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diff --git a/old/35392-8.txt b/old/35392-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..556ae0c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35392-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8794 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Woman's Experience in the Great War, by Louise Mack + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Woman's Experience in the Great War + +Author: Louise Mack + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + +A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR + +BY + +LOUISE MACK + + +(Mrs. CREED) + +AUTHOR OF "AN AUSTRALIAN GIRL IN LONDON" + +_With 11 full-page Illustrations_ + +LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN Ltd + +1915 + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + I. CROSSING THE CHANNEL + II. ON THE WAY TO ANTWERP + III. GERMANS ON THE LINE + IV. IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNS + V. AERSCHOT + VI. RETRIBUTION + VII. THEY WOULD NOT KILL THE COOK + VIII. "YOU'LL NEVER GET THERE" + IX. SETTING OUT ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE + X. FROM GHENT TO GRAMMONT + XI. BRABANT + XII. DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY + XIII. THE LUNCH AT ENGHIEN + XIV. WE MEET THE GREY-COATS + XV. FACE TO FACE WITH THE HUNS + XVI. A PRAYER FOR HIS SOUL + XVII. BRUSSELS + XVIII. BURGOMASTER MAX + XIX. HIS ARREST + XX. GENERAL THYS + XXI. HOW MAX HAS INFLUENCED BRUSSELS + XXII. UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION + XXIII. CHANSON TRISTE + XXIV. THE CULT OF THE BRUTE + XXV. DEATH IN LIFE + XXVI. THE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS + XXVII. "THE ENGLISH ARE COMING" + XXVIII. MONDAY + XXIX. TUESDAY + XXX. WEDNESDAY + XXXI. THE CITY IS SHELLED + XXXII. THURSDAY + XXXIII. THE ENDLESS DAY + XXXIV. I DECIDE TO STAY + XXXV. THE CITY SURRENDERS + XXXVI. A SOLITARY WALK + XXXVII. ENTER LES ALLEMANDS + XXXVIII. "MY SON!" + XXXIX. THE RECEPTION + XL. THE LAUGHTER OF BRUTES + XLI. TRAITORS + XLII. WHAT THE WAITING MAID SAW + XLIII. SATURDAY + XLIV. CAN I TRUST THEM? + XLV. A SAFE SHELTER + XLVI. THE FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND + XLVII. FRIENDLY HOLLAND + XLVIII. FRENCH COOKING IN WAR TIME + XLIX. THE FIGHT IN THE AIR + L. THE WAR BRIDE + LI. A LUCKY MEETING + LII. THE RAVENING WOLF + LIII. BACK TO LONDON + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_ + AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE + A FRIENDLY CHAT + PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER + THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD + A SPECIAL PERMIT + BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND + THE DANISH DOCTOR'S NOTE + MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND + SOUP FOR THE REFUGEES + PERMIT TO DUNKIRK + SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM + + + +A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR + + + + +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 certainty--shot 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!" + +"_C'est 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 day--onwards 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 beet-roots +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? _C'est ça! 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 stationmaster 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 Chaussée 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 note--almost 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 sub-consciousness 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 pitch-black, 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 Liège, whose trembling pink feet peeped from +the blankets in which he had been carried down. + +There was a lovely heroic Liège 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 Liège 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 lisp--a daring aviator--never 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 garçons, 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 messages--there 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 dastard 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 +courtyard. + +"Oh, mais c'est chic, le Zepp," he cries enthusiastically, his young +black eyes afire. "C'est tout à fait chic, vous savez!" + +And if that's not truly Belge, I really don't know what is! + + + +[Illustration: AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE.] + + + + +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, Échevins, +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 cafés, 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 cafés 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 Chabeau +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 Liège, 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 aircraft appeared in the skies. Nothing seemed wanting to +make those fortifications complete and successful. It was heart-breaking +to see the magnificent old châteaux 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 châteaux 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 mediæval history. + +"Arrêtez!" 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 mediæval Town Halls and Cathedrals. + +[Illustration: A FRIENDLY CHAT.] + +We had gone a long way when we were brought to a standstill at a little +place called Heyst-op den 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!_" + +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 houses--street 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, perhaps--everywhere, +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 now--the girl and her village swain--shot 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 Aerschot--a +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 lie 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 having 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 lifetime 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 +Liège 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 +Liège that I must attend to. But to get to Liège 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 Liège, the black-eyed mother with two adorable little boys, and a +delightful big husband--the gallant chevalier, in yellow bags of +trousers, whom I have already referred to in an earlier chapter. + +This little Liègeoise 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 monkeys--all 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 Liège, 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 hand-shaking 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 don't 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 Liège professor could +scarcely be imagined. + +Poor old soul! + +He had lost his wife a week before the war, and in the siege of Liège +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 battle-field, +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 Liège produced his, and I +produced my English passport. + +Jean talked a great deal, and the stationmaster 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 dreamlike 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 Hôtel 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 +café-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 _dernière +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 knew--six +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." + +[Illustration: PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER.] + +"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 francs--right 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 too--will do in war time! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY + + +The task of arranging that party in the waggonette was anything but +easy. + +The old Liège 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 with--my 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. + +"_Il y a des Allemands?_" or + +"_Il y a de danger?_" + +The answer would come back: + +"_Pas des Allemands!_" or + +"_Oui, les Allemands sont là_," pointing to the right. Or + +"_Les Allemands sont là_," 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 waving in the breeze on either side of us, and +gracious grey Belgian châteaux 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?_" + +"_Il 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 détours 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 ça!_" 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 protection.--outside _la dernière 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 bif-steak_, and +fried potatoes, and cheese, and fruit and a _bon café_! + +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 l'Angleterre!_" + +To which I responded with my tiny glass, "_Léve 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 growlings 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 appétit_" 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 Liège 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 café_ 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 +over-strained 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 Liège 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 Liège 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 headquarters of the German Army in +Belgium! The État-Majeur has been moved here from Brussels. He is in +residence at the Hôtel de Ville. Voilà! 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 café, facing the +Hotel de Ville. + +Stiffly we alighted from our waggonette, and entering the café 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 languages--German, 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 thing--only 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 Liège 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 +off 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 +_common-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 +darken--the power of mind over matter, the mastery of good over evil. + +From this War three such men stand out immortally--King 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 on--n'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 Gouvernement + 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 ed 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 assurés par le College Echevinal. + Dans l'interêt de la cité nous faisons un suprême + appel au calme et sangfroid de nos concitoyens. + Nous comptons sur le concours de tous pour + assurer le maintien de la tranquilité 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'Hôtel 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 Échevin said to us, "Entrez, s'il vous plaît," 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 tête!" 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 dramatic--the 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 Échevins 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 Chaussée +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, +débonnaire. + +"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 ball--it was the last in Brussels before the war--M. 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 voilà! 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 +civilisation--or 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 is--the beautiful truth--that 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 XXII + +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 lifetime 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 Liège professor, and he tells me +plaintively that he will be glad to move on to Liège. + +"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 Liège?" + +"Of course you will." + +"But do you think I will ever get back from Liège 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 +intolerable--the thought of this poor brave old trembling Belgian, +weighted with years and flesh, struggling so manfully to get back to +Liège, 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 Liège 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 how seems +given over to ghosts and echoes. Unable to bear it, I moved into the +Métropole. + +It was very strange to be there, very strange indeed! This was the +Métropole and yet not the Métropole! Sometimes I could not believe it +was the Métropole at all--the gay, bright, lively, friendly, +companionable Métropole--so 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; Fräulein 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 Métropole and went through all 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. + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD.] + + + + +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 Heyst-op-den-Berg. + +A brooding soul--mist 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 cafés, 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 +knap-sacks, 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 +chat were ever written to a King. + +SIRE, + +Après des combats honorables livrés les 4, 5, et 6 août par la 3ème +division d'armée renforcée, a partir du 5, par la 15ème brigade, j'ai +estimé que les forts de Liège ne pouvaient plus jouer que le rôle de +forts d'arrêt. J'ai néanmoins conservé le gouvernement militaire de la +place afin d'en coordonner la défense autant qu'il m'était possible et +afin d'exercer une action morale sur les garnisons des forts. + +Le bien-fondé de ces résolutions à reçu par la suite des preuves +sérieuses. + +Votre Majesté n'ignore du reste pas que je m'étais installé au fort de +Loncin, à partir du 6 août, vers midi. + +SIRE, + +Vous apprendrez avec douleur que ce fort a sauté bier à 17 h. 20 +environ, ensevelissant sous ses ruines la majeure partie de la garnison, +peut-être les huit-dixièmes. + +Si je n'ai pas perdu la vie dans cette catastrophe, c'est parce que mon +escorte, composée comme suit: captaine commandant Collard, un +sous-officier d'infanterie, qui n'a sans doute pas survécu, le gendarme +Thevénin et mes deux ordonnances (Ch. Vandenbossche et Jos. Lecocq) m'a +tiré d'un endroit du fort ou j'allais être asphyxié par les gaz de la +poudre. J'ai été porté dans le fossé où je suis tombé. Un captaine +allemand, du nom de Gruson, m'a donné à boire, mais j'ai été fait +prisonnier, puis emmené à Liège 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 négligeance de cette lettre je suis +physiquement très abimé par l'explosion de Loncin. + +En Allemagne, où je vais être dirigé, mes pensées seront ce qu'elles ont +toujours été: la Belgique et son Roi. J'aurais volontiers donné 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 Belgium--here 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 months--_then 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 +cafés. 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-sense--and their mercy! + +And at thought of mercy the _Bruxellois_ gazes away down the flat, dusty +road--away 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 café. "Louvain" is marked on it in white chalk. On a +black board, in the café 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 débris 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 café opposite the ruined +theatre is full of pale, trembling old men, sipping their byrrh 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 à Londres, je me permets de me rappeler à 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 +bébé que vous avez tenu dans les bras) dont 2 institutrices. J'en suis +une des deux, Mme. Stoefs. J'ai été à Gand espérant vous revoir, mais +vous étiez repartie déjà. Peut être ici à Londres, amais-je ce plaisir. +J'y suis encore jusqu'à la fin de cette semaine, donc soyez assez +aimable de me dire où et quand nous pourrions nous rencontrer. Voici mon +adresse: Mme. Stoefs: Verstegen, 53, Maple Street, W. Au plaisir de vous +revoir, je vous présente mes cordiales salutations. + +CHARLOTTE STOEFS. + +Institutrice à 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 _fusillé_." + +"They found his body in the garden!" + +"Il est tout-à-fait ruiné." + +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 cafés 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, surrender--rather 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 Liège, 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 voilà! 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. + +[Illustration: A SPECIAL PERMIT.] + +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, voilà! 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 +Métropole_ in the streets. + +A strange hushed silence hangs over the besieged city, and through the +silence the clocks strike six, and almost immediately the _maître +d'hôtel_ 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 là_," 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 à 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 _café-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 it--it must be--from Above! + +[Illustration: BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND] + + + + +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 Marché 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, far-away 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 rôle 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 café, because I cannot hear the lift. + +A waiter brings me some coffee and I stand and drink it and look about +me. + +The café 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 bewilderment--a sheep--a dog--a donkey--a cow--a +horse--more 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 Æschylus 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 despair--grim, 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 État 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 êtes 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 mère_! 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 mère 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 +Marché 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 heart-breaking 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, heart-break 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 city--anywhere, 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 cafés, 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 city--loved 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, Arles, 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 æstheticism, 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 +Chaussée 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, Jeanette, 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, addled, 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 sharpness--the +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 chat 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 café 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 Mitbürger 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 Zerstörung +Euerer schonen 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'armée allemande est entrée dans votre +ville en vainquer. Aucun de vos concitoyens +ne sera inquiété et vos propriétés seront respectées +à la condition que vous vous absteniez de toute +hostilité. + +"Toute résistance sera punie d'après les lois +de la guerre, et peut entraîner 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 stealthily 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 9th--the 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 truth--one 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 Crême 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 pas 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, brow--always remaining unseen, unknown, uninvited, +unintelligible--yet 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 danger--I 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 premonitions 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 mädchen 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." + +"_C'est ça_, 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 courage--you 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 cafés, 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 café. 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 +café. + +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 café. + +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 +café 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 +café, 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 ça!" agreed the others. + +"What did you know about him?" I asked. "What made you send him up to +me, François? Surely you wouldn't have told him about me unless you +_knew_ he was trustworthy!" + +"C'est ça!" agreed big, fat, sad-eyed François. "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 chooses." + +"Then you don't think he was speaking of _me_?" + +"No, Madame! C'est évident, n'est-ce-pas? You have left the hotel in +safety!" + +"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude where I 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 ça!" 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? François, 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 acquaintances, 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 +English--the tender, generous, grateful English--as though they were +their own little ones--even 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. "Voilà les Anglais." + +"Et les Anglaises," gasped Ada under her breath. + +We were just then crossing the Avenue de Kaiser--that once gay, bright +Belgian Avenue where I had so often walked with Alice, my dear little +_Liègeoise_, 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 grandmère 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 Chaussée de Malines, or Rue Lamarinière, +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 Conquerors! 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 François 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, Jeanette and la +grandmère! + +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 François' 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?" + +[Illustration: The Danish Doctor's note.] + +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 châteaux +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. + +[Illustration: MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND.] + + + + +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 Society--that is to say, in Court circles +and in the military set that is included in this classification--there +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 +Dutch--and 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 Holland--a 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 Holland--suffering +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 +Holland--the 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. + +[Illustration: Soup for the refugees.] + +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? 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 heart-breaking 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 Grandmère 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. + + + + +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-day--food. + +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 peeling 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 apart--and 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. + +"Voilà! The salad!" she says, with her flash of a smile. + +Salad for five people--a 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 it--plus, in other words, her +thrift! + +Now she must empty my tea-pot. + +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 simply--what? + +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 croûte au pot--the 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 sautée in butter, and sprinkled with +chopped green. + +After that came the chicken mayonnaise and salad of asparagus tips +(otherwise cold scraps and weeds). + +There are five of us to supper in that little room behind the milliner's +shop--an 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 +coffee--such 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! + + + +[Illustration: Permit du Dunkirque.] + + + + +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 now--what'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! + +"Voilà un 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 Fumes, 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 ac 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 +café. + +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 sun-kissed 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 soon--God in His mercy forbid--may fling this smiling, fair-headed +boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battle-field, 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 +teaching;--that "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 all--something no less beautiful, +though less personal. + +There is the intention of the race to survive. + +Consciously, sometimes,--but more often unconsciously--our 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 Liège, +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 truthfully 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, puffing 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 +worn-out 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 pâté de fois gras, or fowl bouillé, or sausage. He was rapt +in his discussion with the Belgian Doctor on his right. + +Anæsthetics 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 anæsthetics 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 +anæsthetics. 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 chat 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, Terèse. Vous êtes 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 is--_was_ 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 grandmère, +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 ça Certainly there will be more." + +"C'est ça, c'est ça!" 