Front matter (continued 2)

At last the sight of the refugees grew too painful. We went off to pick up what we could. Twice we ran to the near end of Gastouche, bringing back untidy loads of children and mothers. The second time we tried to get through, by a corner, a few miles further to Overrysche. We had just passed the barrier of faggots and village carts, with two nervous-bold Guards at the "present," when at the end of a short cross lane through the cottages on the right I saw the flicker and movement of horse soldiers passing, sixty yards off.

The same instant a shot came from a cottage behind them, and a rush of shrieking women down the lane. We turned at once and waited: the Uhlans, some eight of them, had wheeled back out of sight, where the cottages ran into the wood. The men shouted to the women to keep indoors; a few stray children ran back and forwards in the lane, crying. Then the door of a far cottage opened, and the crippled soldier who had fired the shot was half-carried out. A fine red-bearded fellow. He was perspiring, inarticulate with rage at having missed and with the lust of fighting. We shoved him into the car, with a few more women, and got back to Wavre. As we passed, we saw some thirty of the Civic Guard shut in a yard, down a lane, behind a wooden barrier.

Even the civic calm had begun to quiver. The surging, homeless crowd of villagers were talking loudly at the corners; and every now and then a farmer in shirtsleeves bicycled furiously in, to complain of a house occupied or horses stolen. The German outposts were all round us, and the place undefended.

The utterly helpless agitation of a population unable to do anything, seeing itself, without an hour's notice from the authorities, forced to surrender home after home, and forbidden to resist, was an inexpressibly painful sight, and cannot occur often, even in war. Undefended towns, when abandoned, generally have some warning. Here the enemy dropped out of the sky in an hour; and the peasants looked round to find their own army gone. There was not even the previous "working up" of a losing fight.

A shout and a rush. A cyclist, red-flushed, raced into the square, brandishing a Uhlan helmet, picked up—who knows where? Another greater shouting and swarming, and two stout farmers rode in, leading four splendid Uhlan horses, Irish-bred, and full of mettle. Where did they come from? What did it all mean? Time may show.

Waterloo, Thursday night.

To-day's story is still unfinished.

As the day wore on at Wavre, it became clear that Brussels was to be included in the general evacuation. The sound of the guns could be followed, as the Belgians fell back towards Antwerp.

This was, then, no more a matter of "Uhlan-hunting," by withdrawal and encircling movement. The Prussians had penetrated too far, by surprise or with foreknowledge; the country was being evacuated.

The horses of Uhlans captured were fresh, signifying no lost or wandering parties, but portions of a main column that had camped near. The troops, also, which we had seen were behaving quietly, not in the savage manner of the after-fight. They knew the country was clear of soldiers, and could take their time. To this, probably, we owed our own immunity at Gastouche. A column of some eight hundred horse could be seen with the glass moving over the hills south of Wavre.

We heard that Louvain was being evacuated. About five o'clock we left the Civil Guard behind their railings, helpless and furious, and hurtled towards Brussels. To some twenty little patrols of cavalry and cars we gave the news. Their faces told me it was not the unexpected.

Not a quiet run. Twice the distant "burr" of the aeroplanes, and we identified the German "Taube" machines over the woods. We turned east towards Jodoigne; to find the trenches empty, our army gone. An armoured car, packed with German infantry, flashed through a cross-road behind us. Once again a waving of arms checked us, and the peasants, half fearful, half excited, warned us of a wood ahead; but we rushed it without incident.

So back to Brussels—to the close gathering of restless crowds under the lamps, the quick glance of suspicious eyes, and rumour, nervous, whispered rumour.

The roads were crowded with fugitives with bundles, cows, and carts. The suburbs hummed uneasily. The evening papers were just appearing, announcing that "the situation is unchanged; the Germans are still along the Meuse"; while every third man on the road had seen them within fifteen miles, and the air had quivered with the approaching guns all day!

The game of secrecy has been played too long. It has deceived nobody and increased the unrest. It is to be hoped that the good sense of the Belgians will forgive it, for the sake of its innocent purpose, when the hour of triumphant return comes.

I left Brussels again late in the evening and worked down towards Louvain, in the dark, meeting the last of the fugitive crowds and the trains of wounded. Leaving the car securely hidden, by by-lanes and cobble-ways I got forward, avoiding the flank of the retreating Belgians, and making for the light of two burning cottages—my last sight of Louvain.

A few small fights were still going on, as sound and sight indicated. Covering parties of Belgians, in small numbers, were heroically sacrificing themselves to protect the strategic retreat on its northward wheel.

Below a slight field-slope, upon the crest of which the flash of rifle fire and the long snake-rattle of the mitrailleuse showed where some section was still making a last stand, I found a shelter. I had made for the west of their certain line of retreat down the fields, and hid uncomfortably in a ditch of bushes, which discovered itself, accidentally and somewhat painfully, in the dark.

Clearly, only a few men were holding the trench above. The whistle of shot, well overhead and to my left, was continuous. Soon there was the buzz of a motor down an invisible lane below, and one of the German cars, fitted with a mitrailleuse-wheel, got into position, to begin raking them from the rear. By means of motors, in this flood of advance, the Germans have moved up light guns and infantry at the speed of cavalry.

A few scattered shots getting nearer told me that the men above me were running back. One, blundering so that I could hear his feet, clearly wounded, stopped running, as the sound showed, near me. I got him after a time into the same ditch as myself. It ran along close to where he fell.

Having cleared this corner, the Germans had evidently something better to do. The firing above and below stopped. After a long wait I managed to get the little trooper, one of a regiment I had chatted with last week, down to an abandoned cottage in the lane below. Only an arm wound; so I left him, bandaged, for the Red Cross to fetch in.

I got back slowly, keeping the line by the burning cottages. The drive that followed will not easily be forgotten—at headlong speed through awkward lanes. Only once—we were running without lights—did a challenge stop us; but we chanced its being a friend, and only heard the stray shot after us, in the dark.

Some day I may be able to write the story of the "audacious chauffeur." He swept me thirty miles through the night with extraordinary nerve and skill. Only one of several daring runs.

There was no rest this last night. It was clear Brussels would be occupied in a few hours. In that event we were under promise to bring out a certain frightened mother and her babies. The event had seemed remote; but, like the tide on flat sands, while we watched the distant edge of the sea, it was already up, round, and behind us.

We were already all but cut off, since Brussels must now in a few hours cut the last of its communications.

Friday, Daylight.

Down the car went again at 3 a.m., while I tried to get some sleep. It seemed only a moment later that there was shouting in the village, and a rattle of wooden sabots passed under the window, running.

I looked out, under the cottage blind; and in a few minutes, through the grey early light, two or three mounted, grey-shimmering Lancers walked their horses down the street. It seemed as if they were provoking the cottagers to fire at them. More probably they were perfectly confident in the general evacuation of this district. There were more, the women told me later, riding past outside the cottages.

It was an undignified time of waiting, with no chance of a fight. Nothing to do but dress, smoke, and get the papers ready in case they came in. The terrible "game" is so real, even for the non-fighter, that their passing, and the quiet of the empty street that followed, brought more relief than one cares usually to confess to.

Bruges, Friday noon.

It was no use trying to sleep there, with the nervous chatter beginning of the women clustered under the windows, and with the chance of "more" coming. The loan of a captured Uhlan horse, a trophy which the village was now anxious to dispense with, and another lift from a car returning for wounded, took me down again in the fields to the east of Brussels.

