Votre Majest n'ignore du reste pas que je m'tais install au fort de Loncin,  partir du 
6 aot, vers midi.

SIRE,

Vous apprendrez avec douleur que ce fort a saut hier a 17 h. 20 environ, ensevelissant 
sous ses ruines la majeure partie de la garnison, peut-tre les huit-diximes.

Si je n'ai pas perdu la vie dans cette catastrophe, c'est parce que mon escorte, 
compose comme suit: captaine commandant Collard, un sous-officier d'infanterie, qui 
n'a sans doute pas survcu, le gendarme Thevnin et mes deux ordonnances (Ch. 
Vandenbossche et Jos. Lecocq) m'a tir d'un endroit du fort ou j'allais tre asphyxi par 
les gaz de la poudre. J'ai et port dans le fosse ou je suis tomb. Un captaine 
allemand, du nom de Gruson, m'a donn a boire, mais j'ai t fait prisonnier, puis 
emmen a Lige dans une ambulance.

Je suis certain d'avoir soutenu l'honneur de nos armes. Je n'ai rendu ni la forteresse, ni 
les forts.

Daignez me pardonner, Sire, la negligeance de cette lettre je suis physiquement trs 
abim par l'explosion de Loncin.

En Allemagne, ou je vais tre dirig, mes penses seront ce qu'elles ont toujours t: la 
Belgique et son Roi. J'aurais volontiers donn ma vie pour les mieux servir, mais la mort 
n'a pas voulu de moi.

G. LEMAN.



Chapter XXV

Death in Life

What is it I've been saying about gaiety?

How could one ever use such a word?

Here in the heart of Brussels one cannot recall even a memory of what it was like to be 
joyful!

I am in a city under German occupation; and I see around me death in life, and life in 
death. I see men, women, and children, with eyes that are looking into tombs. Oh those 
eyes, those eyes! Ah, here is the agony of Belgiumhere in this fair white capital set 
like a snowflake on her hillside. Here is grief concentrated and dread accumulated, and 
the days go by, and the weeks come and pass, and then monthsthen months! and 
still the agony endures, the Germans remain, the Belgians wake to fresh morrows, with 
that weight that is more bitter and heavier than Death, flinging itself upon their weary 
shoulders the moment they return to consciousness.

Yes. Waking in Brussels is grim as waking on the morn of execution!

Out of sleep, with its mercy of dream and forgetfulness, the Bruxellois comes back each 
morning to a sense of brooding tragedy. Swiftly this deepens into realization. The 
Germans are here. They are still here. The day must be gone through, the sad long day. 
There is no escaping it. The Belgian must see the grey figures striding through his 
beloved streets, shopping in his shops, walking and motoring in his parks and squares. 
He must meet the murderers in his churches, in his cafs. He must hear their laughter in 
his ears, and their loud arrogant speech. He must see them in possession of his Post 
Offices, his Banks, his Museums, his Libraries, his Theatres, his Palaces, his Hotels.

He must remain in ignorance of the world outside. Worst of all! When his poor tortured 
thoughts turn to one thought of his Deliverance, he must confront a terror sharper than 
all the rest. Then, he sees in clear vision, the ghastly fate that may fall upon the 
unarmed Brussels population the day the Germans are driven out. The whole beautiful 
city may be in flames, the whole population murdered. There is no one who can stop the 
Germans if they decide to ruin Brussels before evacuating it. One can only trust in their 
common-senseand their mercy!

And at thought of mercy the Bruxellois gazes away down the flat, dusty roadaway 
towards Louvain!

The peasants are going backwards and forwards to Louvain.

Little carts, filled with beshawled women and children, keep trundling along the road. A 
mud-splashed rickety waggonette is drawn up in front of a third-rate caf. "Louvain" is 
marked on it in white chalk. On a black board, in the caf window, is a notice that the 
waggonette will start when full. The day is desperately wet. There is a canvas roof to the 
waggonette, but the rain dashes through, sideways, and backwards and forwards. 
Under cover of the rain as it were, I step into the waggonette, and seat myself quietly 
among a group of peasants. Two more get in shortly after. Then off we start. In silence, 
all crouching together, we drive through the city, out through the northern gateway; soon 
we are galloping along the drear flat country-road that leads to the greatest tragedy of 
the War. It is ten o'clock when we start. At half-past eleven we are in Louvain. On the 
way we meet only peasants and little shop-keepers going to and from Brussels.

Over the flat bare country, through the grey atmosphere comes an impression of 
whiteness. My heart beats suffocatingly as I climb out of the waggonette and stand in 
the narrow Rue de la Station, looking along the tram-line. The heaps of debris nearly 
meet across the street.

The rain is falling in Louvain; it beats through the ruined spaces; it does its best to wash 
out the blood-stains of those terrific days in August. And the people, oh, the brave 
people. They are actually making a pretence of life. A few shops are opened, a caf 
opposite the ruined theatre is full of pale, trembling old men, sipping their byhr or coffee; 
Louvain is just alive enough to whisper the word "Death!"

But with that word it whispers also "Immortality."

In its ruin Louvain seems to me to have taken on a beauty that could never have 
belonged to it in other days. Those great fair buildings with gaps in their sides, speak 
now with a voice that the whole world listens to. The Germans have smashed and 
flattened them, burnt and destroyed them. But the glory of immortality that Death alone 
can confer rests upon them now. Out of those ruins has sprung the strongest factor in 
the War. Louvain, despoiled and desolate, has had given into her keeping the greatest 
power at work against Germany. Louvain, in her waste and mourning, has caused the 
world to pause and think. She has made hearts bleed that were cold before; she has 
opened the world's eyes to Germany's brutality!

Actually, in Africa, Louvain it was that decided a terribly critical situation. Because of 
Louvain, many, many hesitating partisans of Germany threw in their cause with the 
Allies.

Ah, Louvain! Take heart! In your destruction you are indestructible. You faced your day 
of carnage. Your civilians bravely opposed the enemy. It was all written down in 
Destiny's white book. The priests that were shot in your streets, the innocent women 
and children who were butchered, they have all achieved great things for Belgium, and 
they will achieve still greater things yet.

Louvain, proud glorious Louvain, it is because of you that Germany can never win. Your 
ruins stand for Germany's destruction. It is not you who are ruined. It is Germany!

.   

I wander about. I am utterly indifferent to-day. If a German officer took it in his head to 
suspect me I would not care. Such is my state of mind wandering among the ruins of 
Louvain.

I am surprised to find that in the actual matter of ruins Louvain is less destroyed than I 
expected.

Compared with Aerschot, the town has not been as ruthlessly destroyed. Aerschot no 
longer exists. Louvain is still here. Among the ruined monuments, houses and shops are 
occupied. An attempt at business goes on. The heaps of masonry in the streets are 
being cleared away. With her interior torn out, the old theatre still stands upright. The 
train runs in and out among the ruins.

The University is like a beautiful skeleton, with the wind and rain dashing through the 
interstices between her white frail bones.

Where there are walls intact, and even over the ruins, the Germans have pasted their 
proclamations.

Veuve D. for insulting an official was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Jean D. for opposing an official, was shot.

And in flaunting placards the Germans beg the citizens of Louvain to understand that 
they will meet with nothing but kindness and consideration from Das Deutsche Heer, as 
long as they behave themselves.

I step into a little shop as a motor car full of German officers dashes by.

"How brave you are to keep on," I say to the little old woman behind the counter. "It 
must be terribly sad and difficult."

"If we had more salt," she says, "we shouldn't mind! But one must have salt. And there 
is none left in Louvain. We go to Brussels for it, but it grows more and more difficult to 
obtain, even there."

"And food?"

"Oh, the English will never let us starve," she says. "Mon Mari, he says so, and he 
knows. He was in England forty years ago. He was in the household of Baron D., the 
Belgian Ambassador in London. Would you like to see Mon Mari."

I went into the room behind the shop.

Mon Mari was sitting in a big chair by the window, looking out over some rain-drenched 
purple cabbages.

He was a little old Belgian, shrivelled and trembling. He had been shot in the thigh on 
that appalling August day when Louvain attempted to defend herself against the 
murderers. He was lame, broken, useless, aged. But his sense of humour survived. It 
flamed up till I felt a red glow in that chilly room looking over the rain-wet cabbages, and 
laughter warmed us all three among the ruins, myself, and the little old woman, and Mon 
Mari.

Yesterday," he said, "an American Consul was coming in my shop. He was walking with 
a German Colonel. The American says: 'How could you Germans destroy a beautiful 
city like Louvain?' And the Alboche answered, 'We didn't know it was beautiful'! "

And the old woman echoes ponderingly:

"Didn't know it was beautiful !"



Chapter XXVI

The Return from Brussels

From Brussels to Ninove, from Ninove to Sottegem, from Sottegem to Ghent, from 
Ghent to Antwerp; that was how I got back!

At the outskirts of Brussels, on a certain windy corner, I stood, waiting my chance of a 
vehicle going towards Ghent.

The train-lines were still cut, and the only way of getting out of Brussels was to drive, 
unless one went on foot.

At the windy corner, accompanied by Jean and his two sisters, I stood, watching a 
wonderful drama.

There were people creeping in, as well as creeping out, peasants on foot, women and 
children who had fled in terror and were now returning to their little homes. It seemed to 
me as if the Germans must purposely have left this corner unwatched, unhindered, 
probably in the hope of getting more and more to return.

Little carts and big carts clattered up and came to a standstill alongside an old white inn, 
and Jean bargained and argued on my behalf for a seat.

There was one tiny cart, drawn by a donkey, with five young men in it.

The driver wanted six passengers, and began appealing to me in Flemish to come in.

"I will drive you all the way to Ghent if you like," he said.

"How much?"

"Ten francs."

Suddenly a hand pulled at my sleeve, and a hoarse voice whispered in my ear:

"Non, non, Madam. You mustn't go with them. Don't you know who they are?"

It was a rough-faced little peasant, and his blue eyes were full of distress.

I felt startled and impressed, and wondered if the five young men were murderers.

"They are the Newspaper Sellers!" muttered the blue-eyed peasant under his breath.

If he had said they were madmen his tone could not have been more awestruck.

After a while I found a little cart with two seats facing each other, two hard wooden 
seats. One bony horse stood in the shafts. But I liked the look of the three Belgian 
women who were getting in, and one of them had a wee baby. That decided me. I felt 
that the terrors of the long drive before me would be curiously lightened by that baby's 
presence. Its very tininess seemed to make things easier. Its little indifferent sleeping 
face, soft and calm and fragrant among its white wool dainties, seemed to give the lie to 
dread and terror; seemed to hearten one swiftly and sweetly, seemed to say:

"Look at me, I'm only a month old. But I'm not frightened of anything!"

And now I must say good-bye to Jean, and good-bye to his two plump young sisters.

They are the dearest friends I have in the world or so it seems to me as I bid them 
good-bye.

"Bonne chance, Madam!" they whisper.

I should like to have kissed Jean, but I kissed the sisters instead, then feeling as if I 
were being cut in halves, I climbed, lonely and full of sinister dread, into the little cart, 
and the driver cracked his whip, shouting, "Allons, Fritz!" to his bony horse and off we 
started, a party of eight all told. The three Belgian women sat opposite me; two middle- 
aged men were beside me, and the driver and another man were on the front seat.

Hour after hour we drove, hour after hour there was no sun. The land looked flat and 
melancholy under this grey sky, and we were at our old game now.

"Have you seen the Germans?"

"Yes, yes, the Germans are there," pointing to the right.

And we would turn to the left, tacking like a boat in the storm.

Terrific firing was going on. But the baby, whose name the mother told me was Solange, 
slept profoundly, the three women chattered like parrots, and the driver shouted 
incessantly, "Allons, Fritz, allez-Komm!" and Fritz, throwing back his head, plodded 
bravely on, dragging his heavy load with a superb nonchalance that led him into 
cantering up the hills, and breaking into gallops when he got on the flat road again. Hour 
after hour Fritz cantered, and galloped and trotted, dragging eight people along as 
though they were so many pods.

Ce 10. 12. 14.

MADAME CREED,

Le passage  Londres, je me permets de me rappeler a votre bon souvenir. En effet, 
rappelez-vous votre retour de Bruxelles, en octobre dernier: dans la carriole se 
trouvaient 2 messieurs et 3 dames (l'une avec un bb que vous avez tenu dans les 
bras) dont 2 institutrices. Y'en suis une des deux, Mme. Stoefs. Y'ai t a Gand 
esprant vous revoir, mais vous tiez repartie dej Peut, tre ici a Londres, amai-je ce 
plaisir. Y'y suis encore jusqu  la fin de cette semaine, done soyez assez aimable de me 
dire o et quand nous puorrions nous rencontrer. Voici mon adresse: Mme. Stoefs: 
Verstegen, 53, Maple Street, W. An plaisir de vous revoir, je vous presente mes 
cordiales salutations.

CHARLOTTE STOEFS.

Institutrice  Bruxelles.

One bleak December day in London there came to me this letter, and by it alone I know 
that Fritz and the baby Solange, and the eight of us are no myth, no figment of my 
imagination. We really did, all together, drive all day long through the German-infected 
country, to east, to west, to north, to south, through fields and byways, and strange little 
villages, over hills and along valleys, with the cannon always booming, the baby always 
sleeping and old Fritz always going merry and bright.

By noon, we might have known each other a thousand years. I had the baby on my 
knee, the three men cracked walnuts for us all, and everyone talked at once; strange 
talk, the strangest in all the world.

"So they killed the priest!" "She hid for two days in the water-closet." "She doesn't know 
what has happened to her five children."

"They were stood in a row and every third one was fusill."

"They found his body in the garden!" "II est tout-a-fait mine." Then suddenly one of the 
ladies, who knew a little English, said with a friendly smile:

"I have liked very much the English novel how do you call it something about a lamp. 
Everyone reads it. It is our favourite English book. It is splendid. We read it in French 
too."

And every now and then for hours she and I would try guessing the name of that 
something-about-a-lamp book. But we never got it. It was weeks later when I 
remembered "The Lamplighter."

At last we crossed the border from Brabant into Flanders, and galloping up a long hill we 
found ourselves in Ninove. It was in a terrific state of excitement. Here we saw the 
results of the fighting I had heard at Enghien on the Saturday. The Germans had 
pillaged and destroyed. Houses lay tumbled on the streets, the peasants stood grouped 
in terror, the air was full of the smell of burning. At a house where we bought some 
apples we saw a sitting-room after the Huns had finished it. Every bit of glass and china 
in the room was smashed, tumblers, wine-glasses, jugs, plates, cups, saucers lay in 
heaps all over the floor. All the pictures were cut from the frames, all the chairs and 
tables were broken to bits. The cushions were torn open, the bookshelves toppled 
forward, the books lay dripping wet on the grey carpet as if buckets of water had been 
poured over them. Jam tins, sardine tins, rubbish and filth were all over the carpet, and 
bottles were everywhere. It was a low, degrading sight.



Chapter XXVII

The English Are Coming"

I Am back in Antwerp and the unexpected has happened.

We are besieged.

The siege began on Thursday.

The mental excitement of these last days passes all description.

And yet Antwerp is calm outwardly, and but for the crowds of peasants, pouring into the 
city with their cows and their bundles, one would hardly know that the Germans were 
really attacking us at last.

The Government has issued an order that anyone who likes may leave Antwerp; but 
once having done so no one will be permitted to return; and that quite decides us; we 
will remain.

All day long the cannon are booming and pounding; sometimes they sound so near that 
one imagines a shell must have burst in Antwerp itself; and sometimes they grow 
fainter, they are obviously receding.

Or so we tell ourselves hopefully.

We are always hopeful; we are always telling each other that things are going better.

Everyone is talking, talking, talking.

Everyone is asking, "What do you think? Have you heard any news?"

Everyone is saying, "But of course it will be all right!"

"The Germans have been driven back five kilometres," says one civilian.

"Have you heard the news? The Germans have been driven back six kilometres!" says 
another.

And again: "Have you heard the good news? Germans driven back seven kilometres!"

And at last a curious mental condition sets in.

We lose interest in the cannon, and we go about our business, just as if those noises 
were not ringing in our ears, even as we sit at dinner in our hotel.

There is one little notice pasted up about the hotel that, simply as it reads, fills one with 
a new and more active terror than shell-fire: 

"Il n'y a pas d'eau!"

This is because the German shells have smashed the Waterworks at Wavre S. 
Catherine. And so, in the meantime, Antwerp's hotels are flooded with carbolic, and we 
drink only mineral waters, and wait (hopeful as ever) for the great day when the 
bathrooms will be opened again.

These nights are stiflingly hot. And the mosquitoes still linger. Indeed they are so bad 
sometimes that I put eucalyptus oil on my pillow to keep them away. How strange that 
all this terrific firing should not have frightened them off!

I come to the conclusion that mosquitoes are deaf. The curious thing is, no one can tell, 
by looking at Antwerp, that she is going through the greatest page in all her varied 
history. Her shops are open. People sit at crowded cafs sipping their coffee or beer. A 
magnificent calm prevails. There is no sense of active danger. The lights go out at 
seven instead of eight. By ten o'clock the city is asleep, save for the coming and going 
of clattering troops over the rough-flagged streets and avenues. Grapes and pears and 
peaches are displayed in luxuriant profusion, at extraordinarily low prices. Fish and meat 
are dearer, but chickens are still very cheap. The "Anversois" still take as much trouble 
over their cooking, which is uncommonly good, even for Belgium.

And then on Saturday, with the sharpness and suddenness of lightning, the terrible 
rumour goes round that Antwerp is going to surrender,yes, surrenderrather than run 
the risk of being destroyed like Louvain, and Termonde, and Aerschot.

The Legation has received orders that the Government is about to be moved to Ostend. 
Crowds of people begin to hurry out of Antwerp in motor cars, until the city looks 
somewhat like London on a Sunday afternoon, half-empty, and full of bare spaces, 
instead of crowded and animated as Antwerp has been ever since the Government 
moved here from Brussels.

And then, on Sunday, comes a change.

The news spreads like wild-fire that the Legations have had their orders countermanded 
early in the morning.

They are to wait further instructions.

Something has happened. THE ENGLISH ARE COMING !



Chapter XXVIII

Monday

A Golden, laughing day is this 5th of October.

As I fly along in my car I soon sense a new current, vivid and electric, flowing along with 
the stream of Belgian life.

Oh, the change in the sad, hollow-eyed Belgian officers and men! They felt that help 
was coming at last. All this time they had fought alone, unaided. There was no one who 
could come to them, no one free to help them. And the weeks passed into months, and 
Lige, and Louvain, and Brussels, and Aerschot, and Namur, and Malines, and 
Termonde have all fallen, one by one. And high hopes have been blighted, and the 
enemy in its terrific strength has swept on and on, held back continually by the ardour 
and valour of the little Belgian Army which is still indomitable at heart, but tired, very 
tired. Haggard, hollow-eyed, exhausted, craving the rest they may not have, these 
glorious heroes revive as if by magic under the knowledge that other troops are coming 
to help theirs in this gargantuan struggle for Antwerp. The yellow khaki seems to sweep 
along with the blue uniforms like sunlight. But the gentle-faced, slow-speaking English 
are humble and modest enough, God knows!

"It's the high-explosive shells that we mind most," says a Belgian Lieutenant to an 
English Tommy.

"P'raps we'll mind them too," says Tommy humbly. "We ain't seen them yet!"

At the War Office, Count Chabeau has given me a special permit to go to Lierre.

Out past Mortsell, I notice a Belgian lady standing among a crowd of soldiers. She 
wears black. Her dress is elegant, yet simple. I admire her furs, and I wonder what on 
earth she is doing here, right out in the middle of the fortifications, far from the city. 
Belgian ladies are seldom seen in these specified zones.

Suddenly her eyes meet mine, and she comes towards me, drawn by the knowledge 
that we are both women.

She leans in at my car window. And then she tells me her story, and I learn why she 
looks so pale and worried.

Just down the road, a little further on, in the region in which we may not pass, is her 
villa, which has been suddenly requisitioned by the English. All in a hurry yesterday, 
Madame packed up, and hurried away to Antwerp, to arrange for her stay there. This 
morning she has returned to fetch her dogs.

But voil! She reaches this point and is stopped. The way is blocked. She must not go 
on. No one can pass without a special laisser-passer; which she hasn't got.

So here, hour after hour, since six o'clock in the morning, she stands, waiting pitifully for 
a chance to get back to her villa and take away her dogs, that she fears may be 
starving.

"Mes pauvre chiens!" she keeps exclaiming.

And now a motor car approaches from the direction of Lierre, with an English officer 
sitting beside the chauffeur.

I tell him the story of the dogs and ask what can be done.

The officer does not reply.

He almost looks as if he has not heard.

His calm, cool face shows little sign of anything at all.

He merely turns his car round and flashes away along the white tree-shadowed and 
cannon-lined road that he has just traversed.

Ten minutes go by, then another ten.

Then back along the road flashes the grey car.

And there again is Colonel Farquharson, cool, calm, and unperturbed.

And behind him, in the car, barking joyfully at the sight of their mistress, are three big 
dogs.

"Mais comme les Anglais sont gentils!" say the Belgian soldiers along the road.

.   

Out of the burning town of Lierre that same day a canary and a grey Congo parrot are 
tenderly handed over to my care by a couple of English Tommies who have found them 
in a burning house.

The canary is in a little red cage, and the Tommies have managed to put in some lumps 
of sugar.

"The poor little thing is starving!" says a Tommy compassionately. "It'll be better with 
you, ma'am."

I bring the birds back in my car to Antwerp.

But the parrot is very frightened.