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! _I 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 chocolate--there'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 + + + +[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Woman's Experience in the Great War, by +Louise Mack + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + +***** This file should be named 35392-8.txt or 35392-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35392/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Woman's Experience in the Great War + +Author: Louise Mack + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>LOUISE MACK</h2> + + +<h4>(Mrs. CREED)</h4> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "AN AUSTRALIAN GIRL IN LONDON"</h4> + +<h5><i>With 11 full-page Illustrations</i></h5> + +<h5>LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN Ltd</h5> + +<h5>1915</h5> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 303px;"> +<a name="the_Author" id="the_Author"></a> +<img src="images/img_01_the_author.jpg" width="303" alt="THE AUTHOR." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">The Author.</span> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p class="caption"> +CONTENTS +</p> + +<p class="content"> +<br /> +CHAPTER<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I. <a href="#CHAPTER_I">CROSSING THE CHANNEL</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">II. <a href="#CHAPTER_II">ON THE WAY TO ANTWERP</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">III. <a href="#CHAPTER_III">GERMANS ON THE LINE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">IV. <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">V. <a href="#CHAPTER_V">AERSCHOT</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">VI. <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">RETRIBUTION</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">VII. <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THEY WOULD NOT KILL THE COOK</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">VIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">"YOU'LL NEVER GET THERE"</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">IX. <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">SETTING OUT ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">X. <a href="#CHAPTER_X">FROM GHENT TO GRAMMONT</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">XI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XI">BRABANT</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">THE LUNCH AT ENGHIEN</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XIV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">WE MEET THE GREY-COATS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">XV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">FACE TO FACE WITH THE HUNS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XVI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">A PRAYER FOR HIS SOUL</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XVII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">BRUSSELS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XVIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">BURGOMASTER MAX</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XIX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">HIS ARREST</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">XX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XX">GENERAL THYS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XXI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">HOW MAX HAS INFLUENCED BRUSSELS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHANSON TRISTE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXIV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">THE CULT OF THE BRUTE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XXV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">DEATH IN LIFE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXVI. T<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">HE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXVII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">"THE ENGLISH ARE COMING"</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">XXVIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">MONDAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXIX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">TUESDAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XXX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">WEDNESDAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXXI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">THE CITY IS SHELLED</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXXII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">THURSDAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">XXXIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">THE ENDLESS DAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXXIV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">I DECIDE TO STAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XXXV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">THE CITY SURRENDERS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXXVI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">A SOLITARY WALK</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">XXXVII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">ENTER LES ALLEMANDS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">XXXVIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">"MY SON!"</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XXXIX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">THE RECEPTION</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">XL. <a href="#CHAPTER_XL">THE LAUGHTER OF BRUTES</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XLI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">TRAITORS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XLII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">WHAT THE WAITING MAID SAW</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XLIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">SATURDAY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XLIV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CAN I TRUST THEM?</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">XLV. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">A SAFE SHELTER</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XLVI. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">THE FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">XLVII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">FRIENDLY HOLLAND</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">XLVIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">FRENCH COOKING IN WAR TIME</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">XLIX. <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">THE FIGHT IN THE AIR</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">L. <a href="#CHAPTER_L">THE WAR BRIDE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">LI. <a href="#CHAPTER_LI">A LUCKY MEETING</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">LII. <a href="#CHAPTER_LII">THE RAVENING WOLF</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">LIII. <a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">BACK TO LONDON</a></span><br /> +</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="caption"> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p> +<p class="content"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#the_Author">THE AUTHOR</a> <i>Frontispiece</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#An_Order_from_the_Belgian_War_Office">AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#A_Friendly_Chat">A FRIENDLY CHAT</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Passport_from_the_Australian_High_Commissioner">PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#The_American_Safeguard">THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#A_Special_Permit">A SPECIAL PERMIT</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Belgian_Refugees_in_Holland">BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#The_Danish_Doctor39s_note">THE DANISH DOCTOR'S NOTE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#My_Hosts_in_Holland">MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Soup_for_the_Refugees">SOUP FOR THE REFUGEES</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Permit_du_Dunkirque">PERMIT TO DUNKIRK</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sketch_map_of_Belgium">SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h3>CROSSING THE CHANNEL</h3> + + +<p>"What do you do for mines?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The dear old salt thinks hard for an answer, very hard indeed.</p> + +<p>Then he scratches his head.</p> + +<p>"There ain't none!" he makes reply.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I notice our little fair-bearded Belgian captain is looking very sad and +dejected.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>But they cannot give us back our dead</i>," the little captain answers +dully.</p> + +<p>And no one makes reply to that.</p> + +<p>There is no reply to make.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>Rooms are distributed to us, great white lofty rooms with private +bathrooms attached, very magnificent indeed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Poor Ostend!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is only half-past seven; but all Ostend seems up and about as I enter +the big salon and order coffee and rolls.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a noise is heard,—shouts, wheels, something indescribable.</p> + +<p>Everyone jumps up and runs down the long white restaurant.</p> + +<p>Out on the station we run, and just then a motor dashes past us, coming +right inside, under the station roof.</p> + +<p>It is full of men.</p> + +<p>And one is wounded.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Now they are lifting him out, oh, so tenderly, these four other big, +burly Belgians, and they have laid him on a stretcher.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Barely have we sat down again before more shouts are heard.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Excitement rises to fever heat now.</p> + +<p>Out of the car is dragged a <i>German</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As he passes very close to me, I look right into his face, and it is +imprinted on my memory for all time.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He knows his destiny. He will be shot for a certainty—shot 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!</p> + +<p>All is panic now. We know the truth. The Germans have made a sudden +sortie, and are attacking just at the edge of Ostend.</p> + +<p>The gendarmes are fighting them, and are keeping them back.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then another car dashes in with another Uhlan, who has been shot in the +back.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Poor priests!</p> + +<p>They know how the Germans treat priests in this well-named "Holy War!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h3>ON THE WAY TO ANTWERP</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This time, so that I should not run away again so easily, I took with me +a suit-case, and a couple of trunks.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Getting back to Ostend, I left my luggage at the Maritime Hotel, and +hurried to the railway station.</p> + +<p>I had determined to go to Antwerp for the day and see if it would be +possible to make my headquarters in that town.</p> + +<p>"Pas de train!" said the ticket official.</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"C'est la guerre!"</p> + +<p>"Comment!"</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est la guerre, Madame!</i>"</p> + +<p>That was the answer one received to all one's queries in those days.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Next morning, however, the train condescended to start, and three hours +after its proper time we steamed away from Ostend.</p> + +<p>Slowly, painfully, through the hot summer day, our long, brown train +went creeping towards Anvers!</p> + +<p>Anvers!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>must</i>, they <i>must</i> 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 day—onwards towards +Antwerp.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>soldat</i>! We would lean from the windows, and shout out loudly, almost +imploringly, "Here, soldat! <i>Here!</i>" 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!</p> + +<p>Then a soldier began talking, and how we listened.</p> + +<p>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 beet-roots +and potatoes at Malines.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, all is well," answered a dozen voices. "King Albert is back +at Antwerp, and safe with the Queen!"</p> + +<p>A look of radiant happiness flashed over the poor fellow's face as he +heard that.</p> + +<p>Then he made us all laugh.</p> + +<p>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. "<i>Savez-vous</i>? The asparagus of Malines! It is the +best asparagus in the world? <i>C'est ça! AND I SLEPT ON IT, ON THE +MALINES ASPARAGUS!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Two hours to wait!" the stationmaster told us.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Remember this, my children, remember this," said the little priest. +"Only silence is great, the rest is weakness!"</p> + +<p>It has often seemed to me since that those words hold the key-note to +the Belgian character.</p> + +<p>"<i>Seul la silence est grande; la reste est faiblesse.</i>"</p> + +<p>For never does one hear a Belgian complain!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Out in the flagged square I got a fiacre, and started off for a drive.</p> + +<p>My first impression of Antwerp, as I drove through it that golden day, +was something never, never to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>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 Chaussée 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 note—almost 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.</p> + +<p>After a long drive, I drove to the Hotel Terminus to get a cup of tea +and arrange for my stay.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a man came towards me.</p> + +<p>"You don't remember me," he said. "You are from Australia! I met you +fifteen years ago in Sydney."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Morning +Post</i>."</p> + +<p>"And I'm going to see it through, too," I said.</p> + +<p>"Oh no!" said Mr. Fox. "You'll have to go as soon as trouble threatens!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I?" I thought.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h3>GERMANS ON THE LINE</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was a long wait, and at last it became evident that something was +wrong.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"<i>Les Allemands sont sur la ligne!</i>" was the graphic answer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Do you see that station over there?" Le Capitaine said. "Well, in a few +hours' time, a train <i>may</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; "<i>C'est la guerre!</i>" he +said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When I awoke, <i>it was three o'clock in the morning</i>, and a most terrific +noise was going on.</p> + +<p>It was pitch dark, darker than any words can say, up there in my +bedroom, for we were forbidden lights for fear of Zeppelins.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I lay quite still.</p> + +<p>"They're come at last," I thought. "This is the real thing."</p> + +<p>Vaguely I wondered what to do.</p> + +<p>The roar of cannon was enormous, and it seemed to be just outside my +window.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Vaguely I listened.</p> + +<p>And vaguely I tried to imagine how the Germans could have got inside +Antwerp so quickly.</p> + +<p>Then vaguely I got out of bed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I mustn't turn up the light," I said to myself, "or they will see where +I am! That's the <i>one</i> thing I mustn't do."</p> + +<p>Again I tried to think what to do, and then suddenly I found myself +listening, with a sub-consciousness 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.</p> + +<p>As for fear, there was none, not any at all, not a particle.</p> + +<p>Instead, there was something curiously akin to rapture.</p> + +<p>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 pitch-black, airless room at Antwerp, a +woman quite alone among strangers, with danger knocking at the gate of +her world.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All this took me about two minutes to think, and then I began to move +about my room, stupidly, vaguely.</p> + +<p>I seemed to bump up against the noise of the cannons at every step.</p> + +<p>But I could not find the door, and I could not find a wrapper.</p> + +<p>My hands went out into the darkness, grabbing, reaching.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All I could get hold of was the sheet and blankets.</p> + +<p>I had arrived back at my bed again.</p> + +<p>Well, I must turn away, I must look elsewhere.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Standing in front of the looking-glass, I found myself slowly powdering +my face.</p> + +<p>Then the sound of people rushing along the corridor reached me, and I +opened my door and went out.</p> + +<p>"C'est une bataille! Ce sont les Allemands, n'est-ce-pas?" queried a +poor old lady.</p> + +<p>"Mais non, madame," shouts a dashing big aeronaut running by. "Ce n'est +pas une bataille. C'est le Zeppelin!"</p> + +<p>And so it was.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was a tiny boy from Liège, whose trembling pink feet peeped from +the blankets in which he had been carried down.</p> + +<p>There was a lovely heroic Liège lady whose gaiety and sweetness, and +charming toilettes had been making "sunshine in a shady place" for us +all in these dark days.</p> + +<p>Everyone remembered afterwards how beautiful the little Liège 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.</p> + +<p>And her husband, a huge, fair-haired Belgian giant with exquisite +manners and a little-boy lisp—a daring aviator—never 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.</p> + +<p>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 garçons, 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 messages—there 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 dastard that was +finally driven back to Cologne, having dashed many houses to bits.</p> + +<p>Then the little "chass," who has run through the street-door away down +the road, comes racing back breathless across the flagged stone +courtyard.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mais c'est chic, le Zepp," he cries enthusiastically, his young +black eyes afire. "C'est tout à fait chic, vous savez!"</p> + +<p>And if that's not truly Belge, I really don't know what is! </p> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 551px;"> +<a name="An_Order_from_the_Belgian_War_Office" id="An_Order_from_the_Belgian_War_Office"></a> +<img src="images/img_02_order_belgian_war_office.jpg" width="551" alt="AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">An Order from the Belgian War Office.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h3>IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And yet, that immense crowd gathered together in Antwerp for safety, +Ambassadors, Ministers and their wives and families, Consuls, Échevins, +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 cafés, 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 cafés shut, the day's life ended.</p> + +<p>Never a doubt crossed our minds that the Germans could possibly get +through those endless fortifications surrounding Antwerp on all sides.</p> + +<p>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 Chabeau +on my behalf, and arranged for my getting a car.</p> + +<p>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 Liège, 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 aircraft appeared in the skies. Nothing seemed wanting to +make those fortifications complete and successful. It was heart-breaking +to see the magnificent old châteaux 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.</p> + +<p>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 châteaux and house had been all in vain. On this side +there had been little fighting, they had got in on the other side.</p> + +<p>Every five minutes one's car would be held up by sentinels who rushed +forward with poised bayonets, demanding the password for the day.</p> + +<p>That always seemed to me like a bit of mediæval history.</p> + +<p>"Arrêtez!" cried the sentinels, on either side the road, lifting their +rifles as they spoke.</p> + +<p>Of course we came to a stop immediately.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Does not your master ever go towards the fighting?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 mediæval Town Halls and Cathedrals.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 520px;"> +<a name="A_Friendly_Chat" id="A_Friendly_Chat"></a> +<img src="images/img_03_a_friendly_chat.jpg" width="520" alt="A FRIENDLY CHAT." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">A Friendly Chat.</span> +</div> + +<p>We had gone a long way when we were brought to a standstill at a little +place called Heyst-op den Berg, where the sentinels leaned into our car +and had a long friendly chat with us.</p> + +<p>"You cannot go any further," they said. "The Germans are in the next +town ahead; they are only a few kilometres away."</p> + +<p>"What town is it?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Aerschot," they replied.</p> + +<p>"That is on the way to Louvain, is it not?" I asked. "I have been trying +for a long time to get to Louvain!"</p> + +<p>"You can never get to Louvain, Madam," the sentinels told me smilingly. +"Between here and Louvain lies the bulk of the German Army."</p> + +<p>Just then, a <i>chasseur</i>, 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, <i>les +sales cochons!</i>"</p> + +<p>He jumped off his horse, gave the reins to a soldier and leapt into a +train that was standing at the station.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Alighting at the station at Aerschot, I looked about me, scarcely +believing that what I saw was real.</p> + +<p>The railway station appeared to have fallen victim to an earthquake.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h3>AERSCHOT</h3> + + +<p>I think until that day I had always cherished a lurking hope that the +Huns were not as black as they were painted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Oh, Beethoven, Goethe, Heine! Not even out of respect for your undying +genius can I hide the truth about the Germans any longer.</p> + +<p>What I have seen, I must believe!</p> + +<p>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 <i>the shell of a +town</i>. The long streets were full of hollow, blackened skeletons of what +had once been houses—street 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Here a wall stands, there a pillar and a few bricks.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>In every street I observed always the same thing; hundreds of empty +bottles. "Toujours <i>les bouteilles</i>," one of my companions kept +saying—a brilliant young Brussels lawyer who was now in this regiment. +The other officer was also a <i>Bruxellois</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This is what I see.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>On the high altar stand empty champagne bottles, empty rum bottles, a +broken bottle of Bordeaux, and five bottles of beer.</p> + +<p>In the confessionals stand empty champagne bottles, empty brandy +bottles, empty beer bottles.</p> + +<p>In the Holy Water fonts are empty brandy bottles.</p> + +<p>Stacks of bottles are under the pews, or on the seats themselves.</p> + +<p>Beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy; and again beer, +brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy.</p> + +<p>Everywhere, everywhere, in whatever part of the church one looks, there +are bottles—hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhaps—everywhere, +bottles, bottles, bottles.</p> + +<p>The sacred marble floors are covered everywhere with piles of straw, and +bottles, and heaps of refuse and filth, and horse-dung.</p> + +<p>"Mais Madame," cries the burning, trembling voice of the distracted +sacristan, "look at this."</p> + +<p>And he leads me to the white marble bas-relief of the Madonna.</p> + +<p>The Madonna's head has been cut right off!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A dead pig lies in the little chapel to the right, a dead white pig with +a pink snout.</p> + +<p>Very still and pathetic is that dead pig, and yet it seems to speak.</p> + +<p>It seems to realise the sacrilege of its presence here in God's House.</p> + +<p>It seems to say, "Let not the name of pig be given to the Germans. We +pigs have done nothing to deserve it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>And now we come to the Gate of Shame.</p> + +<p>It is the door of a small praying-room.</p> + +<p>Still pinned outside, on the door, is a piece of white paper, with this +message in German, "This room is private. Keep away."</p> + +<p>And inside?</p> + +<p>Inside are women's garments, a pile of them tossed hastily on the floor, +torn perhaps from the wearers....</p> + +<p>A pile of women's garments!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As we step out of the horrors of that church some German prisoners that +have just been brought in, are being marched by.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The other Lieutenant at last succeeds in silencing him.</p> + +<p>"What is the use, mon ami!" he says. "What is the use?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He is a Belgian, and all Belgians are careful to a point that is almost +beyond human comprehension in their criticisms of their enemies.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What about Aerschot and the church?" cry a score of irritated young +voices.</p> + +<p>The Captain draws his kindly lips together, and attacks his black bread +and tinned mackerel.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he says, "we must remember they were all drunk!"