A different sight this morning. For the Prussians were already half-way into Brussels, on a clear parade march. The squalor and horror of the battlefields were behind them. They were flooding easily through open, still country, with the surrender of the city already promised them. The insane game of war was being played out with at least one cleanly, if, for us, melancholy, move.

I got out short of Cortinbeck. A few casual cyclists gave me confidence to wait. The roads were moving in the distance with advancing cavalry. I could see, with the glasses, more crossing the sky line. It seemed better to avoid, on the return, some dusty advance party patrols, in cars; but they appeared to be paying civilian casuals little attention.

When I regained the outskirts of Brussels the entanglements of wire and the barriers of omnibuses were being cleared away—that pleasantly reassuring joke—and the arms of the Civil Guard were being piled by the streets. Zealous, honest Dogberries! It seemed hard that, after being a conscientious and needful nuisance to their friends for so long, they should not be allowed to challenge or scrutinise even one enemy!

I did not wait to see the entry into Brussels. There are limits to the passive endurance even of a non-combatant. The only triumphant entry I shall willingly witness is the return there of the brown, tired, gay-hearted little Belgian soldiers, whom I have learned to admire as an army and sympathise with individually in their magnificent struggle against odds.

The nature of our load made it wise to make a safe circuit west of Brussels, on our retreat. The watching lion at Waterloo, as we passed, seemed to wear a different look: surprised to see no battle array, indignant at his desertion.

At first, by request, we did courier work, carrying the news to isolated town-garrisons. The further we got, the less curious did the people become for news. Resignation, apathy, stolid village optimism, according to the locality.

Our armfulls of blue-eyed babies, five, six, and eight, brought the only smiles to the faces we saw. The great mass of cars had already gone; yesterday and before. A few hurrying cars, carts, and bicycles with luggage. Now and again in a village the little crowds of peasant fugitives with bundles. Occasionally some women, resting and cooking by the wayside. The further down the line, the more troublesome again became our familiar checks, the local watchmen, at their now pathetically futile barriers. It would have been cruel to assure them, when they became obstructive, that their authority was gone. We circled by Waterloo westward, almost as far as Oudenarde.

At one village a swarm of little dark-eyed Flemings, in sabots, pretended to shoot us with large bows and arrows made of half-hoops, from behind a sham barrier of branches and wheel-barrows; a half-tragic commentary. At Ghent our car was within a single word of being "requisitioned." The babies fulfilled their object by capturing smiles and safe passage.

At Bruges we have been kept for an hour because "German spies" have been signalled as having passed in a car up the road. Having got so far as to stop all the bridges, the dignitaries can do no more. The world is upset, and must wait.

Ostend, Friday night.

The crowd of carts and cars that accumulated at last proved too much even for the patience of the Gardes, and we all crushed through and over.

Nowhere had the news been received; everywhere the blind is still kept down. It is a dangerous game to play, with men raging as I have heard them the last few days. But the result may justify it.

It is no good recalling the shadow moments of pain and tragedy that cover like a cloud even the small corner which one man may see of this destruction and panic called war.

Every event is out of proportion, impossible. The dead body one stumbles over is no more real or important than the bad-mannered shop-keeper who is doing his best as a civic sentinel. One thinks of nothing but the chance of the next fantastic incident; and if it comes as a death or as a child crying, it seems equally serious, equally foolish, equally without origin or relation to the next event.

In the course of these two days, started so peacefully, it will be seen that we have been involved in the French retreat on the west, in the Prussian flood and the dramatic evacuation in the centre, in a corner of the last battle at Louvain, on the east, in the evening, the morning entry of the enemy to occupy Brussels, and finally in the east of the flight to the south. If we put the facts of the last few days together, so far as we know them, without going outside official information, this seems to be about the position:

The German northern army, profiting perhaps even more than we did by the check at Liége, had two possible alternatives, supposing their objective to be Brussels, and the "hole" on the frontier by Mons and Charleroi. And Brussels was necessary, to re-affirm their credit in Berlin.

The first alternative was through by Gembloux, Quatre Bras, and Genappe, avoiding the forest of Soignes. This would have struck the weak link between the French advanced force, in the neighbourhood of Sombreffe, and the Belgian lines from Wavre to Diest.

The second was to push north, along the frontier, to Hasselt, and break through the Belgian left before it could be reinforced by the French, threatening both Antwerp and Brussels.

This was their choice. They were aware that the French could not push up rapidly enough to establish the link firmly, or in great enough numbers to be able to reinforce the menaced left wing.

The French, nevertheless, did some very fine marches in order to profit by the splendid Belgian resistance at Liége and Haelen. But it was too late for the change of plan. When I was among them, at Mazy and Gembloux and Perwez, it seemed as if they were in time to force the Germans to take the more southerly line, and face them and the Belgian arc on their north. The Germans knew better. Under screen of their scattered Uhlans, here and there all over the country, forcing the Belgians, always in inferior numbers, to expand and contract as their attacks were located, they moved a far larger force than was estimated across the Meuse. Behind their pause at Liége they converted the hastily mobilised inferior troops, whom the Belgians had learned to despise, into the engine of magnificent equipment and pace that is now launched across Belgium.

This has pushed rapidly north, by motor, ahead of the French; and by sheer weight of numbers, hurling columns in mass, at great sacrifice of life, has broken the Belgian left at Diest and Aerschot in the terrific fights of the last two days.

The French made great efforts to get up, and actually got a certain number by forced marches far enough to take the places of decimated Belgian regiments in the line. But the smashing numbers and artillery made the Belgian position, in its open trenches and entanglements on easy country, impossible. Their left once turned, the small Belgian army had no choice but to fall back on Malines and Antwerp. They had to choose between defending Brussels, to keep the link with the French, and covering Antwerp, which opened the road to Brussels. Antwerp was obviously the more important, and better prepared for defence. Brussels must have been destroyed in a siege, with immense loss of life to the huge numbers who have swarmed into it.

Wavre and all the district where I was travelling to and fro yesterday was therefore evacuated, as the Belgians retired north. Their retirement compelled a synchronous falling back of the French upon the Sambre, to protect their own left wing when the link with the Belgians was broken.

The Germans obtained free passage both on the east and south to Brussels. The rapidity of their progress is evidenced by the fact that when I passed round west of Brussels to-day, advance cavalry patrols were already reported in the neighbourhood of Oudenarde (about 35 miles west of Brussels, towards Lille).

It will be seen that, on paper at least, the Belgian army is in no pleasant position. If the Germans continue to press northward on their left flank, the Belgians will constantly have to be wheeling to their own left front, to face them on the east. They will be forced to retreat until they rest upon Malines and Antwerp.

At the same time any small force of Germans left in Brussels is largely out of the game. The Belgians threaten their northern communications. The farther the Germans push north, to Ghent or Ostend, the more danger that their lines can be cut. All depends whether this German northern advance is merely an army of occupation, to subdue Belgium, or the main army of advance upon France. In the latter case, it will not now be stopped this side of the frontier.

Ostend, Saturday night.

To-day the German flood has advanced with extraordinary rapidity. The Belgian army is for the moment off the board. At express speed and with clockwork regularity the country is being occupied. We know now that this must be the main army of attack.

Sweeping from the east by three routes, and through and past Brussels, the main German advance has turned south-west. Passing close to Waterloo and through Hal it is directed against the frontier between Valenciennes and Maubeuge. A lighter cavalry column is passing further north, as if towards Lille.