He will not eat. He will not drink. He looks as if he is going to die, until I ask Mr. Cherry 
Kearton to come and see him. And then, voil! The famous English naturalist bends 
over him, talks, pets him, and in a few minutes "Coco" is busy trimming Cherry Kearton's 
moustache with his little black beak, and from that very moment the bird begins to 
recover.

As I write the parrot and canary sit here on my table, the parrot perching on the canary's 
cage.

The boom of cannon is growing fainter and fainter as the Germans appear to be pushed 
further and further back; the canary is singing, and the grey parrot is cracking nuts; and 
I think of the man who rescued them, and hope that all goes well with him, who, with 
death staring him in the face, had time and thought to save the lives of a couple of birds. 
His name he told me was Sergeant Thomas Marshall of Winston Churchill's Marines.

He said: "If you see my wife ever, you can tell her you've met me, ma'am."



Chapter XXIX

Tuesday

It is Tuesday now. At seven o'clock in the morning old sad-eyed Maria knocks at my 
door.

"Good news, Madame! Malines has been retaken!"

That is cheering. And old Maria and myself, like everyone else, are eager to believe the 
best.

The grey day, however, is indescribably sombre.

From a high, grassy terrace at the top of the hotel I look out across the city towards the 
points where the Germans are attacking us. Great black clouds that yet are full of garish 
light float across the city, and through the clouds one, two, three, four aeroplanes can 
be seen, black as birds, and moving continually hither and thither, while far below the 
old town lies, with its towers and gilded Gothic beauty, and its dark red roofs, and its 
wide river running to meet the sea.

I go down to the War Office and see Commandant Chabeau. He looks pale and 
haggard. His handsome grey eyes are full of infinite sadness.

"To-day it would be wiser, Madame, that you don't go out of the city," he says in his 
gentle, chivalrous voice. "C'est trop dangereux!"

I want to ask him a thousand questions.

I ask him nothing, I go away, back to the hotel.

One o'clock, and we learn that the fighting outside is terribly hot.

Two o'clock.

Cars come flying in.

They tell us that shells are falling about five miles out, on Vieux Dieux.

Three o'clock.

A man rushes in and says that all is over; the last train leaves Antwerp to-night; the 
Government is going; it is our last chance to escape.

"How far is Holland?" asks someone.

"About half an hour away," he answers.

I listen dreamily. Holland sounds very near. I wonder what I am going to do. Am I going 
to stay and see the Germans enter? But maybe they will never enter. The unexpected 
will happen. We shall be saved at the eleventh hour. It is impossible that Antwerp can 
fall.

"They will be shelling the town before twenty-four hours," says one young man, and he 
calls for another drink. When he has had it he says he wishes he hadn't.

"They will never shell the town," says a choleric old Englishman. And he adds in the best 
English manner, "It could never be permitted!"

Outside, the day dies down.

The sound of cannon has entirely ceased.

One can hear nothing now, nothing at all, but the loud and shrill cries of the newsboys 
and women selling Le Matin d'Anvers and Le Mtropole in the streets.

A strange hushed silence hangs over the besieged city, and through the silence the 
clocks strike six, and almost immediately the matre dhtel comes along and informs us 
that we ought to come in to dinner soon, as to-day the lights must go out at nightfall!

But I go into the streets instead.

It seems to me that the population of Antwerp has suddenly turned into peasants.

Peasants everywhere, in crowds, in groups, in isolated numbers. Bareheaded women, 
hollow-cheeked men, little girls and boys, and all with bundles, some pathetically small, 
done up in white or blue cloths, and some huge and grotesque, under which the 
peasants stagger along through the streets that were fashionable streets only just now, 
and now have turned into a sort of sad travesty of the streets of some distant village.

A curious rosy hue falls over the faces in the streets, the shop-windows glow like rubies, 
the gold on the Gothic buildings burns like crimson fire.

Overhead a magnificent sunset is spreading its banners out over the deserted city.

Then night falls; the red fades; Antwerp turns grey and sombre.

But the memory of that rose in the west remains, and in hope we wait, we are still 
waiting, knowing not what the morrow may bring forth.



Chapter XXX

Wednesday

Last night the moon was so bright that my two pets, rescued from the ruins of Lierre, 
woke up and began to talk.

Or was it the big guns that woke them, the canary, and the grey Congo parrot?

It might have been!

For sometimes the city seemed to shake all over, and as I lay in bed I wondered who 
was firing: Germans, Belgians, English, which?

About three o'clock, between dozing and listening to the cannon, I heard a new sound, a 
strange sound, something so awful that I almost felt my hair creep with horror.

It was a man crying in the room under mine.

Through the blackness of the hour before dawn a cry came stealing:

"Mon fils! Mon fils!"

Out of the night it came, that sudden terrific revelation of what is going on everywhere 
beneath the outward calm of this nation of heroes.

And one had not realised it because one had seen so few tears.

One had almost failed to understand, in the outer calm of the Belgians, what agony went 
on beneath.

And now, in the midnight, the veil is torn aside, and I see a human heart in extremis, 
writhing with agony, groaning as the wounded never groan, stricken, bleeding, prostrate, 
overwhelmed with the enormity of its sorrow.

"Mon fils! Mon fils!"

Since I heard that old man weeping I want to creep to the feet of Christ and the Mother 
of Christ, and implore Their healing for these poor innocent broken hearts, trodden 
under the brutal feet of another race of human beings.

.   

At four, unable to sleep, I rose and dressed and went downstairs.

In the dim, unswept palm court I saw a bearded man with two umbrellas walking 
feverishly up and down, while the sleepy night porter leaned against a pillar yawning, 
watching for the cab that the chass had gone to look for. It came at last, and the 
bearded gentleman, with a sigh, stepped in, and drove away into the dusky dawn, a look 
of unutterable sadness seeming to cloak his face and form as he disappeared.

"Il est triste, ce monsieur la," commented our voluble little Flemish porter. "He is a 
Minister of the Government, and he must leave Antwerp, he must depart for Ostend. His 
boat leaves at five o'clock this morning."

"So the Government is really moving out," I think to myself mechanically.

A little boy runs in from the chill dawn-lit streets.

It is only half-past four, but a Flemish paper has just come out.Het Laatste Nieuws.

The boy throws it on the table where I sit writing to my sister in England, who is anxious 
for my safety.

I struggle to find out what message lies behind those queer Flemish words.

De Toestand Te Antwerpen Is Zeer Ernstig.

What does it mean?

Zeer Ernstig?

Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know the word.

I call to the night porter, and he comes out and translates to me, and as I glean the 
significance of the news I admire that peasant boy's calm.

"La situation  Anvers est grave" he says. "The Burgomaster announces to the 
population that the bombardment of Antwerp and its environs is imminent. It is 
understood, of course" (translating literally), "that neither the threat nor the actual 
bombardment will have any effect on the strength of our resistance, which will continue 
to the very last extremity!"

So we know the worst now.

Antwerp is not to hand herself over to the Germans. She is going to fight to the death. 
Well, we are glad of it! We know it is the only thing she could have done!

.   

And now the hotel wakes right up, and dozens of sleepy, worn, hollow-cheeked officers 
and soldiers in dirty boots come down the red-carpeted stairs clamouring for their caf-
au-lait.

The morning is very cold, and they shiver sometimes, but they are better after the coffee 
and I watch them all go off smoking cigarettes.

Poor souls! Poor souls!

After the coffee, smoking cigarettes, they hurry away, to. ...

The day is past sunrise now, and floods of golden light stream over the city, where 
already great crowds are moving backwards and forwards.

Cabs drive up continually to the great railway station opposite with piles of luggage, and 
I think dreamily how very like they are to London four-wheelers, taking the family away 
to the seaside!

And still the city remains marvellously calm, in spite of the ever-increasing movements. 
People are going away in hundreds, in thousands. But they are going quietly, calmly. 
Processions of black-robed nuns file along the avenues under the fading trees. Long 
lines of Belgian cyclists flash by in an opposite direction in their gay yellow and green 
uniforms. The blue and red of the French and English banners never looked brighter as 
the wind plays with them, and the sunlight sparkles on them, while the great black and 
red and. gold Belgian flags lend that curious note of sombre dignity to the crowded 
streets.

But not a word of regret from anyone. That is the Belgian way.

Belgians all, to-day I kneel at your feet.

Oh God, what those people are going through!

God, what they are suffering and to suffer! How can they bear it? Where do they get 
their heroism? Is itit must befrom Above!



Chapter XXXI

The City Is Shelled

That day, seated in wicker chairs in the palm court, we held a counsel of war, all the 
War-Correspondents who were left. The question was whether the Hotel Terminus was 
not in too dangerous a position. Its extreme nearness to the great railway station made 
its shelling almost inevitable when the bombardment of the city began in earnest. We 
argued a lot. One suggested one hotel, one another. To be directly northward was 
clearly desirable, as the shells would come from southward.

Mr. Cherry Kearton, Mr. Cleary, and Mr. Marshall, decided on the Queen's Hotel, 
somewhere near the quay. Their point was that it would be easier to get away from 
there. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Phillips refused to change from the Terminus. Mr. Fox, Mr. 
Lucien Arthur Jones, and myself chose the Wagner, as being in the most northerly 
direction, the farthest away from the forts, and the nearest to the Breda Gate, which led 
to Holland. In the moonlight, after dinner, taking my canary with me, I moved to my new 
quarters, accompanied to the doors by that little band of Englishmen, Cherry Kearton 
carrying my parrot. It was then ten o'clock.

Strange things were to happen before we met again.

Precisely at eleven the first shell fell. Whiz! It fled in a fury across the sky and burst 
somewhere in the direction of the Cathedral. As it exploded I shut my eyes, clenched my 
hands, and sank on the floor by my bedside, saying to myself, "God, I'm dead!"

And I thought I was too.

The enormity of that sound-sensation seemed to belong to a transition from this world to 
the next. It scarcely seemed possible to pass through that noise and come out alive.

That was the first shell, and others followed quickly. The Hotel was alive immediately. 
Sleep was impossible. I crept down into the vestibule. It was all dark, save for one little 
light at the porter's door! I got a chair, drew it close to the light and sat down. I had a 
note-book and pencil, and to calm and control myself and not let my brain run riot I 
made notes of exactly what people said. I sat there all night long!

Every now and then the doors would burst open and men and women would rush in.

Once it was two slim, elegant ladies in black, with white fox stoles, who had run from 
their house because a shell had set fire to the house next door.

They came into the pitch-black vestibule, moving about by the little point of light made 
by their tiny electric torch. They asked for a room. There was none. So they asked to sit 
in the dark, empty restaurant, and as I saw them disappear into that black room where 
many refugees were already gathered, sleeping on chairs and floors and tables I could 
not help being amazed at the strangeness of it all, the unlikeness of it all to life,these 
two gently-nurtured sisters with their gentle manners, their white furs, their electric light, 
gliding noiselessly along the burning, beshelled streets, and asking for a room in the first 
hotel they came to without a word about terror, and with expressions on their faces that 
utterly belied the looks of fright and terror that the stage has almost convinced us are 
the real thing.

Swing goes the door and in comes a man who asks the porter a question.

"Is Monsieur L. here?"

"Oui, Monsieur," replies the porter.

"Where is he?"

"He is in bed."

"Go to him and tell him that a shell has just fallen on the Bank of Anvers. Tell him to rise 
and come out at once. He is a Bank Official and he must come and help to save the 
papers before the bank is burned down! Tell him Monsieur M., the Manager, came for 
him."

Swing, and the Bank Manager has gone through the door again out into that black and 
red shrieking night.

Swing again, and three people hurry in, three Belgians, father, mother and a little fair- 
haired girlie, whom they hold by each hand, while the father cradles a big box of hard 
cash under one arm.

"The shells are falling all around our home!" they say.

The porter points to the restaurant door.

"Merci bien," and "Je vous remerci beaucoup," murmur father and mother.

They vanish into the dark, unlit restaurant with its white table-cloths making pale points 
athward the stygian blackness of the huge room.

Then an Englishman comes down the stairs behind me, flapping his Burberry rainproof 
overcoat. He is a War-Correspondent.

"What a smell!" he says to the porter. "Is gas escaping somewhere?"

"No, sir," says the porter, pulling his black moustache.

He is very distrait and hardly gives the famous War-Correspondent a thought.

"It is gas!" persists the War-Correspondent. "There must be a leakage somewhere."

He opens the door.

A horrible whiff of burning petroleum and smoke blows in, and a Belgian soldier enters 
also.

"What's the smell?" asks the War-Correspondent.

"The Germans are dropping explosives on the city, trying to set fire to it," answers the 
Belgian.

"Good lor, I must have a look!" says the War-Correspondent.

He goes out.

Two wounded officers come down the stairs behind me.

"Bill, please, porter. How much? We must be off now to the forts!"

"Don't know the bill," says the porter. "I'm new, the other man ran away. He didn't like 
shells. You can pay some other time, Messieurs!"

"Bien!" says the officers.

They swing their dark cloaks across their shoulders and pass out.

They come back no more, no, never any more.

Then an old, old man limps in on the arm of a young, ever-young Sister of Mercy.

"He is deaf and dumb," she says, "I found him and brought him here. He will be killed in 
the streets."

Her smile makes sunshine all over the blackness of that haunted hall; the mercy of it, 
the sweetness of it, the holiness are something one can never forget as, guiding the old 
man, she leads him into the dark restaurant and tends him through the night.

Then again the door swings open. "The petroleum tanks have been set on fire by the 
Belgians themselves!" says a big man with a big moustache. "This is the end." He is the 
proprietor himself. And here up from the stairs behind us that lead down into the cellars, 
comes his wife, wrapped in furs.

"Henri, I heard your voice. I am going. I cannot stand it. I shall flee to Holland with little 
Marie. Put me into the motor car. My legs will not carry me. I fear for the child so much!"

A kiss, and she and little Marie flee away through the madness of the night towards the 
Breda Gate and the safety of some Dutch village across the border.

Every now and then I would open the swing-doors and fly like mad on tip-toe to the 
corner of the Avenue de Commerce, and there, casting one swift glance right and left, I 
would take in the awful panorama of scarlet flames. They were leaping now over the 
Marche Aux Souliers, the street which corresponds with our Strand. While I watched I 
heard the shrieking rush of one shell after another, any one of which might of course 
well have fallen where I stood.

But I knew they wouldn't. I felt as safe and secure there in that shell-swept corner as if I 
had been a child again, at home in silent, sleepy, faraway Australia!

The fact is when you are in the midst of danger, with shells bursting round you, and the 
city on fire, and the Germans closing in on you, and your friends and home many 
hundreds of miles away, your brain works in an entirely different way from when you are 
living safely in your peaceful Midlands.

Quite unconsciously, one's ego asserts itself in danger, until it seems that one carries 
within one a world so important, so limitless, and immortal, that it appears invincible 
before hurt or death.

This is an illusion, of course; but what a beautiful and merciful one!

When danger comes your way this illusion will begin to weave a sort of fairy haze 
around you, making you feel that those shrieking shells can never fall on you!

Seldom indeed while I was at the front did I hear anyone say, "I'm afraid." How deeply 
and compassionately considerate Nature is to us all! She has supplied us with a store of 
emotional glands, and fitted us up with many a varying sensation, of which curiosity is 
the liveliest and strongest. Then when it comes to a race between Fear and Curiosity, in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred Curiosity wins hands down. In real danger our 
curiosity, and our unconscious but deep-seated belief in the ego, carry us right over the 
frightful terrors that we imagine we should feel were we thinking the thing out quietly in a 
safe land. Then, we tremble and shiver! Then, we remember the word "Scream." Then, 
we understand the meaning of fear! Then, we run (in our thoughts) into caves and 
cellars. But when the real thing comes we put our heads out of the windows, we run out 
into the streets, we go towards danger and not away from it, driven thither by the mighty 
emotion of Curiosity, which, when all is said and done, is one of the most delightful 
because the most electrifying of all human sensations.

Is this brutal? Is it hard-hearted? Is it callous, indifferent, cruel? No! For it bears no 
relation to our feelings for other people, it only relates to our own sensations about 
ourselves. When a group of wounded Belgians comes limping along, you look into their 
hollow, blackened faces, you feel your heart break, and all your soul seems to dissolve 
in one mighty longing to die for these people who have sacrificed their all for you; and 
you run to them, you help them all you can, you experience a passionate desire to give 
them everything you have, you turn out your pockets for them, you search for 
something, anything, that will help them.

No! You are not callous because you are curious! Quite the reverse, in fact. You are 
curious because you are alive, because you dwell in this one earth, and because you 
are created with the "sense" that you have a right to see and hear all the strange and 
wonderful things, all the terrors as well as all the glories that go to make up human 
existence.

Not to care, not to want to see, not to want to know, that is the callousness beyond 
redemption!



Chapter XXXII

Thursday

Thursday is a queer day, a day of no beginning and no ending.

It is haunted by such immense noise that it loses all likeness to what we know in 
ordinary life as "a day"the thing that comes in between two nights.

It is, in fact, nothing but one cataclysmal bang and shriek of shells and shrapnel. The 
earth seems to break open from its centre every five minutes or so, and my brain begins 
to formulate to itself a tremendous sense of height and space, as well as of noise, until I 
feel as though I am in touch with the highest skies as well as with the lowest earth, 
because things that seem to belong essentially to earth are now happening in the skies.

The roof of the world is now enacting a rle that is just as strange and just as surprising 
as if the roof of a theatre had suddenly begun to take part in a drama.

One looks above as often as one looks below or around one.

Flinging themselves forward with thin whinging cries like millions of mosquitoes on the 
attack, the shrapnel rushes perpetually overhead, and the high-explosive shells pour 
down upon the city, deafening, stupefying, until at last, by the very immensity of their 
noise, they gradually lose their power to affect one, even though they break all round.

Instead of listening to the bombardment I find myself listening crossly to the creaking of 
our lift, which makes noises exactly like those of the shrapnel outside.

In fact, when I am in my bedroom, and the lift is going up and down, I really don't know 
which is lift and which is shrapnel.

.   

Seven o'clock on Thursday morning.

The bombardment goes on fiercely, but I forget about it here in the big, bare, smoky 
caf, because I cannot hear the lift.

A waiter brings me some coffee and I stand and drink it and look about me.

The caf is surrounded with glass doors, and through these doors I see thousands and 
thousands of people hurrying for dear life along the roads.

As time goes on their numbers increase, until they are flowing by as steadily as some 
ceaseless black stream moving Holland-wards.

Men, women, children, nuns, priests, motor cars, carriages, cabs, carts, drays, trolleys, 
perambulators, every species of human being and of vehicle goes hurrying past the 
windows, and always the vehicles are laden to the very utmost with their freight of 
human life.

One's brain reels before the immensity of this thing that is happening here; a city is 
being evacuated by a million inhabitants; the city is in flames and shells are raining 
down on it; yet the cook is making soup in the kitchen. . . .

Among the human beings struggling onwards towards the Breda Gate which will lead 
them to Holland, making strange little notes in the middle of the human beings, I see 
every now and then some poor pathetic animal, moving along in timid bewildermenta 
sheepa doga donkeya cow a horsemore cows perhaps than anything, big, 
simple, wondering cows, trudging along behind desolate little groups of peasants with all 
their little worldly belongings tied up in a big blue-and-white check handkerchief, while 
crash over their heads goes on the cannonading from the forts, and with each fresh 
shock the vast concourse of fleeing people starts and hurries forward.

It seems to me as though the End of the World will be very like to-day.

A huge gun-carriage, crowded with people, is passing. It is twenty feet long, and drawn 
by two great, bulky Flemish horses. Sitting all along the middle, with great wood stakes 
fixed along the edges to keep them from falling out, are different families getting away 
into Holland. Fathers, mothers, children. Two men go by with a clothes-basket covered 
with a blanket. Dozens of beautiful dogs, bereft of their collars in this final parting with 
their masters, run wildly back and forth along the roads. A boy with a bicycle is wheeling 
an old man on it. Three wounded blue and scarlet soldiers march along desolately, 
carrying brown paper parcels. Belgian Boy Scouts in khaki, with yellow handkerchiefs 
round their necks, flash past on bicycles. A man pushes a dog-cart with his three 
children and his wife in it, while the yellow dog trots along underneath, his tongue out. A 
black-robed priest rides by, mounted on a great chestnut mare, with a scarlet saddle 
cloth.

All the dramas of schylus pale into insignificance before this scene. . . .

It is more than a procession of human beings. It is a procession of broken hearts, of 
torn, bleeding souls, and ruined homes, of desolate lives, of blighted hopes, and grim, 
grey despairgrim, grey despair in a thousand shapes and forms; and ever It hurries 
along the roads, ever It blocks the hotel windows, casting its thick shadows as the sun 
rises in the heavens, defying the black smoke palls that hang athwart the skies.

Sometimes I find tears streaming down my cheeks, and as they splash on my hands I 
look at them stupidly, and wonder what they are, and why they come, for no one can 
think clearly now. Once it is the sight of a little, young, childlike nun, guarding an old, 
tottering, white-bearded man who is dumb as well as deaf, and who can only walk with 
short, little, halting steps.

Is she really going to try and get him to Holland, I wonder?



Chapter XXXIII

The Endless Day

Years seem to have passed.

Yet it is still Thursday morning, ten o'clock.

The horror darkens.

We know the worst now. Antwerp is doomed. Nothing can save her, poor, beautiful, 
stately city that has seemed to us all so utterly impregnable all these months.

The evacuation goes on desperately, but the crowds fleeing northwards are diminishing 
visibly, because some five hundred thousands have already gone.