</p> + +<p>And as he utters these words there flash across my mind those old, old +words that will never die:</p> + +<p>"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h3>THE SWIFT RETRIBUTION</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In cold blood, the Germans had shot the Burgomaster.</p> + +<p>And they had shot two of his children.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yes! In the room of the dead Burgomaster's maidservant, the German +colonel had fallen dead from a shot fired from without.</p> + +<p>By whose hand was it fired, that shot that laid the monster at his +victim's feet?</p> + +<p>"By the hand of an inferieur!" someone whispers.</p> + +<p>And I put together the story, and understand that the girl's village +sweetheart avenged her.</p> + +<p>They are both dead now—the girl and her village swain—shot down +instantly by the howling Germans.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h3>THEY WOULD NOT KILL THE COOK</h3> + + +<p>Besides myself, I discover only one woman in the whole of Aerschot—a +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 lie 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!"</p> + +<p>And I quite believed her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h3>"YOU'LL NEVER GET THERE"</h3> + + +<p>As the weeks went on a strange thing happened to me.</p> + +<p>At first vaguely, faintly, and then with an ever-deepening intensity, +there sprang to life within me a sense of irritation at having to depend +on newspapers, or hearsay, for one's knowledge of the chief item in this +War,—the Enemy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The habit of a lifetime of groping for realities began to assert itself, +and I found myself chafing at not being able to find things out for +myself.</p> + +<p>In the descriptions I gleaned from men and newspapers I was gradually +discovering many puzzling incongruities.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To believe what people tell you, you must first believe in the people.</p> + +<p>If you can find one person to believe in in a lifetime, and that one +person is yourself, you are lucky!</p> + +<p>One day, towards the end of September, I heard an old professor from +Liège University talking to a young Bruxellois with a black moustache +and piercing black eyes, who had arrived that day at our hotel.</p> + +<p>"So you are going back at once to Brussels, Monsieur?" said the old +professor in his shaky voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Monsieur! Why don't you come with me?"</p> + +<p>"I have not the courage!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I desire to go very much!" muttered the old man. "There are things in +Liège that I must attend to. But to get to Liège I must go through +Brussels. It seems to me there is a great risk, a very great risk."</p> + +<p>"No risk at all!" said the young Bruxellois cheerfully.</p> + +<p>That evening at dinner, the young man aforesaid was introduced to me by +Mr. Frank Fox, of the <i>Morning Post</i>, who knew him well.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>He was an extremely optimistic and cheerful young man.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I'll come," I said.</p> + +<p>Extraordinary how easy it is to make up one's mind about big things.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Next day, I told everyone I was going to try to get into Brussels.</p> + +<p>"You'll be taken prisoner!"</p> + +<p>"You're mad!"</p> + +<p>"You'll be shot!"</p> + +<p>"You will be taken for a spy!"</p> + +<p>"You will never get there!"</p> + +<p>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 Liège, the black-eyed mother with two adorable little boys, and a +delightful big husband—the gallant chevalier, in yellow bags of +trousers, whom I have already referred to in an earlier chapter.</p> + +<p>This little Liègeoise 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was nothing she did not urge.</p> + +<p>The worst of all was that we might never see each other again.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid this is too complicated for me," said Alice gravely.</p> + +<p>"I admit it sounds complicated! I suppose what it really mean is that I +want to go, and I am going!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Other people gathered round us, there in the dimly-lit palm court of the +big Antwerp Hotel, and a lively discussion went on.</p> + +<p>A big dark man, with a melancholy face, said wistfully, "I wish I could +make up my mind to go too!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Cherry" had his old enemy, malaria, hanging about him at that time, or +I quite believe he would have risked it and come.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 monkeys—all 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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h3>SETTING OUT ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Without saying good-bye to anybody, I hurried out, and jumped into a cab +at the door, accompanied by the old professor from Liège, and the young +Brussels lawyer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"First we call for Madame Julie!" said the young lawyer.</p> + +<p>We drove along the quay, and stopped at a big white house.</p> + +<p>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 hand-shaking went on.</p> + +<p>I thought to myself, "This is a new way to get to Brussels!"</p> + +<p>Servants were going round with trays laden with glasses of foaming +champagne, and little sweet biscuits.</p> + +<p>"We shall drink to the health of Julie!" said someone.</p> + +<p>And we drank to Julie.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was a touching scene.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They never met again.</p> + +<p>As we moved away from the quay, it seemed to me that our steamer was +steering straight for the Hesperides.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When I think of her, I refuse to see her any other way!</p> + +<p>I refuse to see her as she was when I came back to her.</p> + +<p>Or as when I left her again for the Last Time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h3>FROM GHENT TO GRAMMONT</h3> + + +<p>I don't know why we were all in such high spirits, for we had nothing +but discomfort to endure.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A more inherently melancholy type than the old Liège professor could +scarcely be imagined.</p> + +<p>Poor old soul!</p> + +<p>He had lost his wife a week before the war, and in the siege of Liège +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When I first realised this strange phenomenon I thought it would take a +volume of psychology to explain it.</p> + +<p>And then, all suddenly, with no effort of thought, I found the +explanation revealing itself in one magic blessed word,—<i>Companionship.</i></p> + +<p>Out here in the danger-zones, the irksome isolation of ordinary lives +has vanished.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 battle-field, +apart from its terrific and glorious qualities, holds also that secret +of gaiety of heart that mankind is ever searching for!</p> + +<p>We were at St. Nicolla now, and it was nearly dark, and our train was at +a standstill.</p> + +<p>"I'll get out and see what's the matter," said the young lawyer, whom I +shall refer to hereafter as Jean.</p> + +<p>He came back in a minute looking serious.</p> + +<p>"The train doesn't go any further!" he said. "There's no train for Ghent +to-night."</p> + +<p>We all got out, clutching our bags, and stood there on the platform in +the reddened dusk that was fast passing into night.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>However, his automobile didn't turn up, and that little plan fell +through.</p> + +<p>Jean began to bite his moustache and walk up and down, smiling +intermittently, a queer distracted-looking smile that showed his white +teeth.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"We shall all go and interview the stationmaster, and see what can be +done!"</p> + +<p>So we went to the stationmaster, and Jean produced his papers, and Julie +produced hers, and the old professor from Liège produced his, and I +produced my English passport.</p> + +<p>Jean talked a great deal, and the stationmaster 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."</p> + +<p>We waited a long time, and the night grew cold and dark before 57 came +along.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Looking through a peep-hole, I suddenly stifled an exclamation.</p> + +<p>Pointing straight at me were the muzzles of guns.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>We were shaken nearly to pieces.</p> + +<p>And we went so slowly that we scarcely moved at all.</p> + +<p>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 dreamlike town.</p> + +<p>First we went to the Hotel Ganda.</p> + +<p>"Full up!" said the fat, white-faced porter rudely. "No room even on the +floor to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Can you give us something to eat?" we pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Impossible! The kitchens are shut up."</p> + +<p>He was a brute of a porter, an extraordinary man who never slept, and +was on duty all night and all day.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>That was the Hôtel 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There are great movements of troops going on," said Jean. "This is the +first time I have seen our army in Ghent."</p> + +<p>To my delight I recognised my two friends from Aerschot, the "Brussels +nuts."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Next morning at half-past six, we were all down, and had our +café-au-lait in the restaurant, and then started off cheerfully to the +principal railway station.</p> + +<p>So far so good!</p> + +<p>All we had to do now was to get into a train and be carried straight to +Brussels.</p> + +<p>Why, then, did Jean look so agitated when we Went to the ticket office +and asked for our tickets?</p> + +<p>He turned to us with a shrug.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The old Professor and Madame Julie argued as to whether it would not be +better to abandon their plans and return to Antwerp.</p> + +<p>That seemed to me a tedious idea, so I did my best to push on.</p> + +<p>Jean agreed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>So at seven o'clock we steamed away from Ghent, out into the fresh +bright countryside.</p> + +<p>Now we were in the region of danger. We were outside the <i>dernière +ligne</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"May I fix that window for you? I guess you're English, aren't you, +ma'am?"</p> + +<p>I gave him one quick hard look.</p> + +<p>It was the War Look that raked a face with a lightning glance.</p> + +<p>By now, I had come to depend absolutely on the result of my glance.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" I said, "and you are American."</p> + +<p>He admitted that was so.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately we fell into talk about the War.</p> + +<p>"How long do you think it will last?" asked the American.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I give it six weeks. I'll be over then."</p> + +<p>And he assured me that was the general opinion of those he knew—six +weeks or less.</p> + +<p>"But what are you doing in this train?" he added interestedly.</p> + +<p>"Going to Brussels!"</p> + +<p>"Brussels!"</p> + +<p>He looked at me with amazed eyes.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me! Did you say going to Brussels?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me! But how are you going to get to Brussels?"</p> + +<p>"I am going there."</p> + +<p>"But you are English?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then you can't have a German passport to get into Brussels if you are +English."</p> + +<p>"No. I haven't got one."</p> + +<p>"But, don't you realise, ma'am, that to get into Brussels you have got +to go through the German lines?"</p> + +<p>We began to discuss the question.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What do you think I ought to do?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to chance it!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;"> +<a name="Passport_from_the_Australian_High_Commissioner" id="Passport_from_the_Australian_High_Commissioner"></a> +<img src="images/img_04_passport.jpg" width="399" alt="PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">Passport from the Australian High Commissioner.</span> +</div> + +<p>"But would the Americans do that for a British subject?"</p> + +<p>"Sure! We're a neutral country. As a little American boy said, 'I'm +neutral! I don't care which country whips the Germans!'"</p> + +<p>Then another idea occurred to Mr. Richards.</p> + +<p>"But you mustn't go into Brussels with an English passport about you. +You'll have to hide that somehow!"</p> + +<p>"I shall give it to Monsieur Jean to hide," I said. "He's the conductor +of the little Belgian party there!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>I showed him my passport, and he examined it carefully and promised to +do what he could to help me in Brussels.</p> + +<p>Then we arrived at Grammont.</p> + +<p>And there the worst happened.</p> + +<p>The train lines were cut, and we could go no further by rail.</p> + +<p>To get to Brussels we must drive by the roads all the way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h3>BRABANT</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The American said: "Ma'am, I have found this little trap that will take +us to Brussels for fourteen francs—right 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!"</p> + +<p>"It is awfully good of you!" I said.</p> + +<p>I knew he was running great risks in taking me with him, and I deeply +appreciated his kindness.</p> + +<p>But Jean remonstrated, a little hurt at the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Good luck!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Good luck!"</p> + +<p>And my heart clutched at it, and clung to it, searching for strength, as +the heart of women—and men too—will do in war time!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + +<h3>DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY</h3> + + +<p>The task of arranging that party in the waggonette was anything but +easy.</p> + +<p>The old Liège 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Two horses we had for our long drive to Brussels, and uncommonly bony +horses they were.</p> + +<p>Our carriage was a species of long-drawn-out victoria.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But the only thing I cared about by then, was to sit next to Jean.</p> + +<p>He seemed to be my only safeguard, my only hope of getting through this +risky adventure.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All sorts of schemes were discussed between us, sitting there at the +back of that jolting carriage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But we're not going to meet them!" said Jean.</p> + +<p>He lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"You had better give me all your papers," he added airily.</p> + +<p>"What will you do with them?"</p> + +<p>He smoked and thought.</p> + +<p>"If we meet the Germans, I'll throw them away somewhere."</p> + +<p>"But how on earth shall I ever get them again? And suppose the Germans +see you throwing them away."</p> + +<p>I did not like the phrase, "throw them away."</p> + +<p>It seemed like taking from me the most precious thing in the world, the +one thing that I had firmly determined never to part with—my passport!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He said, "It is necessary that I think out many little things now! +Pardon!"</p> + +<p>And he tapped his brow.</p> + +<p>So I left him to it!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>How I envied them! How I longed to be able by some magic to prove myself +American or Dutch!</p> + +<p>Every ten minutes or so we used to shout to people on the road, coming +from the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il y a des Allemands?</i>" or</p> + +<p>"<i>Il y a de danger?</i>"</p> + +<p>The answer would come back:</p> + +<p>"<i>Pas des Allemands!</i>" or</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui, les Allemands sont là</i>," pointing to the right. Or</p> + +<p>"<i>Les Allemands sont là</i>," pointing to the left.</p> + +<p>I would feel horribly uncomfortable then.</p> + +<p>Although apparently I was not frightened in the least, there was one +thing that undeceived me about myself.</p> + +<p>I had lost the power to think as clearly as usual.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Up and up that long steep white hill our carriage climbed, with rows of +wonderful high poplars waving in the breeze on either side of us, and +gracious grey Belgian châteaux 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.</p> + +<p>And yet the prevailing note of the people we met along that road was +still gaiety, rather than sadness or terror.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il y a des Allemands?</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Il y a de danger?</i>"</p> + +<p>We went on perpetually with our questions, and the answers would come +back laughingly with shakings of the head.</p> + +<p>"No! Not met any Germans!" or:</p> + +<p>"They are fighting round Ninove. We've been making détours all the +morning to try and get out of their way!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently we met a couple of black-robed Belgian priests walking down +the hill, and mopping their pale faces under their black felt hats.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est ça!</i>" said Jean coolly.</p> + +<p>We bade the priests good-bye, and trudged on.</p> + +<p>Jean presently under his breath, said:</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At the top of the hill we got into our trap again, and off we started, +travelling at a great rate.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"But there is nowhere that one finds lunch at Enghien," protested the +fat Brussels banker.</p> + +<p>"I promise you as good a lunch as ever you have eaten, and good wine to +wash it down!" was Jean's reply.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All this time, ever since we left Ghent, we had never seen a Belgian +<i>militaire</i>.</p> + +<p>That of itself told its own story of how completely we were outside the +last chance of Belgian protection.—outside <i>la dernière ligne</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<h3>THE LUNCH AT ENGHIEN</h3> + + +<p>Dear little Enghien! I shall always remember you.</p> + +<p>It was so utterly-out-of-the-ordinary to drive to the railway station, +and have one's lunch cooked by the stationmaster.</p> + +<p>A dear old man he was, that old grey-bearded Belgian.</p> + +<p>A hero too!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And he rolled the words out too, almost as though he was an Italian, as +he promised us a <i>bonne omelette,</i> followed by a <i>bon bif-steak</i>, and +fried potatoes, and cheese, and fruit and a <i>bon café</i>!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, "<i>Vive l'Angleterre!</i>"</p> + +<p>To which I responded with my tiny glass, "<i>Léve la Belgique!</i>"</p> + +<p>And we all added, "<i>A bas le Kaiser!</i>"</p> + +<p>And from across the fields the noise of the battle round Ninove came +towards us, louder and louder every moment.</p> + +<p>As we sat there we discussed the cannonading that now seemed very near.</p> + +<p>So loud and so close to us were the angry growlings of the guns that I +felt amazed at not being able to see any smoke.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>By now I had lost all sense of reality.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jean strolled off alone, while two of the ladies of the party went away +to buy some butter.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And now the old stationmaster comes out and summons us all in to lunch.</p> + +<p>He wishes us "<i>bon appétit</i>" and we seat ourselves round the table under +the portraits of King Albert and "<i>la petite reine</i>" in his little +sitting-room.</p> + +<p>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 Liège professor and the Brussels banker, who by now had got up their +appetites.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>The old stationmaster produced some good Burgundy, sun-kissed, purply +red of a most respectable age.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>After our <i>bon café</i> we all shook hands with the stationmaster, wished +him good luck, and hurried back to the village, where we climbed into +our vehicle again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock we were off.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But almost immediately after leaving Enghien an ominous note began to be +struck.</p> + +<p>Whenever we shouted out our query:</p> + +<p>"<i>Il y a des Allemands?</i>" the passers-by coming from the opposite +direction shouted back,</p> + +<p>"<i>Oui, oui, beaucoup d'Allemands!</i>"</p> + +<p>And suddenly there they were!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + +<h3>WE MEET THE GREY-COATS</h3> + + +<p>My first sight of the German Army was just one, man.</p> + +<p>He was a motor cyclist dressed in grey, with his weapons slung across +his back, and he flashed past us like lightning.</p> + +<p>Everyone in the carriage uttered a deep "Oh!"</p> + +<p>It seemed to me an incredible thing that one German should be all alone +like that among enemies. I said so to my companions.</p> + +<p>"The others are coming!" they said with an air of certainty that turned +me cold all over.</p> + +<p>But it was at least two miles further on before we met the rest of his +corps.</p> + +<p>Then we discovered fifty German motor cyclists, in grey uniforms, and +flat caps, flying smoothly along the side path in one long grey line.</p> + +<p>Their accoutrements looked perfect and trim, their general appearance +was strikingly smart, natty, and workmanlike in the extreme.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And as they passed quite near him Jean turned his glance towards me and +gave me an enormous wink.</p> + +<p>I don't know whether that was Jean's sense of humour.</p> + +<p>I always forgot afterwards to ask him what it meant.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The long white road before us was literally lined with Germans.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + +<h3>FACE TO FACE WITH THE HUNS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Up and down the long steep white road to Brussels the Germans halted, +shouting in stentorian voices that we were to do likewise.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile our driver's passport with his photograph was being examined.</p> + +<p>"Who is this?" shouted the silly old German Colonel, pointing to the +photograph.</p> + +<p>"C'est moi," replied the driver, and his expression seemed to say, "Who +on earth did you think it was?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The roaring and shouting went on for several minutes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are sure none of you have no correspondence, no newspapers?" roared +the Colonel. "What is in that bag?"</p> + +<p>Leaning into the carriage a soldier prodded at <i>my</i> bag.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But the Red Cross lady replied with quiet dignity that there was nothing +in her bag but requisites for the journey.</p> + +<p>Next moment, as in a dream, I heard that roaring voice shout:</p> + +<p>"Gut! Get on!"</p> + +<p>Our driver whipped lightly, the carriage moved forward, and we proceeded +on our way, filled with queer thoughts that sprang from nerves +over-strained and hearts over-quickly beating.</p> + +<p>Only Jean remained imperturbable.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And now the old professor from Liège drew all attention towards himself.</p> + +<p>He was shaking and quivering like a jelly.</p> + +<p>"J'ai peur!" he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Mais non, Monsieur!" cried Jean. "It's all over now."</p> + +<p>"<i>Courage! courage! Pas de danger</i>," cried everyone, encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"It was only a ruse of the enemy, letting us go," whispered the +Professor. "They will follow and shoot us from behind!"</p> + +<p>Plaintively, as a child, he asked the fat Brussels banker to allow him +to change places, and sit in front, instead of behind.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"And all the while there are a hundred letters sewn up inside the +cushion of the seat our friend from Liège is sitting on <i>now</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + +<h3>A PRAYER FOR HIS SOUL</h3> + + +<p>On we drove, on and on.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Hall," said Jean, "is now the headquarters of the German Army in +Belgium! The État-Majeur has been moved here from Brussels. He is in +residence at the Hôtel de Ville. Voilà! 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!"</p> + +<p>We clattered up the main street and stopped at a little café, facing the +Hotel de Ville.</p> + +<p>Stiffly we alighted from our waggonette, and entering the café quenched +our thirst in lemonade, watching the Germans through the window as we +rested.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was all I could do.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3> + +<h3>BRUSSELS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 languages—German, French and Flemish—took up an enormous amount +of wall space. Here and there Dutch journalists stood hastily copying +these "<i>affiches</i>" 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. <i>We</i>, the Allies, had just announced that +Austria had broken down, and was on the verge of a revolution. <i>They</i>, +the Germans, announced precisely the same thing—only of Servia! And the +Brussels people coolly read the news and passed on, believing none of +it.</p> + +<p>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 <i>obus</i>, and the +blood poured warm on the blackened fields of Belgium.</p> + +<p>We drove to an old hotel in a quiet street, and our driver jumped down +and rang the courtyard bell.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>We all got down and went through the gateway.