The main advance, since my encounter with it at Cortinbeck and at Waterloo, on the morning after the battle of Louvain and Aerschot, it has been impossible to follow. But to-day I took the region from the French frontier, on the west of Brussels, with some idea of "beating all the bounds" of what is left of our surrendered but unoccupied country. For, with the exception of the section from Malines to Antwerp, Belgium has been surrendered, the troops on the way have been disbanded, and the Civic Guard has been discharged. At Alost yesterday I met many of them, dismissed from Brussels, but still in uniform and anxious for news. To-day I came across them again in Ghent, further reduced and in mufti. In many cases their wives have insisted on destroying their uniforms.

I looked forward to a restful day in the Flemish rural districts, with, perhaps, some news of the French. I was tired of coming upon Uhlans round corners. It is a peculiarly trying business, exploring for an enemy, with no troops, no sound of guns, or the consequent rumours, to warn beforehand of their proximity! It is even more disagreeable when you have to lose your enemy again rather faster than you have found him!

The wandering about the fertile, remote province, with its long, shaded, cobbled roads and low-cottaged, dusty villages, was a pleasant change. In the morning the region was still entirely untouched by the war. The dark-eyed children, with bleached blonde hair, in noisy sabots, swarmed like puppies in the streets and about the car. The Civil Guard were the only distraction. In the country fields they generally could not read at all, and waved us on, blushing in their blue blouses. In the small towns they could read "Vlamsch," but no French, which irritated them. Often "Madame" had to be called in to help, before the carts and ploughs were shoved aside. One old peasant was particularly troublesome. He was both deaf and blind, and behind his road-barrier of harrows he nursed a rusty bayonet dating from Waterloo.

The only incidents of the early day were an agitated hay-cart that upset upon us, and a line of retreating engines, at Ingelmunster, which took the level crossing at the same moment as ourselves. "The service is so disorganised," the station-master excused himself for our scratched paint.

On the French frontier—near Poperinghe—we met our friends the French. A cavalry contingent entertained us pleasantly at lunch round the soup-pot. Satisfied of the safety of our western border, we turned east, to cut across the noses of any advancing German columns. My object was to discover if they were striking north to Ostend, or direct west towards Lille, as well as south-west on their main line. Through Ypres, Roulers, Vijve, and Deynze we ran to Ghent. The country was still clear; the "war feeling" absent; but the Flemish are slow to catch emotional infections.

In Ghent we met the news. The Germans had flooded incredibly swiftly north. A column had in the morning reached Melle, just south of Ghent. Reports of eye-witnesses of its passing put it at 70,000 cavalry. Clearly it was a fair-sized and fast column.

I felt certain that it would turn west, and not continue north to Ostend. It must form part of a quick cavalry turning movement to the north of the main advance on the French and British position. We should have time to make certain later in the day. Passing quickly through Ghent, to avoid "requisitioning" of the car, we pushed out towards Termonde, on the east, hoping to be able to make sure of the position of the Belgian lines also, on their new arc of defence.

Warnings of "Uhlans" soon began to meet us in quick succession. We touched the outposts of the Belgians, and having thus made secure of our two frontiers, west and east, to avoid unnecessary risk we ran back to Ghent. The Belgians are worn and have lost heavily. The troops do not yet know where the British are. They were, consequently, difficult to deal with.

Ghent was in the now familiar condition of crowd panic. The railway communication had practically ceased. Disbanded soldiers were trying to get away. The squares were crowded with anxious, waiting people; the roads beginning to fill with the crowds of fugitives on foot and in carts. While waiting for a few moments to talk to Belgian friends—quickly made in time of war—occurred an unpleasing incident. A corporal of the line, followed by three privates in uniform, suddenly rushed across the square, their faces red and drawn with terror, and demanded the car. The chauffeur, an old soldier, was at once involved in fierce argument. My new-made friends faded away.

The crowd, simmering with panic and crying already of "treachery" and "revolution," as the effect of the extent to which they have been kept in ignorance of the military situation until too late, swarmed round in an instant angrily.

At the words "Give it up or I fire," frantically shouted, I thought it time to interfere. I had two bayonets at once thrust against my chest.

"Where do you wish to be taken, friend?" He growled the name of some village on the French frontier. The position grew clearer. He was one of the "disbanded" escaping to his home. There were many, all about us, but in civilian clothes.

"I will take you, in uniform, to any place you choose at the front; but no law compels me to carry fugitives." ("Fuyards" is much stronger.) "Get into clothes like mine, and I'll drop you at any (sacré) hiding-hole that suits you."

The effect on the crowd was electric. The soldiers faded; and we left, after a proper interval, to let the crowd cool down.

Not a quarter of a mile to the west of Ghent, where the roads were spotted with carts of escaping households, an enormous Franciscan monk blocked the road, with uplifted cross. "Stop, and take us, in the name of the Virgin." He was supporting two wounded soldiers. It appeared that, in foolish panic, all the private hospitals had been emptied. "Sauve qui peut" was the word. The sick and wounded soldiers, many from Liége, dressed in any odd civilian clothes, were being turned out on to the roads to find their way to remote homes.

We bundled them in; took them to the nearest railway line; flagged a train at a level crossing, and sent them off, with breathless blessings from the railway window. But the roads were full of them: men limping, men almost crawling, without money, and with only the dangerous soldier's "pass" to carry them to their villages, already held by the enemy.

For many hours we had given up our purpose of localising the column, and travel backwards and forwards over the province, scattering them far and wide in remote villages, either to their wives, or often in the care of kindly women, who would pretend to be their wives or mothers, in safer places. The strange panic feeling had now spread wide. Everywhere were the little swarms of subdued people, with puzzled, sullen faces, seen in forlorn villages. The cottages were emptying, shop-windows being hurriedly covered, and signs hastily painted out.

The Civil Guard, disbanded, were being confusedly shoved into civilian dress by their terror-stricken wives and daughters.

Occasionally I had to sit and make explanatory conversations in the market places to knots of depressed Flemish civic fathers, who would otherwise have made even more difficulty about our frequent journeyings. "Where are the English?" "Who has betrayed us?" "Why have we been kept in the dark, and now find ourselves helpless?"—all of them unanswerable questions.

It became peculiarly difficult to keep up such talk, when, later in the day, every quarter-hour would come a rush of clogs down the street, and the roar of "They're coming!" The elders melted miraculously, and I was left in the empty street facing a row of half-filled beer glasses, and the thought that it might be true this time.

Towards evening we ran into the French outposts again, at Ypres. They are well over the frontier, and ready.

We turned north at last in the dark, realising that even in these few hours the tide of Germans had almost cut us off, even from the coast. No province was to be left us by the immense efficiency of the machine. It was moving now over undefended country. It has been notably revised since Liége.

But a cry from a dark group under the dark trees on a lonely twelve miles of road again stopped us: "Nous avons peur" (we are afraid) wailed sadly, as we shot past. Two wounded soldiers, with two children who had been to visit them. They, like many others, were from the heroic Liége forts. They would be safe at their homes in Courtrai. On the road, wandering, as many more were, right across the German line of advance, they were in considerable danger.

To run for Courtrai was to run from the French lines, directly at the head of the probable German advance.

Peasants, however, assured us that nothing had been seen; and it would complete our locating of the positions of all the armies in this corner of the world, if we found trace of the enemy.

It was an exhilarating night run. Still the knots of folk at the corners, but now even the children were silent.