The great avenues, with their autumn-yellow trees and white, tall, splendid houses, grow 
bare and deserted.

Over the city creeps a terrible look, an aspect so poignant, so pathetic, that it reminds 
me of a dying soldier passing away in the flower of his youth.

The very walls of the high white houses, the very flags of the stony grey streets seem to 
know that Antwerp has fallen victim to a tragic fate; her men, women, and children must 
desert her; her homes must stand silent, cold and lonely, waiting for the enemy; her 
great hotels must be emptied; her shops and factories must put up their shutters; all the 
bright, gay, cheerful, optimistic life of this city that I have grown to love with an 
indescribable tenderness during the long weeks that I have spent within her fortified 
area is darkened now with despair.

Of the ultimate arrival of the Germans there is no longer any doubt, whether they take 
the town on a surrender, or by bombardment, or by assault.

I put on my hat and gloves, and go out into the streets. Oh, God! What a golden day!

Unbearable is the glitter of this sunlight shining over the agony of a nation!



Chapter XXXIV

I Decide To Stay

For the moment the bombardment has ceased entirely. These little pauses are almost 
quaint in their preciseness.

One can count on them quite confidently not to be broken by stray shells.

And in the pause I am rushing along the Avenue de Commerce, trying to get round to 
the hotel where all my belongings are, when I run into three Englishmen with their arms 
full of bags, and overcoats, and umbrellas, and for a moment or two we stand there at 
the corner opposite the Gare Central all talking together breathlessly.

It was only last night at seven o'clock that we all dined together at the Terminus; but 
since then a million years have rolled over us; we have been snatched into one of 
History's most terrific pages; and we all have a burning breathless Saga of our own 
hanging on our lips, crying to be told aloud before the world.

We all fling out disjointed remarks, and I hear of the awful night in that quarter of the 
city.

"How are you going to get away?"

"And you, how are you going to get away?

The tall, slight young man with the little dark moustache is Mr. Jeffries of the Daily Mail, 
who has been staying at the Hotel de l'Europe. With him is the popular Mr. Perry 
Robinson of the Times. The third is Mr. P. Phillips of the Daily News.

"I have just come from the Etat Majeur," Mr. Jeffries tells me hurriedly. "There is not a 
ghost of a hope now! Everyone has gone. We must get away at once."

"I am not going," I say. For suddenly the knowledge has come to me that I cannot leave 
the greatest of my dramas before the curtain rolls up in the last scene. In vain they 
argue, tell me I am mad. I am not going.

So they say good-bye and leave me.



Chapter XXXV

The City Surrenders

Antwerp has surrendered!

It is Friday morning. All hope is over. The Germans are coming in at half-past one.

"Well," says Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones at last, at the end of a long discussion between 
him and Mr. Frank Fox and myself, "if you have really decided to stay, I'm going to give 
you this key! It belongs to the house of some wealthy Belgians who have fled to 
England. There is plenty of food and stores of all kind in the house. If need be, you 
might take shelter there!"

And he gave me the key and the address, and I,luckily for myself,I remembered it 
afterwards.

With a queer little choke in my throat, I stood on the hotel door-step, watching those two 
Englishmen on their bicycles whirling away down the Avenue de Commerce.

In a moment they were swallowed up from my sight in the black pall of cloud and smoke 
that hung above the city, dropping from the leaden skies like long black fringes, and 
hovering over the streets like thick funeral veils.

So they were gone!

The die was cast. I was alone now, all alone in the fated city.

At first, the thought was a little sickening.

But after a minute it gave me a certain amount of relief, as I realised that I could go 
ahead with my plans without causing anyone distress.

To feel that those two men had been worrying about my safety, and were worrying still, 
was a very wretched sensation. They had enough to think of on their own account! 
Somehow or other they had now to get to a telegraph wire and send their newspapers in 
England the story of Antwerp's fall, and the task before them was Herculean. The 
nearest wires were in Holland, and they had nothing but their bicycles.

Turning back into the big, dim, deserted restaurant, I went to look for the old patronne, 
whose black eyes dilated in her sad, old yellow face at the sight of me in my dark blue 
suit, and white veil floating from my little black hat.

"What, Madame! But they told me les deux Anglais have departed. You have not gone 
with them?"

"Listen, Madame! I want you to help me. I am writing a book about the War, and to see 
the Germans come into Antwerp is something I ought not to miss. I want to stay here!"

"Mais, c'est dangereux, Madame! Vous tes Anglaise !"

"Well, I'm going to change that; I'm going to be Belgian. I want you to let me pretend I'm 
a servant in your hotel. I'll put on a cap and apron, and I'll do anything you like; then I'll 
be able to see things for myself. It'll only be for a few hours. I'll get away this afternoon 
in the motor. But I must see the incoming of the Germans first!"

The old woman seemed too bewildered to protest, and afterwards I doubted if she had 
really understood me from the way she acted later on.

Just at that moment Henri drove up in the motor, and came to a standstill in front of the 
hotel.

The poor fellow looked more dead than alive. His pie-coloured face was hollow, his lips 
were dry, his eyes standing out of his head. He was so exhausted that he could scarcely 
step out of the car.

"I am sorry I am late," he groaned, "but it was impossible, impossible."

"You needn't worry about me, Henri," I whispered to him reassuringly. "I'm not going to 
try to get out of Antwerp for several hours. In fact, I am going to wait to see the 
Germans come in!"

Henri showed no surprise. There was no surprise left in him to show.

"Bon!" he said. "Because, to tell you the truth, Madame, I wouldn't go out of the city 
again just now. I couldn't do it. Getting to Holland, indeed," he went on, between gasps 
as he drank off one cup of coffee after another, "it's like trying to get through hell to get 
to Paradise.  I've been seven hours driving about four miles there and back. It was 
horrible, it was unbelievable ... the roads are blocked so thick that there are no roads 
left. A million people are out there, struggling, fighting, and trying to get onwards, lying 
down on the earth fainting, dying."

And he suddenly sat down upon a chair, and fell fast asleep.

The sharp crack, crack of rifle fire woke him about five minutes later, and we all rushed 
to the door to see what was happening.

Oh, nerve-racking sight!

Across the grey square, through the grey-black morning, dogs were rushing, their 
tongues out.

The gendarmes pursuing them were shooting them down to save them the worse 
horrors of starvation that might befall them if they were left alive in the deserted city at 
the mercy of the Germans.

Madame X, a sad, distinguished-looking woman, a refugee from Lierre, whose house 
had been shelled, and who was destined to play a strange part in my story later on, now 
came over to us, and implored Henri to take her old mother in his car round to the 
hospital.

"She is eighty-four, ma pauvre mre I We tried to take her to Holland, but it was 
impossible. But now that the bombardment has ceased and the worst is over, it seems 
wiser to remain. In the hospital the mre will be surely safe! As for us, my husband and 
I, truly, we have lost our all. There is nothing left to fear!"

I offered to accompany the old lady to the hospital, and presently we started off. Henri 
and I, and the old wrinkled Flemish woman, and the buxom young Flemish servant, 
Jeanette.

We drove along the Avenue de Commerce, down the Avenue de Kaiser, towards the 
hospital. The town was dead. Not a soul was to be seen. The March aux Souliers was 
all ablaze; I saw the Taverne Royale lying on the ground. Next to it was the Hotel de 
l'Europe, bomb-shattered and terrific in its ruins. I thought of Mr. Jeffries of the Daily 
Mail and shivered; that had been his hotel. The air reeked with petroleum and smoke. At 
last we got to the hospital.

The door-step was covered with blood, and red, wet blood was in drops and patches 
along the entrance.

As I went in, an unforgettable sight met my eyes.

I found myself in a great, dim ward, with the yellow, lurid skies looking in through its 
enormous windows, and its beds full of wounded and dying soldiers; and just as I 
entered, a white-robed Sister of Mercy was bending over a bed, giving the last unction to 
a dying man. Some brave petit Belge, who had shed his life-blood for his city, alas, in 
vain!

All the ordinary nurses had gone.

The Sisters of Mercy alone remained.

And suddenly it came to me like a strain of heavenly music that death held no terrors for 
these women; life had no fears.

Softly they moved about in their white robes, their benign faces shining with the look of 
the Cross.

In that supreme moment, after the hell of shot and shell, after the thousands of wounded 
and dead, after the endless agonies of attack and repulse and attack and defeat and 
surrender, something quite unexpected was here emerging, the essence of the Eternal 
Feminine, the woman supreme in her sheer womanhood; and like a bright bird rising 
from the ashes, the spirit of it went fluttering about that appalling ward.

The trained and untrained hospital nurses, devoted as they were, and splendid and 
useful beyond all words, had perforce fled from the city, either to accompany their 
escaping hospitals, or beset by quite natural fears of the Huns' brutality to their kind.

But the Sisters of Mercy had no fears. The Cross stood between them and anything that 
might come to them.

And that was written in their faces, their shining gentle faces. . . .

Ah yes, the Priests and the half-forgotten Sisters of Mercy have indeed come back to 
their own in this greatest of all Wars!

Moving between the long lines of soldiers' beds I paused at the side of a little bomb- 
broken Belgian boy whose dark eyes opened suddenly to meet mine.

I think he must have been wandering, poor little child, and had come back with a start to 
life. And seeing a face at his bedside he thought, perhaps, that I was German.

In a hoarse voice he gasped out, raising himself in terror:

"Je suis civil!" Poor child, poor child!

The fright in his voice was heart-breaking. It said that if the "Alboches" took him for a 
soldat, they would shoot him, or carry him away into Germany.

I bent and kissed him.

"Je suis civil!"

He was not more than six years old.

.   

In another room of the hospital I found about forty children, little children varying from 
six months to five years. Some gentle nuns were playing with them.

"Les pauvres petites!" said one of the sisters compassionately. "They've all been lost, or 
left behind; there's no one to claim them, so we have brought them here to look after 
them."

And the baby gurgled and laughed, and gave a sudden leap in the sweet nun's arms.

.   

Out of the hospital again, over the blood-stained doorstep, and back into the car.

There were a few devoted doctors and priests standing about in silence in the flower- 
wreathed passage entrance to the hospital. They were waiting for The End, waiting for 
the Germans to come in.

I can see them still, standing there in their white coats, or long black cassocks, staring 
down the passage.

A great hush hung over everything, and through the hush we slid into the awful streets 
again, with the houses lying on the ground.

Before we had gone far, we heard shouts, and turning my head I discovered some 
wounded soldiers, limping along a side-road, who were begging us to give them a lift 
towards the boat.

We filled the car so full that we all had to stand up, except those who could not stand.

Bandaged heads and faces were all around me, while bandaged soldiers rode on the 
foot-board, clinging to whatever they could get hold of, and then we moved towards the 
quay. It was heartbreaking to have to deny the scores of limping, broken men who 
shouted to us to stop, but as soon as we had deposited one load we went back and 
picked up others and ran them back to the quay, and that we did time after time. A few 
of the men were our own Tommies, but most were Belgians. Backwards and forwards 
we rushed, backwards and forwards, and now that dear Henri's eyes were shining, his 
sallow, pie-coloured face was lit up, he no longer looked tired and dull and heavy, he 
was on fire with excitement. And the car raced like mad backwards and forwards, 
backwards and forwards, venturing right out towards the forts and back again to the 
quay, until at last reaction set in with Henri and he was obliged to take the car back to 
the hotel, where he fell in a crumpled heap in a corner of the restaurant.

As we came in the patronne handed me a note. "While you were out," she said, looking 
at me sorrowfully, "M. Fox and M. Jones returned on their bicycles to look for you."

Then I read Mr. Fox's kind message.

"We have managed to secure passages on a special military boat for Flushing that 
leaves at half-past eleven and of course we have got one for you. We have come back 
for you, but you are not here. Your car has arrived, so you will be all right, I hope. You 
have seen the bombardment through, bravo!"

I was glad they had got away. But for myself some absolutely irresistible force held me 
to Antwerp, and I now slipped quietly out of the hotel and started off on a solitary walk.



Chapter XXXVI

A Solitary Walk

Surely, surely, this livid, copper-tinted noontide, hanging over Antwerp, was conceived in 
Hades as a presentation of the world's last day.

Indescribably terrible in tone and form, because of its unearthly qualities of smoke, 
shrapnel, petroleum-fumes, and broken, dissipated clouds, the darkened skies seemed 
of themselves to offer every element of tragedy, while the city lying stretched out 
beneath in that agony of silence, that lasted from twelve o'clock to half-past one, was 
one vast study in blood, fire, ruined houses, ruined pathways, smoke, appalling odours, 
heartbreak and surrender. The last steamer had gone from the Port. The last of the 
fleeing inhabitants had departed by the Breda Gate. All that was left now was the empty 
city, waiting for the entrance of the Germans.

Empty were the streets. Empty were the boats, crowded desolately on the Scheldt. 
Empty were those hundreds of deserted motor cars, heaped in great weird, pathetic 
piles down at the water's edge, as useless as though they were perambulators, because 
there were no chauffeurs to drive them. Empty was the air of sound except for the 
howling of dogs that ran about in terror, crying miserably for their owners who had been 
obliged to desert them. Through the emptiness of the air, when the dogs were not 
howling, resounded only a terrible, ferocious silence, that seemed to call up mocking 
memories of the noise the shells had been making incessantly, ever since two nights 
ago.

It was an hour never to be forgotten, an hour that could never, never come again.

I kept saying that to myself as I continued my solitary walk.

Solitary walk!"

For the first time in a lifetime that bit of journalese took on a meaning so deep and 
elemental, that it went right down to the very roots of the language. The whole city was 
mine. I seemed to be the only living being left. I passed hundreds of tall, white, stately 
houses, all shattered and locked and silent and deserted. I went through one wide, 
deadly street after another. I looked up and down the great paralysed quays. I stared 
through the yellow avenues of trees. I heard my own footsteps echoing, echoing. The 
ghosts of five hundred thousand people floated before my vision. For weeks, for 
months, I had seen these five hundred thousand people laughing and talking in these 
very streets. And yesterday, and the day before, I had seen them fleeing for their lives 
out of the cityanywhere, anywhere, out of the reach of the shells and the Germans.

And I wondered where they were now, those five hundred thousand ghosts.

Were they still struggling and tramping and falling along the roads to Holland?

As I wondered, I kept on seeing their faces in these their doorways and at these their 
windows. I saw them seated at these their cafs, along the side-paths. I heard their rich, 
liquid Antwerp voices speaking French with a soft, swift rush, or twanging away at 
Flemish with the staccato insistence of Flanders. I felt them all around me, in all the 
deserted streets, at all the shuttered windows. It was too colossal a thing to realise that 
the five hundred thousand of them were not in their city any longer, that they were not 
hiding behind the silence and the shutters, but were out in the open world beyond the 
city gates, fighting their way to Holland and freedom.

And now I wondered why I was here myself, listening to my echoing footsteps through 
the hollow silences of the "Ville Morte."

Why had I not gone with the rest of them?

Then, as I walked through the dead city I knew why I was there.

It was because the gods had been keeping for me all these years the supreme gift of 
this solitary walk, when I should share her death-pangs with this city I so passionately 
loved.

That was the truth. I had been unable to tear myself away. If Antwerp suffered, I desired 
to suffer too. I desired to go hand in hand with her in whatever happened when the 
Germans came marching in.

Many a time before had I loved a cityloved her for her beauty, her fairness, her spirit, 
her history, her personal significance to me. Pietra Santa, Ravenna, Bibbiena, Poppi, 
Locarno, Verona, Florence, Venice, Rome, Sydney, Colombo, Aries, London, Parma, for 
one reason or another I have worshipped you all in your turn! One represents beauty, 
one work, one love, one sadness, one joy, one the escape from the ego, one the 
winging of ambition, one sheer aestheticism, one liquid, limpid gladness at discovering 
oneself alive.

But Antwerp was the first and only city that I loved because she let me share her 
sufferings with her right through the Valley of Death, right up to the moment when she 
breathed her last sigh as a city, and passed into the possession of her conquerors.

Suddenly, through the terrific, inconceivable lull, hurtling with a million memories of 
noises, I heard footsteps, heavy, dragging, yet hurried, and looking up a side-street 
opposite the burning ruins of the Chausse de Souliers, I saw two Belgian soldiers, 
limping along, making towards the Breda Gate.

Both were wounded, and the one who was less bad was helping the other.

They were hollow-cheeked, hollow-eyed, starved, ghastly, with a growth of black beard, 
and the ravages of smoke and powder all over their poor faded blue uniforms and little 
scarlet and yellow caps.

They were dazed, worn-out, finished, famished, nearly fainting.

But as they hurried past me the younger man flung out one breathless question: "Est-ce 
que la ville est -prise?" It seemed to be plucked from some page of Homer.

Its potency was so epic, so immense, that I felt as if I must remain there for ever rooted 
to the spot where I had heard it. ...

It went thrilling through my being. It struck me harder than any shell, seeming to fell me 
for a moment to the ground. . . .

Then I rose, permeated with a sense of living in the world's greatest drama, and feeling, 
not seeing, Art and Life and Death and Literature inextricably and terribly, yet gloriously 
mixed, till one could not be told from the other. . . .

For he who had given his life, whose blood dropped red from him as he moved, knew 
not what had happened to his city. He was only a soldier! His was to fight, not to know. 
"Est-ce que la ville est prise?" It is months since then, but I still hear that perishing 
soldier's voice, breaking over his terrific query.

.   

Presently, rousing myself, I ran onwards and walked beside the men, giving my arm to 
the younger one, who took it mechanically, without thanking me.

I liked that, and all together we hastened through the livid greyness along the Avenue de 
Commerce, towards the Breda Gate.

In dead silence we laboured onwards.

It was still a solitary walk, for neither of my companions said a word.

Only sometimes, without speaking, one of them would turn his head and look 
backwards, without stopping, at the red flames reflected in the black sky to northward.

Suddenly, to our amazement, we saw a cart coming down a side-street, containing a 
man and a little girl.

I ran like lightning towards it, terrified lest it should pass, but that man in the cart had a 
soul, he had seen the bleeding soldiers, he was stopping of himself, he offered to take 
me, too.

"Quick, quick, mes amis!" he said. "The Germans are coming in at the other end even 
now! The petite here was lost, and thanks to the Bon Dieu I have just found her. That is 
why I am so late."

As the soldiers crawled painfully into the little cart, I whispered to the elder one:

"Do you know where your King is, Monsieur?"

Ah, the flash in that hollow eye!

It was worth risking one's life to see it, and to hear the love that leapt into the Belgian's 
voice as he answered:

"Truly, I know not exactly! But wherever he is I do know this. Notre Roi est sur le Champ 
de Bataille."

Oh, beautiful speech!

"Sur le Champ de Bataille.!"

Where else would Albert be indeed?

"Sur le Champ de Bataille!"

I put it beside the Epic Question!

Together they lie there in my heart, imperishable, and more precious than any written 
poem!



Chapter XXXVII

Enter Les Allemands

It is now half-past one, and I am back at the hotel.

At least, my watch says it is half-past one.

But all the many great gold-faced clocks in Antwerp have stopped the day before, and 
their hands point mockingly to a dozen different times.

One knows that only some ghastly happening could have terrified them into such wild 
mistakes.

Heart-breaking it is, as well as appalling, to see those distracted timepieces, and their 
ignorance of the fatal hour.

Half-past one!

And the clocks point pathetically to eleven, or eight, or five.

Inside the great dim restaurant a pretence of lunch is going on between the little handful 
of people left.

Everybody sits at one table, the chauffeur, Henri, the refugees from Lierre, their 
maidservant, Jeannette, the proprietor, and his old sister, and his two little 
grandchildren, and their father, the porter, and a couple of very ugly old Belgians, who 
seem to belong to nobody in particular, and have sprung from nobody knows where.

We have some stewed meat with potatoes, a rough, ill-cooked dish.

This is the first bad meal I have had in Antwerp.

But what seems extraordinary to me, is that there should be any meal at all!

As we sit round the table in the darkness of that lurid noontide, the dead city outside 
looks in through the broken windows, and there comes over us all a tension so great 
that nobody can utter a word.

We are all thinking the same thing.

We are thinking with our dull, adled, clouded brains that the Germans will be here at any 
minute.

And then suddenly the waiter cries out in a loud voice from across the restaurant:

"LES ALLEMANDS!"

We all spring to our feet. We stand for a moment petrified.

Through the great uncurtained windows of the hotel we see one grey figure, and then 
another, walking along the side-path up the Avenue de Commerce.

"They have come!" says everyone.

After a moment's hesitation M. Claude, the proprietor, and his old sister, move out into 
the street, and mechanically I, and all the others follow as if afraid to be left alone within.



Chapter XXXVIII

My Son

And now through the livid sunless silences of the deserted city, still reeking horribly of 
powder, shrapnel, smoke and burning petroleum, the Germans are coming down the 
Avenues to enter into possession.

Here they come, a long grey line of foot-soldiers and mounted men, all with pink roses 
or carnations in their grey tunics.

Suddenly, a long, lidded, baker's cart dashes across the road at a desperate rate, 
wheeled by a poor old Belgian, whose face is so wild, that I whisper as she passes close 
to me:

"Is somebody ill in your cart?"

Without stopping, without looking even, her haggard eyes full of despair, she mutters:

"Dead! My son! He was a soldat."

Then she hurries on, at a run now, to find a spot where she can hide or bury her beloved 
before the Germans are all over the city.



Chapter XXXIX

The Reception

A singular change now comes over the silent, deserted city.

First, a few stray Belgians shew on the side-paths. Then more appear, and more still, 
and as the procession of the Germans comes onwards through the town I discover little 
groups of men and women sprung out of the very earth it seems to me.