</p> + +<p>We found ourselves in a big old yellow stone courtyard, chilly and +deserted.</p> + +<p>The driver ran out and returned, carrying in his arms the long flat +seat-cushion from the carriage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Next minute he held up a bundle of letters, and then another and then +another,—</p> + +<p>"And here is your English passport, Madame," Jean said to me.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was rather like sitting on a mine.</p> + +<p>Only, like the heroine of the song: "We didn't care, we didn't KNOW!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h3> + +<h3>BURGOMASTER MAX</h3> + + +<p>The hotel is closed to the public.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>The old professor from Liège 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.</p> + +<p>Leaving my companions with many expressions of friendliness, I now rush +off to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by the faithful Jean.</p> + +<p>Just as we reach our destination, we run into the man I have come all +this way to see.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Of itself, M. Max's face is neither particularly loveable, nor +particularly attractive.</p> + +<p>Therefore, this man's great hold over hearts is all the more remarkable.</p> + +<p>It must, of course, be attributed in part to the deep, warm audacious +personality that dwells behind his looks.</p> + +<p>But, in truth, M. Max's enormous popularity owes itself not only to his +electric personality, his daring, and sangfroid, but also to his +<i>common-sense</i>, which steered poor bewildered Brussels through those +terribly difficult first weeks of the German occupation.</p> + +<p>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 +darken—the power of mind over matter, the mastery of good over evil.</p> + +<p>From this War three such men stand out immortally—King Albert, Max of +Brussels, Mercier of Malines.</p> + +<p>And Belgium has produced all three!</p> + +<p>Thrice fortunate Belgium!</p> + +<p>Each stone that crumbles from her ruined homes seems, to the watching +world, to fly into the Heavens, and glow there like a star!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I was not sure whether to hurry on, or to stand still.</p> + +<p>Jean chose the latter course.</p> + +<p>Whereupon the stranger flicked a look up and down the street, then put +his hand in his inner breast pocket.</p> + +<p>"<i>Le Temps</i>," he whispered hoarsely, flashing looks up and down the +street.</p> + +<p>"How much?" asked Jean.</p> + +<p>"Five francs," he answered. "Put it away toute suite, vous savez c'est +dangereux."</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> have their newspapers. They've got to know the truth about +the war, n'est-ce-pas? and the English papers tell the truth!"</p> + +<p>"How do you get the newspapers," I whispered, like a conspirator myself.</p> + +<p>"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 on—n'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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But Sunday I was awakened by the loud booming of cannon, proceeding from +the direction of Malines.</p> + +<p>"What is happening?" I asked the maid who brought my coffee "Isn't that +firing very near?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Splendid," I answered mechanically.</p> + +<p>This optimism was now becoming a familiar phrase to me.</p> + +<p>I found it everywhere. But alas! I found it alongside what was +continually being revealed as pathetic ignorance of the true state of +affairs.</p> + +<p>And the nearer one was to actual events the greater appeared one's +ignorance.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"<i>AVIS.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Le Bourgmestre Max ayant fait default aux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">engagements encourus envers le Gouvernement</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Allemand je me suis vu force de le suspendre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">de ses fonctions. Monsieur Max se trouve en</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">detention honourable dans une forteresse.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Le Gouverneur Allemande,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">"VON DER GOLTZ."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bruxelles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>26th Septembre</i>, 1914.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Cries of grief and rage kept bursting from those broken-hearted +Belgians.</p> + +<p>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, "<i>Voici le photographie ed Monsieur Max, +dix centimes!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the Aldermen were busy preparing a new <i>affiche</i> which was +soon being posted up in all directions.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"<i>AVIS IMPORTANT.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Pendant l'absence de M. Max le marche des</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">affaires Communales et le Maintenance de</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">l'ordre seront assurés par le College Echevinal.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans l'interêt de la cité nous faisons un suprême</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">appel au calme et sangfroid de nos concitoyens.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous comptons sur le concours de tous pour</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">assurer le maintien de la tranquilité publique.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Bruxelles. "LE COLLEGE ECHEVINAL."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Accompanied by Jean, I hurried on to the Hotel de Ville.</p> + +<p>"Voyez vous!" says Jean under his breath. "Voici les Allemands dans +l'Hôtel de Ville! Quel chose n'est-ce-pas!"</p> + +<p>And I hear a sharp note in the poor fellow's voice that told of bitter +emotion.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then Jean's card was taken into the acting Burgomaster, and next moment +a Belgian Échevin said to us, "Entrez, s'il vous plaît," and we passed +into the room habitually occupied by M. Max.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>M. le Meunier received us with great courtesy.</p> + +<p>"Nous avons perdu notre tête!" he murmured sadly.—"Without M. Max we +are lost!"</p> + +<p>The air was full of agitation.</p> + +<p>Here was a scene the like of which might well have been presented by the +stage, so spectacular was it, so dramatic—the 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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Fear nothing, mes enfants! There is no such thing as fear!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h3> + +<h3>HIS ARREST</h3> + + +<p>The story of Max's arrest was characteristic.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Presently the messenger returned.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Max, will you come at once!" he said in a worried manner. "Von +der Goltz is angry!"</p> + +<p>"I am busy with my work!" replied Max imperturbably. "As I said before, +I shall be with Von der Goltz at four-thirty."</p> + +<p>At four-thirty he went off, accompanied by his colleagues, and a +dramatic conference took place between the Germans and Belgians.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One reason he gave was very simple.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You must wait for your indemnity," said Max. "You can't get blood from +a stone."</p> + +<p>"Then we arrest you all as hostages for the money," was the German's +answer.</p> + +<p>At first Max and all his Échevins were arrested.</p> + +<p>Two hours later the aldermen were released.</p> + +<p>But not Max.</p> + +<p>He was sent to his <i>honorable detention</i> in a German fortress.</p> + +<p>The months have passed.</p> + +<p>He is still there!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h3> + +<h3>GENERAL THYS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Later, on that Sunday afternoon, I fulfilled my promise and went to call +on General Thys, the father of one of my Aerschot acquaintances.</p> + +<p>I found the old General in that beautiful house of his in the Chaussée +de Charleroi, sitting by the fireside in his library reading the Old +Testament.</p> + +<p>"The only book I can read now!" the General said, in a voice that shook +a little, as if with some burning secret agitation.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And outside in the streets Germans strode up and down, Germans stood on +the steps of the Palais de Justice, Germans everywhere.</p> + +<p>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, +débonnaire.</p> + +<p>"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 ball—it was the last in Brussels before the war—M. 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 voilà! It is no +policeman at all. It is M. Max!"</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly, the hatred and terror of Germany at this time was all for +Russia.</p> + +<p>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 +civilisation—or so they say! Civilisation indeed! What they fear is +Russian numbers!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The passing on occurred <i>after English troops were sent to the +assistance of Antwerp!</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And why? The reason is obvious now.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h3> + +<h3>HOW MAX HAS INFLUENCED BRUSSELS</h3> + + +<p>In their attitude to the Germans, the <i>Bruxellois</i> undoubtedly take +their tone from M. Max.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Always alone are the Germans in Brussels, and sometimes they look +extremely bored. I can't help noticing that.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Bruxellois</i> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>With red annoyed faces the Germans pull out their soldiers' medals, +gaudy ornate affairs on blue ribbons round their necks.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But we have no money!" splutter the Germans.</p> + +<p>"Then I must ask you to get out," says the guard gravely.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Round the old dog's neck is an inscription:</p> + +<p>"<i>The war is taking place for the aggrandisement of Belgium!</i>"</p> + +<p>The truth is—the beautiful truth—that 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:—</p> + +<p>"They may keep M. Max in a fortress! But even les alboches will never +dare to hurt a hair of his head!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h3> + +<h3>UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION</h3> + + +<p>In my empty hotel the profoundest melancholy reigns.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The only servant is Antoine, the bent little old faithful white-haired +porter, who has passed his lifetime in the service of the house.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In front, the great doors are locked and barred.</p> + +<p>One tiny door, cut in the wooden gate at the side, is one's sole means +of exit and entrance.</p> + +<p>But it is almost too small for the Liège professor, and he tells me +plaintively that he will be glad to move on to Liège.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 Liège?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you will."</p> + +<p>"But do you think I will ever get back from Liège to Antwerp?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you will."</p> + +<p>"J'ai peur!"</p> + +<p>"Moi aussi!"</p> + +<p>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 +intolerable—the thought of this poor brave old trembling Belgian, +weighted with years and flesh, struggling so manfully to get back to +Liège, 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 +<i>definite</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Then the old porter approaches, gentle, sorrowful.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur, good news! there is a train for Liège to-morrow morning at +five o'clock!"</p> + +<p>"Merci bien," says the old professor. "Mais, j'ai peur!"</p> + +<p>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 how seems +given over to ghosts and echoes. Unable to bear it, I moved into the +Métropole.</p> + +<p>It was very strange to be there, very strange indeed! This was the +Métropole and yet not the Métropole! Sometimes I could not believe it +was the Métropole at all—the gay, bright, lively, friendly, +companionable Métropole—so 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.</p> + +<p>There were Italians in charge of the hotel, for which I was profoundly +thankful.</p> + +<p>How nice they were to me, those kindly sons of the South.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As I glanced through the crowded pages I came at last upon an ominous +date in August upon which there were no names entered.</p> + +<p>It was the day on which Brussels surrendered to the Germans.</p> + +<p>On that day the register was blank, entirely blank.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Only, here and there after a long interval, appeared a German name or +two.</p> + +<p>Frau Schmidt arrived; Herr Lemberg; Fräulein Gottmituns.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Williams had a queer experience. I have often wondered why America +did not resent it on his account.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>There he was stripped and searched, and in the meanwhile private +detectives visited his room at the Métropole and went through all his +belongings.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>Surely this insult to a free-born American must have been a bitter dose +for the American Consulate to swallow.</p> + +<p>But perhaps they were too busy to notice it!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 362px;"> +<a name="The_American_Safeguard" id="The_American_Safeguard"></a> +<img src="images/img_05_the_american_safeguard.jpg" width="362" alt="THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">The American Safeguard.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h3> + +<h3>CHANSON TRISTE</h3> + + +<p>Chilly and wet to-day in Brussels.</p> + +<p>And oh, so triste, so triste!</p> + +<p>Never before have I known a sadness like to this.</p> + +<p>Not in cemetery, not in ruined town, not among wounded, coming broken +from the battle, as on that red day at Heyst-op-den-Berg.</p> + +<p>A brooding soul—mist 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.</p> + +<p>Oh, horrible, horrible it is!</p> + +<p>And hourly it grows more horrible.</p> + +<p>Its very quietness takes on some clammy quality associated with graves.</p> + +<p>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 cafés, in their restaurants—</p> + +<p>At last I find a simile.</p> + +<p>It is like being at home, in one's beloved home with one's beloved +family all around one, and every room full <i>of cockroaches</i>!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h3> + +<h3>THE CULT OF THE BRUTE</h3> + + +<p>Repellant, unforgettable, was the spectacle of the Germans strutting and +posing on the steps of the beautiful Palais de Justice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And oh, their little ways, their little ways!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Another photograph shews the Huns in the Auditoire of the Cour de +Cassation! More funny effects! They've brought forward all their +knap-sacks, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +chat were ever written to a King.</p> + +<p>SIRE,</p> + +<p>Après des combats honorables livrés les 4, 5, et 6 août par la 3ème +division d'armée renforcée, a partir du 5, par la 15ème brigade, j'ai +estimé que les forts de Liège ne pouvaient plus jouer que le rôle de +forts d'arrêt. J'ai néanmoins conservé le gouvernement militaire de la +place afin d'en coordonner la défense autant qu'il m'était possible et +afin d'exercer une action morale sur les garnisons des forts.</p> + +<p>Le bien-fondé de ces résolutions à reçu par la suite des preuves +sérieuses.</p> + +<p>Votre Majesté n'ignore du reste pas que je m'étais installé au fort de +Loncin, à partir du 6 août, vers midi.</p> + +<p>SIRE,</p> + +<p>Vous apprendrez avec douleur que ce fort a sauté bier à 17 h. 20 +environ, ensevelissant sous ses ruines la majeure partie de la garnison, +peut-être les huit-dixièmes.</p> + +<p>Si je n'ai pas perdu la vie dans cette catastrophe, c'est parce que mon +escorte, composée comme suit: captaine commandant Collard, un +sous-officier d'infanterie, qui n'a sans doute pas survécu, le gendarme +Thevénin et mes deux ordonnances (Ch. Vandenbossche et Jos. Lecocq) m'a +tiré d'un endroit du fort ou j'allais être asphyxié par les gaz de la +poudre. J'ai été porté dans le fossé où je suis tombé. Un captaine +allemand, du nom de Gruson, m'a donné à boire, mais j'ai été fait +prisonnier, puis emmené à Liège dans une ambulance.</p> + +<p>Je suis certain d'avoir soutenu l'honneur de nos armes. Je n'ai rendu ni +la forteresse, ni les forts.</p> + +<p>Daignez me pardonner, Sire, la négligeance de cette lettre je suis +physiquement très abimé par l'explosion de Loncin.</p> + +<p>En Allemagne, où je vais être dirigé, mes pensées seront ce qu'elles ont +toujours été: la Belgique et son Roi. J'aurais volontiers donné ma vie +pour les mieux servir, mais la mort n'a pas voulu de moi.</p> + +<p>G. LEMAN.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h3> + +<h3>DEATH IN LIFE</h3> + + +<p>What is it I've been saying about gaiety?</p> + +<p>How could one ever use such a word?</p> + +<p>Here in the heart of Brussels one cannot recall even a memory of what it +was like to be joyful!</p> + +<p>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 Belgium—here 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 months—<i>then months</i>!—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.</p> + +<p>Yes. Waking in Brussels is grim as waking on the morn of execution!</p> + +<p>Out of sleep, with its mercy of dream and forgetfulness, the +<i>Bruxellois</i> 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 +cafés. 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.</p> + +<p>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-sense—and their mercy!</p> + +<p>And at thought of mercy the <i>Bruxellois</i> gazes away down the flat, dusty +road—away towards Louvain!</p> + +<p>The peasants are going backwards and forwards to Louvain.</p> + +<p>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 café. "Louvain" is marked on it in white chalk. On a +black board, in the café 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.</p> + +<p>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 débris nearly meet across the street.</p> + +<p>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 café opposite the ruined +theatre is full of pale, trembling old men, sipping their byrrh or +coffee; Louvain is just alive enough to whisper the word "<i>Death!</i>"</p> + +<p>But with that word it whispers also "Immortality."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I am surprised to find that in the actual matter of ruins Louvain is +less destroyed than I expected.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The University is like a beautiful skeleton, with the wind and rain +dashing through the interstices between her white frail bones.</p> + +<p>Where there are walls intact, and even over the ruins, the Germans have +pasted their proclamations.</p> + +<p>Veuve D. for insulting an official was sentenced to ten years in prison.</p> + +<p>Jean D. for opposing an official, was shot.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I step into a little shop as a motor car full of German officers dashes +by.</p> + +<p>"How brave you are to keep on," I say to the little old woman behind the +counter. "It must be terribly sad and difficult."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And food?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>I went into the room behind the shop.</p> + +<p>Mon Mari was sitting in a big chair by the window, looking out over some +rain-drenched purple cabbages.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'!"</p> + +<p>And the old woman echoes ponderingly:</p> + +<p>"<i>Didn't know it was beautiful!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h3> + +<h3>THE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS</h3> + + +<p>From Brussels to Ninove, from Ninove to Sottegem, from Sottegem to +Ghent, from Ghent to Antwerp; that was how I got back!</p> + +<p>At the outskirts of Brussels, on a certain windy corner, I stood, +waiting my chance of a vehicle going towards Ghent.</p> + +<p>The train-lines were still cut, and the only way of getting out of +Brussels was to drive, unless one went on foot.</p> + +<p>At the windy corner, accompanied by Jean and his two sisters, I stood, +watching a wonderful drama.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was one tiny cart, drawn by a donkey, with five young men in it.</p> + +<p>The driver wanted six passengers, and began appealing to me in Flemish +to come in.</p> + +<p>"I will drive you all the way to Ghent if you like," he said.</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Ten francs."</p> + +<p>Suddenly a hand pulled at my sleeve, and a hoarse voice whispered in my +ear:</p> + +<p>"Non, non, Madam. You mustn't go with them. Don't you know who they +are?"</p> + +<p>It was a rough-faced little peasant, and his blue eyes were full of +distress.</p> + +<p>I felt startled and impressed, and wondered if the five young men were +murderers.</p> + +<p>"They are the Newspaper Sellers!" muttered the blue-eyed peasant under +his breath.</p> + +<p>If he had said they were madmen his tone could not have been more +awestruck.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>And now I must say good-bye to Jean, and good-bye to his two plump young +sisters.</p> + +<p>They are the dearest friends I have in the world—or so it seems to me +as I bid them good-bye.</p> + +<p>"Bonne chance, Madam!" they whisper.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen the Germans?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, the Germans are there," pointing to the right.</p> + +<p>And we would turn to the left, tacking like a boat in the storm.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">Ce 10. 12. 14.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>MADAME CREED,</p> + +<p>Le passage à Londres, je me permets de me rappeler à 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 +bébé que vous avez tenu dans les bras) dont 2 institutrices. J'en suis +une des deux, Mme. Stoefs. J'ai été à Gand espérant vous revoir, mais +vous étiez repartie déjà. Peut être ici à Londres, amais-je ce plaisir. +J'y suis encore jusqu'à la fin de cette semaine, donc soyez assez +aimable de me dire où et quand nous pourrions nous rencontrer. Voici mon +adresse: Mme. Stoefs: Verstegen, 53, Maple Street, W. Au plaisir de vous +revoir, je vous présente mes cordiales salutations.</p> + +<p>CHARLOTTE STOEFS.</p> + +<p>Institutrice à Bruxelles.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"So they killed the priest!"</p> + +<p>"She hid for two days in the water-closet."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know what has happened to her five children."</p> + +<p>"They were stood in a row and every third one was <i>fusillé</i>."</p> + +<p>"They found his body in the garden!"</p> + +<p>"Il est tout-à-fait ruiné."</p> + +<p>Then suddenly one of the ladies, who knew a little English, said with a +friendly smile:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h3> + +<h3>"THE ENGLISH ARE COMING"</h3> + + +<p>I am back in Antwerp and the unexpected has happened.</p> + +<p>We are besieged.</p> + +<p>The siege began on Thursday.</p> + +<p>The mental excitement of these last days passes all description.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Or so we tell ourselves hopefully.</p> + +<p>We are always hopeful; we are always telling each other that things are +going better.</p> + +<p>Everyone is talking, talking, talking.</p> + +<p>Everyone is asking, "What do you think? Have you heard any news?"</p> + +<p>Everyone is saying, "But of course it will be all right!"</p> + +<p>"The Germans have been driven back five kilometres," says one civilian.</p> + +<p>"Have you heard the news? The Germans have been driven back six +kilometres!" says another.</p> + +<p>And again: "Have <i>you</i> heard the good news? Germans driven back seven +kilometres!"</p> + +<p>And at last a curious mental condition sets in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Il n'y a pas d'eau!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 cafés 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 +"<i>Anversois</i>" still take as much trouble over their cooking, which is +uncommonly good, even for Belgium.</p> + +<p>And then on Saturday, with the sharpness and suddenness of lightning, +the terrible rumour goes round that Antwerp is going to +<i>surrender</i>,—yes, surrender—rather than run the risk of being +destroyed like Louvain, and Termonde, and Aerschot.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And then, on Sunday, comes a change.</p> + +<p>The news spreads like wild-fire that the Legations have had their +orders countermanded early in the morning.</p> + +<p>They are to wait further instructions. Something has happened. <i>THE +ENGLISH ARE COMING!</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3> + +<h3>MONDAY</h3> + + +<p>A golden, laughing day is this 5th of October.</p> + +<p>As I fly along in my car I soon sense a new current, vivid and electric, +flowing along with the stream of Belgian life.</p> + +<p>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 Liège, 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!</p> + +<p>"It's the high-explosive shells that we mind most," says a Belgian +Lieutenant to an English Tommy.</p> + +<p>"P'raps we'll mind them too," says Tommy humbly. "We ain't seen them +yet!"</p> + +<p>At the War Office, Count Chabeau has given me a special permit to go to +Lierre.