We dropped them, our last load, at the cross road entering Courtrai. The car was turned to come back; when, from far down the other branch, towards Deynze, came the roar of a racing car at full speed, devouring the silence. Half a mile off sounded a shot, and again two, nearer us, a little later. We started to move, and in a few seconds a car with three Belgians in uniform rushed past us. One lay back, and his arm was being bound up by his companion. They shouted warning. "They are back there: we have come over one." And again: "Look out! There are more in front!"

We did our best to keep up with them—a rather wild race in the dark, on roads straight but rough, for long black miles at a time. They drew ahead, but this served also to draw the fire from us. Twice again a shot sounded sharply in front. But we only had the half-gleam of the lamps on a shadow-man and a frightened shadow-horse, when we, in turn, passed the Uhlan patrols who had fired.

It was not worth continuing as far as the French lines, clearly the object of the car ahead. We turned off on the first good diagonal to the north. We had learned what we wished. These were the usual Uhlans clearing the ground; ahead of an advance to the west; not for the present to the north.

The return to Ostend all through the night was strange in its quieter fashion. The Flemish peasant, once he is frightened or suspicious, becomes a dangerous man. We had serious difficulties at infinite numbers of barriers. And always the halt brought round a muttering, shuffling swarm of hostile faces and voices. Along the roads we passed small carts and wagons, creaking slowly with families of fugitives. There was no reason for any one to fly in view of the general surrender, but suspicion and panic were spreading, and stories of German savagery wildly exaggerated and widely believed.

Occasionally the lights glanced off long lines of black-shawled women, returning from night pilgrimages to more potent saints. In the middle of long black stretches of lonely road we passed suddenly before open shrines, blazing with votive tapers. Near big villages, in the larger shrines the heads of many children were silhouetted sharply against the dazzling altars. Generally a ring of kneeling women outside shut the children in; and the momentary sound of chanting came and went as we passed.

At a crossing a train, without lights, crept back timidly towards Ghent. At another, seven trains in succession went past, full of volunteers shipped to the French frontier. A car, with the windows smashed by bullets, deserted under the trees, told of the passing of more Uhlans. We half expected to find the Uhlans already here when we returned; but it was only the exit of carts and carriages of luggage that interrupted our race in, near midnight. We had started to define the boundaries left to us, and before our return very little was left us but the sea!

England, Sunday.

Arriving at midnight at Ostend, I found myself "almost the very last" foreign inhabitant. The Uhlans had been reported at twenty miles; we had seen them at thirty; they were expected at any hour. Of the method of my leaving, and of the episode of the dramatic visit of the Fleet the next day, the time has not yet come to write.

The placid river under Rochester Castle, two days later, in very tranquil sunlight, is the last memory picture of this phase. The peace atmosphere of England hit the senses like a thick, pleasant vapour. The sensation was actually physical. I have experienced it again, at every subsequent crossing in or out of the countries at war.

CHAPTER VII

Antwerp and Malines

The passage of the great armies across the frontier and through eastern France could not be approached. For the moment, west Flanders, behind the German lines, offered no comfortable footing. There seemed a prospect, however, that Antwerp might be immediately besieged. My journey there was further justified by the chance of discharging a useful public mission. I started by Flushing; spent a day sailing with some Zeeland fishermen; and thence, as the railway to Antwerp was interrupted, completed the journey by boat and irregular transport.

Saint Nicholas, Friday.

Holland is friendly. There is only one opinion among the fishermen, sailors, and peasants of the south.

Picturesque fellows they are, with their black caps, mahogany faces, earrings, and gold brooches; and the women, with their white head-dresses, black silk wings, and brown necks and arms, with coral and gold bangles.

No doubt in their minds. 'Anything but the German flag! We'll stay as we are, if possible. If not, we'll be English for preference!'

The Dutch soldiers on the frontier take the same view: 'Any fate but Prussia!' But they have a fear: 'In other countries this is an officer's war; not of the people. Who knows what 'they' will decide up there! But, as far as we have a voice, no traffic with Germany!'—and then usually follows an anecdote concerning a recent civic snub to a member of the royal family, which need not be set out.

There is strong repudiation of the story that German troops have been allowed across Dutch Limburg: 'They were refugees, all who passed; and, of course, we welcome all such. Why, we even have the German Crown Prince's family at the Hague.' (This is generally believed!)

A Dutch fishing-smack, with an Irish skipper, put me across yesterday, Thursday, on to the south bank of the Scheldt. A warm sleepy sunset, and a drowsy peaceful little toy port.

A burst of warlike energy had carried the fishermen as far as the making of wire entanglements; but gaps, large enough for the passing of the stouter burghers, had been considerately left.

I travelled some distance on a goods truck. When it halted, a few idle, polite sentries, anxious to avoid responsibility, passed me on to a cavalry patrol. Pleasant, talkative fellows, they handed me over in turn, on the frontier, to a company of mounted Belgian volunteers with whom they had been fraternising.

These had as yet seen no fighting themselves; but there was only one subject of talk, the Highlanders: 'There are 20,000 of them, and they pipe all the time! At Mons they played while the rest shot, and the pipers can play with one hand and shoot with the other; it must be terrible!' I had this story ten times over.

And again, of the British: 'They are uncanny fellows! Why, even in hopeless positions on a retreat they never go on retiring till they are told to!'

The patrol was without its officer. It is a tragic little episode, illustrative of the conditions of war. His mother was Dutch; and she lay dying just across the frontier, in Holland. As a Belgian officer, he could not cross to see her in uniform or with arms, or he would be imprisoned. If he crossed as a civilian, he would be treated as a deserter. He was away, trying, in vain, to get some relaxation of the laws governing neutral territory. Only a mile or two off, and yet he must be too late.

As no passenger train to Antwerp would leave before next day, one of my new friends packed me into a van, one of a long train of vans on trucks going up with supplies to the front. The intention was to join the main line at St. Nicholas, and take the train thence in the morning to Antwerp. But as the supply train ran on to near Malines, there was every reason for going with it.

A few of the Malines residents were creeping back, in the dusk, to the empty town. The Belgians have shown remarkable pertinacity in these 'interval' returns. A father and son, sleeping in their cart on the road, gave me a lift into the town.

Malines was deserted. It was the night of an interval between the retirement of the Germans and the resumption of advance by the Belgians. But the German bombardment continued, directed obviously at the destruction of the church and the empty buildings. At intervals the guns resumed throughout the night; but their fire was ill-directed.

As we were threading our way through the streets, a clatter of hoofs warned us to take shelter. We hurried into the empty church. In the dark, through the door, we heard, and saw in the faint light, a few peasants walking past with hands raised, driven by some mounted Uhlans. Four of the peasants were left sitting hunched up on the steps. After long, anxious moments the patrol clattered away, firing wantonly at the windows of the church; and again firing in the distance.

During our wait, to let them get clear away, there was the deafening report of a shell bursting not far from the church; and plaster rattled down from the roof.

Much of the town was in ruins; swaths through the houses, cleared away to free the fire from the Belgian forts. And the prominent buildings, public and private, had evidently provided targets for the German guns.

To-day I heard that, while I was getting clear of the town, a very gallant rescue was being made by four Belgian ambulance men. They ran cars to the river, crossed a small pontoon, left by the Germans, on foot, and succeeded in carrying eight wounded Belgians, left in a little schoolhouse behind the German lines, back across the pontoon to the cars. They had been lying there untended.

The Belgian troops, or what I saw of them as I worked back to the railway this morning, seemed in excellent heart. The repulse of the Germans two days ago, and the strength of the fortress behind them, have gone far to remove the anxiety that inevitably followed their heavy losses in the recent field actions and the growing consciousness of hopelessly inferior numbers.