All along the Avenue de Commerce, gathered in the heavy greyness on the side-paths, 
are little straggling groups of Anversois.

As I look at them, I suddenly experience a sensation of suffocation.

Am I dreaming?

Or are they really smiling, those people, smiling to the Germans!

Then, to my horror, I see two old men waving gaily to that long grey oncoming line of 
men and horses.

And then I see a woman flinging flowers to an officer, who catches them and sticks them 
into his horse's bridle.

At that moment I realise I am in for some extraordinary experience, something that 
Brussels has not in the least prepared me for!



Chapter XL

The Laughter Of Brutes

Along the Avenue the grey uniforms are slowly marching, headed by fair, blue-eyed, 
arrogant officers on splendid roan horses, and the clang and clatter of them breaks up 
the silence with a dramatic sharpnessthe silence that has never been heard in 
Antwerp since!

As they come onward, the Germans look from left to right.

I stand on the pavement watching, drawn there by some irresistible force.

Eagerly I search their faces, looking now for the horrid marks of the brute triumphant, 
gloating over his prey. But the brute triumphant is not there to-day, for these thousands 
of Germans who march into Antwerp on this historic Friday, are characterised by an 
aspect of dazed incredulity that almost amounts to fear.

They all wear pink roses, or carnations, in their coats, or have pink flowers wreathed 
about their horses' harness or round their gun-carriages and provision motors; and 
sometimes they burst into subdued singing; but it is obvious that the enormous buildings 
of Antwerp, and its aspect of great wealth, and solidarity, fairly take away their breath, 
and their eyes quite plainly say that they cannot understand how they come to be in 
possession of this great, rich, wonderful prize.

They look to left and right, their blue eyes full of curiosity. As I watch, I think of 
Bismarck's remark about London: "What a city to loot !"

That same thought is in the eyes of all these thousands of Germans as they come in to 
take possession of Antwerp, and they suddenly burst into song, "Pappachen," and "Die 
Wacht am Rhein."

But never very cheerily or very loudly do they sing.

I fancy at that moment, experiencing as they are that phase of naive and genuine 
amazement, the Germans are really less brute than usual.

And then, just as I am thinking that, I meet with my first personal experience of the 
meaning of "German brute."

A young officer has espied a notice-board, high above a cafe on the left.

A delighted grin overspreads his face and he quickly draws his companion's attention to 
it.

Together the two gaze smiling at the homelike words: "WINTER GARTEN their blue 
eyes glued upon the board as they ride along.

The contrast between their gladness, and that old Belgian mother's agony, suddenly 
strikes through my heart like a knife.

The pathos and tragedy of it all are too much for me. To see this beloved city possessed 
by Germans is too terrible. Yes, standing there in the beautiful Avenue de Commerce, I 
weep as if it were London itself that the Germans were coming into, for I have lived for 
long unforgettable weeks among the Belgians at war, and I have learned to love and 
respect them above all peoples. And so I stand there in the Avenue with tears rolling 
down my cheeks, watching the passing of the grey uniforms, with my heart all on fire for 
poor ruined Belgium.

Then, looking up, I see a young Prussian officer laughing at me mockingly as he rides 
by.

He laughs and looks away, that smart young grey-clad Uhlan, with roses in his coat; 
then he looks back, and laughs again, and rides on, still laughing mockingly at what he 
takes to be some poor little Belgian weeping over the destruction of her city.

To me, that is an act of brutality, that, small as it may seem, counts for a barbarity as 
great as any murder.

Germany, for that brutal laugh, no less than for your outrages, you shall pay some day, 
you shall surely pay!



Chapter XLI

Traitors

And now I see people gathering round the Germans as they come to a halt at the end of 
the Avenue. I see people stroking the horses' heads, and old men and young men 
smiling and bowing, and a few minutes later, inside the restaurant of my hotel, I witness 
those extraordinary encounters between the Germans and their spies. I hear the clink of 
gold, and see the passing of big German notes, and I watch the flushed faces of 
Antwerp men who are holding note-books over the tables to the German officers, and 
drinking beer with them, to the accompaniment of loud riotous laughter. That is the note 
struck in the first hour of the German entrance; and that is the note all the time as far as 
the German-Anversois are concerned. Before very long I discover that there must have 
been hundreds of people hiding away inside those silent houses, waiting for the 
Germans to come in. The horror of it makes me feel physically ill.

The procession comes to a standstill at last in front of a little green square by the 
Athene, and next moment a group of grey-clad officers with roses in their tunics are 
hurrying towards the hotel, and begin parleying with Monsieur Claude, our proprietor.

I expected to see him icily resolute against receiving them. But to my surprise he seems 
affable. He smiles. He waves his hand as he talks. He is eager, deferential, and quite 
unmistakably friendly, friendly even to the point of fawning. Turning, he flings open his 
doors with a bow, and in a few minutes the Germans are crowding into his great 
restaurants.

Cries of "Bier" resounded on all sides.

Outside, on the walls of the Theatre Flamand, the Huns are at it already with their 
endless proclamations.

"EINWOHNER VON ANTWERPEN !

"Das deutsche Heer betritt Euere Stadt als Sieger. Keinem Euerer Mitbuerger wird ein 
Leid geschehen und Euer Eigentum wird geschont werden, wenn ihr Euch jeder 
Feindseligkeit enthaltet.

"Jede Widersetzlichkeit dagegen wird nach Kriegsrecht bestraft und kann die 
Zerstoerung Euerer schoenen Stadt zur Folge haben.

"DER OBERBEFEHLSHABER DER DEUTSCHEN TRUPPEN."



"INWONERS VAN ANTWERPEN !

"Het Duitsche leger is als overwinnaar in uwe stad gekomen. Aan geen enkel uwer 
medeburgers zal eenig leed geschieden en uwe eigendommen zullen ongeschonden 
blijven, wanneer gij u allen van vijandelijkheden onthoudt.

"Elk verzet zal naar oorlogsrecht worden bestraft en kan de vernietiging van uwe 
schoone stad voor gevolg hebben.

"DE HOOFDBEVELHEBBER DER DUITSCHE TROEPEN."



"HABITANTS D'ANVERS !

"L'arme allemande est entre dans votre ville en vainquer. Aucun de vos concitoyens 
ne sera inquit et vos proprits seront respectes a la condition que vous vous 
absteniez de toute hostilit.

"Toute resistance sera punie d'aprs les lois de la guerre, et peut entrainer la 
destruction de votre belle ville.

"LE COMMANDANT EN CHEF DES TROUPES CHEF ALLEMANDS."



Chapter XLII

What The Waiting Maid Saw

At this point, I crept down steathily into the kitchen and proceeded to disguise myself.

I put on first of all a big blue-and-red check apron. Then I pinned a black shawl over my 
shoulders. I parted my hair in the middle and twisted it into a little tight knot at the back, 
and I tied a blue-and-white handkerchief under my chin.

Looking thoroughly hideous I slipped back into the restaurant where I occupied myself 
with washing and drying glasses behind the counter.

It was a splendid point of observation, and no words can tell of the excitement I felt as I 
stooped over my work and took in every detail of what was going on in the restaurant.

But sometimes the glasses nearly fell from my fingers, so agonising were the sights I 
saw in that restaurant at Antwerp, on the afternoon of October 9ththe Fatal Friday.

I saw old men and young men crowding round the Germans. They sat at the tables with 
them drinking, laughing, and showing their note-books, which the Germans eagerly 
examined. The air resounded with their loud riotous talk. All shame was thrown aside 
now. For months these spies must have lived in terror as they carried on their nefarious 
espionage within the walls of Antwerp. But now their terror was over. The Germans were 
in possession. They had nothing to fear. So they drank deeply and more deeply still, 
trying to banish from their eyes that furtive look that marked them for the sneaks they 
were. Some of them were old greybeards, some of them were chic young men. I 
recognised several of them as people I had seen about in the streets of Antwerp during 
those past two months, and again and again burning tears gathered in my eyes as I 
realised how Antwerp had been betrayed.

As I am turning this terrible truth over in my mind I get another violent shock. I see three 
Englishmen standing in the middle of the now densely-crowded restaurant. At first I 
imagine they are prisoners, and a wave of sorrow flows over me. For I know those three 
men; they are the three English Marines who called in at this hotel yesterday; seeing 
that they were Englishmen by their uniforms I called to them to keep back a savage dog 
that was trying to get at the cockatoo that I had rescued from Lierre. They told me they 
were with the rest of the English Flying Corps at the forts. Their English had been 
perfect. Never for a minute had I suspected them!

And now, here they are still, in their English uniforms, and little black-peaked English 
caps, talking German with the Germans, and sitting at a little table, drinking, drinking, 
and laughing boisterously as only Germans can laugh when they hold their spying 
councils.

English Marines indeed!

They have stolen our uniforms somehow, and have probably betrayed many a secret. 
Within the next few hours I am forced to the conclusion that Antwerp is one great nest of 
German spies, and over and over again I recognised the faces of old men and young 
men whom I have seen passing as honest Antwerp citizens all these months.

Seated all by himself at a little table sits a Belgian General, who has been brought in 
prisoner.

In his sadness and dignity he makes an unforgettable picture. His black beard is sunk 
forward on his chest. His eyes are lowered. His whole being seem to be wrapt in a 
profound melancholy that yet has something magnificent and distinguished about it 
when compared with the riotous elation of his conquerors.

Nobody speaks to him. He speaks to nobody. With his dark blue cloak flung proudly 
across his shoulder he remains mute and motionless as a statue, his dark eyes staring 
into space. I wonder what his thoughts are as he sees before him, unashamed and 
unafraid now that German occupation has begun, these spies who have bartered their 
country for gold. But whatever he thinks, that lonely prisoner, he makes no sign. His 
dignity is inviolable. His dark bearded face has all the poignancy and beauty of Titian's 
"Ariosto " in the National Gallery in London.

He is a prisoner. Nobody looks at him. Nobody speaks to him. Nobody gives him 
anything to eat. Exhaustion is written on his face. At last I can bear it no longer. I pour 
out a cup of hot coffee, and take a sandwich from the counter. Then I slip across the 
Restaurant, and put the coffee and the sandwich on the little table in front of him. A look 
of flashing gratitude and surprise is in his dark sad eyes as they lift themselves for a 
moment. But I dare not linger. The Flemish maid, with the handkerchief across her 
head, hurries back to her tumblers.

Two little priests have been brought in as prisoners also.

But they chat cheerily with their captors, who look down upon them smilingly, showing 
their big white teeth in a way that I would not like if I were a prisoner!

None of the prisoners are handcuffed or surrounded. They do not seem to be watched. 
They are all left free. So free indeed, that it is difficult to realise the truthone 
movement towards the door and they would be shot down like dogs!

In occupying a town without resistance the Germans make themselves as charming as 
possible. Obviously those are their orders from headquarters. And Germans always 
obey orders. Extraordinary indeed is the discipline that can turn the brutes of Louvain 
and Aerschot into the lamb-like beings that took possession of Antwerp. They asked for 
everything with marked courtesy, even gentleness. They paid for everything they got. I 
heard some of the poorer soldiers expressing their surprise at the price of the Antwerp 
beer.

"It's too dear!" they said.

But they paid the price for it all the same.

They always waited patiently until they could be served. They never grumbled. They 
never tried to rush the people who were serving them. In fact, their system was to give 
no trouble, and to create as good an impression as possible on the Belgians from the 
first moment of their entrance the first moment being by far the most important 
psychologically, as the terrified brains of the populace are then most receptive to their 
impressions of the hated army, and anything that could be done to enhance and 
improve those impressions is more valuable then than at any other time.

Almost the first thing the Germans did was to find out the pianos.

It was not half an hour after they entered Antwerp when strains of music were heard, 
music that fell on the ear with a curious shock, for no one had played the piano here 
since the Belgian Government moved into the fortified town. They played beautifully, 
those Germans, and every now and then they burst into song. From the sitting-rooms in 
the Hotel I heard them singing to the "Blue Danube." And the "Wacht am Rhein" 
seemed to come and go at intervals, like a leitmotif to all their doings.

About four o'clock, Jeanette, the Flemish servant, whispered to me that Henri wanted to 
speak to me in the kitchen.

"A great misfortune has happened, Madame!" said Henri, agitatedly. "The Germans 
have seized my car. I shall not be able to take you out of Antwerp this afternoon. But 
courage! to-morrow I will find a cart or a fiacre. To-day it is impossible to do anything, 
there is not a vehicle of any kind to be had. But to-morrow, Madame, trust Henri! He will 
get you away, never fear!"

Half an hour after, the faithful fellow called to me again.

His pie-coloured face looked dark and miserable.

"The Germans have shut the gates all round the city and no one is allowed to go in and 
out without a German passport!" he said.

This was serious.

Relying on my experience in Brussels, I had anticipated being able to get away even 
more easily from Antwerp, because of Henri's motor car. But obviously for the moment I 
was checked.

As dusk fell and the lights were lit, I retired into the kitchen and busied myself cutting 
bread and butter, and still continuing my highly interesting observations. On the table lay 
piles of sausage, and presently in came two German officers, an old grey-bearded 
General, and a dashing young Uhlan Lieutenant.

"We want three eggs each," said the Uhlan roughly, addressing himself to me. "Three 
eggs, soft boiled, and some bread with butter, with much butter!"

I nodded but dared not answer.

And the red-faced young Lieutenant, thinking I did not understand, ground his heel 
angrily, and muttered "Gott!" when his eyes fell on the sausage, and his expression 
changed as if by magic.

"Wurst?" he ejaculated to the General. "Here there sausage is!"

It was quite funny to see the way these two gallant soldiers bent over the sausage, their 
eyes beaming with greedy joy, and in ten minutes every German was crying out for 
sausage, and the town was being ransacked in all directions in search of more.



Chapter XLIII

Saturday

The saddest thing in Antwerp is the howling of the dogs.

Thousands have been left shut in the houses when their owners fled, and all day and 
night these poor creatures utter piercing, desolate cries that grow louder and more 
piercing as time goes on.

It is Saturday morning, October 10th.

Strange things have happened.

When I went to my door just now, I found it locked from the outside.

I have tried the other door. That is locked, too.

What does it mean, I wonder?

Here I am in a little room about twelve feet by six, with one window looking on to the 
back wall of one of the Antwerp theatres.

I can hear the sounds of fierce cannonading going on in the distance, but the noise 
within the hotel close at hand is so loud as to deaden the sounds of battle; for the 
Germans are running up and down the corridors perpetually, shouting, singing, 
stamping, and the pianos are going, too.

Nobody comes near me. I knock at both the doors, but gently, for I am afraid to draw 
attention to myself. Nobody answers. The old woman and the two little children have left 
the room on my right, the old man has left the room on my left. I am all alone in this little 
den. I dress as well as I can, but the room is just a tiny sitting-room; there are no 
facilities for making one's toilette. I have to do without washing my face. Instead, I rub it 
with Crme Floreine, and the amount of black that comes off is appalling.

Then I lie down at full length on my mattress and wonder what is going to happen next. 
Hour after hour goes by.

In a corner of the room I discover an English weekly history of the War, and lying there 
on my mattress I read many strange stories that seem somehow to mock a little at these 
real happenings. Then voices just outside in the corridor reach me. Out there two old 
Belgians are talking. "Ce sont les Anglais qui ne veulent fas rendre les forts!" says one.

They are discussing the fighting which still goes on fiercely in the forts around the city.

My head aches! I am hungry; and those big guns are making what the Kaiser would call 
World Noises.

Strange thoughts come over me, attacking me, like Samson Agonistes' "deadly swarm 
of hornets armed."

In a terrific conflict it doesn't seem to matter much which side is victorious, all hatred of 
the conquerors dies away; in fact the conquerors themselves may seem like deliverers 
since peace comes in with their entrance.

And I am weak and weary enough at this moment to wish les Anglais would give it up, 
let the forts be rendered, and let the cannons cease.

Anything for peace, for an end of slaughter, an end of terror, an end of this cruel soul- 
racking thunder.

Terrible thoughts . . . deadly thoughts.

Do they come to the soldiers, thoughts like these? Heaven help the poor fellows if they 
do!

They are more deadly than Death, for they attack only the immortal part of one, leaving 
the mortal to save itself while they blight and corrode the spirit.

.   

I am weary. I have not slept for five nights, and I feel as if I shall never sleep again.

I daresay that's partly why I have been weak enough to wish for an end of noise.

It's five o'clock and darkness has set in.

Nobody has been near me, I'm still here, locked up in this little room.

I roam about like a caged animal. I look from the window. The blank back wall of the 
Antwerp Theatre meets my eye, but a corner of the hotel looks in also, and I can see 
three tiers of windows, so I hastily move away. In all those rooms there are Germans 
quartered now. What if they glanced down here and discovered me? I pull the curtains 
over the window, and move back into the room.

This is Saturday afternoon, October 10th, and all of a sudden a queer thought comes 
over me.

October 10th is my birthday.

I lie down on the mattress again, and my thoughts begin dreamily to revolve round an 
extraordinary psychic mystery that I became conscious of when I was little more than a 
baby in far-away Australia.

I became conscious at the age of four that I heard in my imagination the sounds of 
cannon, and I became certain too that those cannon were going to be real cannon some 
day.

Yes! All my life, ever since I could think, I have heard heavy firing in my ears, and have 
known I was going to be very close to battle, some far-off day or other.

Have other people been born with the same belief, I wonder?

I should like so much to know.

Gradually a vast area of speculative psychology opens out before me, and, like one 
walking in a world of dreams, I lose myself in its dim distances, seeking for some light, 
clear opening, wherein I can discover the secret of this extraordinary psychic or 
physiological mystery, that has hidden itself for a lifetime in my being. I say hidden itself; 
yet, though it has kept itself dark and concealed, it has always been teasing my sub- 
consciousness with vague queer hints of its presence, until at last I have grown used to 
it, and have even arranged a fairly comfortable explanation of its existence between my 
soul and myself.

I have told myself that it is something I can never, never understand. And that it is all the 
explanation I have ever been able to give to myself of the presence of this uninvited 
guest who has dwelt for a lifetime in the secret-chambers of my intuitions, who has 
hidden there, veiled and mysterious, never shewing a simple feature to betray itself 
eye, lips, browalways remaining unseen, unknown, uninvited, unintelligibleyet 
always potent, always softly disturbing one's belief in one's ordinary everyday life with 
that dull roar of cannon which seemed to visualize in my brain with an image of blinding 
sunlight.

Lying there on the bare mattress, on this drear October day which goes down to history 
as the day on which Germany set up her Governor in Antwerp, I begin to wonder if my 
sublimable consciousness has been trying, all these years, to warn me that danger 
would come to me some day to the sound of battle. And am I in that danger now? Is this 
the moment perhaps that the secret, silent guest has tried to shew me lay lurking in 
await for me, ready to make me fulfil my destiny in some dark and terrible way?

No. I can't believe it.

I can't see it like that.

I don't believe that that is what the roar of cannon has been trying to say to me all my 
life.

I can't sense dangerI won't. No, I mean I can't. My reason assures me there isn't any 
danger that is going to catch me, no matter how it may threaten.

And then the hornet flies to the attack. "It says, 'People who are haunted with pre- 
monitions nearly always disregard them until too late.' "

So occupied am I with these dreams and philosophings that I lie there in the darkness, 
forgetful of time and hunger, until I hear voices in the next room, and there is the old 
woman opening my door, and the two little yellow-haired children staring in at me 
curiously.

The old woman gives me some grapes out of a basket under her bed, and a glass of 
water.

"Pauvre enfant!" she says. "I am sorry I could bring you no food, but the Germans are 
up and down the stairs all day long, and I dare not risk them asking me, "Who is that 
for?"

"But why are you so afraid?" I ask. "Last night you were so nice to me. What has 
happened? Come, tell me the truth."

"Alors, Madame, I will tell you! You recollect that German who leaned over the counter 
for such a long time when you were washing glasses?"

"Yes" My lips felt suddenly dry as wood.

"Alors, Madame! He said to me, that fellow, She never speaks!' "

"Who did he mean?"

"Alors, Madame, he meant you!"

(This then, I think to myself, is what happens to one when one is really frightened. The 
lips turn dry as chips. And all because a German has noticed me. It is absurd.)

I force a smile.

"Perhaps you imagine this," I said.

"No, because he said to me to-day, 'Where is that maedchen who never spoke?' "

"What did you say?"

"She is deaf," I told him. "She does not hear when anyone speaks to her!"

"So that is why you locked me up."

"Cest ca, Madame. It was my brother who wished it. He is very afraid. And now, 
Madame, good-night. I must put the little girls to bed."

"Well, I think this is ridiculous," I said. "How long am I to stay here?"

She shook her head, and began to unfasten little fair-haired Maria's black serge frock, 
pushing her out of my room as she did so, with the evident intention of locking me in 
again.

But just then someone knocked at the outer door.

It was Madame X. who came stealing in, drawing the bolt noiselessly behind her. I 
looked in her weary face, with its white hair, and beautiful blue eyes, and saw 
gentleness and sympathy there, and sincerity.

She said: "Mon Mari has been talking in the restaurant with a friend of his, a Danish 
Doctor, a Red Cross Doctor, Madame, you understand, and oh, he is so sorry for you, 
Madame, and he thinks he can help you to escape! He wants to come up and see you 
for a moment. I advise you to see him."

"Will you bring him up," I said.

"Immediately!"

The old patronne went on undressing the little girls, getting them hurriedly into bed and 
telling them to be quiet.

They kept shouting out questions to me, and whenever they did so their grandmother 
would smack them.