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly her eyes meet mine, and she comes towards me, drawn by the +knowledge that we are both women.</p> + +<p>She leans in at my car window. And then she tells me her story, and I +learn why she looks so pale and worried.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But voilà! 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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 646px;"> +<a name="A_Special_Permit" id="A_Special_Permit"></a> +<img src="images/img_06_special_permit.jpg" width="646" alt="A SPECIAL PERMIT." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">A Special Permit.</span> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mes pauvre chiens!" she keeps exclaiming.</p> + +<p>And now a motor car approaches from the direction of Lierre, with an +English officer sitting beside the chauffeur.</p> + +<p>I tell him the story of the dogs and ask what can be done.</p> + +<p>The officer does not reply.</p> + +<p>He almost looks as if he has not heard.</p> + +<p>His calm, cool face shows little sign of anything at all.</p> + +<p>He merely turns his car round and flashes away along the white +tree-shadowed and cannon-lined road that he has just traversed.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes go by, then another ten.</p> + +<p>Then back along the road flashes the grey car.</p> + +<p>And there again is Colonel Farquharson, cool, calm, and unperturbed.</p> + +<p>And behind him, in the car, barking joyfully at the sight of their +mistress, are three big dogs.</p> + +<p>"Mais comme les Anglais sont gentils!" say the Belgian soldiers along +the road.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The canary is in a little red cage, and the Tommies have managed to put +in some lumps of sugar.</p> + +<p>"The poor little thing is starving!" says a Tommy compassionately. +"It'll be better with you, ma'am."</p> + +<p>I bring the birds back in my car to Antwerp.</p> + +<p>But the parrot is very frightened.</p> + +<p>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, voilà! 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.</p> + +<p>As I write the parrot and canary sit here on my table, the parrot +perching on the canary's cage.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He said: "If you see my wife ever, you can tell her you've met me, +ma'am."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h3> + +<h3>TUESDAY</h3> + + +<p>It is Tuesday now. At seven o'clock in the morning old sad-eyed Maria +knocks at my door.</p> + +<p>"Good news, Madame! Malines has been retaken!"</p> + +<p>That is cheering. And old Maria and myself, like everyone else, are +eager to believe the best.</p> + +<p>The grey day, however, is indescribably sombre.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>I want to ask him a thousand questions.</p> + +<p>I ask him nothing, I go away, back to the hotel. One o'clock, and we +learn that the fighting outside is terribly hot.</p> + +<p>Two o'clock.</p> + +<p>Cars come flying in.</p> + +<p>They tell us that shells are falling about five miles out, on Vieux +Dieux.</p> + +<p>Three o'clock.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How far is Holland?" asks someone.</p> + +<p>"About half an hour away," he answers.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"They will never shell the town," says a choleric old Englishman. And he +adds in the best English manner, "It could never be permitted!"</p> + +<p>Outside, the day dies down.</p> + +<p>The sound of cannon has entirely ceased.</p> + +<p>One can hear nothing now, nothing at all, but the loud and shrill cries +of the newsboys and women selling <i>Le Matin d'Anvers</i> and <i>Le +Métropole</i> in the streets.</p> + +<p>A strange hushed silence hangs over the besieged city, and through the +silence the clocks strike six, and almost immediately the <i>maître +d'hôtel</i> comes along and informs us that we ought to come in to dinner +soon, as to-day the lights must go out at nightfall!</p> + +<p>But I go into the streets instead.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that the population of Antwerp has suddenly turned into +peasants.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Overhead a magnificent sunset is spreading its banners out over the +deserted city.</p> + +<p>Then night falls; the red fades; Antwerp turns grey and sombre.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h3> + +<h3>WEDNESDAY</h3> + + +<p>Last night the moon was so bright that my two pets, rescued from the +ruins of Lierre, woke up and began to talk.</p> + +<p>Or was it the big guns that woke them, the canary, and the grey Congo +parrot?</p> + +<p>It might have been!</p> + +<p>For sometimes the city seemed to shake all over, and as I lay in bed I +wondered who was firing: Germans, Belgians, English, which?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was a man crying in the room under mine.</p> + +<p>Through the blackness of the hour before dawn a cry came stealing:</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon fils! Mon fils!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And one had not realised it because one had seen so few tears.</p> + +<p>One had almost failed to understand, in the outer calm of the Belgians, +what agony went on beneath.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon fils! Mon fils!</i>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>At four, unable to sleep, I rose and dressed and went downstairs.</p> + +<p>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 <i>chass</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Il est triste, ce monsieur là</i>," 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."</p> + +<p>"So the Government is really moving out," I think to myself +mechanically.</p> + +<p>A little boy runs in from the chill dawn-lit streets.</p> + +<p>It is only half-past four, but a Flemish paper has just come out.—<i>Het +Laatste Nieuws.</i></p> + +<p>The boy throws it on the table where I sit writing to my sister in +England, who is anxious for my safety.</p> + +<p>I struggle to find out what message lies behind those queer Flemish +words.</p> + +<p><i>De Toestand Te Antwerpen Is Zeer Ernstig.</i></p> + +<p>What does it mean?</p> + +<p><i>Zeer Ernstig?</i></p> + +<p>Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know the word.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>La situation à Anvers est grave</i>" 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!"</p> + +<p>So we know the worst now.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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 <i>café-au-lait</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Poor souls! Poor souls!</p> + +<p>After the coffee, smoking cigarettes, they hurry away, to....</p> + +<p>The day is past sunrise now, and floods of golden light stream over the +city, where already great crowds are moving backwards and forwards.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But not a word of regret from anyone. That is the Belgian way.</p> + +<p>Belgians all, to-day I kneel at your feet.</p> + +<p>Oh God, what those people are going through!</p> + +<p>God, what they are suffering and to suffer! How can they bear it? Where +do they get their heroism? Is it—it must be—from Above!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<a name="Belgian_Refugees_in_Holland" id="Belgian_Refugees_in_Holland"></a> +<img src="images/img_07_belgian_refugees_in_holland.jpg" width="484" alt="BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND" title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">Belgian Refugees in Holland</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h3> + +<h3>THE CITY IS SHELLED</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Strange things were to happen before we met again.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>And I thought I was too.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Every now and then the doors would burst open and men and women would +rush in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Swing goes the door and in comes a man who asks the porter a question.</p> + +<p>"Is Monsieur L. here?"</p> + +<p>"Oui, Monsieur," replies the porter.</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"He is in bed."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Swing, and the Bank Manager has gone through the door again out into +that black and red shrieking night.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The shells are falling all around our home!" they say.</p> + +<p>The porter points to the restaurant door.</p> + +<p>"Merci bien," and "Je vous remerci beaucoup," murmur father and mother.</p> + +<p>They vanish into the dark, unlit restaurant with its white table-cloths +making pale points athward the stygian blackness of the huge room.</p> + +<p>Then an Englishman comes down the stairs behind me, flapping his +Burberry rainproof overcoat. He is a War-Correspondent.</p> + +<p>"What a smell!" he says to the porter. "Is gas escaping somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir," says the porter, pulling his black moustache.</p> + +<p>He is very distrait and hardly gives the famous War-Correspondent a +thought.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> gas!" persists the War-Correspondent. "There must be a leakage +somewhere."</p> + +<p>He opens the door.</p> + +<p>A horrible whiff of burning petroleum and smoke blows in, and a Belgian +soldier enters also.</p> + +<p>"What's the smell?" asks the War-Correspondent.</p> + +<p>"The Germans are dropping explosives on the city, trying to set fire to +it," answers the Belgian.</p> + +<p>"Good lor, I must have a look!" says the War-Correspondent. He goes +out.</p> + +<p>Two wounded officers come down the stairs behind me.</p> + +<p>"Bill, please, porter. How much? We must be off now to the forts!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Bien!" says the officers.</p> + +<p>They swing their dark cloaks across their shoulders and pass out.</p> + +<p>They come back no more, no, never any more.</p> + +<p>Then an old, old man limps in on the arm of a young, ever-young Sister +of Mercy.</p> + +<p>"He is deaf and dumb," she says, "I found him and brought him here. He +will be killed in the streets."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then again the door swings open.</p> + +<p>"The petroleum tanks have been set on fire by the Belgians themselves!" +says a big man with a big moustache. "This is the end."</p> + +<p>He is the proprietor himself.</p> + +<p>And here up from the stairs behind us that lead down into the cellars, +comes his wife, wrapped in furs.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 Marché 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.</p> + +<p>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, far-away Australia!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This is an illusion, of course; but what a beautiful and merciful one!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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. <i>Then</i>, we +tremble and shiver! <i>Then</i>, we remember the word "Scream." <i>Then</i>, we +understand the meaning of fear! <i>Then</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Is this brutal? Is it hard-hearted? Is it callous, indifferent, cruel? +<i>No</i>! For it bears no relation to our feelings for other people, <i>it +only relates to our own sensations about ourselves</i>. 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 <i>you</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Not to care, not to want to see, not to want to know, that is the +callousness beyond redemption!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h3> + +<h3>THURSDAY</h3> + + +<p>Thursday is a queer day, a day of no beginning and no ending.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The roof of the world is now enacting a rôle 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.</p> + +<p>One looks above as often as one looks below or around one.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Seven o'clock on Thursday morning.</p> + +<p>The bombardment goes on fiercely, but I forget about it here in the big, +bare, smoky café, because I cannot hear the lift.</p> + +<p>A waiter brings me some coffee and I stand and drink it and look about +me.</p> + +<p>The café is surrounded with glass doors, and through these doors I see +thousands and thousands of people hurrying for dear life along the +roads.</p> + +<p>As time goes on their numbers increase, until they are flowing by as +steadily as some ceaseless black stream moving Holland-wards.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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 bewilderment—a sheep—a dog—a donkey—a cow—a +horse—more 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.</p> + +<p>It seems to me as though the End of the World will be very like to-day.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All the dramas of Æschylus pale into insignificance before this +scene....</p> + +<p>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 despair—grim, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h3> + +<h3>THE ENDLESS DAY</h3> + + +<p>Years seem to have passed.</p> + +<p>Yet it is still Thursday morning, ten o'clock.</p> + +<p>The horror darkens.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The evacuation goes on desperately, but the crowds fleeing northwards +are diminishing visibly, because some five hundred thousands have +already gone.</p> + +<p>The great avenues, with their autumn-yellow trees and white, tall, +splendid houses, grow bare and deserted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I put on my hat and gloves, and go out into the streets. Oh, God! What a +golden day!</p> + +<p>Unbearable is the glitter of this sunlight shining over the agony of a +nation!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h3> + +<h3>I DECIDE TO STAY</h3> + + +<p>For the moment the bombardment has ceased entirely. These little pauses +are almost quaint in their preciseness.</p> + +<p>One can count on them quite confidently not to be broken by stray +shells.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We all fling out disjointed remarks, and I hear of the awful night in +that quarter of the city.</p> + +<p>"How are you going to get away?"</p> + +<p>"And you, how are you going to get away?"</p> + +<p>The tall, slight young man with the little dark moustache is Mr. +Jeffries of the <i>Daily Mail</i>, who has been staying at the Hotel de +l'Europe. With him is the popular Mr. Perry Robinson of the <i>Times</i>. The +third is Mr. P. Phillips of the <i>Daily News</i>.</p> + +<p>"I have just come from the État Majeur," Mr. Jeffries tells me +hurriedly. "There is not a ghost of a hope now! Everyone has gone. We +must get away at once."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>So they say good-bye and leave me.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h3> + +<h3>THE CITY SURRENDERS</h3> + + +<p>Antwerp has surrendered!</p> + +<p>It is Friday morning. All hope is over. The Germans are coming in at +half-past one.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>And he gave me the key and the address, and I,—luckily for myself,—I +remembered it afterwards.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So they were gone!</p> + +<p>The die was cast. I was alone now, all alone in the fated city.</p> + +<p>At first, the thought was a little sickening.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What, Madame! But they told me <i>les deux Anglais</i> have departed. You +have not gone with them?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais, c'est dangereux, Madame! Vous êtes Anglaise!</i>"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Just at that moment Henri drove up in the motor, and came to a +standstill in front of the hotel.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry I am late," he groaned, "but it was impossible, impossible."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Henri showed no surprise. There was no surprise left in him to show.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And he suddenly sat down upon a chair, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Oh, nerve-racking sight!</p> + +<p>Across the grey square, through the grey-black morning, dogs were +rushing, their tongues out.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"She is eighty-four, <i>ma pauvre mère</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 mère will +be surely safe! As for us, my husband and I, truly, we have lost our +all. There is nothing left to fear!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +Marché 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 <i>Daily Mail</i> and +shivered; that had been his hotel. The air reeked with petroleum and +smoke. At last we got to the hospital.</p> + +<p>The door-step was covered with blood, and red, wet blood was in drops +and patches along the entrance.</p> + +<p>As I went in, an unforgettable sight met my eyes.</p> + +<p>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 <i>petit Belge</i>, who had shed his life-blood for his city, alas, in +vain!</p> + +<p>All the ordinary nurses had gone.</p> + +<p>The Sisters of Mercy alone remained.</p> + +<p>And suddenly it came to me like a strain of heavenly music that death +held no terrors for these women; life had no fears.</p> + +<p>Softly they moved about in their white robes, their benign faces shining +with the look of the Cross.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But the Sisters of Mercy had no fears.</p> + +<p>The Cross stood between them and anything that might come to them.</p> + +<p>And that was written in their faces, their shining gentle faces....</p> + +<p>Ah yes, the Priests and the half-forgotten Sisters of Mercy have indeed +come back to their own in this greatest of all Wars!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I think he must have been wandering, poor little child, and had come +back with a start to life.</p> + +<p>And seeing a face at his bedside he thought, perhaps, that I was German.</p> + +<p>In a hoarse voice he gasped out, raising himself in terror:</p> + +<p>"<i>Je suis civil!</i>"</p> + +<p>Poor child, poor child!</p> + +<p>The fright in his voice was heart-breaking. It said that if the +"<i>Alboches</i>" took him for a <i>soldat</i>, they would shoot him, or carry him +away into Germany....</p> + +<p>I bent and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Je suis civil!</i>"</p> + +<p>He was not more than six years old.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And the baby gurgled and laughed, and gave a sudden leap in the sweet +nun's arms.</p> + +<p>Out of the hospital again, over the blood-stained doorstep, and back +into the car.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I can see them still, standing there in their white coats, or long black +cassocks, staring down the passage.</p> + +<p>A great hush hung over everything, and through the hush we slid into the +awful streets again, with the houses lying on the ground.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We filled the car so full that we all had to stand up, except those who +could not stand.</p> + +<p>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 heart-breaking 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.</p> + +<p>As we came in the patronne handed me a note.</p> + +<p>"While you were out," she said, looking at me sorrowfully, "M. Fox and +M. Jones returned on their bicycles to look for you."</p> + +<p>Then I read Mr. Fox's kind message.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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!" </p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h3> + +<h3>A SOLITARY WALK</h3> + + +<p>Surely, surely, this livid, copper-tinted noontide, hanging over +Antwerp, was conceived in Hades as a presentation of the world's last +day.</p> + +<p>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, heart-break 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was an hour never to be forgotten, an hour that could never, never +come again.</p> + +<p>I kept saying that to myself as I continued my solitary walk.</p> + +<p>"Solitary walk!"</p> + +<p>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 city—anywhere, anywhere, out of the reach of the shells and +the Germans.</p> + +<p>And I wondered where they were now, those five hundred thousand ghosts.</p> + +<p>Were they still struggling and tramping and falling along the roads to +Holland?</p> + +<p>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 cafés, 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.</p> + +<p>And now I wondered why I was here myself, listening to my echoing +footsteps through the hollow silences of the "Ville Morte."</p> + +<p>Why had I not gone with the rest of them?</p> + +<p>Then, as I walked through the dead city I knew why I was there.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Many a time before had I loved a city—loved 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, Arles, 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 æstheticism, one liquid, limpid +gladness at discovering oneself alive.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +Chaussée de Souliers, I saw two Belgian soldiers, limping along, making +towards the Breda Gate.</p> + +<p>Both were wounded, and the one who was less bad was helping the other.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They were dazed, worn-out, finished, famished, nearly fainting.</p> + +<p>But as they hurried past me the younger man flung out one breathless +question:</p> + +<p>"<i>Est-ce que la ville est prise?</i>"</p> + +<p>It seemed to be plucked from some page of Homer.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>It went thrilling through my being. It struck me harder than any shell, +seeming to fell me for a moment to the ground....</p> + +<p>Then I rose, permeated with a sense of living in the world's greatest +drama, and <i>feeling</i>, not <i>seeing</i>, Art and Life and Death and +Literature inextricably and terribly, yet gloriously mixed, till one +could not be told from the other....</p> + +<p>For he who had given his life, whose blood dropped red from him as he +moved, knew not what had happened to his city.</p> + +<p>He was only a soldier!</p> + +<p>His was to fight, not to know.</p> + +<p>"<i>Est-ce que la ville est prise?</i>"</p> + +<p>It is months since then, but I still hear that perishing soldier's +voice, breaking over his terrific query.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>... 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.</p> + +<p>I liked that, and all together we hastened through the livid greyness +along the Avenue de Commerce, towards the Breda Gate.</p> + +<p>In dead silence we laboured onwards.</p> + +<p>It was still a solitary walk, for neither of my companions said a word.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, to our amazement, we saw a cart coming down a side-street, +containing a man and a little girl.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>As the soldiers crawled painfully into the little cart, I whispered to +the elder one:</p> + +<p>"Do you know where your King is, Monsieur?"</p> + +<p>Ah, the flash in that hollow eye!</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Truly, I know not exactly! But wherever he is I <i>do</i> know this. <i>Notre +Roi est sur le Champ de Bataille.</i>"</p> + +<p>Oh, beautiful speech!</p> + +<p>"<i>Sur le Champ de Bataille!</i>"</p> + +<p>Where else would Albert be indeed?</p> + +<p>"<i>Sur le Champ de Bataille!</i>"</p> + +<p>I put it beside the Epic Question!</p> + +<p>Together they lie there in my heart, imperishable, and more precious +than any written poem!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h3> + +<h3>ENTER LES ALLEMANDS</h3> + + +<p>It is now half-past one, and I am back at the hotel.</p> + +<p>At least, my watch says it is half-past one.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One knows that only some ghastly happening could have terrified them +into such wild mistakes.</p> + +<p>Heart-breaking it is, as well as appalling, to see those distracted +timepieces, and their ignorance of the fatal hour.</p> + +<p>Half-past one!</p> + +<p>And the clocks point pathetically to eleven, or eight, or five.</p> + +<p>Inside the great dim restaurant a pretence of lunch is going on between +the little handful of people left.</p> + +<p>Everybody sits at one table, the chauffeur, Henri, the refugees from +Lierre, their maidservant, Jeanette, 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.</p> + +<p>We have some stewed meat with potatoes, a rough, ill-cooked dish.</p> + +<p>This is the first bad meal I have had in Antwerp.</p> + +<p>But what seems extraordinary to me, is that there should be any meal at +all!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We are all thinking the same thing.</p> + +<p>We are thinking with our dull, addled, clouded brains that the Germans +will be here at any minute.</p> + +<p>And then suddenly the waiter cries out in a loud voice from across the +restaurant:</p> + +<p>"<i>LES ALLEMANDS!</i>"</p> + +<p>We all spring to our feet. We stand for a moment petrified.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"They have come!" says everyone.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3> + +<h3>"MY SON!"</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Here they come, a long grey line of foot-soldiers and mounted men, all +with pink roses or carnations in their grey tunics.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Is somebody ill in your cart?"</p> + +<p>Without stopping, without looking even, her haggard eyes full of +despair, she mutters:</p> + +<p>"<i>Dead!</i> My son! He was a soldat."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h3> + +<h3>THE RECEPTION</h3> + + +<p>A singular change now comes over the silent, deserted city.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All along the Avenue de Commerce, gathered in the heavy greyness on the +side-paths, are little straggling groups of <i>Anversois.</i></p> + +<p>As I look at them, I suddenly experience a sensation of suffocation.</p> + +<p>Am I dreaming?