Many of them belonged to the fresh divisions, the flower of the heroic little army. At last they know 'where the English are,' and 'what the French are doing,' and the vague and intimidating hugeness of their own task has contracted to a definite, perceptible plan of campaign.

An eye-witness tells me the retreat from Louvain was conducted in splendid order and in high spirits. The Germans followed till they came under the fire of the outermost fort.

To-day the little Belgians were as cordial and ready to smile as in the first days after Liége.

In the grey morning to-day the country near the Belgian lines was an extraordinary sight. Already the light was flashing from the water of slight, precautionary inundations; and there are whole tracts ready to follow suit. Chateaux destroyed, for purposes of defensive fire; woods cut down; trees, which obstructed the ranges, hacked away; a country already half devastated, as if by an enemy.

But the success outside Malines had reassured the peasants. They could be seen dribbling slowly back to their cottages in unobtrusive clusters on road and field.

A troop train, crammed with soldiers sitting close on the floor of cattle-trucks, many of them of the volunteer army, brought me back towards the headquarters. Troops were constantly leaving us, and fresh truckloads being added: all in good heart, and full of individual exploits. We were banged about, and shunted here and there among guns and ammunition trains.

At one point the firing sounded only just across the field. The train stopped, and several trucks emptied in little coloured floods of soldiers into the wet fields. The men doubled in open order, just over the edge, out of sight through the green park-like trees in the sunlight. The scattered fire gradually drew away; and we moved slowly on again.

Antwerp, Friday night.

At St. Nicholas, the headquarters of the General commanding on the west, I ran again into the uneasy, strained atmosphere of the towns near the fighting line. It was familiar at Namur and elsewhere. Uncertainty, constant coming and going, parade, spy-mania, secrecy, and military rule. In such places the civilian is like a child confused in the middle of a race-course; something to be herded and scuffled out of the way; suspicion of others is the only safe outlet for his panic feeling. We do not know this condition yet in England. May we never experience it! To catch an eye is to create an enemy. A sudden movement brings a rush of the silent crowd. An outward routine; an inward volcano of fear, mistrust, and over-strained nerves.

The soldiers at the front, if one can get there, are friendly enough. Only for the moment, when men are going into, or are actually in action, does the 'war-mask' make a man remote and unaccountable. Out of action the more humorous northerner drops it gladly; the southerner, less easily. Farther back from the front, at the anxious, waiting, military headquarters, or in the town or village strung to snapping point of nervous tension by the immediate uncertainty and peril, is the danger-point for the looker-on. I made the experiment, as an obvious stranger, of sitting outside a restaurant. In five minutes a white-whiskered, respectable magistrate sat down opposite, and glared dangerously. "You are a renegade!" I made no answer. A crowd began to collect. "You are a German!" It was dangerous to let him go on. Better attract the police than risk the crowd. "You may have the right to question me, sir: you have none to insult me"—and I stood up suddenly, upsetting him behind the heavy little table. A regulation "arrest" followed; the first. In two hours I was interrogated seven times by different descriptions of uniformed and civilian officialdom; and three times was escorted to various military authorities, who, at last, became not unnaturally petulant. Finally I had to retire within doors. This is merely illustrative of the atmosphere; for the individuals remained undemonstrative.

Troop trains poured in and out of the station. Boy-sentries, struggling under huge rifles, paraded the cobbles and mustered at the corners.

At last, the single train to Antwerp. Nobody but inhabitants were allowed to enter by it. The "word of the day" was whispered me with infinite secrecy. The women, waiting to identify the wounded, who passed in constant groups from the trains, swarmed over the platform for farewells. Then a dark journey under a red moon; a passing sight of camps, and soldiers moving without lights; spaces of water.

And the end of it all, an easy, normal, almost careless passage into a comfortable town, sure of itself and its defenders. For Antwerp lives perfectly tranquilly. Only at night are the dark streets and the unseen movement of people strange. Since the audacious, and fatal, passage of the Zeppelin, no lights are allowed, even in windows, after eight. It must have been a terrifying sight in the dark sky. The brightly lighted airship close over the sleeping houses, so light that the number on board could be reckoned. It drifted silently down wind, over the roofs, well inside the defending circle. Then the roar of the propeller began; the populace rushed out, and there followed a succession of shattering explosions from its ten unseen and ill-directed bombs. Now precautions are taken; and the great silver pencil of the searchlight has swung and passed all to-night over our heads.

No signs of a town besieged.

Prices low, no war feeling, a steady traffic. Only rarely the rattle of an armoured motor through the street; for nearly all military movements are made at night. Except for the universal error of the withholding of news, the control of the population is admirable in its restraint. We have no "nerves" here yet.

Antwerp, Saturday.

The Germans have been forced to keep a retaining army in front of the Belgian lines at Malines. How big this is, it is impossible at present to say. It seems to be no more than a retaining force, protecting communications.

On the other hand, the Belgians have half of their army intact, some 60,000, fresh and in good heart; with the remainder of the troops from Liége, Louvain, and Namur, now reconstituted and keen to keep up their splendid record.

It will take an army of 150,000 to invest Antwerp, with its double line of forts.

There is a vague rumour that a secondary and larger force is advancing directly upon Antwerp from the east, independent of the force already facing Malines on the south, and that the big siege guns are being brought up. The eventuality must be contemplated. The Landsturm (reserve army) is already at Liége. The Germans have the reserves to spare, and it would be consistent with their plan to follow their swift-moving columns at the front with a second supporting army, to occupy the conquered territory, already almost evacuated by the advanced troops, and invest Antwerp. If the troops can be spared from Prussia and France, the effort will be made. But not, I think, until the blow at France has failed.

The importance of Antwerp, as the final seat of the Belgian Government and the last base from which the army can operate, cannot be overrated. With Antwerp lost, the army, and all the possibilities of its position upon the German flank, threatening the communications, would be baseless; and must be forced to surrender, or to cut its way through to Ostend.

Germany will mask Antwerp for the present. And later on a siege of Antwerp may not be calculated in terms of Liége. There the Germans attacked with infantry and light field-guns. They have now brought up their heavy siege guns. The rapid fall of the forts of Namur is the measure of the difference.

The outer line of Antwerp forts are one and a half miles apart, alternating fort and redoubt. The silencing of one fort by the heavy guns would leave a gap of three miles, through which troops could be poured.

The Belgian Field Army would have to hold the gap or gaps; behind them the second line of forts would repeat the resistance, in their turn, under increased difficulties. It might cost a number of lives, but of these the Germans are careless. A big army with siege guns could manage it, and not take unduly long.

It will be seen that it is of the utmost importance to protect Antwerp, not by strengthening the defence more than has already been done, but by the operations of a relieving force, acting from the coast, upon the left of the German investing army.

The presence of British troops and ships at Ostend, which has been announced officially in all the Belgian and French papers, has already begun to effect its purpose; by reassuring the Belgians, and distracting the Germans from pouring all their reinforcements on to the front in France.

It is also forcing the light, skirmishing German parties of advance, which threatened the extreme left of the Allied armies, from Courtrai to Dunkirk, to contract.

(The anticipations here outlined have since been borne out closely by the actual events of the fall of Antwerp.)

Sunday.

The Germans resumed their bombardment of Malines yesterday. The church tower provided their chief object. They were successfully kept out of the town.

The news is confirmed that something like a "whole army corps" has been diverted from its advance across the frontier by the spirited sally of the Belgians.