"Silence. Les alboches will hear you!"

But they were terribly naughty little girls.

Whenever I spoke they repeated my words in loud, mocking voices.

Their sharp little ears told them of my foreign accent, and they plucked at every strange 
note in my voice, and repeated it loud and shrill, but the grandmother smacked them 
into silence and pulled the bedclothes up over their faces.

Then a gentle tap, and Madame X. and the Danish Doctor came stealing in.

Ah! how piercing and pathetic was the look I cast on that tall stranger. I saw a young 
fair-haired man in grey clothes, with blue eyes, and an honest English look, quiet, kind, 
sincere, wearing the Red Cross badge on his arm! I looked and looked. Then I told 
myself he was to be trusted.

In English he said, "I heard there was an English lady here who wants to get away from 
Antwerp?"

I interrupted sharply.

"Please don't speak English! The Germans are always going up and down the corridor. 
They may hear!"

He smiled at my fears, but immediately changed into French to reassure me.

"No, no, Madame! You mustn't be alarmed. The Germans are too busy with themselves 
to think of anything else just now. And I want to help you. Your Queen Alexandra is a 
Dane. She is of my country, and she has kept the bonds very close and strong between 
Denmark and England. Yes, if only for the sake of Queen Alexandra I want to help you 
now. And I think I can do so. If you will pass as my sister I can get a pass for you from 
the Danish Consul, and that will enable you to leave Antwerp in safety."

"May I see your papers?" I asked him now. "I am sure you are sincere. But you 
understand that I would like to see your papers." "Certainly!"

And he brought out his papers of nationality and I saw that he was undoubtedly a Dane, 
working under the Red Cross for the Belgians.

When I had examined his papers I let him examine mine.

"And now I must ask you one thing more," he said. "I must ask for your passport. I want 
to shew it to my Consul, in order to convince him that you are really of British nationality. 
Will you give me your passport? I am afraid that without it my Consul may object to do 
this thing for me."

That was an agonized moment. I had been told a hundred times by a hundred different 
people that the one thing one should never do, never, never, never, not under any 
circumstances, was to part with one's passport. And here was this gentle Dane pleading 
for mine, promising me escape if I would give it. I looked up at him as he stood there, 
tall and grave. I was not quite sure of him. And why? Because he had spoken English 
and I still thought that was a dangerous thing to do. No, I was not quite sure. I stood 
there breathless, stupefied, trying to think. Madame X. watched me in silence. I knew 
that I must make up my mind one way or the other.

"Well, I shall trust you, " I said slowly. I put my passport into his hands.

His face lit up and I, watching in that agony of doubt, told myself suddenly that he was 
genuine, that was real gladness in his eyes.

"Ah, Madame, I do thank you so for trusting me!" His voice was moved and vibrant. He 
bent and kissed my hand. Then he put the passport in his pocket. "To-morrow at three 
o'clock I will come here for you. Trust me absolutely. I will arrange for a peasant's cart or 
a fiacre, and I will myself accompany you to the Dutch borders. Have courageyou will 
soon be in safety!"

Ten minutes after he had gone Monsieur Claude burst into the room.

His face was black as night and working with rage.

"What is this you have done?" he cried in a hoarse voice. "Il parle avec les allemands 
dans le restaurant!"

Horrible words!

It seems to me that as long as I live I shall hear them in my ears.

"It is not true." I cried. "It can't be true." "He is talking to the Germans in the Restaurant," 
he repeated. His rage was undisguised. He flung on the table a little packet of English 
papers that I had given him to hide for me. "Take these! I have nothing to do with you. 
You are my sister's affair, I have nothing to do with you at all!"

I rushed to him. I seized him by the arm. But he flung me off and left the room. In and 
out of my brain his words went beating, in and out, in and out. The thing was simple, 
clear. The Dane had gone down to betray me, and he had all the evidence in his hands. 
Oh, fool that I had been! I had brought this on myself. It was my own unaccountable folly 
that had led me into this trap. At any moment now the Germans would come for me. All 
was over. I was lost. They had my passport in their possession. I could deny nothing. 
The game was up.

I got up and looked at myself in the glass. The habit of a lifetime asserted itself, for all 
women look at themselves in the glass frequently, and at unexpected times. I saw a 
strange white face gazing at me in the mirror. "It is all up with you now! Are you ready 
for the end? Prepare yourself, get your nerves in order. You cannot hope to escape, it is 
either imprisonment or death for you! What do you think of that?"

And then, at that point, kindly Mother Nature took possession of the situation and sleep 
rushed upon me unawares. I fell on the mattress and knew no more, till a soft knocking 
at my door awoke me, and I saw it was morning. A light was filtering in dimly through the 
window blind.

I jumped up.

I was fully dressed, having fallen asleep in my clothes.

"Madame!" whispered a voice. "Open the door toute suite n'est-ce-pas." It was the old 
woman's voice.

I pulled away the barricading chair, and let her in.

Over her shoulder I saw a man.

It was no German, this!

It was dear pie-coloured Henri in a grey suit with a white-and-black handkerchief 
swathed round his neck.

Behind him were the two little girls.

"Quick, quick!" breathes the old woman, "you must go, Madame, you must go at once! 
My brother is frightened; he refuses to have you here any longer. He is terrified out of 
his life lest the Germans should discover that he has been allowing an English woman to 
hide in his house!"

She threw an apron on me, and hurriedly tied it behind me, then she brought out a big 
black shawl and flung it round my shoulders. Then she picked up the blue-and-white 
check handkerchief lying on the table, and nodded to me to tie it over my head.

"You must go at once, you must leave everything behind you. You must not take 
anything. We will see about your things afterwards. You must pass as Henri's wife. 
There! Take his arm! And you, Henri, take one of the little girls by the hand! And you, 
Madame, you take the other. There! Courage, Madame. Oh, my poor child, I am sorry 
for you!"

She kissed me, and pushed me out at the same time.

Next moment, hanging on to Henri's arm, I found myself outside in the corridor walking 
towards the staircase.

"Courage!" whispered Henri in my ear.

Suddenly I ceased to be myself; I became a peasant; I was Henri's wife. These little girls 
were mine. I leaned on Henri, I clutched my little girl's fingers close. I felt utterly 
unafraid. I thought as a peasant. I absolutely precipitated myself into the woman I was 
supposed to be. And in that new condition of personality I walked down the wide 
staircase with my husband and my children, passing dozens of German officers who 
were running up and down the stairs continually.

I got a touch of their system. They moved aside to let us pass, the poor little pie- 
coloured peasant, his anxious wife, the two solemn children with flowing hair.

The hall below was crowded with Germans. I saw their fair florid faces, their grim lips 
and blazing eyes. But I was a peasant now, a little Belgian peasant. Reality had left me 
completely. Fear was fled. The sight of the sunlight and the touch of the fresh air on my 
face as we reached the street set all my nerves acting again in their old satisfactory 
manner.

"Courage, Madame " whispered Henri.

"Don't call me Madame! Call me Louisa!" I whispered back. "Where are we going?"

"To a friend."

We turned the corner and crossed the street and I saw at once that Antwerp as Antwerp 
has entirely ceased to exist. Everywhere there were Germans. They were seated in the 
cafs, flying past in motor cars, driving through the streets and avenues just as in 
Brussels, looking as if they had lived there for ever.

Voici, Madame!" muttered Henri.

"Louisa!" I whispered supplicatingly.

Chapter XLIV

Can I Trust Them?

We entered a caf. I shrank and clutched his arm. The place was full of Germans, but 
they were common soldiers these, not Officers. They were drinking beer and coffee at 
the little tables.

"Take no notice of them!" whispered Henri. "You are all right! Trust me!"

We walked through the Restaurant, Henri and I arm in arm, and the little girls clinging to 
our hands.

They really played their parts amazingly, those little girls.

"I have found my wife from Brussels," announced Henri in a loud voice to the old 
proprietor behind the counter.

"How are things in Brussels, Madame?" queried an old Belgian in the cafe.

But I made no answer. I affected not to hear.

I went with Henri on through the little hall at the far end of the cafe.

Next moment I found myself in a big, clean kitchen. And a tall stout woman, her black 
eyes swimming in tears, was leaning towards me, her arms open.

"Oh, poor Madame!" she said.

She clasped me to her breast.

Between her tears, in her choking voice she whispered, "I told Henri to bring you here. 
You are safe with me. We are from Luxemburg. We fled from home at the beginning of 
the war rather than see our state swarming with Prussians, as it is now. We 
Luxemburgers hate Germans with a hate that passes all other hate on earth. And I have 
three children, who are all in England now. I sent them there a week ago. I sold my 
jewels, my all to let them go. I know my children are safe in England. And you, Madame, 
you are safe with me!"

"Don't call me Madame, call me Louisa."

"And call me Ada," she said.

"So, au revoir!" said Henri. "I shall come round later with your things."

He seized the little girls, and with a nod and "Courage, Louisa," he disappeared.

Oh, the kindness of that broken-hearted Luxemburg woman.

Her poor heart was bleeding for her children, and she kept on weeping, and asking me a 
thousand questions about England, while she made coffee for me, and spread a white 
cloth over the kitchen table. What would happen to her little ones? Would the English be 
kind to them? Would they be safe in England? And over and over again she repeated 
the same sad little story of how she had sent them away, her three beloveds, George, 
Clare, and little Ada with the long fair curls; sent them away out of danger, and had 
never heard a word from them since the day she kissed them and bade them good- bye 
at the crowded train.

The whole of that day I remained in the kitchen there at the back of the cafe. I could 
hear the Germans coming in and out. They were blowing their own trumpets all the time, 
telling always of their victories.

Ada's little old husband would walk up and down, whistling the cheeriest pipe of a 
whistle I have ever heard. It did me good to listen to him. It brought before one in the 
midst of all this terror and ruin an image of birds.

At six o'clock that day, when dusk began to gather, Ada shut up the cafe, put out the 
lights, and she and her old husband and I sat together in the kitchen round the fire.

Presently, in came Henri, with my little bag, accompanied by Madame X., and her big 
husband, and two enormous yellow dogs.

They told me that the Danish Doctor came back at three o'clock, asked for me, and was 
told I had gone to Holland.

"If it were not for the Danish Doctor I should feel quite safe," I said. "Was he angry ?"

"He was very surprised."

"Did he give you back my passport?"

"No."

"Did he get the passport from his Consul?"

"He said so."

"Did he want to know how I got away?"

"He said he hoped you were safe."

"Did he believe you?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think he believed you?"

"I don't know."

"Did he look as if he believed you?"

"He looked surprised."

"And angry?"

"A little annoyed."

"Not pleased?"

"Perhaps!"

"And very surprised?"

"Yes, very surprised."

"I don't believe that he believed you."

"Perhaps not."

"Perhaps he will try and find me?"

"But he is no spy," answered Henri. "If he had wanted to betray you he would have done 
it last night."

"C'est ca!" agreed the others.

"What did you know about him?" I asked, "What made you send him up to me, 
Franois? Surely you wouldn't have told him about me unless you knew he was 
trustworthy!"

"C'est ca!" agreed big, fat, sad-eyed Franois.

"I have known him for some time. I never doubted him. I am sure he is to be trusted. He 
has worked very hard among our wounded."

"But why did he speak with the Germans in the restaurant!?"

"He is a Dane, he can speak as he choses."

"Then you don't think he was speaking of me?"

"No, Madame! C'est evident, n'est-ce-pas? You have left the hotel in safety!"

"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude where l am?"

"Monsieur Claude will tell him he knows nothing about you, has never seen you, never 
heard of you!"

"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude's sister?"

"We must tell her not to tell him where you are.

"What!"

I started violently.

"Do you mean to say that you haven't warned her already not to tell him where I've really 
gone to?"

"But of course she will not tell him. She is devoted to you, Madame."

"Call me Louisa."

"Louisa! 

"She might tell him to get rid of him," says Ada slowly.

"C'est ca!" agree the others thoughtfully.

And at that all the terror of last night returns to me. It returns like a memory, but it is 
troublous all the same.

And then, opening my bag to inspect its contents, I suddenly see a big strange key.

What is this?

And then remembrance rushes over me.

It is the key that Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones gave me, the key of the furnished house in 
Antwerp.

A house! Fully furnished, and fully stored with food! And no occupants! And no 
Germans! In a flash I decided to get into that house as quickly as possible. It was the 
best possible place of hiding. It was so good, indeed, that it seemed like a fairy tale that 
I should have the key in my possession. And then, with another flash, I decided that I 
could never face going into that house alone. My nerves would refuse me. I had asked a 
good deal of them lately, and they had responded magnificently. But they turned against 
living alone in an empty house in Antwerp, quite definitely and positively, they turned 
against that.

Casting a swift glance about me, I took in that group of faces round the kitchen fire. 
Who were they, these people? Francois, and Lenore, Henri, Ada, and the little old grey- 
moustached man whistling like a bird, who were they? Why were they here among the 
Germans? Why had they not fled with the million fugitives. Was it possible they were 
spies? For I knew now, beyond all doubting, that there were indeed such things as 
spies, though the English mind finds it almost impossible to believe in the reality of 
something so dedicated to the gentle art of making melodrama. Until three days ago I 
had never seen these people in my life. I knew absolutely nothing about them. Perhaps 
they were even now carefully drawing the net around me. Perhaps I was already a 
prisoner in the Germans' hands.

And yet they were all I had in the way of aquaintances, they were all I had to trust in.

Could I trust them?

I looked at them again.

It was strange, and rather wonderful, to have nothing on earth to help one but one's own 
judgment.

Then Ada's voice reached me.

"Voici, Louisa!" she is saying. "Voici le photographie de mon Georges."

And she bends over me with a little old locket, and inside I see a small boy's fair, brave 
little face, and Ada's tears splash on my hand.

"I sent them away because I feared the Alboches might harm them," she breaks out, 
uncontrollably. "For mon Mari and myself, we have no fear! And we had not money for 
ourselves to go. But my Georges, and my Clare, and my petite Ada I could not bear 
the thought that the Alboches might hurt them. Oh, mes petites, mes petites! They wept 
so. They did not want to go. 'Let us stay here with you, Mama.' But I made them go. I 
sold my bijoux, my all, to get money enough for them to go to England. Oh, the English 
will be good to them, won't they, Louisa? Tell me the English will be good to my petites."

Sometimes, in England since, when I have heard some querulous suburban English 
heart voicing itself grandiloquently, out of the plethora of its charity-giving, as "a bit fed 
up with the refugees" I think of myself, with a passionate sincerity and fanatic belief in 
England's goodness and justice, assuring that weeping mother that her Georges and 
Clare and little Ada with the long hair curls would be cared for by the Englishthe 
tender, generous, grateful Englishas though they were their own little oneseven 
better perhaps, even better!

Ada's tears!

They wash away my fears. My heart melts to her, and I tell her straightway about the 
house in the avenue L.

"But how splendid!" she cries exuberantly.

"Quel chance, Louisa, quel chance!" cries Lenore.

"To-morrow morning we shall all take you there!" declares Henri.

Their surprise, their delight, allay my last lingering doubts.

"But mind," I urge them feverishly, "You must never let the Danish Doctor know that 
address."

That night I sleep in a feather-bed in a room at the top of dear Ada's house.

Or try to sleep! Alas, it is only trying. My windows look on a long narrow street, a dead 
street, full of empty houses, and from these houses come stealing with louder and 
louder insistence the sounds of those imprisoned dogs howling within the barred doors 
of the empty houses. Their cries are terrible, they are starving now and perishing of 
thirst. They yelp and whine, and wail, they bark and shriek and plead, they sob, they 
moan. They send forth blood- curdling cries, in dozens, in hundreds, from every street, 
from every quarter, these massed wails go up into the night, lending a new horror to the 
dark. And through it all the Germans sleep, they make no attempt either to destroy the 
poor tortured brutes, or to give them food and water, they are to be left there to die. 
Hour after hour goes by, I bury my head under a pillow, but I cannot shut out those awful 
sounds, they penetrate through everything, sometimes they are death-agonies; the dogs 
are giving up, they can suffer no longer. They understand at last that mankind, their 
friend, who has had all their faith and love, has deserted them, and then with fresh 
bursts of howling they seem afresh to make him listen, to make him realize this dark and 
terrible thing that has come to them, this racking thirst and hunger that he has been so 
careful to provide against before, even as though they were his children, his own little 
ones, not his dogs. And, they howl, and cry, the dead city listens, and gives no sign, and 
they shiver, and shriek, and wail, but in vain, in vain. It is the most awful night of my life!



Chapter XLV

A Safe Shelter

Next morning at ten o'clock, Lenore and I and the ever-faithful Henri (carrying my parrot, 
if you please!) and Ada strolled with affected nonchalance through the Antwerp streets 
where a pale gold sun was shining on the ruins.

Germans were everywhere. Some were buying postcards, some sausages. Motor cars 
dashed in and out full of grey or blue uniforms. Fair, grave, sardonic faces were to be 
seen now, where only a few brief days ago there had been naught but Belgians' brave 
eyes, and lively, tender physiognomy. Our little party was silent, depressed. I wore a 
handkerchief over my head, tied beneath my chin, a big black apron, and a white shawl, 
and I kept my arm inside Henri's.

"Voici, Madame," he exclaimed suddenly. "Voila les Anglais."

"Et les Anglaises," gasped Ada under her breath.

We were just then crossing the Avenue de Kaiserthat once gay, bright Belgian 
Avenue where I had so often walked with Alice, my dear little Ligeoise, now fled, alas, I 
knew not where.

A procession was passing between the long lines of fading acacias. A huge waggon, 
some mounted Germans, two women.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" says Ada.

Lying on sacks in the open waggon are wounded English officers, their eyes shut.

And trudging on foot behind the waggon, with an indescribable steadfastness and 
courage, is an English nurse in her blue uniform, and a tall, thin, erect English lady, with 
grey hair and a sweet face under a wide black hat.

"They are taking them to Germany!" whispers Henri in my ear.

"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" moans Ada under her breath. "Oh, les pauvres Anglaises!"

It was all I could do to keep from flying towards them.

An awful longing came over me to speak to them, to sympathise, to do something, 
anything to help them, there alone among the Germans. It was the call of one's race, of 
one's blood, of one's country. But it was madness. I must stand still. To speak to them 
might mean bad things for all of us.

And even as I thought of that, the group vanished round the corner, towards the station.

As we walked along we examined the City. Ah, how shocking was the change! People 
are wont to say of Antwerp that it was very little damaged. But in truth it suffered 
horribly, far beyond what anyone who has not seen it can believe. The burning streets 
were still on fire. The water supply was still cut off. The burning had continued ever 
since the bombardment. I looked at the Hotel St. Antoine and shivered. A few days ago 
Sir Frederick Greville and Lady Greville of the British Embassy had been installed in that 
hotel and countless Belgian Ministers. The Germans had tried hard to shell it, but their 
shells had fallen across the road instead. All the opposite side of the street lay flat on 
the ground, smouldering, and smoking, in heaps of spread-out burning ruins.

At last we reached the house for which I had the key.

From the outside it was dignified, handsome, thoroughly Belgian, standing in a street of 
many ruined houses.

Trembling, I put the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed open the door. Then I 
gasped. "Open Sesame" indeed! For there, stretching before me, was a magnificent 
hall, richly carpeted, with broad, low marble stairs leading upwards on either side to 
strangely-constructed open apartments lined with rare books, and china, and silver. We 
crept in, and shut the door behind us. Moving about the luxurious rooms and corridors, 
with bated breath, on tip-toe we explored. No fairy tale could reveal greater wonders. 
Here was a superb mansion stocked for six months' siege! In the cellars were huge 
cases of white wines, and red wines, and mineral waters galore. In the pantries we 
found hundreds of tins of sardines, salmon, herrings, beef, mutton, asparagus, corn, 
and huge bags of flour, boxes of biscuits, boxes of salt, sugar, pepper, porridge, jams, 
potatoes. At the back was a garden, full of great trees, and grass, and flowers, with 
white roses on the rose-bush.

Agreeable as was the sight, there was yet something infinitely touching in this beautiful 
silent home, deserted by its owners, who, secure in the impregnability of Antwerp, had 
provided themselves for a six months' siege, and then, at the last moment, their hopes 
crushed, had fled, leaving furniture, clothes, food, wines, everything, just for dear life's 
sake.

Tender-hearted Ada wept continually as she moved about.

"Oh, the poor thing!" she sighed every now and then. And forgetting herself and her own 
grief, her angel heart would overflow with compassion for these people whom she had 
never seen, never heard of until now.

For the first time for days I felt safe, and when Lenore (Madame X.) and her husband 
promised to come and stay there with me, and bring Jeanette and the old grandmre 
from the hospital I was greatly relieved. In fact if it had not been for the Danish Doctor I 
should have been quite happy.

They all came in that afternoon, and Henri too, and how grateful they were to get into 
that nest.

We quickly decided to use only the kitchen, and Lenore and her husband shewed such 
a respect for the beauties of the house, that I knew I had done right in bringing the poor 
refugees here.

Through the barred kitchen windows, from behind the window curtains, we watched the 
endless rush of the German machinery. Occasionally Germans would come and knock 
at the door, and Lenore would go and answer it. When they found the house was 
occupied they immediately went away.

So I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was saving that house from the Huns.