</p> + +<p>Or are they really <i>smiling</i>, those people, <i>smiling to the Germans!</i></p> + +<p>Then, to my horror, I see two old men waving gaily to that long grey +oncoming line of men and horses.</p> + +<p>And then I see a woman flinging flowers to an officer, who catches them +and sticks them into his horse's bridle.</p> + +<p>At that moment I realise I am in for some extraordinary experience, +something that Brussels has not in the least prepared me for!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h3> + +<h3>THE LAUGHTER OF BRUTES</h3> + + +<p>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 sharpness—the +silence that has never been heard in Antwerp since!</p> + +<p>As they come onward, the Germans look from left to right.</p> + +<p>I stand on the pavement watching, drawn there by some irresistible +force.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 chat they cannot +understand how they come to be in possession of this great, rich, +wonderful prize.</p> + +<p>They look to left and right, their blue eyes full of curiosity. As I +watch, I think of Bismarck's remark about London: "<i>What a city to +loot!</i>"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>But never very cheerily or very loudly do they sing.</p> + +<p>I fancy at that moment, experiencing as they are that phase of naive and +genuine amazement, the Germans are really less brute than usual.</p> + +<p>And then, just as I am thinking that, I meet with my first personal +experience of the meaning of "<i>German brute</i>."</p> + +<p>A young officer has espied a notice-board, high above a café on the +left.</p> + +<p>A delighted grin overspreads his face and he quickly draws his +companion's attention to it.</p> + +<p>Together the two gaze smiling at the homelike words: "<i>WINTER GARTEN</i>," +their blue eyes glued upon the board as they ride along.</p> + +<p>The contrast between their gladness, and that old Belgian mother's +agony, suddenly strikes through my heart like a knife.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then, looking up, I see a young Prussian officer laughing at me +mockingly as he rides by.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To me, that is an act of brutality, that, small as it may seem, counts +for a barbarity as great as any murder.</p> + +<p>Germany, for that brutal laugh, no less than for your outrages, you +shall pay some day, you shall surely pay!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h3> + +<h3>TRAITORS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Cries of "Bier" resounded on all sides.</p> + +<p>Outside, on the walls of the Theatre Flamand, the Huns are at it already +with their endless proclamations.</p> + +<p> +"<i>EINWOHNER VON ANTWERPEN!</i><br /> +<br /> +"Das deutsche Heer betritt Euere Stadt als<br /> +Sieger. Keinem Euerer Mitbürger wird ein Leid<br /> +geschehen und Euer Eigentum wird geschont<br /> +werden, wenn ihr Euch jeder Feindseligkeit<br /> +enthaltet.<br /> +<br /> +"Jede Widersetzlichkeit dagegen wird nach<br /> +Kriegsrecht bestraft und kann die Zerstörung<br /> +Euerer schonen Stadt zur Folge haben.<br /> +<br /> +"DER OBERBEFEHLSHABER DER<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">DEUTSCHEN TRUPPEN."</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"<i>INWONERS VAN ANTWERPEN!</i><br /> +<br /> +"Het Duitsche leger is als overwinnaar in<br /> +uwe stad gekomen. Aan geen enkel uwer<br /> +medeburgers zal eenig leed geschieden en uwe<br /> +eigendommen zullen ongeschonden blijven,<br /> +wanneer gij u allen van vijandelijkheden<br /> +onthoudt.<br /> +<br /> +"Elk verzet zal naar oorlogsrecht worden<br /> +bestraft en kan de vernietiging van uwe schoone<br /> +stad voor gevolg hebben.<br /> +<br /> +"DE HOOFDBEVELHEBBER DER<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">DUITSCHE TROEPEN."</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"<i>HABITANTS D'ANVERS!</i><br /> +<br /> +"L'armée allemande est entrée dans votre<br /> +ville en vainquer. Aucun de vos concitoyens<br /> +ne sera inquiété et vos propriétés seront respectées<br /> +à la condition que vous vous absteniez de toute<br /> +hostilité.<br /> +<br /> +"Toute résistance sera punie d'après les lois<br /> +de la guerre, et peut entraîner la destruction de<br /> +votre belle ville.<br /> +<br /> +"LE COMMANDANT EN CHEF DES<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">TROUPES CHEF ALLEMANDS."</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h3> + +<h3>WHAT THE WAITING MAID SAW</h3> + + +<p>At this point, I crept down stealthily into the kitchen and proceeded to +disguise myself.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Looking thoroughly hideous I slipped back into the restaurant where I +occupied myself with washing and drying glasses behind the counter.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 9th—the Fatal Friday.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>English Marines indeed!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Seated all by himself at a little table sits a Belgian General, who has +been brought in prisoner.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Two little priests have been brought in as prisoners also.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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 truth—one movement towards the door and they would be +shot down like dogs!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's too dear!" they said.</p> + +<p>But they paid the price for it all the same.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Almost the first thing the Germans did was to find out the pianos.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>About four o'clock, Jeanette, the Flemish servant, whispered to me that +Henri wanted to speak to me in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Half an hour after, the faithful fellow called to me again.</p> + +<p>His pie-coloured face looked dark and miserable.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>This was serious.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>I nodded but dared not answer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Wurst?" he ejaculated to the General. "Here there sausage is!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h3> + +<h3>SATURDAY</h3> + + +<p>The saddest thing in Antwerp is the howling of the dogs.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is Saturday morning, October 10th.</p> + +<p>Strange things have happened.</p> + +<p>When I went to my door just now, I found it locked from the outside.</p> + +<p>I have tried the other door. That is locked, too.</p> + +<p>What does it mean, I wonder?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 Crême Floreine, and the amount of black +that comes off is appalling.</p> + +<p>Then I lie down at full length on my mattress and wonder what is going +to happen next.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour goes by.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then voices just outside in the corridor reach me.</p> + +<p>Out there two old Belgians are talking.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ce sont les Anglais qui ne veulent pas rendre les forts!</i>" says one.</p> + +<p>They are discussing the fighting which still goes on fiercely in the +forts around the city.</p> + +<p>My head aches! I am hungry; and those big guns are making what the +Kaiser would call World Noises.</p> + +<p>Strange thoughts come over me, attacking me, like Samson Agonistes' +"deadly swarm of hornets armed."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And I am weak and weary enough at this moment to wish <i>les Anglais</i> +would give it up, let the forts be rendered, and let the cannons cease.</p> + +<p>Anything for peace, for an end of slaughter, an end of terror, an end of +this cruel soul-racking thunder.</p> + +<p>Terrible thoughts ... deadly thoughts.</p> + +<p>Do they come to the soldiers, thoughts like these? Heaven help the poor +fellows if they do!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I am weary. I have not slept for five nights, and I feel as if I shall +never sleep again.</p> + +<p>I daresay that's partly why I have been weak enough to wish for an end +of noise.</p> + +<p>It's five o'clock and darkness has set in.</p> + +<p>Nobody has been near me, I'm still here, locked up in this little room.</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i>? I pull the curtains over the +window, and move back into the room.</p> + +<p>This is Saturday afternoon, October 10th, and all of a sudden a queer +thought comes over me.</p> + +<p>October 10th is my birthday.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Have other people been born with the same belief, I wonder?</p> + +<p>I should like so much to know.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, brow—always remaining unseen, unknown, uninvited, +unintelligible—yet 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>No. I can't believe it.</p> + +<p>I can't see it like that.</p> + +<p>I <i>don't</i> believe that that is what the roar of cannon has been trying +to say to me all my life.</p> + +<p>I can't sense danger—I won't. No, I mean I <i>can't.</i> My reason assures +me there isn't any danger that is going to <i>catch</i> me, no matter how it +may threaten.</p> + +<p>And then the hornet flies to the attack.</p> + +<p>"It says, 'People who are haunted with premonitions nearly always +disregard them until too late.'"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The old woman gives me some grapes out of a basket under her bed, and a +glass of water.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pauvre enfant!</i>" 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?"</p> + +<p>"But why are you so afraid?" I ask. "Last night you were so nice to me. +What has happened? Come, tell me the truth."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." My lips felt suddenly dry as wood.</p> + +<p>"Alors, Madame! He said to me, that fellow, '<i>She</i> never speaks!'"</p> + +<p>"Who did he mean?"</p> + +<p>"Alors, Madame, he meant you!"</p> + +<p>(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.)</p> + +<p>I force a smile.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you imagine this," I said.</p> + +<p>"No, because he said to me to-day, 'Where is that mädchen who never +spoke?'"</p> + +<p>"What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"She is deaf," I told him. "She does not hear when anyone speaks to +her!"</p> + +<p>"So that is why you locked me up."</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est ça</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>"Well, I think this is ridiculous," I said. "How long am I to stay +here?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But just then someone knocked at the outer door.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Will you bring him up," I said.</p> + +<p>"Immediately!"</p> + +<p>The old patronne went on undressing the little girls, getting them +hurriedly into bed and telling them to be quiet.</p> + +<p>They kept shouting out questions to me, and whenever they did so their +grandmother would smack them.</p> + +<p>"Silence. <i>Les alboches</i> will hear you!"</p> + +<p>But they were terribly naughty little girls.</p> + +<p>Whenever I spoke they repeated my words in loud, mocking voices.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then a gentle tap, and Madame X. and the Danish Doctor came stealing in.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In English he said, "I heard there was an English lady here who wants to +get away from Antwerp?"</p> + +<p>I interrupted sharply.</p> + +<p>"Please don't speak English! The Germans are always going up and down +the corridor. They may hear!"</p> + +<p>He smiled at my fears, but immediately changed into French to reassure +me.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Certainly!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When I had examined his papers I let him examine mine.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>quite</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall trust you," I said slowly. I put my passport into his +hands.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Madame, I <i>do</i> 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 courage—you will soon +be in safety!"</p> + +<p>Ten minutes after he had gone Monsieur Claude burst into the room.</p> + +<p>His face was black as night and working with rage.</p> + +<p>"What is this you have done?" he cried in a hoarse voice. "<i>Il parle +avec les allemands dans le restaurant!</i>"</p> + +<p>Horrible words!</p> + +<p>It seems to me that as long as I live I shall hear them in my ears.</p> + +<p>"It is not true." I cried. "It <i>can't</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I got up and looked at myself in the glass.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I jumped up.</p> + +<p>I was fully dressed, having fallen asleep in my clothes.</p> + +<p>"Madame!" whispered a voice. "Open the door toute suite n'est-ce-pas." +It was the old woman's voice.</p> + +<p>I pulled away the barricading chair, and let her in.</p> + +<p>Over her shoulder I saw a man.</p> + +<p>It was no German, this!</p> + +<p>It was dear pie-coloured Henri in a grey suit with a white-and-black +handkerchief swathed round his neck.</p> + +<p>Behind him were the two little girls.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>She kissed me, and pushed me out at the same time.</p> + +<p>Next moment, hanging on to Henri's arm, I found myself outside in the +corridor walking towards the staircase.</p> + +<p>"Courage!" whispered Henri in my ear.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Courage, Madame!" whispered Henri.</p> + +<p>"Don't call me Madame! Call me Louisa!" I whispered back. "Where are we +going?"</p> + +<p>"To a friend."</p> + +<p>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 cafés, flying past in motor cars, +driving through the streets and avenues just as in Brussels, looking as +if they had lived there for ever.</p> + +<p>"Voici, Madame!" muttered Henri.</p> + +<p>"Louisa!" I whispered supplicatingly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h3> + +<h3>CAN I TRUST THEM?</h3> + + +<p>We entered a café. 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.</p> + +<p>"Take no notice of them!" whispered Henri. "You are all right! Trust +me!"</p> + +<p>We walked through the Restaurant, Henri and I arm in arm, and the little +girls clinging to our hands.</p> + +<p>They really played their parts amazingly, those little girls.</p> + +<p>"I have found my wife from Brussels," announced Henri in a loud voice to +the old proprietor behind the counter.</p> + +<p>"How are things in Brussels, Madame?" queried an old Belgian in the +café.</p> + +<p>But I made no answer.</p> + +<p>I affected not to hear.</p> + +<p>I went with Henri on through the little hall at the far end of the café.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Madame!" she said.</p> + +<p>She clasped me to her breast.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Don't call me Madame, call me Louisa."</p> + +<p>"And call me Ada," she said.</p> + +<p>"So, au revoir!" said Henri. "I shall come round later with your +things."</p> + +<p>He seized the little girls, and with a nod and "Courage, Louisa," he +disappeared.</p> + +<p>Oh, the kindness of that broken-hearted Luxemburg woman.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The whole of that day I remained in the kitchen there at the back of the +café I could hear the Germans coming in and out. They were blowing their +own trumpets all the time, telling always of their victories.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock that day, when dusk began to gather, Ada shut up the +café, put out the lights, and she and her old husband and I sat together +in the kitchen round the fire.</p> + +<p>Presently, in came Henri, with my little bag, accompanied by Madame X., +and her big husband, and two enormous yellow dogs.</p> + +<p>They told me that the Danish Doctor came back at three o'clock, asked +for me, and was told I had gone to Holland.</p> + +<p>"If it were not for the Danish Doctor I should feel quite safe," I said. +"Was he angry?"</p> + +<p>"He was very surprised."</p> + +<p>"Did he give you back my passport?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Did he get the passport from his Consul?"</p> + +<p>"He said so."</p> + +<p>"Did he want to know how I got away?"</p> + +<p>"He said he hoped you were safe."</p> + +<p>"Did he believe you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>think</i> he believed you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Did he <i>look</i> as if he believed you?"</p> + +<p>"He looked surprised."</p> + +<p>"And angry?"</p> + +<p>"A little annoyed."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>pleased?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps!"</p> + +<p>"And <i>very</i> surprised?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very surprised."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that he believed you."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he will try and find me?"</p> + +<p>"But he is no spy," answered Henri. "If he had wanted to betray you he +would have done it last night."</p> + +<p>"C'est ça!" agreed the others.</p> + +<p>"What did you know about him?" I asked. "What made you send him up to +me, François? Surely you wouldn't have told him about me unless you +<i>knew</i> he was trustworthy!"</p> + +<p>"C'est ça!" agreed big, fat, sad-eyed François. "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."</p> + +<p>"But why did he speak with the Germans in the restaurant?"</p> + +<p>"He is a Dane, he can speak as he chooses."</p> + +<p>"Then you don't think he was speaking of <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No, Madame! C'est évident, n'est-ce-pas? You have left the hotel in +safety!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude where I am?"</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Claude will tell him he knows nothing about you, has never +seen you, never heard of you!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude's sister?"</p> + +<p>"We must tell her not to tell him where you are."</p> + +<p>"<i>What!</i>"</p> + +<p>I started violently.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that you haven't warned her already not to tell him +where I've really gone to?"</p> + +<p>"But of course she will not tell him. She is devoted to you, Madame."</p> + +<p>"Call me Louisa."</p> + +<p>"Louisa!"</p> + +<p>"She might tell him to get rid of him," says Ada slowly.</p> + +<p>"C'est ça!" agree the others thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>And at that all the terror of last night returns to me. It returns like +a <i>memory</i>, but it is troublous all the same.</p> + +<p>And then, opening my bag to inspect its contents, I suddenly see a big +strange key.</p> + +<p>What is this?</p> + +<p>And then remembrance rushes over me.</p> + +<p>It is the key that Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones gave me, the key of the +furnished house in Antwerp.</p> + +<p>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 <i>alone</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>Casting a swift glance about me, I took in that group of faces round the +kitchen fire. Who were they, these people? François, 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.</p> + +<p>And yet they were all I had in the way of acquaintances, they were all I +had to trust in.</p> + +<p>Could I trust them?</p> + +<p>I looked at them again.</p> + +<p>It was strange, and rather wonderful, to have nothing on earth to help +one but one's own judgment.</p> + +<p>Then Ada's voice reached me.</p> + +<p>"Voici, Louisa!" she is saying. "Voici le photographie de mon Georges."</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 "<i>a bit fed up with the refugees</i>" 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 +English—the tender, generous, grateful English—as though they were +their own little ones—even better perhaps, even better!</p> + +<p>Ada's tears!</p> + +<p>They wash away my fears. My heart melts to her, and I tell her +straightway about the house in the avenue L.</p> + +<p>"But how splendid!" she cries exuberantly.</p> + +<p>"Quel chance, Louisa, quel chance!" cries Lenore.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow morning we shall all take you there!" declares Henri.</p> + +<p>Their surprise, their delight, allay my last lingering doubts.</p> + +<p>"But mind," I urge them feverishly. "You must never let the Danish +Doctor know that address."</p> + +<p>That night I sleep in a feather-bed in a room at the top of dear Ada's +house.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h3> + +<h3>A SAFE SHELTER</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Voici, Madame," he exclaimed suddenly. "Voilà les Anglais."</p> + +<p>"Et les Anglaises," gasped Ada under her breath.</p> + +<p>We were just then crossing the Avenue de Kaiser—that once gay, bright +Belgian Avenue where I had so often walked with Alice, my dear little +<i>Liègeoise</i>, now fled, alas, I knew not where.</p> + +<p>A procession was passing between the long lines of fading acacias. A +huge waggon, some mounted Germans, two women.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mon Dieu!" says Ada.</p> + +<p>Lying on sacks in the open waggon are wounded English officers, their +eyes shut.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"They are taking them to Germany!" whispers Henri in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" moans Ada under her breath. "Oh, les pauvres +Anglaises!"</p> + +<p>It was all I could do to keep from flying towards them.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And even as I thought of that, the group vanished round the corner, +towards the station.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At last we reached the house for which I had the key.</p> + +<p>From the outside it was dignified, handsome, thoroughly Belgian, +standing in a street of many ruined houses.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Tender-hearted Ada wept continually as she moved about.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 grandmère from the hospital I was greatly relieved. In fact +if it had not been for the Danish Doctor I should have been quite happy.</p> + +<p>They all came in that afternoon, and Henri too, and how grateful they +were to get into that nest.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was saving that house from +the Huns.</p> + +<p>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 Chaussée de Malines, or Rue Lamarinière, +or along the Avenue de Kaiser. At some of the monsters that went +grinding along one stared, gasping, realising for the first time what +<i>les petits Belges</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 Conquerors! 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.</p> + +<p>"We love you Belgians! We <i>know</i> 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 '<i>bons +soldats</i>,' the French! But the '<i>Englisch</i>' (and here a positive hiss of +hatred would come into their guttural voices), the '<i>Englisch</i>' are +false to <i>everyone.</i> 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 '<i>Englisch</i>' (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!"</p> + +<p>That was always the beginning of their Litany.</p> + +<p>Then they would follow the Chant of their victories.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And then would come the final strain, which was often true, as a matter +of fact, in addition to being wily.</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> and men like me, wanted this war!"</p> + +<p>It was generally seven children.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it was more.</p> + +<p>But it was never less!</p> + +<p>The system was perfect, even about as small a thing as that!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h3> + +<h3>THE FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There came the great day when François managed to borrow a motor car and +took me out through the Breda Gate to Putte in Holland.</p> + +<p>Good-bye to Ada, good-bye to Henri, good-bye to Lenore, Jeanette and la +grandmère!</p> + +<p>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 François' 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 <i>not</i> Lenore, of course.</p> + +<p>As for my own English passport, Monsieur X. went several times to the +young Danish Doctor asking for it on my behalf.</p> + +<p>The Dane refused to give it up. "How do I know," said he, "that you +will restore it to the lady?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;"> +<a name="The_Danish_Doctor39s_note" id="The_Danish_Doctor39s_note"></a> +<img src="images/img_08_danish_doctors_note.jpg" width="385" alt="The Danish Doctor's note." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">The Danish Doctor's note.</span> +</div> + +<p>Finally Monsieur X. suggested that he should leave it for me at the +American Consulate.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 châteaux +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.</p> + +<p>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! <i>Trees!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 484px;"> +<a name="My_Hosts_in_Holland" id="My_Hosts_in_Holland"></a> +<img src="images/img_09_hosts_in_holland.jpg" width="484" alt="MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">My Hosts in Holland.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h3> + +<h3>FRIENDLY HOLLAND</h3> + + +<p>Yesterday I was in Holland.</p> + +<p>To-day I am in England.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>The answer I received was startling.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>I pressed my interrogation further still.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>My informant, one of the best known of Dutch advocates, paused a moment +before replying.</p> + +<p>Then seriously and deliberately he made the following statement:—</p> + +<p>"In the upper circles of Dutch Society—that is to say, in Court circles +and in the military set that is included in this classification—there +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 +Dutch—and Prince Henry among us—saw for ourselves for the first time +the awful horror of the German invasion."