I was down on the lines west of the city again to-day. The troops are in fine spirits at their success. The British sympathy and admiration have been greatly appreciated. The tribute of the House of Commons is spread by the journals broadcast, in large print.

At my small point of view there was only some slight skirmishing. Since four o'clock yesterday the big guns have been having a rest. Some peasants, captured and released, report the retirement of German cavalry upon Louvain. These peasants have had seven days of terror. They, including some women, have been driven at the head of a small German contingent to and fro, threatened with death behind and in front. They relate that those who fell out were shot. Some of them were allowed to stop last night on the steps of the Cathedral, as they were being herded through deserted Malines. They must have been the same whom we saw pass, and heard afterwards murmuring there, while we waited concealed inside.

The large number of Belgian wounds are in the legs; possibly from lying behind two little elevated screens, in place of entrenching; but the German rifle-fire is still low.

The Germans, advancing en masse, are constantly described as firing from the hip. In front of the trench which I visited, the ground was cut up by rifle-bullets in a continuous line, a few feet short of the raised bank. Towards the end of the hour I spent there, came a sudden ten minutes of furious firing. The hail of bullets whipped against the far side bank in travelling waves of rustling sound, like the passing of sharp gusts over a moor.

Later.

The air is yellow and heavy from the continuous bombardment of the past days. Sudden showers of rain, out of cloudless skies, come from the same cause. The guns began again to-night.

Ostend, Monday.

The Belgian Army was active this morning. Already at dawn as I passed out of Antwerp through the wire entanglements and small inundations about the military camps, they were on the move for another attack. The guns were in action to the south of us.

The country, in the line of Ghent, is now free. It was possible to travel almost to the French frontier before the alarm of Uhlans began. But the villages, populous and filled with panic last week, are now half deserted and melancholy. The refugees pour aimlessly to the coast and back again, according to the rumours. The railways run, advancing and retreating, according to the movements of the enemy. In the morning trains may run straight, in the evening make a cautious loop. A curious situation, significant of the double occupation of the "open" territory.

I wished to clear up some of the mystery enveloping the northern end of the French frontier. I therefore passed through Ghent westward. Last week I left a German cavalry column disappearing into the silence of "no official news" into the neighbourhood of Courtrai. This afternoon I met news of them, or their like, returning in the same quarter, as I made a hurried run to the border. It was near Ypres that the peasants met us with warnings "The Germans have been sighted, and are expected here."

From a safe retreat, in a wood on rising ground, we watched a small line of German wagons, probably of wounded, winding into and out at the other end of the short village street. It was accompanied and followed by cavalry and a few cars.

It has been heartening to see any Germans facing in the right direction, before I descended once again upon Ostend.

CHAPTER VIII

Paris and the Trenches

The ten days of the great conflict across France were now ended. The military machine, the most powerful that the world has seen, had swept past us across the silence of the frontier. Perfectly prepared beyond all anticipation, and driven by the utmost forces of military despotic tradition, it had achieved a performance remarkable in the history of wars. But the machine had been met, and though we did not yet know it, the momentum of its hammer-blow had been exhausted, by a defensive retreat which will rank as unsurpassed not only in military history but in the record of the greatest feats of human endurance, of the supreme conquests of the spirit of man over the machinery of man's invention.

Outmatched by ten to one, fighting by regiments, by groups, by individuals, the soldiers of the independent racial spirit, of voluntary subordination to the service of war, had resisted, doggedly, inch by inch, and outlasted in the end, the devastating impetus of the vast war engine. Still an unbeaten army of unconquerable personality, the survivors waited outside Paris, reinforced, ready to resume the offensive. Failure in organisation, suspected failures in collaboration might have been fatal to the moral of a mechanically trained army. To the elastic temperament and combination of our soldiers, bringing each a free man's personality to the work of his chosen profession, nothing could be fatal but loss of life itself, or loss of faith in the common cause.

I returned again to Paris when the Germans were within a long march of the outer forts. The journey took an interminable time. The direct lines were threatened by the enemy or blocked with the movements of troops. We wandered to remote junctions west of Paris, and had to fight good-humouredly for standing-room with crowds of reservists recalled to the colours. No doubt owing to the greater magnitude of the problem the French railway organisation, for other than military service, did not compare well, during the earlier stages of the war, with that of the Belgians, who showed a remarkable power of keeping their ordinary traffic almost normal, and of reconciling it with the movements of their own or the enemy's troops.

Paris was practically empty. A second greater exodus was going on. The Government had retired to Bordeaux the day before. With few exceptions even the war correspondents, the last usually to cling on, had vanished. Our Embassy had left with the Government. Our Consulate had also vanished, leaving a large number of anxious countrymen stranded. Doubtless they acted under orders. But, in pleasing contrast, a few of our Consuls seem to have been allowed to exercise a more considerate discretion, and remained doing excellent service till the threat of occupation passed. Most of the Government offices were being occupied by soldiers. General Gallieni, the Military Governor, was taking a firm hold. We felt at once that the defence of Paris in his hands was to be really "jusqu'au bout."

Life in Paris was undergoing a second mutation. On the occasion of my first visit, at the outbreak of the war, it was in the throes attending the surrender of individual liberty to the control of the Departments of official military government. The Departments had now retreated, and civilian life was under the necessity of readjusting itself to the confused beginnings of a purely "soldier" rule. The inconveniences lasted only for a few days. The Military Governor organised his staff for the unaccustomed work of administration with conspicuous energy.

All that was left of Paris, passive, observant, and quick to grasp the necessity of subduing even its natural inclination to caustic comment, accepted the situation philosophically. For a day or two we still listened for the sound of the guns of the forts, which should announce the beginning of the siege. But in place of them came the quick rumour of the British successes near Compiègne, of the German faltering and hesitation, of the swing south, and finally of the retreat from the Marne. People began to return. Paris life regained something of its vivacity; only the dark quiet evenings, and the occasional visit of an airman, survived inside the defences to remind us of the war. Now and then the sight of a British soldier being embraced on the streets, and treated to an extent that jeopardised the influence of Lord Kitchener's letter, made a link with the with-drawing armies. News was reduced to the customary minimum.

In the trenches, Friday.

Here, outside the gates of Paris, within the circle of the forts, there is a note of instancy and reality which is hardly shared by the city itself even since the nearer approach of the invaders. The red and blue dots of soldiers move briskly with purpose over the fields, under the heavy, summer trees. Just a flash of sun here and there on bayonet or helmet.

Fortune has introduced me to a collection of non-commissioned officers—jolly follows, in good heart. Some spoke English. One was a Russian who had served as a volunteer in most of the armies of the world. We sat under a tree in the shade, and they superintended the heavy work of more red dots with grey shirts, sweltering in the sun and digging trenches in the dusty, brown soil. In the distance, business-like little lines of blue and red moved away over the horizon. For the German cavalry is near us, in the Forest of Compiègne, to the north. It had reached to Soissons, even to Creil, yesterday.

The British caught them well two days ago; but now they are between us and the British, in their distracting, scattered Uhlan fashion.

We do not ask now: "Where are the English?" We know! But now it is: "Where are the Indian troops? How many are they? Where do they land?" Most of my friends are volunteers, full of spirit, and new to the work. We are rather puzzled by the position. Of course the German strategy is contrary to all sound rule. But still the "strategic retreat" seems to have drawn out the French lines almost as long as the line to the German base. We appear to pin our faith to that mysterious unknown factor, of which the Press speaks, and to the Indians and Turcos, and other oddments.