The haunted noontide silence of my solitary walk seemed like a dream now. Noise 
without end went on. All day long the Germans were rushing their machineries through 
the Chause de Malines, or Rue Lamarinire, or along the Avenue de Kaiser. At some 
of the monsters that went grinding along one stared, gasping, realising for the first time 
what les petits Belges had been up against when they had pitted courage and honour 
and love of liberty against machinery like that. Three days afterwards along the road 
from Lierre two big guns moved on locomotives towards Aerschot, suggesting by their 
vastness that immense mountain peaks were journeying across a landscape. I felt 
physically ill when I saw the size of them. A hundred and fifty portable kitchens 
ensconced in motor cars also passed through the town, explaining practically why all the 
Germans look so remarkably well-fed. Motor cycles fitted with wireless telegraphy, motor 
loads of boats in sections, air-sheds in sections, and trams in sections dashed by 
eternally. The swift rush of motor cars seemed never to end.

Yet, busy as the Germans were, and feverishly concentrated on their new activities, they 
still found time to carry out their system as applied to their endeavours to win the 
Belgian people's confidence in their kindness and justice as Conquerers! They paid for 
everything they bought, food, lodging, drink, everything. They asked for things gently, 
even humbly. They never grumbled if they were kept waiting. They patted the children's 
heads. Over and over again I heard them saying the same thing to anybody who would 
listen.

"We love you Belgians! We know how brave you are. We only wanted to go through 
Belgium. We would never have hurt it. And we would have paid you for any damage we 
did. We don't hate the French either. They are 'bons soldats,' the French! But the 
'Englisch' (and here a positive hiss of hatred would come into their guttural voices), the 
Englisch' are false to everyone. It was they who made the war. It is all their fault, 
whatever has happened. We didn't want this war. We did all we could to stop it. But the 
'Englisch' (again the hiss of hatred, ringing like cold steel through the word) wanted to 
fight us, they were jealous of us, and they used you poor brave Belgians as an excuse!"

That was always the beginning of their Litany.

Then they would follow the Chant of their victories.

"And now we are going to Calais! We shall start the bombardment of England from 
there with our big guns. Before long we shall all be in London."

And then would come the final strain, which was often true, as a matter of fact, in 
addition to being wily.

"I've left my good home behind me and my dear good wife, and away there in the 
Vaterland I have seven children awaiting my return. So you can imagine if I and men like 
me, wanted this war!"

It was generally seven children. Sometimes it was more. But it was never less! 

The system was perfect, even about as small a thing as that!



Chapter XLVI

The Flight into Holland

For five wild incredible days I remained in Antwerp, watching the German occupation; 
and then at last, I found my opportunity to escape over the borders into Holland.

There came the great day when Franois managed to borrow a motor car and took me 
out through the Breda Gate to Putte in Holland.

Good-bye to Ada, good-bye to Henri, good-bye to Lenore, Jeannette and la grandmere!

I knew now that Madame X. could be trusted to the death. She had proved it in an 
unmistakable way. In my bag I had her Belgian passport and her German one also. I 
was passing now as Franois' wife. The photograph of Lenore stamped on the passport 
was sufficiently like myself to enable me to pass the German sentinels, and Lenore, 
dear, sweet, lovable Lenore, had coached me diligently in the pronunciation of her queer 
Flemish name which was not Lenore, of course.

As for my own English passport, Monsieur X. went several times to the young Danish 
Doctor asking for it on my behalf.

The Dane refused to give it up. "How do I know," said he, "that you will restore it to the 
lady?"

Finally Monsieur X. suggested that he should leave it for me at the American Consulate.

Eventually, long after it came to me in London from the American Consulate, with a note 
from the Dane asking them to see that I got it safely.

When I think of it now, I feel sad to have so mistrusted that friendly Dane. What did he 
think, I wonder, to find me suddenly flown? Perhaps he will read this some day, and 
understand, and forgive.

Ah, how mournful, how heart-breaking was the almost incredible change that had taken 
place in the free, happy country of former days and this ruined desolate land of to-day. 
As we flashed along towards Holland we passed endless burnt-out villages and farms, 
magnificent old chateaux shelled to the ground, churches lying tumbled forward upon 
their graveyards, tombstones uprooted and graves riven open. A cold wind blew; the sky 
was grey and sad; in all the melancholy and chill there was one thought and one alone 
that made these sights endurable. It was that the poor victims of these horrors were 
being cared for and comforted in England's and Holland's big warm hearts.

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw on the Dutch borders those sweet green 
Dutch pine-woods of Putte stretching away under the peaceful golden evening skies. 
Trees! Trees! Were there really such things left in the world? It seemed impossible that 
any beauty could be still in existence; and I gazed at the woods with ravenous eyes, 
drinking in their beauty and peace like a perishing man slaking his thirst in clear cold 
water.

Then, suddenly, out of the depths of those dim Dutch woods, I discerned white faces 
peering, and presently I became aware that the woods were alive with human beings. 
White gaunt faces looked out from behind the tree-trunks, faces of little frightened 
children, peeping, peering, wondering, faces of sad, hopeless men, gazing stonily, faces 
of hollow-eyed women who had turned grey with anguish when that cruel hail of shells 
began to burst upon their little homes in Antwerp, drawing them in their terror out into 
the unknown.

Right through the woods of Putte ran the road to the city of Berg-op-Zoom, and along 
this road I saw a huge military car come flying, manned by half a dozen Dutch Officers 
and laden with thousands of loaves of bread. Instantly, out of the woods, out of their 
secret lairs, the poor homeless fugitives rushed forward, gathering round the car, 
holding out their hands in a passion of supplication, and whispering hoarsely, "Du pain! 
Du pain!" Bread! Bread!

It was like a scene from Dante, the white faces, the outstretched arms, the sunset above 
the wood, and the red camp fires between the trees.



Chapter XLVII

Friendly Holland

Yesterday I was in Holland.

To-day I am in England.

But still in my ears I can hear the ring of scathing indignation in the voices of all those 
innumerable Dutch when I put point-blank to them the question that has been causing 
such unrest in Great Britain lately: "Are the Dutch helping Germany?"

From every sort and condition of Dutchmen I received an emphatic "never!" The people 
of Holland would never permit it, and in Holland the people have an enormous voice. 
Nothing could have been more emphatic or more convincing than that reply. But I 
pressed the point further. "Is it not true, then, that the Dutch allowed German troops to 
pass through Holland?"

The answer I received was startling.

"We have heard that story. And we cannot understand how the Allies could believe it. 
We have traced the story," my informant went on, "to its origin and we have discovered 
that the report was circulated by the Germans themselves."

I pressed my interrogation further still.

"Would it be correct, then, to say that the attitude of Holland towards England is 
distinctly and unmistakably friendly among all sections of the community in Holland?"

My informant, one of the best known of Dutch advocates, paused a moment before 
replying.

Then seriously and deliberately he made the following statement:

"In the upper circles of Dutch Societythat is to say, in Court circles and in the military 
set that is included in this classificationthere has been, it is true, a somewhat 
sentimental partiality for Germany and the Germans. This preference originated 
obviously from Prince Henry's nationality, and from Queen Wilhelmina's somewhat 
passive acceptance of her husband's likes and dislikes. But the situation has lately 
changed. A new emotion has seized upon Holland, and one of the first to be affected by 
this new emotion was Prince Henry himself.? When the million Belgian refugees, 
bleeding, starving, desperate, hunted, flung themselves over the Dutch border in the 
agony of their flight, we Dutchand Prince Henry among us saw for ourselves for the 
first time the awful horror of the German invasion."

"And so the Prince has shewed himself sympathetic towards the Allies?"

"He has devoted himself to the Belgian Cause," was the reply. "Day after day he has 
taken long journeys to all the Dutch cities and villages where the refugees are 
congregated. He has visited the hospitals everywhere. He has made endless gifts. In 
the hospitals, by his geniality and simplicity he completely overcame the quite natural 
shrinking of the wounded Belgian soldiers from a visitor who bore the hated name of 
German."

I knew it was true, too, because I had myself seen Prince Henry going in and out of the 
hospitals at Bergen-op-Zoom, his face wearing an expression of deep commiseration.

"But what about England?" I went on hurriedly. "How do you feel to us?"

"We are your friends," came the answer. "What puzzles us is how England could ever 
doubt or misunderstand us on that point. Psychologically, we feel ourselves more akin to 
England than to any other country. We like the English ways, which greatly resemble 
our own. Just as much as we like English manners and customs, we dislike the manners 
and customs of Germany. That we should fight against England is absolutely 
unthinkable. In fact it would mean one thing only, in Hollanda revolution."

Over and over again these opinions were presented to me by leading Dutchmen.

A director of a big Dutch line of steamers was even more emphatic concerning Holland's 
attitude to England. "And we are," he said, "suffering from the War in Hollandsuffering 
badly. We estimate our losses at 60 per cent, of our ordinary trade and commerce."

He pointed out to me a paragraph in a Dutch paper.

"If the export prohibition by Britain of wool, worsted, etc., is maintained, the 
manufactures of woollen stuffs here will within not a very long period, perhaps five to six 
weeks, have to be closed for lack of raw material.

"A proposition of the big manufacturers to have the prohibition raised on condition that 
nothing should be delivered to Germany is being submitted to the British Government. 
We hope that England will arrive at a favourable decision."

"You know," I said tentatively, "that rumour persists in attributing to Holland a readiness 
to do business with Germany?"

"Let me be quite frank about that," said the director thoughtfully. "It is true that some 
people have surreptitiously been doing business with Germany. But in every community 
you will find that sort of people. But our Government has now awakened to the 
treachery, and we shall hear no more of such transactions in the future."

"And is it true that you are trying to change your national flag because the Germans 
have been misusing it?"

"It is quite true. We are trying to adopt the ancient standard of Hollandthe orange 
instead of the red, white and blue of to-day."

As an earnest of the genuine sympathy felt by the Dutch as a whole towards the Belgian 
sufferers I may describe in a few words what I saw in Holland.

Out of the black horrors of Antwerp, out of the hell of bombs and shells, these million 
people came fleeing for their lives into Dutch territory. Penniless, footsore, bleeding, 
broken with terror and grief dying in hundreds by the way, the inhabitants of Antwerp 
and its villages crushed blindly onwards till they reached the Dutch frontiers, where they 
flung themselves, a million people, on the pity and mercy of Holland, not knowing the 
least how they would be treated. And what did Holland do i With a magnificent simplicity, 
she opened her arms as no nation in the history of the world has ever opened its arms 
yet to strangers, and she took the whole of those million stricken creatures to her heart.

The Dutch at Bergen-op-Zoom, where the majority of the refugees were gathered, gave 
up every available building to these people. They filled all their churches with straw to 
make beds for them; they opened all their theatres, their schools, their hospitals, their 
factories and their private homes, and, without a murmur, indeed, with a tenderness and 
gentleness beyond all description, they took upon their shoulders the burden of these 
million victims of Germany's brutality.

"It is our duty," they say quietly; and sick and poor alike pour out their offerings 
graciously, without ceasing.

In the Grand Place of Bergen-op-Zoom stand long lines of soup-boilers over charcoal 
fires.

Behind the line of soup-boilers are stacks of bones, hundreds of bags of rice and salt, 
mountains of celery and onions, all piled on the flags of the market-place, while to add to 
the liveliness and picturesqueness of the scene, Dutch soldiers in dark blue and yellow 
uniforms ride slowly round the square on glossy brown horses, keeping the thousands 
of refugees out of the way of the endless stream of motor cars lining the Grand Place on 
its four sides, all packed to the brim with bread, meat, milk, and cheese.

Inside the Town hall the portrait of Queen Wilhelmina in her scarlet and ermine robes 
looks down on the strangest scene Holland has seen for many a day.

The floors of the Hotel de la Ville are covered with thousands of big red Dutch cheeses. 
Twenty-six thousand kilos of long loaves of brown bread are packed up almost to the 
ceiling, looking exactly like enormous wood stacks. Sacks of flour, sides of pork and 
bacon, cases of preserved meat and conserved milk, hundreds of cans of milk, piles of 
blankets, piles of clothing are here also, all to be given away.

The town of Bergen-op-Zoom is full of heartbreaking pictures to-day, but to me the most 
pathetic of all is the writing on the walls.

It is a tremendous tribute to the good-heartedness of the Dutch that they do not mind 
their scrupulously clean houses defaced for the moment in this way.

Scribbled in white chalk all over the walls, shutters, and fences, windows, tree-trunks, 
and pavements, are the addresses of the frenzied refugees, trying to get in touch with 
their lost relations.

On the trees, too, little bits of paper are pinned, covered with addresses and messages, 
such as "The Family Montchier can be found in the Church of St. Joseph under the 
grand altar," or "Anna Decart with Pierre and Marie and Grandmother are in the School 
of Music." "Les soeurs Martell et Grandmere are in the Church of the Holy Martyrs." "La 
Famille Deminn are in the fifth tent of the encampment on the Artillery ground." "M. and 
Mme. Ardige and their seven children are in the Comedy Theatre." .... So closely are the 
walls and shutters and the windows and trees scribbled over by now that the million 
addresses are most of them becoming indistinguishable.

While I was in Holland I came across an interesting couple whom I speedily classified in 
my own mind.

One was a dark young man.

He had a peculiar accent. He told me he was an Englishman from Northampton. 
Perhaps he was.

He said the reason he wasn't fighting for his country was because he was too fat.

Perhaps he was.

The other young man said he was American.

Perhaps he was.

He had red hair and an American accent. He had lived in Germany a great deal in his 
childhood. All went well until the red-haired man made the following curious slip.

When I was describing the way the Germans in Antwerp fled towards the sausage, he 
said, "How they will roar when I tell them that in Berlin!" Swiftly he corrected himself. "In 
New York, I mean he said. But a couple of hours later the Englishman left suddenly for 
London, and the American left for Antwerp. As I had happened to mention that I had left 
my baggage in Antwerp, I could quite imagine it being overhauled by the Germans 
there, at the instigation of the red-haired young gentleman with the pronounced 
American accent.

A rough estimate of the cost to the Dutch Government of maintaining the refugees 
works out at something like 85,000 a week. This, of course, is quite irrespective of the 
boundless private hospitality which is being dispensed with the utmost generosity on 
every hand in Rotterdam, Haarlem, Flushing, Bergen-op-Zoom, Maasstricht, Rossendal, 
Delft, and innumerable other towns and villages.

Some of the military families on their meagre pay must find the call on them a severe 
strain, but one never hears of complaints on this score, and in nine cases out of ten they 
refuse absolutely to accept payment for board and lodging, though many of the refugees 
are eager to pay for their food and shelter.
"We can't make money out of them!" is what the Dutch say. A new reading this, of the 
famous couplet of a century ago: 

In matters of this kind the fault of the Dutch,
Was giving too little and asking too much



Part II



Chapter XLVIII

French Cooking In War Time

There is no more Belgium to go to.

So I am in France now.

But War-Correspondents are not wanted here. They are driven out wherever 
discovered. I shall not stay long.

All my time is taken up in running about getting papers; my bag is getting out of shape; it 
bulges with the Laisser Passers, and Sauf Conduits that one has to fight so hard to get.

However, to be among French-speaking people again is a great joy.

And to-day in Dunkirk it has refreshed and consoled me greatly to see Madame Piers 
cooking.

The old Frenchwoman moved about her tiny kitchen,her infinitesimally tiny kitchen, 
and I watched her from my point of observation, seated on a tiny chair, at a tiny table, 
squeezed up into a tiny corner.

It really was the smallest kitchen I'd ever seen, No, you couldn't have swung a cat in it 
you really couldn't.

And no one but a thrifty French housewife could have contrived to get that wee round 
table and little chair into that tiny angle.

Yet I felt very cosy and comfortable there, and the old grey-haired French mother, 
preparing supper for her household, and for any soldier who might be passing by, 
seemed perfectly satisfied with her cramped surroundings, and kept begging me 
graciously to remain where I was, drinking the hot tea she had just made for me, while 
my boots (that were always wet out there) dried under her big charcoal stove. And 
always she smiled away; and I smiled too. Who could help it?

She and her kitchen were the most charming study imaginable.

Every now and then her fine, old, brown, thin, wrinkled hand would reach over my head 
for a pot, or a brush, or a pan, from the wall behind, or the shelf above me, while the 
other hand would stir or shake something over the wee gas-ring or the charcoal stove. 
For so small was the kitchen that by stretching she could reach at the same time to the 
wall on either side.

Then she began to pick over a pile of rough-looking green stuff, very much like that we 
in England should contemptuously call weeds.

Pick, pick, pick!

A diamond merchant with his jewels could not have been more careful, more delicate, 
more watchful. And as I thought that, it suddenly came over me that to this old, careful, 
thrifty Frenchwoman those weedy greens were not weeds at all, but were really as 
precious as diamonds, for she was a Frenchwoman, clever and disciplined in the art of 
thrift, and they represented the most important thing in all the world to-dayfood.

Food means life.

Food means victory.

Food means the end of the War, and PEACE.

You could read all that in her black, intelligent eyes.

Then I began to sit up and watch her more closely still.

When she had picked off all those little hard leaves, she cracked up the bare, harsh 
stalks into pieces an inch long, and flung them all, leaves and stalks, into a saucepan of 
boiling water, which she presently pushed aside to let simmer away gently for ten 
minutes or so.

Meanwhile she is carefully pealing a hard-boiled egg, taking the shell off in two pieces, 
and shredding up the white on a little white saucer, never losing a crumb of it even.

An egg! Why waste an egg like that? But indeed, she is not going to waste it. She is 
using the yolk to make mayonnaise sauce, and the white is for decoration later on. With 
all her thrift she must have things pretty. Her cheap dishes must have an air of finish, an 
artistic touch; and she knows, and acts up to the fact, that the yellow and white egg is 
not wasted, but returns a hundred per cent., because it is going to make her supper look 
a hundred times more important than it really is.

Now she takes the greens from the saucepan, drains them, and puts them into a little 
frying-pan on the big stove; and she peppers and salts them, and turns them about, and 
leaves them with a little smile.

She always has that little smile for everything, and I think that goes into the flavour 
somehow!

And now she pours the water the greens were boiled in, into that big soup-pot on the big 
stove, and gives the soup a friendly stir just to shew that she hasn't forgotten it.

She opens the cupboard, and brings out every little or big bit of bread left over from 
lunch and breakfast, and she shapes them a little with her sharp old knife, and she 
hurries them all into the big pot, putting the lid down quickly so that even the steam 
doesn't get out and get wasted!

Now she takes the greens off the fire, and puts them into a dear little round white china 
dish, and leaves them to get cold.

She opens her cupboard again and brings out a piece of cold veal cutlet and a piece of 
cold steak left over from luncheon yesterday, and to-day also. What is she going to do 
with these? She is going to make them our special dish for supper. She begins to shred 
them up with her old sharp blade shreds them up finely, not mincing, not chopping, 
but shredding the particles apartand into them she shreds a little cold ham and onion, 
and then she flavours it well with salt and pepper. Then she piles this all on a dish and 
covers it with golden mayonnaise, and criss-crosses it with long red wires of beetroot.

The greens are cold now, and she dresses them. She oils them, and vinegars them, and 
pats and arranges them, and decorates them with the white of the chopped egg and thin 
little slices of tomato.

"Voila! The salad!" she says, with her flash of a smile.

Salad for five peoplea beautiful, tasty, green, melting, delicious salad that might have 
been made of young asparagus tips! And what did it cost? One farthing, plus the labour 
and care and affection and time that the old woman put into the making of itplus, in 
other words, her thrift!

Now she must empty my teapot.

Does she turn it upside down over a bucket of rubbish as they do in England, leaving 
the tea-leaves to go to the dustman when he calls on Friday?

She would think that an absolutely wicked thing to do if she had ever heard of such 
proceedings, but she has not.

She drains every drop of tea into a jug, puts a lid on it, and places it away in her safe; 
then she empties the tea-leaves into a yellow earthenware basin, and puts a plate over 
them, and puts them up on a shelf.

I begin to say to myself, with quite an excited feeling, "Shall I ever see her throw 
anything away?"

Potatoes next.

Ah! Now there'll be peelings, and those she'll have to throw away.

Not a bit of it!

There are only the very thinnest, filmiest scrapings of dark down off this old dear's 
potatoes. And suddenly I think of poor dear England, where our potato skins are so thick 
that a tradition has grown from them, and the maids throw them over their shoulders and 
see what letter they make on the floor, and that will be the first letter of his name  
Laughing, I tell of this tradition to my old Frenchwoman.

And what do you think she answers?

"The skin must be very thick not to break,'' she says solemnly. " But then you English 
are all so rich!"

Are we?

Or are we simplywhat?

Is it that, bluntly put, we are lazy?

After the fall of Antwerp, when a million people had fled into Holland, I saw ladies in furs 
and jewels holding up beseeching, imploring hands to the kindly but bewildered Dutch 
folk asking for bread just bread! It was a terrible sight! But shall we, too, be begging 
for bread some day? Shall we, too, be longing for the pieces we threw away? Who 
knows?

Finally we sat down to an exquisite supper.

First, there was croute au potthe nicest soup in the world, said a King of France, and 
full of nourishment.

Then there was a small slice each of tender, juicy boiled beef out of the big soup-pot, 
never betraying for a minute that that beautiful soup had been made from it.

With that beef went the potatoes sautee in butter, and sprinkled with chopped green.

After that came the chicken mayonnaise and salad of asparagus tips (otherwse cold 
scraps and weeds).

There are five of us to supper in that little room behind the milliner's shopan invalided 
Belgian officer; a little woman from Malines looking after her wounded husband in 
hospital here; Mdlle. Alice, the daughter, who keeps the millinery shop in the front room; 
the old mother, a high lace collar on now, and her grey hair curled and coiffured; and 
myself. The mother waits on us, slipping in and out like a cat, and we eat till there is 
nothing left to want, and nothing left to eat. And then we have coffeesuch coffee!