</p> + +<p>"And so the Prince has shewed himself sympathetic towards the Allies?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But what about England?" I went on hurriedly. "How do you feel to us?"</p> + +<p>"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 Holland—a revolution."</p> + +<p>Over and over again these opinions were presented to me by leading +Dutchmen.</p> + +<p>A director of a big Dutch line of steamers was even more emphatic +concerning Holland's attitude to England.</p> + +<p>"And we are," he said, "suffering from the War in Holland—suffering +badly. We estimate our losses at 60 per cent, of our ordinary trade and +commerce."</p> + +<p>He pointed out to me a paragraph in a Dutch paper.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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." </p></blockquote> + +<p>"You know," I said tentatively, "that rumour persists in attributing to +Holland a readiness to do business with Germany?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And is it true that you are trying to change your national flag because +the Germans have been misusing it?"</p> + +<p>"It is quite true. We are trying to adopt the ancient standard of +Holland—the orange—instead of the red, white and blue of to-day."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 486px;"> +<a name="Soup_for_the_Refugees" id="Soup_for_the_Refugees"></a> +<img src="images/img_10_soupe_for_the_refugees.jpg" width="486" alt="Soup for the refugees." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">Soup for the Refugees.</span> +</div> + +<p>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? 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It is our duty," they say quietly; and sick and poor alike pour out +their offerings graciously, without ceasing.</p> + +<p>In the Grand Place of Bergen-op-Zoom stand long lines of soup-boilers +over charcoal fires.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The town of Bergen-op-Zoom is full of heart-breaking pictures to-day, +but to me the most pathetic of all is the writing on the walls.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 Grandmère 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.</p> + +<p>While I was in Holland I came across an interesting couple whom I +speedily classified in my own mind.</p> + +<p>One was a dark young man.</p> + +<p>He had a peculiar accent. He told me he was an Englishman from +Northampton.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he was.</p> + +<p>He said the reason he wasn't fighting for his country was because he was +too fat.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he was.</p> + +<p>The other young man said he was American.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he was.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"In New York, I mean!" he said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In matters of this kind the fault of the Dutch,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Was giving too little and asking too much.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII</h3> + +<h3>FRENCH COOKING IN WAR TIME</h3> + + +<p>There is no more Belgium to go to.</p> + +<p>So I am in France now.</p> + +<p>But War-Correspondents are not wanted here. They are driven out wherever +discovered. I shall not stay long.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>However, to be among French-speaking people again is a great joy.</p> + +<p>And to-day in Dunkirk it has refreshed and consoled me greatly to see +Madame Piers cooking.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It really was the smallest kitchen I'd ever seen, No, you couldn't have +swung a cat in it—you really couldn't.</p> + +<p>And no one but a thrifty French housewife could have contrived to get +that wee round table and little chair into that tiny angle.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>She and her kitchen were the most charming study imaginable.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then she began to pick over a pile of rough-looking green stuff, very +much like that we in England should contemptuously call weeds.</p> + +<p>Pick, pick, pick!</p> + +<p>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-day—food.</p> + +<p>Food means life.</p> + +<p>Food means victory.</p> + +<p>Food means the end of the War, and PEACE.</p> + +<p>You could read all that in her black, intelligent eyes.</p> + +<p>Then I began to sit up and watch her more closely still.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she is carefully peeling 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She always has that little smile for everything, and I think that goes +into the flavour somehow!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 apart—and 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Voilà! The salad!" she says, with her flash of a smile.</p> + +<p>Salad for five people—a 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 it—plus, in other words, her +thrift!</p> + +<p>Now she must empty my tea-pot.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>She would think that an absolutely wicked thing to do if she had ever +heard of such proceedings, but she has not.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I begin to say to myself, with quite an excited feeling, "Shall I ever +see her throw anything away?"</p> + +<p>Potatoes next.</p> + +<p>Ah! Now there'll be peelings, and those she'll have to throw away.</p> + +<p>Not a bit of it!</p> + +<p>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 <i>his</i> name! +Laughing, I tell of this tradition to my old Frenchwoman.</p> + +<p>And what do you think she answers?</p> + +<p>"The skin must be very thick not to break," she says solemnly. "But then +you English are all so rich!"</p> + +<p>Are we?</p> + +<p>Or are we simply—what?</p> + +<p>Is it that, bluntly put, we are lazy?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Finally we sat down to an exquisite supper.</p> + +<p>First, there was croûte au pot—the nicest soup in the world, said a +King of France, and full of nourishment.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>With that beef went the potatoes sautée in butter, and sprinkled with +chopped green.</p> + +<p>After that came the chicken mayonnaise and salad of asparagus tips +(otherwise cold scraps and weeds).</p> + +<p>There are five of us to supper in that little room behind the milliner's +shop—an 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 +coffee—such coffee!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>And that is French cooking in War time! </p> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 627px;"> +<a name="Permit_du_Dunkirque" id="Permit_du_Dunkirque"></a> +<img src="images/img_11_permit_to_dunkirk.jpg" width="627" alt="Permit du Dunkirque." title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">Permit du Dunkirque.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX</h3> + +<h3>THE FIGHT IN THE AIR</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Crash! Crash!</p> + +<p>Bewildered, not understanding, I heard one deafening intonation after +another fling itself fiercely from the cannons that guard the port and +city of Dunkirk.</p> + +<p>Then followed the shouts of fishermen, soldiers, nurses and the motley +handful of people who happened to be on the beach just then.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But while this little thrilling byplay was engaging the attention of +everyone far greater things were getting in train.</p> + +<p>Another Taube was sneaking, unobserved, among the clouds, and was +rapidly gaining a place high up above Dunkirk.</p> + +<p>And now it lets fall a bomb, that drops down, down, into the town +beneath.</p> + +<p>Immediately, with a sound like the splitting of a million worlds, +everything and everyone opens fire, French, English, Belgians, and all.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And now—what's this?</p> + +<p>All along the shore, slipping and sailing along across the sky comes +into sight an endless succession of Taubes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Crash! crash! crash! Bang! bang! bang! The cannon and the rifles are at +them now with a fury that defies all words.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>One! two! three! four! five! six! seven! eight! nine! ten!</p> + +<p>Everyone is counting.</p> + +<p>Eleven! twelve! thirteen! fourteen! fifteen! sixteen!</p> + +<p>"Voilà un autre!" cry the French soldiers every minute.</p> + +<p>They utter groans of rage and disgust.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then they glide away across the sea in the direction of England.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All the afternoon the audacious Taube remained rushing about high above +Dunkirk.</p> + +<p>But later that afternoon, as I was in a train en route for Fumes, fate +threw in my way the chance to see a glorious vindication!</p> + +<p>The train was brought suddenly to a standstill. We all jumped up and +looked out.</p> + +<p>It was getting dusk, but against the red in the sky two black things +were visible.</p> + +<p>One dropped a bomb, intended for the railway station a little further +on.</p> + +<p>By that we knew it was German, but we had little time to think.</p> + +<p>The other aeroplane rushed onwards; firing was heard, and down came the +German, followed by the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>They alighted almost side by side.</p> + +<p>We could see quite plainly men getting out and rushing towards each +other.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then our train went on.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L</h3> + +<h3>THE WAR BRIDE</h3> + + +<p>The train went on.</p> + +<p>It was dark, quite dark, when I got out of it ac last, and looked about +me blinking.</p> + +<p>This was right at the Front in Flanders, and a long cavalcade of French +soldiers were alighting also.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then, to my great surprise, I see coming out of the station two ladies +wrapped in furs, a young lady and an old one.</p> + +<p>"Delightful," I think to myself.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Je suis Anglais!" I add.</p> + +<p>"Avec beaucoup de plaisir!" they cry simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Presently we find ourselves in the quaint old Flemish Inn with oil lamps +and dark beams.</p> + +<p>The stout, grey-moustached landlord hastens forward.</p> + +<p>"Have you a message for Madame Louis." The bride gasps out her question.</p> + +<p>"Oui, Oui, Madame!" the landlord answers heartily. "There is a message +for you. You are to wait here. That is the message!"</p> + +<p>"Bien!"</p> + +<p>Her eyes flame with joy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And then a soldier walks in.</p> + +<p>He comes towards her. She springs to her feet.</p> + +<p>He utters a word.</p> + +<p>He is telling her her husband is out in the passage.</p> + +<p>Very wonderful is the way that girl gets across the big, smoky, Flemish +café.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Ah, but we can imagine it, we two, the old mother and I!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They come in presently.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They are bathed in smiles that keep breaking over their lips and eyes +like sun-kissed breakers on a summer strand, and everything they say +ends in a broken laugh.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, wonderful little one!" I whisper back.</p> + +<p>She understands and nods between tears and smiles again, while the two +divine ones sit gazing at the paradise in each other's eyes.</p> + +<p>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 soon—God in His mercy forbid—may fling this smiling, fair-headed +boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battle-field, leaving +his little one fatherless.</p> + +<p>Ah, but with what a heritage!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Till Death us do part!" say those thousands of brave young voices.</p> + +<p>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 +teaching;—that "life is fleeting," and they are afraid to lose one of +the golden moments which may so soon come to an end for ever.</p> + +<p>But that is not all.</p> + +<p>There is something else behind it all—something no less beautiful, +though less personal.</p> + +<p>There is the intention of the race to survive.</p> + +<p>Consciously, sometimes,—but more often unconsciously—our 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But now she is sorrowful, poor dear, a cloud has come over her bright, +generous face, with its affectionate black eyes, and tender lips.</p> + +<p>"He has been ordered to the trenches near Ypres!" she whispers sadly.</p> + +<p>"And your daughter," I gasp out.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Of our three faces it is still the girl wife's that is the brightest.</p> + +<p>She has changed, of course.</p> + +<p>She is no longer staring with dazzled eyes into her own bliss.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI</h3> + +<h3>A LUCKY MEETING</h3> + + +<p>To meet some one you know at the Front is an experiment in psychology, +deeply interesting, amusing sometimes, and often strangely illuminative.</p> + +<p>Indeed you never really know people till you meet them under the sound +of guns.</p> + +<p>It is at Furnes that I meet accidentally a very eminent journalist and a +very well-known author.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, up drives a funny old car with all its windows broken.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I look! They look!! We all look!!!</p> + +<p>One of them with a bright smile comes forward.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" says he.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And then I look over his shoulder and see another face.</p> + +<p>I can scarcely believe my eyes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Having a look round," says the journalist simply. "Seeing things for +myself a bit!"</p> + +<p>"How splendid!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>All in an instant, the journalistic instinct is alive in him, and +crying.</p> + +<p>I watch, fascinated.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>And after luncheon off we go.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>On we fly.</p> + +<p>We are right inside the Belgian lines now; the Belgian soldiers are all +around us, brave, wonderful "<i>Petits Belges!</i>"</p> + +<p>They always speak of themselves like that, the Belgian Army: "Les Petits +Belges!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We are no longer chic!"</p> + +<p>A Belgian Captain says it with a grin, as he chats to us at a halt where +we shew our passes.</p> + +<p>He flaps his hands in his pockets of his ragged overcoat and smiles.</p> + +<p>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 Liège, +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.</p> + +<p>A soldier loosens a bandage with his teeth, and breaks into a song.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">THE BELGIAN TO THE GERMAN.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et ils n'ont pas votre bel air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mais leur courage est magnifique.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A votre morgue ils donnent la nicque.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Au milieu de leur plus gros revers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si ils n'ont pas votre bel tunique,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et ils n'ont pas votre bel air!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I heard that the Belgians were getting boots from America," the author +puts in suddenly.</p> + +<p>The journalist turns his head with a jerk.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean," he asks sharply. "Do you mean that they have +<i>ordered</i> them from America, or that America's <i>giving</i> them."</p> + +<p>"I believe what my informant, a sick officer in the Belgian Army, whom +I visited this morning, told me was that the Americans were <i>giving</i> the +boots."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure it's <i>giving</i>?" 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 <i>they must have the boots.</i>"</p> + +<p>And I fancy they will get them, the heroes of Belgium. I think they will +get their hundred thousand boots.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We are in La Panne.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So the journalist, and the author and the others remain in the car. That +is infinitely considerate, exquisitely so, indeed.</p> + +<p>For no writer on earth would care to go looking around with the Jupiter +of Journalists at her elbow!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>In fact, there are no windows! They've all been smashed out of +existence. There are only holes.</p> + +<p>"We were under shell-fire this morning," observes the journalist +contentedly. Then truthfully he adds, "I don't like shrapnel!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If it hadn't been sable I would have let it go out of sheer humiliation.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>How did I hope the journalist would not be cross, for we were racing +back then against time, <i>without lights</i>, and it was highly important to +get off these crowded roads with the soldiers coming and going, coming +and going, before night fell.</p> + +<p>Cross indeed!</p> + +<p>I needn't have worried.</p> + +<p>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, puffing away at his big cigar.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where are you staying in Dunkirk?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"In a room over a milliner's shop. The town's full. I couldn't get in +anywhere else."</p> + +<p>"Then will you dine with us to-night at half-past seven, at the Hotel +des Arcades?"</p> + +<p>"I should love to."</p> + +<p>And we ran into Dunkirk.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +worn-out Belgian Officer came in there to get a meal.</p> + +<p>Precisely half-past seven, and there hastening towards me was our host.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His eyes were sparkling.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And we went in to dinner.</p> + +<p>The journalist arranged the table.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But with one swift wave of his hand he assigned us to our places.</p> + +<p>He sat on one side of the table with the Head of the Belgian Medical +Corps at his right.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What would he be like?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>No!</p> + +<p>One quickly discovered that the journalist was not at all that kind of +host.</p> + +<p>At dinner, where some men become bright and gay and inconsequential, +this man became serious.</p> + +<p>The food part of the affair bored him.</p> + +<p>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 pâté de fois gras, or fowl bouillé, or sausage. He was rapt +in his discussion with the Belgian Doctor on his right.</p> + +<p>Anæsthetics and antiseptics,—that's what they are talking about so +hard.</p> + +<p>And suddenly out comes a piece of paper.</p> + +<p>The journalist wants to send a telegram to England.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>And there, on the white cloth, scribbled on the back of a menu, he +writes out his telegram.</p> + +<p>"But then," says the journalist, reflectively, "if I sign that the +censor will hold it up for three days!"</p> + +<p>The Head of the Belgian Medical Department smiles.</p> + +<p>He knows what that telegram would mean to the Belgian Army.</p> + +<p>"Let <i>me</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>Just then the author on the left appears a trifle uneasy.</p> + +<p>He holds up an empty Burgundy bottle towards the light.</p> + +<p>"A dead 'un!" he announces, distinctly.</p> + +<p>But our host, in his abstraction, does not hear.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"That's a dead 'un too," he says.</p> + +<p>Just then, with great good luck, he manages to catch the journalist's +grey eye.</p> + +<p>"That's a dead 'un too," he repeats loudly.</p> + +<p>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 anæsthetics of the Belgian Army.</p> + +<p>And then all of a sudden the journalist wakes up.</p> + +<p>"Would you like some more wine?" he inquires.</p> + +<p>"These are both dead 'uns," asserts the author courageously.</p> + +<p>"We'll have some more!" says the journalist.</p> + +<p>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 +anæsthetics. 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.</p> + +<p>Burgundy, indeed!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And our soldiers love his yarns!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII</h3> +<h3> +THE RAVENING WOLF</h3> + + +<p>How hard it must be for the soldiers to remember chat 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.</p> + +<p>Ugh! How cold it is!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly something wakes me, and I know at once, even before I am +quite awake, that it is not shell-fire this time.</p> + +<p>What is it?</p> + +<p>I sit up in bed, and feel for the matches.</p> + +<p>But before I can strike one I hear again that extraordinary and very +horrible sound.</p> + +<p>I lie quite still.</p> + +<p>And now a strange thing has happened.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There's a wolf outside the window, I heard it howling!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I creep out of bed, and tiptoe to the window.</p> + +<p>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 <i>am</i> +frightened. From behind the white muslin curtains I gaze at that +apparition, absolutely petrified.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mon Dieu! It is a wolf!"</p> + +<p>Old Caspiar frames the word with his lips rather than utter them.</p> + +<p>"You must shoot it," frames his wife.</p> + +<p>Old Caspiar gets down his gun.</p> + +<p>But it falls from his hands.</p> + +<p>"I can't shoot any more," he groans. "I've lost my nerve."</p> + +<p>He begins to cry.</p> + +<p>Poor old man!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A touch on my arm and I start violently.</p> + +<p>"Madame!"</p> + +<p>It is poor old Madame Caspiar whispering to <i>me</i>.</p> + +<p>"You are English. You are brave n'est-ce-pas? Can <i>you</i> shoot the wolf."</p> + +<p>I am staggered at the idea.</p> + +<p>"Shoot! Oh! I'd miss it! I daren't try it. I've never even handled a +gun!" I stammer out.</p> + +<p>I see myself revealed now as the coward that I am.</p> + +<p>"Then <i>I</i> shall shoot it!" says old Madame Caspiar in a trembling voice.</p> + +<p>She picks up the gun.</p> + +<p>"When I was a girl I was a very good shot!"</p> + +<p>She speaks loudly, as if to reassure herself.</p> + +<p>Old Caspiar suddenly jumps up.</p> + +<p>"You're mad, Terèse. Vous êtes folle! You can't even see to read the +newspapers, <i>You!</i>"</p> + +<p>He takes the gun from her!</p> + +<p>She begins to cry now.</p> + +<p>"I shall go and call the others," she says, weeping.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet," he says crossly. "You'll frighten the beast away if you make +a noise like that!"</p> + +<p>He crosses the room and peers out again!</p> + +<p>"It's eating something!" he says. "Mon Dieu! <i>It's got</i> Chou-chou."</p> + +<p>Chou-chou is—<i>was</i> rather, the Caspiar's pet rabbit.</p> + +<p>"You shall pay for that!" mutters old Caspiar. Gently opening the +window, he fires.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I am more frightened of wolves than I am of Germans," confesses Madame +Caspiar in a whisper.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Other figures join us.</p> + +<p>Two Red-Cross French doctors, a wounded English Colonel, la grandmère, +Mme. Caspiar's mother, and a Belgian priest, all come issuing gradually +from the low portals of the Inn into the yard.</p> + +<p>Then in the chill dawn, with the glare of the snow-fields in our eyes, +we discuss the matter in low voices.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 ça Certainly there will be more."</p> + +<p>"C'est ça, c'est ça!" agrees the priest.</p> + +<p>"Such a huge beast too!" says the Colonel.</p> + +<p>He is probably comparing it with a fox.</p> + +<p>I find myself mentally agreeing with Madame Caspiar that Germans are +really preferable to wolves.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>We are all undoubtedly depressed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He comes clattering into the Inn.</p> + +<p>His small black eyes are swimming with tears.</p> + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" he says, gulping some coffee and rum. "Give me a little hot +milk, Madame! My poor monkey is near dying."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You poor little beast!" says the Colonel, bending down.</p> + +<p>He has seen men die in thousands, this gaunt Englishman with his eye in +a sling.</p> + +<p>But his voice is infinitely compassionate as he looks with one eye at +the little shivering creature, and murmurs again, "You <i>poor</i> little +brute!"</p> + +<p>"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! <i>I s'pose you +haven't seen a wolf, M'sieur, running about these parts?</i>"</p> + +<p>Nobody answers for a bit.</p> + +<p>We are all stunned.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But the old fellow brightens up when he hears that his wolf ate the +rabbit.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>French soldiers always steal the rabbits!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII</h3> + +<h3>BACK TO LONDON</h3> + + +<p>I am on my way back to London, grateful and glad to be once more on our +side of the Channel.</p> + +<p>"Five days!" exclaims a young soldier in the train.