Then comes the interruption of reality. A few dispatch riders, in faint dusty blue, gallop past. A few wounded, supported, bandaged, or carried, come more slowly through the hot fields, along the dusty trenches and entanglements. A German mitrailleuse car, "blindée" (armoured)—that French invention that the Germans have turned to such account—has rushed on a French outpost. These are its victims. But the car is—we are told—"accounted for."

The touch of war is only a momentary disturbance to the quiet, busy work of the red-and-blue and red-and-grey dots, marching and mattocking in the afternoon sun round us.

Paris itself is "empty." Four weeks ago the Boulevards were deserted, but it was the emptiness of emotional stress, varied by the rush of sudden crowds and alarms. This was followed by our declaration of war; and coincidentally the streets grew again alive. Now they are deserted, but this time in earnest, for the inhabitants have dispersed where they may. There is no panic; none of the "nerves" of a month ago. The little unrest is due to the reductio ad absurdum of war news, which characterises this war in all countries. The only crowd to-day was the crowd of automobiles at the Invalides, getting permits to leave the city before 7.30 to-night, the last moment of passage permitted. Even the 5 o'clock circuit of German aeroplanes created small sensation. It is no longer "new." Yesterday, gentlemen of sporting tastes took shots at the aeroplanes, as they sat at coffee on the Boulevards. To-day, some of the Brussels caution, which found in such promiscuous shooting a yet greater danger for the inhabitants, has asserted itself. A mitrailleuse on the Madeleine secures the civic safety.

Four weeks ago chance made it necessary for me to pass hours in almost every Government office in the city. There was then the inevitable confusion due to the fact that most of the efficient staff had gone to the front just at the moment at which every individual found his rights to move and exist had become vested in a series of public offices, and no longer in himself. Chance took me to-day to wait in almost all these offices yet once again. It was again a moment of dislocation, for the Government have gone. The offices are in the hands of soldiers. The citizens have to adjust their existence anew to yet another control, that of a purely military organisation.

All the landmarks are shifted. Begins anew the scuffle for the usual permissions to move or exist. As a pleasant contrast to the general flight and upheaval, the United States Embassy and Consulate are looking after the individual anxieties of half the nationalities of Europe with a courtesy and efficiency beyond all praise. Paris is empty, but sunny and still itself. Through the empty street the columns of red and blue soldiers pass, with dusty boots, making bright streaks of colour. Like a mother of pearl shell left on the beach, the colours of Paris remain vivid, though the life in her Government is gone south.

Friday night.

Another interlude—Shakespearean if you like. The talk of the first and second Watchmen and the second Citizen outside the walls. A drop-scene before Paris, in the second act of the great war tragedy.

The gates had closed before I could get in. A corporal, who considered himself under an obligation, suggested taking refuge in a shelter with five non-commissioned officers, who were superintending the defence works. He knew one of them. The rest were not of his regiment, and suspicious, as men are behind the lines. But two or three gathered round to smoke; and, Parisian-like, thawed with their own talk. The rest rolled up on the straw, and moved restlessly in tired sleep, outside the range of the single light.

Naturally the talk turned first on the stranger: "What a risky job. Now, a soldier goes safely where he's told, and can fight there, with friends round. But you may be shot by anyone, as the easiest thing to do! No inquiries as in peace time. Anyone may do it; and it's only an unlucky incident. No mention in the papers even! Why, even generals and officers have been shot in this war by mistake."

The risk set my corporal talking of a younger brother of his, whom he had brought up and seen married; their two wives are together at home with the babies. "He is of the—1st line, the little brother—only so high. I do not know where he is. Only one postcard with no date or address, saying 'Still living.' That is all, two weeks ago; and the war may be over, and we shall never know. Perhaps we shall have his regimental number returned, and never know. The little one whom I brought up—only so high."

There was only one opinion about the English troops. "What fellows they are—charmants garcons!—big and cool-looking in their 'green'; and impassive! And then, so gay, always so gay—except their songs!"

"I cannot understand them, but they laugh all the time, even when they are too tired to walk;"—it was a cuirassier speaking—"I helped to carry one in the other day; four of us. It was near Amiens. He was dying; his legs—so. He kept on saying something which we could not understand; perhaps it was a message to his mother or sweetheart. But he smiled always, and shook hands. And he said: 'Good friends. Good old England.' I understood that. He died before we found the ambulance."

I asked cautiously, later, why there was the constant question about the whereabouts of the "Turcos," Indians and Japanese. Were we not enough? There was a volume of answer. "Ah, but we are civilised! We thought this fighting would be civilised. They cut the heads off their bullets. Here is one! And they rough the edge of their bayonets—I have picked them up! But it is with savages. And we have not the temperament." A volunteer emphasised this, a bearded manufacturer, with a family, in ordinary times: "And these others know the barbarous methods of fight. It is of their nature. They can be ferocious. The savages fear them."

The old walls of Paris, the third line of defence, remain a cherished sentiment. The famous story of Todleben riding round them on inspection, with two officers, in silence, and only remarking quietly at the end: "C'est tout? Paris est prise d'avance!" was treated as a German's joke!

"The walls? They will be fought to the last! The stones of the street of Paris will rise up in new barricades—if 'they' get so far!"

A volunteer infantryman arrived with a packet of salt. Salt is getting rare. The arrival was made the occasion of a quick cooking of the universal soup. The talk flickered up; chiefly of friends and positions of regiments, details confused and not to be recorded. The end of one story, however, stands out vividly: "We were only three, and he could not walk further, and it was a cold night. We could not put him in a haystack, for the 'Bosches' burn them; or in a cottage, till 'they' had gone past. So we made a shallow trough between the furrows, leaving him warm with his head uncovered, and pulled a harrow above him. In the morning the peasant who had left the harrow would find him, warm; or it would be easy to finish burying him."

The last of them rolled up in their coats and straw to sleep, my corporal still murmuring: "I wonder where he is, the little one—so high? Perhaps, after the war——"

And it seemed only a moment later that the dawn began behind Paris, yellow behind the grey towers above the still mists.

Paris, Saturday dawn.

During the respite of the last days the army of defence has at least got what sleep it could.

The trenches within the circle of forts are cloaked before dawn by mist. Here and there, hidden under temporary shelters, a groan or murmur tells where the soldiers sleep on straw, behind the entrenchments. The stations of the local railway lines are filled with straw, and among sacks and accoutrements the more fortunate are asleep, crowded close under the open sheds.

If I move my head, shadows loom out of the mist—the close-standing sentries. Singular figures, hidden in white vapour to the waist. All wearing heavy cloaks of different types, but made uniform by the military cap, the shouldered or grounded musket.

The challenges run round, in subdued tones. Even suspicion seems lulled. In the truce of the night the mind even of the sentry is passive. The artificial atmosphere, that makes all but the known uniform an enemy, is forgotten for the moment.

Back towards Paris, the city is shoulder-deep in white mist. Only the spires and towers emerge, grey and sleepy. The summit of the Eiffel Tower is lost again in a yet higher belt.

As the grey light grows yellow and red with the coming sun, the towers are projected against it as if floating in mid air, a city of dreams. Can this be the town that is waiting half empty, garrisoned with soldiers, every public office a barrack or ambulance, for expected bombardment, almost certain siege?

Yet only a few miles to the north—how few the citizens do not yet know—the advance patrols of the enemy are also resting, sleeping under the same bands of white mist. They are at Pontoise; some of them have been encountered even near the Seine in the glades of the Forest of St. Germain.