Which reminds me that I quite forgot to say I caught the old lady putting the shells of the 
hard-boiled egg into the coffee-pot!

And that is French cooking in War time!



Chapter XLIX

The Fight In The Air

Next morning, Sunday, about half-past ten, I was walking joyfully on that long, beautiful 
beach at Dunkirk, with all the winds in the world in my face, and a golden sun shining 
dazzlingly over the blue skies into the deep blue sea-fields beneath.

The rain had ceased. The peace of God was drifting down like a dove's wing over the 
tortured world. From the city of Dunkirk a mile beyond the Plage the chimes of Sabbath 
bells stole out soothingly, and little black-robed Frenchwomen passed with prayer books 
and eyes down bent.

It was Sunday morning, and for the first time in this new year religion and spring were 
met in the golden beauty of a day that was windswept and sunlit simultaneously, and 
that swept away like magic the sad depression of endless grey monotonous days of rain 
and mud.

And then, all suddenly, a change came sweeping over the golden beach and the 
turquoise skies overhead and all the fair glory of the glittering morning turned with a 
crash into tragedy.

Crash! Crash!

Bewildered, not understanding, I heard one deafening intonation after another fling itself 
fiercely from the cannons that guard the port and city of Dunkirk.

Then followed the shouts of fishermen, soldiers, nurses and the motley handful of 
people who happened to be on the beach just then.

Everybody began shouting and everybody began running and pointing towards the sky; 
and then I saw the commencement of the most extraordinary sight this war has 
witnessed.

An English aeroplane was chasing a German Taube that had suddenly appeared above 
the coast-line. The German was doing his best to make a rush for Dunkirk, and the 
Englishman was doing his best to stop him. As I watched I held my breath.

The English aeroplane came on fiercely and mounted with a swift rush till it gained a 
place in the bright blue skies above the little insect-like Taube.

It seemed that the English aviator must now get the better of his foe; but suddenly, with 
an incredible swiftness, the German doubled and, giving up his attempt to get across the 
city, fled eastwards like a mad thing, with the Englishman after him.

But now one saw that the German machine responded more quickly and had far the 
better of it as regards pace, leaving the pursuing Englishman soon far behind it, and 
rushing away across the skies at a really incredible rate.

But while this little thrilling byplay was engaging the attention of everyone far greater 
things were getting in train.

Another Taube was sneaking, unobserved, among the clouds, and was rapidly gaining a 
place high up above Dunkirk.

And now it lets fall a bomb, that drops down, down, into the town beneath.

Immediately, with a sound like the splitting of a million worlds, everything and everyone 
opens fire, French, English, Belgians, and all.

The whole earth seems to have gone mad. Up into the sky they are all firing, up into the 
brilliant golden sunlight at that little black, swiftly-moving creature, that spits out 
venomously every two or three minutes black bombs that go slitting through the air with 
a faint screech till they touch the earth and shed death and destruction all around.

And nowwhat's this?

All along the shore, slipping and sailing along across the sky comes into sight an 
endless succession of Taubes.

They glitter like silver in the sunlight, defying all the efforts of the French artillery; they 
sail along with a calm insouciance that nearly drives me mad.

Crash! crash! crash! Bang! bang! bang! The cannon and the rifles are at them now with 
a fury that defies all words.

The firing comes from all directions. They are firing inland and they are firing out to sea. 
At last I run into a house with some French soldiers who are clenching their hands with 
rage at that Taube's behaviour.

One! two! three! four! five! six! seven! eight! nine! ten! Everyone is counting.

Eleven! twelve! thirteen! fourteen! fifteen! sixteen!

"Voila au autre!" cry the French soldiers every minute.

They utter groans of rage and disgust. The glittering cavalcade sails serenely onward, 
until the whole sky-line from right to left above the beach is dotted with those sparkling 
creatures, now outlined against the deep plentiful blue of the sky, and now gliding and 
hiding beneath some vast soft drift of feathery grey-white cloud.

It is a sight never to be forgotten. Its beauty is so vivid, so thrilling, that it is difficult to 
realise that this lovely spectacle of a race across the sky is no game, no race, no 
exhibition, but represents the ultimate end of all the races and prizes and exhibitions and 
attempts to fly. Here is the whole art of flying in a tabloid as it were, with all its 
significance at last in evidence.

The silver aeroplanes over the sea keep guard all the time, moving along very, very 
slowly, and very high up, until the Taube has dropped its last bomb over the city.

Then they glide away across the sea in the direction of England.

I walked back to the city. What a change since I came through it an hour or so before! I 
looked at the Hotel de Ville and shuddered.

All the windows were smashed; and just at the side, in a tiny green square, was the 
great hole that showed where the bomb had fallen harmlessly.

All the afternoon the audacious Taube remained rushing about high above Dunkirk.

But later that afternoon, as I was in a train en route for Furnes, fate threw in my way the 
chance to see a glorious vindication!

The train was brought suddenly to a standstill. We all jumped up and looked out.

It was getting dusk, but against the red in the sky two black things were visible.

One dropped a bomb, intended for the railway station a little further on.

By that we knew it was German, but we had little time to think.

The other aeroplane rushed onwards; firing was heard, and down came the German, 
followed by the Frenchman.

They alighted almost side by side.

We could see quite plainly men getting out and rushing towards each other.

A few minutes later some peasants came rushing to tell us that the two Germans from 
the Taube both lay dead on the edge of that sandy field to westward.

Then our train went on.

..

Chapter L

The War Bride

The train went on.

It was dark, quite dark, when I got out of it at last, and looked about me blinking.

This was right at the Front in Flanders, and a long cavalcade of French soldiers were 
alighting also.

Two handsome elderly Turcos with splendid eyes, black beards, and strange, hard, 
warrior-like faces, passed, looking immensely distinguished as they mounted their arab 
horses, and rode off into the night, swathed in their white head-dresses, with their 
flowing picturesque cloaks spread out over their horses' tails, their swords clanking at 
their sides, and their blazing eyes full of queer, bold pride.

Then, to my great surprise, I see coming out of the station two ladies wrapped in furs, a 
young lady and an old one.

"Delightful," I think to myself.

As I come up with them I hear them enquiring of a sentinel the way to the Hotel de 
Noble Rose, and with the swift friendliness of War time I stop and ask if I may walk 
along with them.

"Je suis Anglais!" I add.

"Avec beaucoup de plaisir!" they cry simultaneously.

"We are just arrived from Folkestone," the younger one explains in pretty broken 
English, as we grope our way along the pitch-black cobbled road. "Ah! But what a 
journey!"

But her voice bubbles as she speaks, and, though I cannot see her face, I suddenly 
become aware that for some reason or other this girl is filled with quite extraordinary 
happiness.

Picking our way along the road in the dark, with the cannons growling away fiercely 
some six miles off, she tells me her "petite histoire."

She is a little Brussels bride, in search of her soldier bridegroom, and she has, by dint of 
persistent, never-ceasing coaxing, persuaded her old mother to set out from Brussels, 
all this long, long way, through Antwerp, to Holland, then to Flushing, then to 
Folkestone, then to Calais, then to Dunkirk, and finally here, to the Front, where her 
soldier bridegroom will be found. He is here. He has been wounded. He is better. He 
has always said, "No! no! you must not come." And now at last he had said, "Come," 
and here she is!

She is so pretty, so simple, so girlish, and sweet, and the mother is such a perfect old 
duck of a mother, that I fall in love with them both.

Presently we find ourselves in the quaint old Flemish Inn with oil lamps and dark beams.

The stout, grey-moustached landlord hastens forward.

"Have you a message for Madame Louis." The bride gasps out her question.

"Oui, Oui, Madame!" the landlord answers heartily. "There is a message for you. You 
are to wait here. That is the message!"

"Bien!"

Her eyes flame with joy.

So we order coffee and sit at a little table, chattering away. But I confess that all I want 
is to watch that young girl's pale, dark face.

Rays of light keep illuminating it, making it almost divinely beautiful, and it seems to me I 
have never come so close before to another human being's joy.

And then a soldier walks in.

He comes towards her. She springs to her feet.

He utters a word.

He is telling her her husband is out in the passage.

Very wonderful is the way that girl gets across the big, smoky, Flemish cafe.

I declare she scarcely touches the ground. It is as near flying as anyone human could 
come. Then she is through the door, and we see no more.

Ah, but we can imagine it, we two, the old mother and I! And we look at each other, and 
her eyes are wet, and so are mine, and we smile, but very mistily, very shakily, at the 
thought of those two in the little narrow passage outside, clasped in each others' arms.

They come in presently.

They sit with us now, the dear things, sit hand in hand, and their young faces are almost 
too sacred to look at, so dazzling is the joy written in both his and hers.

They are bathed in smiles that keep breaking over their lips and eyes like sunkissed 
breakers on a summer strand, and everything they say ends in a broken laugh.

And then we go into dinner, and they make me dine with them, and they order red wine, 
and make me have some, and I cease to be a stranger, I become an old friend, 
intermingling with that glorious happiness which seems to be mine as well as theirs 
because they are lovers and love all the world.

The old mother whispers to me softly when she got a chance: "He will be so pleased 
when he knows! There's a little one coming."

"Oh, wonderful little one!" I whisper back.

She understands and nods between tears and smiles again, while the two divine ones 
sit gazing at the paradise in each other's eyes.

And through it all, all the time, goes on the hungry growl of cannons, and just a few 
miles out continue, all the time, those wild and passionate struggles for life and death 
between the Allies and Germans, which soonGod in His mercy forbidmay fling this 
smiling, fair-headed boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battlefield, leaving 
his little one fatherless.

Ah, but with what a heritage!

And then, all suddenly, I think to myself, who would not be glad and proud to come to 
life under such Epic Happenings. Such glorious heroic beginnings, with all that is 
commonplace and worldly left out, and all that is stirring and deep and vital put in.

.   

Never in the history of the world have there been as many marriages as now. 
Everywhere girls and men are marrying. No longer do they hesitate, and ponder, and 
hang back. Instead they rush towards each other, eagerly, confidentially, right into each 
others' arms, into each others' lives.

"Till Death us do part!" say those thousands of brave young voices.

Indeed it seems to me that never in the history of this old, old world was love as 
wonderful as now. Each bride is a heroine, and oh, the hero that every bridegroom is! 
They snatch at happiness. They discover now, in one swift instant, what philosophers 
have spent years in teachingthat "life is fleeting," and they are afraid to lose one of the 
golden moments which may so soon come to an end for ever.

But that is not all.

There is something else behind it allsomething no less beautiful, though less 
personal.

There is the intention of the race to survive.

Consciously, sometimes,but more often unconsciouslyour men and our women are 
mating for the sake of the generation that will follow, the children who will rise up and 
call them blessed, the brave, strong, wonderful children, begotten of brave, sweet 
women who joyously took all risks, and splendid, heroic men with hearts soft with love 
and pity for the women they left behind, but with iron determination steeling their souls 
to fight to the death for their country.

How superb will be the coming generation, begotten under such glorious circumstances, 
with nothing missing from their magnificent heritage, Love, Patriotism, Courage, 
Devotion, Sacrifice,

Death, and Glory!

.   

A week after that meeting at the Front I was in Dunkirk when I ran into the old duck of a 
mother waiting outside the big grey church, towards dusk.

But now she is sorrowful, poor dear, a cloud has come over her bright generous face, 
with its affectionate black eyes, and tender lips.

"He has been ordered to the trenches near Ypres!" she whispers sadly.

"And your daughter," I gasp out.

"Hush! Here she comes. My angel, with the heart of a lion. She has been in the church 
to pray for him! She would go alone."

Of our three faces it is still the girl wife's that is the brightest.

She has changed, of course.

She is no longer staring with dazzled eyes into her own bliss.

But the illumination of great love is there still, made doubly beautiful now by the 
knowledge that her beloved is out across those flat sand dunes, under shell-fire, and the 
time has come for her to be noble as a soldier's bride must be, for the sake of her 
husband's honour, and his little one unborn.

"Though he fall on the battle-field," she says to me softly, with that sweet, brave smile 
on her quivering lips, "he leaves me with a child to live after him,his child!"

And of the three of us, it is she, the youngest and most sorely tried, who looks to have 
the greatest hold on life present and eternal.



Chapter LI

A Lucky Meeting

To meet some one you know at the Front is an experiment in psychology, deeply 
interesting, amusing sometimes, and often strangely illuminative.

Indeed you never really know people till you meet them under the sound of guns.

It is at Furnes that I meet accidentally a very eminent journalist and a very well-known 
author.

Suddenly, up drives a funny old car with all its windows broken.

Clatter, clatter, over the age-old cobbled streets of Furnes, and the car comes to a stop 
before the ancient little Flemish Inn. Out jump four men. Hastening, like school-boys, up 
the steps, they come bursting breezily into the room where I have just finished luncheon.

I look! They look!! We all look!!!

One of them with a bright smile comes forward.

"How do you do?" says he.

He is the chauffeur, if you please, the chauffeur in the big golden-brown overcoat, with a 
golden-brown hood over his head. He looks like a monk till you see his face. Then he is 
all brightness, and sharpness, and alertness. For in truth he is England's most famous 
War-Photographer, this young man in the cowl, with the hatchet profile and dancing 
green eyes, and we last saw each other in the agony of the Bombardment of Antwerp.

And then I look over his shoulder and see another face.

I can scarcely believe my eyes. Here, at the world's end, as near the Front as anyone 
can get, driving about in that old car with the broken windows, is our eminent journalist, 
in baggy grey knee breeches and laced-up boots.

"Having a look round," says the journalist simply. "Seeing things for myself a bit!" "How 
splendid!"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I can't keep away. I've been out before, but never so near as 
this. The sordidness and suffering of it all makes me feel I simply can't stay quietly over 
there in London. I want to see for myself how things are going."

Then, dropping the subject of himself swiftly, but easily, the journalist begins courteously 
to ask questions; what am I doing here? where have I come from? where am I going?

"Well, at the present moment," I answer, "I'm trying to get to La Panne. I want to see the 
Queen of the Belgians waiting for the King, and walking there on the yellow, dreamy 
sands by the North Sea. But the tram isn't running any longer, and the roads are bad to- 
day, very bad indeed!" All in an instant, the journalistic instinct is alive in him, and crying.

I watch, fascinated.

I can see him seeing that picture of pictures, the sweet Queen walking on the lonely 
winter sands, waiting for her hero to come back from the battlefields, just over there.

"Let us take you in our car! What are we doing? Where were we going? Anyway, it 
doesn't matter. We'll take the car to La Panne!"

And after luncheon off we go.

Every now and then I turn the corner of my eye on the man beside me as he sits there, 
hunched up in a heavy coat with a big cigar between his babyish lips, talking, talking; 
and what is so glorious about it all is that this isn't the journalist talking, it is the idealist, 
the practical dreamer, who, by sheer belief in his ideals has won his way to the top of his 
profession.

I see a face that is one of the most curiously fascinating in Europe. A veiled face, but 
with its veil for ever shifting, for ever lifting, for ever letting you get a glimpse of the man 
behind. Power and will are sunk deep within the outer veil, and when you look at him at 
first you say to yourself, "What a nice big boy of a man!" For those lips are almost 
babyish in their curves, the lips of a man who would drink the cold pure water of life in 
preference to its coloured vintages, the lips of an idealist. Who but an idealist could 
keep a childish mouth through the intense worldliness of the battle for life as this man 
has fought it, right from the very beginning?

Over the broad, thoughtful brow flops a lock of brown hair every now and then. His eyes 
are grey with blue in them. When you look at them they look straight at you, but it is not 
a piercing glance. It seems like a glance from far away. All kinds of swift flashing 
thoughts and impulses go sweeping over those eyes, and what they don't see is really 
not worth seeing, though, when I come to think of it, I cannot recall catching them 
looking at anything. As far as faces go this is a fine face. Decidedly, a fine arresting 
face. Sympathetic, likeable. And the strong, well-made physique of a frame looks as if it 
could carry great physical burdens, though more exercise would probably do it good.

Above and beyond everything he looks young, this man; young with a youth that will 
never desert him, as though he holds within himself "the secrets of ever-recurring 
spring."

On we fly.

We are right inside the Belgian lines now; the Belgian soldiers are all around us, brave, 
wonderful "Petits Belges! "

They always speak of themselves like that, the Belgian Army: "Les Petits Belges!"

Perhaps the fact that they have proved themselves heroes of an immortality that every 
race will love and bow down to in ages to come, makes these blue-coated men thus 
lightly refer to themselves, with that inimitable flash of the Belgian smile, as "little 
Belgians."

For never before was the Belgian Army greater than it is to-day, with its numbers 
depleted, its territory wrested from it, its homes ruined, its loved ones scattered far and 
wide in strange lands.

Like John Brown's Army it "still goes fighting on," though many of its uniforms, battered 
and stained with the blood and mud and powder of one campaign after another, are so 
ragged as to be almost in pieces.

"We are no longer chic!"

A Belgian Captain says it with a grin, as he chats to us at a halt where we shew our 
passes.

He flaps his hands in his pockets of his ragged overcoat and smiles.

In a way, it is true! Their uniforms are ragged, stained, burnt, torn, too big, too little, full 
of a hundred pitiful little discrepancies that peep out under those brand new overcoats 
that some of them are lucky enough to have obtained. They have been fighting since 
the beginning of the War. They have left bits of their purple-blue tunics at Lige, Namur, 
Charleroi, Aerschot, Termonde, Antwerp. They have lost home, territory, family, friends. 
But they are fighting harder than ever. And so gloriously uplifted are they by the 
immortal honour they have wrested from destiny, that they can look at their ragged 
trousers with a grin, and love them, and their torn, burnt, blackened tunics, even as a 
conqueror loves the emblems of his glory that will never pale upon the pages of history.

A soldier loosens a bandage with his teeth, and breaks into a song.

It is so gay, so naive, so insouciant, so truly and deliciously Belge, that I catch it ere it 
fades, that mocking song addressed to the Kaiser, asking, in horror, who are these 
ragged beings:

THE BELGIAN TO THE GERMAN.

Ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique,
Et ils n'ont pas votre bel air
Mais leur courage est magnifique.
Si ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique!
A votre morgue ils donnent la nicque.
Au milieu de leur plus gros revers,
Si ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique,
Et ils n'ont pas votre bel air!

"What those poor fellows want most," says the journalist as we flash onwards, "is boots! 
They want one hundred thousand boots, the Belgian Army. You can give a friend all 
sorts of things. But he hardly likes it if you venture to give him boots. And yet they want 
them, these poor, splendid Belgians. They want them, and they must have them. We 
must give them to them somehow. Lots of them have no boots at all!"

"I heard that the Belgians were getting boots from America," the author puts in 
suddenly.

The journalist turns his head with a jerk.

"What do you mean," he asks sharply. "Do you mean that they have ordered them from 
America, or that America's giving them."

"I believe what my informant, a sick officer in the Belgian Army, whom I visited this 
morning, told me was that the Americans were giving the boots."

"Are you sure it's giving?" the journalist persists. "We English ought to see to that. Last 
night I had an interview with the Belgian Minister of War and I tried to get on this subject 
of boots. But somehow I felt it was intrusive of me. I don't know. It's a delicate thing. It 
wants handling. Yet they must have the boots."

And I fancy they will get them, the heroes of Belgium. I think they will get their hundred 
thousand boots.

Then a whiff of the sea reaches us and the grey waves of the North Sea stretch out 
before us over the edge of the endless yellow sands, where bronze-faced Turcos are 
galloping their beautiful horses up and down.

We are in La Panne.

The journalist sits still in his corner of the car, not fussing, not questioning, leaving it all 
to me. This is my show. It is I who have come here to see the gracious Queen on the 
sands. All the part he plays in it is to bring me.

So the journalist, and the author and the others remain in the car. That is infinitely 
considerate, exquisitely so, indeed.

For no writer on earth would care to go looking around with the Jupiter of Journalists at 
her elbow!

Rush, rush, we are on our way back now. The cold wind of wet, flat Flanders strikes at 
us as we fly along. It hits us in the face and on the back. It flicks us by the ear and by 
the throat. The window behind us is open. The window to right and the window to left are 
open too. All the windows are open because, as I said before, they are all broken!

In fact, there are no windows! They've all been smashed out of existence. There are 
only holes.

"We were under shell-fire this morning," observes the journalist contentedly. Then truth- 
fully he adds, "I don't like shrapnel!"

Any woman who reads this will know how I felt in my pride when a malicious wind 
whisked my fur right off my shoulders, and flung it through the back window, far on the 
road behind.

If it hadn't been sable I would have let it go out of sheer humiliation.

But instead, after a moment's fierce struggle, remembering all the wardrobe I had 
already lost in Antwerp, I whispered gustily, "My stole! It's blown right out of the window."

How did I hope the journalist would not be cross, for we were racing back then against 
time, without lights, and it was highly important to get off these crowded roads with the 
soldiers coming and going, coming and going, before night fell.

Cross indeed!

I needn't have worried.

Absence of fuss, was, as I decided later, the most salient point about this man. In fact, 
his whole desire seemed to make himself into an entire nonentity. He never asserted 
himself. He never interfered. He never made any suggestions. He just sat quiet and 
calm in his corner of the car, purring away at his big cigar.

Another curious thing about him was the way in which this man, used to bossing, 
organizing, suggesting, commanding, fell into his part, which was by force of 
circumstances a very minor one.