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Then he shakes himself, draws another deep breath, and says again, still +staring at the roof:</p> + +<p>"Five days!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Have you been wounded, Sir?" asks an old lady in a queer black +astrakhan cap, and with a big nose.</p> + +<p>"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. +<i>Want to go back?</i> 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! <i>We did it!</i> Somehow the English generally seem to do it. +Some of us had no boots left. Some of us had no feet. <i>But WE DID IT!</i>'"</p> + +<p>The old lady with the black astrakhan cap nods vigorously.</p> + +<p>"And the Germans wouldn't acknowledge that victory of ours," she says! +"I didn't see it in any of their papers."</p> + +<p>It is rather lovely to hear the dear creature alluding to Mons as "our +victory!"</p> + +<p>But indeed she is right. Mons is, in truth, our glory and our pride!</p> + +<p>But it is still more startling to find she knows secret things about the +German newspapers, and we all look at her sharply.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Dresden is being +turned into a fortified town and a basis for operations!</i>"</p> + +<p>We all now listen to <i>her</i>, the soldiers three as well.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>pain of +death</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Beasts!" says the wounded one.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>three legs to run away with!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Beasts!" says the wounded one. "Wait till I travel in Germany!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Beasts!" says the wounded one again.</p> + +<p>It is really remarkable what a variety of expressions this fair-haired +young English gentleman manages to put in a word.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Shure, all I care about," says the big, quiet Irishman in the corner, +"is to sleep and sleep and sleep!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What about the little oil stoves the newspapers say you're having?" +asks the old lady.</p> + +<p>"We've seen none of them!" assert the soldiers three.</p> + +<p>"Divil a one of them," adds the Irishman.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, chocolates!" says the wounded one, ecstatically. "But chocolate in +the sheet—thick, wide, heavy chocolate—there's nothing on earth like +it! I wrote home, and put all over my letters, Chocolate, <i>chocolate</i>, +CHOCOLATE. They sent me out tons of it. But I never got it. It went +astray, somewhere or other."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"What do you like most to receive?" asks the old lady.</p> + +<p>"Chocolate," they all answer simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Then the wounded one tells us a funny story.</p> + +<p>"I was getting messages in one day when this came through: '<i>The Turks +are wearing fez and neutral trousers!</i>' We couldn't make head or tail of +the neutral trousers! So we pressed for an explanation. It came. '<i>The +Turks are wearing fez, breaches of neutrality!'</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And while we are laughing the train runs into Victoria Station and the +soldiers three leap joyously out into the rain-wet London night.</p> + +<p>Then dear familiar words break on our ears, in a woman's voice.</p> + +<p>"Any luggage, Mum!" says a woman porter.</p> + +<p>And we know that old England is carrying on as usual!</p> + + +<p>THE END</p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 566px;"> +<a name="Sketch_map_of_Belgium" id="Sketch_map_of_Belgium"></a> +<img src="images/img_12_scetch_belgium.jpg" width="566" alt="SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM" title="" /> +<span class="caption_2">Sketch map of Belgium</span> +</div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Woman's Experience in the Great War, by +Louise Mack + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + +***** This file should be named 35392-h.htm or 35392-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35392/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Woman's Experience in the Great War + +Author: Louise Mack + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + + + + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + +A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR + +BY + +LOUISE MACK + + +(Mrs. CREED) + +AUTHOR OF "AN AUSTRALIAN GIRL IN LONDON" + +_With 11 full-page Illustrations_ + +LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN Ltd + +1915 + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + I. CROSSING THE CHANNEL + II. ON THE WAY TO ANTWERP + III. GERMANS ON THE LINE + IV. IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNS + V. AERSCHOT + VI. RETRIBUTION + VII. THEY WOULD NOT KILL THE COOK + VIII. "YOU'LL NEVER GET THERE" + IX. SETTING OUT ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE + X. FROM GHENT TO GRAMMONT + XI. BRABANT + XII. DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY + XIII. THE LUNCH AT ENGHIEN + XIV. WE MEET THE GREY-COATS + XV. FACE TO FACE WITH THE HUNS + XVI. A PRAYER FOR HIS SOUL + XVII. BRUSSELS + XVIII. BURGOMASTER MAX + XIX. HIS ARREST + XX. GENERAL THYS + XXI. HOW MAX HAS INFLUENCED BRUSSELS + XXII. UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION + XXIII. CHANSON TRISTE + XXIV. THE CULT OF THE BRUTE + XXV. DEATH IN LIFE + XXVI. THE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS + XXVII. "THE ENGLISH ARE COMING" + XXVIII. MONDAY + XXIX. TUESDAY + XXX. WEDNESDAY + XXXI. THE CITY IS SHELLED + XXXII. THURSDAY + XXXIII. THE ENDLESS DAY + XXXIV. I DECIDE TO STAY + XXXV. THE CITY SURRENDERS + XXXVI. A SOLITARY WALK + XXXVII. ENTER LES ALLEMANDS + XXXVIII. "MY SON!" + XXXIX. THE RECEPTION + XL. THE LAUGHTER OF BRUTES + XLI. TRAITORS + XLII. WHAT THE WAITING MAID SAW + XLIII. SATURDAY + XLIV. CAN I TRUST THEM? + XLV. A SAFE SHELTER + XLVI. THE FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND + XLVII. FRIENDLY HOLLAND + XLVIII. FRENCH COOKING IN WAR TIME + XLIX. THE FIGHT IN THE AIR + L. THE WAR BRIDE + LI. A LUCKY MEETING + LII. THE RAVENING WOLF + LIII. BACK TO LONDON + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_ + AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE + A FRIENDLY CHAT + PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER + THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD + A SPECIAL PERMIT + BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND + THE DANISH DOCTOR'S NOTE + MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND + SOUP FOR THE REFUGEES + PERMIT TO DUNKIRK + SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM + + + +A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN THE GREAT WAR + + + + +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 certainty--shot 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!" + +"_C'est 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 day--onwards 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 beet-roots +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? _C'est 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 stationmaster 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 Chaussee 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 note--almost 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 sub-consciousness 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 pitch-black, 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 Liege, whose trembling pink feet peeped from +the blankets in which he had been carried down. + +There was a lovely heroic Liege 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 Liege 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 lisp--a daring aviator--never 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 garcons, 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 messages--there 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 dastard 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 +courtyard. + +"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! + + + +[Illustration: AN ORDER FROM THE BELGIAN WAR OFFICE.] + + + + +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 cafes 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 Chabeau +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 Liege, 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 aircraft 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. + +[Illustration: A FRIENDLY CHAT.] + +We had gone a long way when we were brought to a standstill at a little +place called Heyst-op den 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!_" + +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 houses--street 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, perhaps--everywhere, +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 now--the girl and her village swain--shot 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 Aerschot--a +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 lie 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 having 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 lifetime 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 +Liege 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 +Liege that I must attend to. But to get to Liege 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 Liege, the black-eyed mother with two adorable little boys, and a +delightful big husband--the gallant chevalier, in yellow bags of +trousers, whom I have already referred to in an earlier chapter. + +This little Liegeoise 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 monkeys--all 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 Liege, 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 hand-shaking 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 don't 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 Liege professor could +scarcely be imagined. + +Poor old soul! + +He had lost his wife a week before the war, and in the siege of Liege +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 battle-field, +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 Liege produced his, and I +produced my English passport. + +Jean talked a great deal, and the stationmaster 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 dreamlike 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 knew--six +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." + +[Illustration: PASSPORT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER.] + +"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 francs--right 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 too--will do in war time! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DRIVING EXTRAORDINARY + + +The task of arranging that party in the waggonette was anything but +easy. + +The old Liege 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 with--my 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. + +"_Il y a des Allemands?_" or + +"_Il y a de danger?_" + +The answer would come back: + +"_Pas des Allemands!_" or + +"_Oui, les Allemands sont la_," pointing to the right. Or + +"_Les Allemands sont la_," 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 waving 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?_" + +"_Il 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 ca!_" 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 protection.--outside _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 bif-steak_, and +fried potatoes, and cheese, and fruit and a _bon cafe_! + +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 l'Angleterre!_" + +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 growlings 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 appetit_" 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 cafe_ 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 +over-strained 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 Liege 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 Liege 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 headquarters 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 languages--German, 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 thing--only 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 Liege 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 +off 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 +_common-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 +darken--the power of mind over matter, the mastery of good over evil. + +From this War three such men stand out immortally--King 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 on--n'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 Gouvernement + 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 ed 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 cite 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 dramatic--the 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 Chaussee +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 ball--it was the last in Brussels before the war--M. 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 +civilisation--or 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 is--the beautiful truth--that 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 XXII + +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 lifetime 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 Liege professor, and he tells me +plaintively that he will be glad to move on to Liege. + +"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 Liege?" + +"Of course you will." + +"But do you think I will ever get back from Liege 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 +intolerable--the thought of this poor brave old trembling Belgian, +weighted with years and flesh, struggling so manfully to get back to +Liege, 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 Liege 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 how seems +given over to ghosts and echoes. Unable to bear it, I moved into the +Metropole. + +It was very strange to be there, very strange indeed! This was the +Metropole and yet not the Metropole! Sometimes I could not believe it +was the Metropole at all--the gay, bright, lively, friendly, +companionable Metropole--so 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; Fraeulein 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 Metropole and went through all 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. + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN SAFEGUARD.] + + + + +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 Heyst-op-den-Berg. + +A brooding soul--mist 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 +knap-sacks, 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 +chat were ever written to a King. + +SIRE, + +Apres des combats honorables livres les 4, 5, et 6 aout par la 3eme +division d'armee renforcee, a partir du 5, par la 15eme brigade, j'ai +estime que les forts de Liege ne pouvaient plus jouer que le role de +forts d'arret. J'ai neanmoins conserve le gouvernement militaire de la +place afin d'en coordonner la defense autant qu'il m'etait possible et +afin d'exercer une action morale sur les garnisons des forts. + +Le bien-fonde de ces resolutions a recu par la suite des preuves +serieuses. + +Votre Majeste n'ignore du reste pas que je m'etais installe au fort de +Loncin, a partir du 6 aout, vers midi. + +SIRE, + +Vous apprendrez avec douleur que ce fort a saute bier a 17 h. 20 +environ, ensevelissant sous ses ruines la majeure partie de la garnison, +peut-etre les huit-dixiemes. + +Si je n'ai pas perdu la vie dans cette catastrophe, c'est parce que mon +escorte, composee comme suit: captaine commandant Collard, un +sous-officier d'infanterie, qui n'a sans doute pas survecu, le gendarme +Thevenin et mes deux ordonnances (Ch. Vandenbossche et Jos. Lecocq) m'a +tire d'un endroit du fort ou j'allais etre asphyxie par les gaz de la +poudre. J'ai ete porte dans le fosse ou je suis tombe. Un captaine +allemand, du nom de Gruson, m'a donne a boire, mais j'ai ete fait +prisonnier, puis emmene a Liege 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 tres abime par l'explosion de Loncin. + +En Allemagne, ou je vais etre dirige, mes pensees seront ce qu'elles ont +toujours ete: la Belgique et son Roi. J'aurais volontiers donne 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 Belgium--here 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 months--_then 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 +cafes. 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-sense--and their mercy! + +And at thought of mercy the _Bruxellois_ gazes away down the flat, dusty +road--away 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 cafe. "Louvain" is marked on it in white chalk. On a +black board, in the cafe 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 cafe opposite the ruined +theatre is full of pale, trembling old men, sipping their byrrh 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 a 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 +bebe que vous avez tenu dans les bras) dont 2 institutrices. J'en suis +une des deux, Mme. Stoefs. J'ai ete a Gand esperant vous revoir, mais +vous etiez repartie deja. Peut etre ici a Londres, amais-je ce plaisir. +J'y suis encore jusqu'a la fin de cette semaine, donc soyez assez +aimable de me dire ou et quand nous pourrions nous rencontrer. Voici mon +adresse: Mme. Stoefs: Verstegen, 53, Maple Street, W. Au plaisir de vous +revoir, je vous presente mes cordiales salutations. + +CHARLOTTE STOEFS. + +Institutrice a 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 _fusille_." + +"They found his body in the garden!" + +"Il est tout-a-fait ruine." + +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 cafes 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, surrender--rather 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 Liege, 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 voila! 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. + +[Illustration: A SPECIAL PERMIT.] + +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, voila! 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 +Metropole_ in the streets. + +A strange hushed silence hangs over the besieged city, and through the +silence the clocks strike six, and almost immediately the _maitre +d'hotel_ 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 a 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 _cafe-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 it--it must be--from Above! + +[Illustration: BELGIAN REFUGEES IN HOLLAND] + + + + +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, far-away 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 role 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 cafe, because I cannot hear the lift. + +A waiter brings me some coffee and I stand and drink it and look about +me. + +The cafe 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 bewilderment--a sheep--a dog--a donkey--a cow--a +horse--more 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 AEschylus 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 despair--grim, 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 etes 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 mere_! 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 mere 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 +Marche 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 heart-breaking 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, heart-break 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 city--anywhere, 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 cafes, 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 city--loved 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, Arles, 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 +Chaussee 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, Jeanette, 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, addled, 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 sharpness--the +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 chat 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 schonen 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'armee allemande est entree dans votre +ville en vainquer. Aucun de vos concitoyens +ne sera inquiete et vos proprietes seront respectees +a la condition que vous vous absteniez de toute +hostilite. + +"Toute resistance sera punie d'apres 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 stealthily 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 9th--the 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 truth--one 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 Creme 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 pas 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, brow--always remaining unseen, unknown, uninvited, +unintelligible--yet 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 danger--I 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 premonitions 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." + +"_C'est 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 courage--you 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 cafes, 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 cafe. 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, Francois? Surely you wouldn't have told him about me unless you +_knew_ he was trustworthy!" + +"C'est ca!" agreed big, fat, sad-eyed Francois. "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 chooses." + +"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 I 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 acquaintances, 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 +English--the tender, generous, grateful English--as though they were +their own little ones--even 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 Kaiser--that once gay, bright +Belgian Avenue where I had so often walked with Alice, my dear little +_Liegeoise_, 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 grandmere 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 Chaussee de Malines, or Rue Lamariniere, +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 Conquerors! 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 Francois 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, Jeanette 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 Francois' 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?" + +[Illustration: The Danish Doctor's note.] + +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. + +[Illustration: MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND.] + + + + +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 Society--that is to say, in Court circles +and in the military set that is included in this classification--there +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 +Dutch--and 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 Holland--a 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 Holland--suffering +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 +Holland--the 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. + +[Illustration: Soup for the refugees.] + +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? 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 heart-breaking 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 L85,000 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. + + + + +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-day--food. + +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 peeling 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 apart--and 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 people--a 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 it--plus, in other words, her +thrift! + +Now she must empty my tea-pot. + +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 simply--what? + +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 pot--the 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 +(otherwise cold scraps and weeds). + +There are five of us to supper in that little room behind the milliner's +shop--an 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 +coffee--such 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! + + + +[Illustration: Permit du Dunkirque.] + + + + +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 now--what'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 un 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 Fumes, 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 ac 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 sun-kissed 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 soon--God in His mercy forbid--may fling this smiling, fair-headed +boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battle-field, 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 +teaching;--that "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 all--something no less beautiful, +though less personal. + +There is the intention of the race to survive. + +Consciously, sometimes,--but more often unconsciously--our 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 Liege, +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 truthfully 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, puffing 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 +worn-out 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 pate de fois gras, or fowl bouille, 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 chat 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, Terese. Vous etes 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 is--_was_ 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 grandmere, +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! _I 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 chocolate--there'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 L250 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 +L5! 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 + + + +[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF BELGIUM] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Woman's Experience in the Great War, by +Louise Mack + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN GREAT WAR *** + +***** This file should be named 35392.txt or 35392.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/9/35392/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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