He was incognito. He was not the eminent journalist at all. He was just an eager man, 
out looking at a War. He was there,in a manner of speaking, on suffrance. For in War 
time, civilians are not wanted at the Front! And nobody recognized this more acutely 
than the man with the cigar between his lips, and the short grey knee breeches showing 
sturdy legs in their dark grey stockings and thick laced-up boots.

The impression he gave me was of understanding absolutely the whole situation, and of 
a curiously technical comprehension of the wee little tiny part that he could be allowed to 
play.

"Where are you staying in Dunkirk?" he asked.

"In a room over a milliner's shop. The town's full. I couldn't get in anywhere else."

"Then will you dine with us to-night at half-past seven, at the Hotel des Arcades?"

"I should love to."

And we ran into Dunkirk.

And the lights flashed around me, and that extraordinary whirl of officers and men, 
moving up and down the cobbled streets, struck at us afresh, and we saw the sombre 
khaki of Englishmen, and the blue and red of the Belgian, and the varied uniforms and 
scarlet trousers of the Piou-Piou, and the absolutely indescribable life and thrill and 
crowding of Dunkirk in these days, when the armies of three nations moved surging up 
and down the narrow streets.

At seven-thirty I went up the wide staircase of the Hotel des Arcades in the Grand Place 
of Dunkirk. Quite a beautiful and splendid hotel though innumerable Taubes had sailed 
over it threatening to deface it with their ugly little bombs, but luckily without success so 
far,very luckily indeed considering that every day at lunch or dinner some poor 
wornout Belgian Officer came in there to get a meal.

Precisely half-past seven, and there hastening towards me was our host.

He had not "dressed," as we say in England. He had merely exchanged the short grey 
Norfolk knickerbockers for long trousers, and the morning coat for a short dark blue 
serge. His eyes were sparkling.

"There's a Belgian here whom I want you to meet," he said in his boyish manner, that 
admirably concealed the power of this man that one was for ever forgetting in his 
presence, only to remember it all the more acutely when one thought of him afterwards. 
"It's the chief of the Belgian Medical Department. He's quite a wonderful man."

And we went in to dinner.

The journalist arranged the table.

It was rather an awkward one, numerically, and I was interested to see how he would 
come out of the problematic affair of four men and one woman.

But with one swift wave of his hand he assigned us to our places.

He sat on one side of the table with the Head of the Belgian Medical Corps at his right.

I sat opposite to him, and the author sat on my left, and the other man who had 
something to do with Boy Scouts on his left, and there we all were, and a more delightful 
dinner could not be imagined, for in a way it was exciting through the very fact of being 
eaten in a city that the Germans only the day before had pelted with twenty bombs.

Personalities come more clearly into evidence at dinner than at any other time, and so I 
was interested to see how the journalist played his part of host.

What would he be like?

There are so many different kinds of hosts. Would he be the all-seeing, all-reaching, all- 
divining kind, the kind that knows all you want, and ought to want, and sees that you get 
it, the kind that says always the right thing at the right moment, and keeps his party alive 
with his sally of wit and gaiety, and bonhomie, and makes everyone feel that they are 
having the time of their lives?

No!

One quickly discovered that the journalist was not at all that kind of host.

At dinner, where some men become bright and gay and inconsequential, this man 
became serious.

The food part of the affair bored him.

Watching him and studying him with that inner eye that makes the bliss of solitude, one 
saw he didn't care a bit about food, and still less about wine. It wouldn't have mattered 
to him how bad the dinner was. He wouldn't know. He couldn't think about it. For he was 
something more than your bon viveur and your social animal, this man with his wide 
grey eyes and the flopping lock on his broad forehead. He was the dreamer of dreams 
as well as the journalist. And at dinner he dreamed. Oh, yes, indeed, he dreamed 
tremendously. It was all the same to him whether or not he ate pat de fois gras, or fowl 
bouill, or sausage. He was rapt in his discussion with the Belgian Doctor on his right.

Anaesthetics and antiseptics,that's what they are talking about so hard.

And suddenly out comes a piece of paper.

The journalist wants to send a telegram to England.

"I'm going to try and get Doctor X. to come out here. He's a very clever chap. He can go 
into the thing thoroughly. It's important. It must be gone into."

And there, on the white cloth, scribbled on the back of a menu, he writes out his 
telegram.

"But then," says the journalist, reflectively, "if I sign that the censor will hold it up for 
three days!"

The Head of the Belgian Medical Department smiles.

He knows what that telegram would mean to the Belgian Army.

"Let me sign it," he says in a gentle voice, "let me sign it and send it. My telegrams are 
not censored, and your English Doctor will meet us at Calais to-morrow, and all will be 
well with your magnificent idea!"

Just then the author on the left appears a trifle uneasy.

He holds up an empty Burgundy bottle towards the light.

"A dead 'un!" he announces, distinctly.

But our host, in his abstraction, does not hear.

The author picks up the other bottle, holds it to the light, screws up one eye at it, and 
places it lengthwise on the table.

"That's a dead 'un too," he says.

Just then, with great good luck, he manages to catch the journalist's grey eye.

"That's a dead 'un too," he repeats loudly.

How exciting to see whether the author, in his quite natural desire to have a little more 
wine, will succeed in penetrating his host's dreaminess and absorption in the 
anaesthetics of the Belgian Army.

And then all of a sudden the journalist wakes up.

"Would you like some more wine?" he inquires.

"These are both dead 'uns," asserts the author courageously.

"We'll have some more! " says the journalist.

And more Burgundy comes! But to the eminent journalist it is non-existent. For his mind 
is still filled with a hundred thousand things the Belgian Army want,the iodine they 
need, and the anaesthetics. And nothing else exists for him at that moment but to do 
what he can for the nation that has laid down its life for England.

Burgundy, indeed!

And yet one feels glad that the author eventually gets his extra bottle.. He has done 
something for England too. He has given us laughter when our days were very black.

And our soldiers love his yarns!



Chapter LII

The Ravening Wolf

How hard it must be for the soldiers to remember that there ever was Summer! How far 
off, how unreal are those burning, breathless days that saw the fighting round Namur, 
Termonde, Antwerp. Here in Flanders, in December, August and September seem to 
belong to centuries gone by.

Ugh! How cold it is!

The wind howls up and down this long, white, snow-covered road, and away on either 
side, as far as the eyes can see, stretches wide flat Flanders country, white and 
glistening, with the red sun sinking westward, and the pale little silvery moon smiling her 
pale little smile through the black bare woods.

In this little old Flemish village from somewhere across the snow the thunder and fury of 
terrific fighting makes sleep impossible for more than five minutes at a time.

Then suddenly something wakes me, and I know at once, even before I am quite 
awake, that it is not shell-fire this time.

What is it?

I sit up in bed, and feel for the matches.

But before I can strike one I hear again that extraordinary and very horrible sound.

I lie quite still.

And now a strange thing has happened.

In a flash my thoughts have gone back over years and years and years, and it is twenty- 
eight years ago and I have crossed thousands and thousands of "loping leagues of 
sea," and am in Australia, in the burning heat of mid-summer. I am a schoolgirl spending 
my Christmas holidays in the Australian bush. It is night. I am a nervous little highly-
strung creature. A noise wakes me. I shriek and wake the household. When they come 
dashing in I sob out pitifully.

"There's a wolf outside the window, I heard it howling!"

"It's only a dingo, darling!" says a woman's tender voice, consolingly. "It's only a native 
dog trying to find water! It can't get in here anyway."

I remember too, that I was on the ground floor then, and I am on the ground floor now, 
and I find myself wishing I could hear that comforting voice again, telling me this is only 
a dingo, this horrible howling thing outside there in the night.

I creep out of bed, and tiptoe to the window.

Quite plainly in the silvery moonlight I see, standing in the wide open space in front of 
this little Flemish Inn, a thin gaunt animal with its tongue lolling out. I see the froth on the 
tongue, and the yellow-white of its fangs glistening in the winter moonlight. I ask myself 
what is it? And I ask too why should I feel so frightened? For I am frightened. From 
behind the white muslin curtains I gaze at that apparition, absolutely petrified.

It seems to me that I shall never, never, never be able to move again when I find myself 
knocking at the Caspiar's door, and next minute the old proprietor of the Inn and his wife 
are peeping through my window.

"Mon Dieu! It is a wolf!" Old Caspiar frames the word with his lips rather than utter them.

"You must shoot it," frames his wife. Old Caspiar gets down his gun. But it falls from his 
hands.

"I can't shoot any more," he groans. "I've lost my nerve." He begins to cry. Poor old 
man!

He has lost a son, eleven nephews, and four grandsons in this War, as well as his 
nerve. Poor old chap. And he remembers the siege of Paris, he remembers only too well 
that terrible, far-off, unreal, dreamlike time that has suddenly leapt up out of the dim, far 
past into the present, shedding its airs of unreality, and clothing itself in all the glaring 
horrors of to-day, until again the Past is the Present, and the Present is the Past, and 
both are inextricably and cruelly mixed for Frenchmen of Caspiar's age and memories.

A touch on my arm and I start violently.

"Madame!"

It is poor old Madame Caspiar whispering to me.

"You are English. You are brave n'est-ce-pas? Can you shoot the wolf."

I am staggered at the idea.

"Shoot! Oh! I'd miss it! I daren't try it. I've never even handled a gun!" I stammer out.

I see myself revealed now as the coward that I am.

"Then I shall shoot it!" says old Madame Caspiar in a trembling voice.

She picks up the gun.

"When I was a girl I was a very good shot!"

She speaks loudly, as if to reassure herself.

Old Caspiar suddenly jumps up.

"You're mad, Terse. Vous tes folle! You can't even see to read the newspapers, You!"

He takes the gun from her!

She begins to cry now.

"I shall go and call the others," she says, weeping.

"Be quiet," he says crossly. "You'll frighten the beast away if you make a noise like that!"

He crosses the room and peers out again!

"It's eating something!" he says. "Mon Dieu! It's got Chou-chou."

Chou-chou iswas rather, the Caspiar's pet rabbit.

"You shall pay for that!" mutters old Caspiar.

Gently opening the window, he fires.

.   

"Not since 1860 have I seen a wolf," says Caspiar, looking down at the dead beast. 
"Then they used to run in out of the forest when I was an apprentice in my uncle's Inn. 
We were always frightened of them. And now, even after the Germans, we are 
frightened of them still."

"I am more frightened of wolves than I am of Germans," confesses Madame Caspiar in 
a whisper.

We stand there in the breaking dawn, looking at the dead wolf, and wondering fearfully if 
there are not more of its kind, creeping in from the snow-filled plains beyond.

Other figures join us.

Two Red-Cross French doctors, a wounded English Colonel, la grandmre, Mme. 
Caspiar's mother, and a Belgian priest, all come issuing gradually from the low portals of 
the Inn into the yard.

Then in the chill dawn, with the glare of the snow-fields in our eyes, we discuss the 
matter in low voices.

It is touching to find that each one is thinking of his own country's soldiers, and the 
menace that packs of hungry wolves may mean to them, English, Belgian, French; 
especially to wounded men.

"It's the sound of the guns that brings them out," says a French doctor learnedly. "This 
wolf has probably travelled hundreds of miles. And of course there are more. Oui, oui! 
C'est ca. Certainly there will be more."

"C'est ca, c'est ca!" agrees the priest.

"Such a huge beast too!" says the Colonel.

He is probably comparing it with a fox.

I find myself mentally agreeing with Madame Caspiar that Germans are really preferable 
to wolves.

The long, white, snow-covered road that leads back to the world seems endlessly long 
as I stare out of the Inn windows realizing that sooner or later I must traverse that long 
white lonely road across the plains before I can get to safety, and the nearest town. Are 
there more wolves in there, slinking ever nearer to the cities? That is what everyone 
seems to believe now. We see them in scores, in hundreds, prowling with hot breath in 
search of wounded soldiers, or anyone they can get.

We are all undoubtedly depressed.

Then a Provision "Motor" comes down that road, and out of it jumps a little, old, white- 
moustached man in a heavy sheepskin overcoat and red woollen gloves, carrying 
something wrapped in a shawl.

He comes clattering into the Inn.

His small black eyes are swimming with tears.

"Mon Dieu!" he says, gulping some coffee and rum. "Give me a little hot milk, Madame! 
My poor monkey is near dying."

A tiny, black, piteous face looks out of the shawl, and huskily the man with the red 
gloves explains that he has been for weeks trying to get his travelling circus out of the 
danger-zone.

"The Army commandeered my horses. We had great difficulty in moving about. We 
wanted to get to Paris. All my poor animals have been terrified by the noises of the big 
guns. Especially the monkeys. They've all died except this one."

"You poor little beast!" says the Colonel, bending down.

He has seen men die in thousands, this gaunt Englishman with his eye in a sling.

But his voice is infinitely compassionate as he looks with one eye at the little shivering 
creature, and murmurs again, "You poor little brute!"

"Yesterday," adds the man with the red gloves, "my trick wolf escaped. She was a 
beauty, and so clever. When the War began I used to dress her up as a French 
solider,red trousers, red cap and all! / s'pose you haven't seen a wolf, M'sieur, running 
about these parts?"

Nobody answers for a bit.

We are all stunned.

.   

But the old fellow brightens up when he hears that his wolf ate the rabbit.

"Ah, but she was a clever wolf!" he cries excitedly. "Very likely the reason why she ate 
your Chou-chou was because she has played the part of a French soldier. French 
soldiers always steal the rabbits!"



Chapter LIII

Back To London

I am on my way back to London, grateful and glad to be once more on our side of the 
Channel.

"Five days!" exclaims a young soldier in the train.

He flings back his head, draws a deep breath, and remains staring like an imbecile at 
the roof of the railway carriage for quite two minutes.

Then he shakes himself, draws another deep breath, and says again, still staring at the 
roof:

"Five days!"

The train has started now out into the night. We have left Folkestone well behind. We 
have pulled down all the blinds because a proclamation commands us to do so, and we 
are softly, yet swiftly rushing through the cool, sweet-smelling English country back 
towards good old Victoria Station, where all continental trains must now make their 
arrivals and departures.

"Have you been wounded, Sir?" asks an old lady in a queer black astrakhan cap, and 
with a big nose.

"Wounded? Rather! Right on top of the head." He ducks his fair head to shew us. "I 
didn't know it when it happened. I didn't feel anything at all. I only knew there was 
something wet. Blood, I suppose. Then they sent me to the Hospital at S. Lazaire, and I 
had a ripping Cornish nurse. But lor, what a fool I was! I actually signed on that I wanted 
to go back. Why did I do that? I don't know. I didn't want to go back. Want to go back? 
Good lor! Think of it! But I went back! and the next thing was Mons! Even now I can't 
believe it, that march. The Germans were at us all the time. It didn't seem possible we 
could do it. 'Buck up, men! only another six kilometres!' an officer would say. Then it 
would be: 'Only another seven kilometres! keep going, men!' Sometimes we went to 
sleep marching and woke up and found ourselves still marching. Always we were 
shifting and relieving. It was a wonderful business. It seemed as if we were done for. It 
seemed as if we couldn't go on. But we did. Good lor! We did it! Somehow the English 
generally seem to do it. Some of us had no boots left. Some of us had no feet. But WE 
DID IT!"

The old lady with the black astrakhan cap nods vigorously.

"And the Germans wouldn't acknowledge that victory of ours," she says! "I didn't see it in 
any of their papers."

It is rather lovely to hear the dear creature alluding to Mons as "our victory!"

But indeed she is right. Mons is, in truth, our glory and our pride!

But it is still more startling to find she knows secret things about the German 
newspapers, and we all look at her sharply.

"I've just come from Germany!" the old lady explains. "Just come from Dresden, where 
I've been living for fifteen years. Oh dear! I did have a time getting away. But I had to 
leave! They made me. Dresden is being turned into a fortified town and a basis for 
operations!"

We all now listen to her, the soldiers three as well.

"Whenever we heard a noise in Dresden, everyone said, 'It's the Russians coming!' So 
you see how frightened they are of the Russians. They are scared to death. They've 
almost forgotten their hatred for England. They talk of nothing now but the Russians. 
Their terror is really pathetic, considering all the boasting they've been doing up to now. 
They made a law that no one was to put his head out of the window under pain of 
death!"

"Beasts!" says the wounded one.

"There's only military music in Dresden now. All the theatres and concert rooms are 
shut. And of course from now there will be nothing but military doings in Dresden! Yes, I 
lived there for fifteen years. I tried to stay on. I had many English friends as well as 
Germans, and the English all agreed to taboo all English people who adopted a pro-
German tone. Some did, but not many. My greatest friends, my dearest friends were 
Germans.

But the situation grew impossible for us all. We were not alienated personally, but we all 
knew that there would come between us something too deep and strong to be defied or 
denied, even for great affection's sake. So I cut the cables and left when the order was 
given that Dresden was henceforth to be a fortified town. Besides, it was dangerous for 
me to remain. I was English, and they hissed at me sometimes when I went out. It was 
through the American Consul's assistance that I was enabled to get away. I saw such 
horrid pictures of the English in all the shops. It made my blood boil. I saw one "picture 
of the Englishmen with three legs to run away with!"

"Beasts!" says the wounded one. "Wait till I travel in Germany!"

"And, oh dear!" goes on the old lady, "I was so frightened that I should forget and put my 
head out without thinking! As I sat in the train coming away from Dresden, I said to 
myself all the time, 'You must not look out of the window, or you'll have your head shot 
off!' That was because they feared the Russian spies might try to drop explosives out of 
the trains on to their bridges!"

"Beasts!" says the wounded one again.

It is really remarkable what a variety of expressions this fair-haired young English 
gentleman manages to put in a word.

He belongs to a good family and at the beginning of the War he cleared out without a 
word to anyone and enlisted in the ranks. Now he is coming home on five days' leave, 
covered with glory and a big scar, to get his commission. He is a splendid type. All he 
thinks about is his Country, and killing Germans. He is a gorgeous and magnificent type, 
for here he is in perfect comradeship with his pal Tommy in the corner, and the Irishman 
next to him. Evidently to him they are more than gentlemen. They are men who've been 
with him through Mons, and the Battle of the Aisne, and the Battle of Ypres, and he 
loves them for what they are! And they love him for what he is, and they're a splendid 
trio, the soldiers three.

"When I git into Germany," says Tommy, "I mean to lay hands on all I can git! I'm goin' 
to loot off them Germans, like they looted off them pore Beljins!"

"Surely you wouldn't be like the Crown Prince," says the old lady, and we all wake up to 
the fact then that she's really a delightful old lady, for only a delightful old lady could put 
the case as neatly as that.

"Shure, all I care about," says the big, quiet Irishman in the corner, "is to sleep and 
sleep and sleep!"

"On a bed," says the wounded one. "Good lor! Think of it! To-night I'll sleep in a bed. I'll 
roll over and over to make sure I'm there. Think of it, sheets, blankets. We don't even 
get a blanket in the trenches. We might get too comfortable and go to sleep."

"What about the little oil stoves the newspapers say you're having?" asks the old lady.

"We've seen none of them!" assert the soldiers three.

"Divil a one of them," adds the Irishman.

"I've eat things I never eat before," says Tommy suddenly, in his simple way that is so 
curiously telling. "I've eat raw turnips out of the fields. They're all eatin' raw turnips over 
there. And I've eat sweets. I've eat pounds of chocolates if I could get them and I've 
never eat them before in my life sinst I was a kid."

"Oh, chocolates!" says the wounded one, ecstatically. "But chocolate in the sheet 
thick, wide, heavy chocolatethere's nothing on earth like it! I wrote home, and put all 
over my letters, Chocolate, chocolate, CHOCOLATE. They sent me out tons of it. But I 
never got it. It went astray, somewhere or other."

"But they're very good to us," says Tommy earnestly. "We don't want for nothin'. You 
couldn't be better treated than what we are!"

"What do you like most to receive?" asks the old lady.

"Chocolate," they all answer simultaneously.

"The other night at Ypres," says Tommy with his usual unexpectedness, "a German 
came out of his trenches. He shouted: 'German waiter! want to come back to the 
English. Please take me prisoner.' We didn't want no German waiters. We can't be 
bothered takin' the beggars prisoners. We let go at him instead!"

"They eat like savages!" puts in the Irishman. "I've see them shovelling their food in with 
one hand and pushing it down with the other. 'Tis my opinion the Germans have got no 
throats!"

"The Germans have lots to eat," asserts Tommy. "Whenever we capture them we 
always find them well stocked. Brown bread. They always have brown bread, and bully 
beef, and raisins."

"Beasts!" says the wounded one again. "But good lor, their Jack Johnsons! When I think 
of them now I can't believe it at all. They're like fifty shells a minute sometimes. 
Sometimes in the middle of all the inferno I'd think I was dead or in hell. I often thought 
that."

"Them guns cawst them a lot," says Tommy. "It cawst 250 each loading. We used to 
be laying there in the trenches and to pass the time while they was firing at us we'd 
count up how much it was cawsting them. That's 17s. 6d., that bit of shrapnel! we'd say. 
And there goes another 5! They waste their shells something terrible too. There's thirty 
five-pound notes gone for nothing we'd reckon up sometimes when thirty shells had 
exploded in nothin' but mud!"

Then the wounded one tells us a funny story.

"I was getting messages in one day when this came through: 'The Turks are wearing fez 
and neutral trousers!' We couldn't make head or tail of the neutral trousers! So we 
pressed for an explanation. It came. 'The Turks are wearing fez, breaches of neutrality !"

.   

And while we are laughing the train runs into Victoria Station and the soldiers three leap 
joyously out into the rain-wet London night.

Then dear familiar words break on our ears, in a woman's voice.

"Any luggage, Mum!" says a woman porter.

And we know that old England is carrying on as usual!

The End