And behind us, also hidden by the mist, the restless movement of our own troops continues. Trains are shunting and banging; there is the rattle of heavy wheels on the roads....

The yellow light widens; the mist lifts and grows thin. The sentries seem to shape themselves, and swing their cloaks. A general stir rustles out of the shelters. The clatter of cooking-pots and boots, even of voices, begins round us. The night has been warm, and a sultry feeling falls again at once with the opening of day. A cavalry patrol, visible already in its lighter blue uniforms, files past. The men move out to their work on the earthworks. There is the rattle of arms as the rifles are freed from their standing stooks. Strange sheaves these, in their threatening lines, by the edges of uncut cornfields. They begin to glitter as they are lifted in the early sunlight.

The sound of a distant shot, unexplained, startles my little circle of view into alertness. The truce of night goes in an instant with the mist. Suspicion, the sharp tension of prospective attack, change in a second the atmosphere. Orders, loud voices, and movements tell the beginning of another inconsequent day in the unnatural war.

Paris, as I return, is already awake: sharp outlined and stirring. Carts are moving in and out of one gate, which has opened early. Small parties of officers roll out noisily in motor-cars from their city quarters.

It is time to get back to the suppressed, shepherded existence of a civilian in a town under military government, for whom rumour-fed ignorance is considered to be the only safe-guard against panic.

Psychology of an elementary character might form a part of the training of the experts in war.

Paris, Saturday midnight.

The pause outside Paris continues. It is neither ominous nor reassuring. After their astonishing march the Germans have to collect themselves for the great move. Rushed by their pace and volume, but acting on a concerted plan, the Allies have retired with deliberate skill upon their intended positions; with Paris as pivot. For the time fighting tactics are of less importance. Strategy, for the first time since the failure beyond the frontier, is again to decide.

The Germans have failed to force a decisive victory on their course across France. The Allied Armies are still unseparated, their temporary dislocation is cemented five times as strongly. Havre is still covered, Paris is covered, the connection is retained with the armies in Lorraine. The Crown Prince's army has failed to keep pace in the centre. The front for the Allies is contracted; they have again a strategic base on Paris; they have succeeded in gaining, in spite of the tremendous pursuit, their chosen lines of defence to north and east of the capital.

During the last few days the Germans have discovered the strength of the position of the Allies by means of their unsuccessful raids at Compiègne and elsewhere. They have possibly got some further news from the west. They have had to rest their men and horses after the terrific march; get up their great siege guns; prepare their positions and platforms, and reconnoitre the admirable defensive strategic positions. Do they mean to attack Paris? There is now doubt of it. It has been "Paris or die." May we hope the "die" will be cast?

There has been a considerable movement of their troops to the south, east of Saint Denis. This has been construed into an attempt to turn the rear of the French positions on the frontier; to create a diversion in favour of the Crown Prince's army; to link up with this, and either surround the French army of Lorraine or advance in double force on Paris. This would imply a hesitation in the advance of the terrible "marching column," a relenting of the pace—in fact, a blunder of magnitude, in view of the importance of time.

It is more than probable that the movement south, to the east of Paris, is preparatory to an advance upon the capital from two directions, the east and north-east. This would at once threaten the connection with the armies of Lorraine; do something to clear the road for the Crown Prince in the centre; and substitute for an immediate attack upon Paris an advance upon the main position of our armies.

The design is being retarded by the usual measures; measures which, to the lay mind, might well have been employed in retarding the advance through Flanders and mid-Belgium.

Paris is going to be defended to the last wall. General Gallieni's thirty-eight-word proclamation has created a profound impression. If it comes even to street fighting, the few survivors in the city here are prepared to see the walls burning about them.

Perhaps I may mention the open secret that, if the Germans are rejoicing in the progress of their great siege guns, towed by 30-50 horses, we have a surprise quite as cheering for them here, once they get to close grips.

And besides this, we are all asking ourselves how long their nice sense of humanity will prevent the French making more use of their explosive secret? This is a war to kill, to be decided by the number killed.

And then Lord Kitchener's "unknown factor"; we know a great deal about it now.

General Gallieni is an administrator of established reputation, and a fighter by temperament. I met him to-day on his round of the fortifications. He is never away from the vital points; at the same time his administration of the town has got into working order with rapidity. He passed, with a salute, in a cloud of dust, the car in front guarded by a black orderly.

And even if Paris goes? Well, the campaign is clear. Sentiment is not to interfere with this ingenious campaign against superior forces.

It is impatient work, waiting in a placid town for an unheard enemy. I went out to look for him to-day. The roving "Uhlan," the "hooligan" of the war, had been reported yesterday at Pontoise, and in the Forest of St. Germain. I had an enchanting tour through the long glades, in sunlight, for my pains. Not the gleam of a lance as far even as Pontoise. The windings of the Seine were only alive with boys bathing and the sharp detail of red and blue sentries on the bridges. Many bridges are closed, but there is none of the worry of the stops by "Civic Guards" at every corner that jolted one in Belgium. The challenges are rare, and business-like.

I ran all through the forest, cheated of even a "view" of the enemy. It is not saying much to say that our lines are not yet back upon the Seine. The French aviators floated overhead, but not even the audacious "Taube" broke the blue and green of sky and forest.

At Versailles I ran again into the suspicious atmosphere of the purely military town. Hardly a civilian to be seen. All houses closed. Why is the purely military town the most nervous? At Paris we look calmly even on aviators and dragoons; only the British soldier, one of the many "missing" returning now in numbers to rejoin their units via Paris, is overwhelmed with greetings, little crowds, and embraces. But at Versailles the vibration of war nerves made every bare cobbled street "jumpy" in atmosphere.

All along the shady roads through the forests of Marly wound the peasant carts, freighted with refugee women and children. Under the trees by the wayside carts in hundreds were drawn up, loaded with household goods and trusses of hay or straw for the patient horse or donkey. The women sat round cooking-pots set on wood fires. The children played noisily. The chief game was "Germans"—a tin pot on a stone, at which a gipsy-looking band hurled bricks from a safe ten feet.

Drifting aimlessly here and there, ready to move at a rumour, the great army of the homeless, just as in Belgium, moves through the fertile fields. It is depressed, purposeless, puzzled. Turned back from the big towns, reluctant to cross the Channel, uprooted from the home-fields, like plants torn up and swirled endlessly in a weir pool—moving endlessly back and forwards. The generations of peace, the rich product of human progress, that war is killing.

Through their unheeding lines on either side passed ceaselessly the wagon-loads of hay, the munition carts, the cavalry patrols, all the sacrifices to the new idol of devastation. We are long past cheering soldiers in the war-lands.

CHAPTER IX

The Movements in the North

Sunday night.

THE Germans are turning sharply south, descending diagonally on the east of Paris. The country they held, or partially held, three days ago, as far west as Compiègne, Gisors, and Pontoise, is now free of all but isolated patrols. The brilliant cavalry action at Compiègne, where the British lost six and recovered sixteen guns, may have been but a feint to cover the alteration of direction. Amiens they still hold, and the line due south of it. Our forces, keeping touch with the enemy, have moved forward their covering line across and to the east of Paris on the side of the Marne, with a curve south near Paris on their left wing. What is the reason of the change? Is it merely a move in the great chess game designed at Berlin; first the powerful "marching column" striking directly at the more vulnerable north-west corner of Paris, so as to draw out the French defence in that direction, thinning its connecting links with the eastern army; then a swift change, and a blow at the weakened centre, with the intention of cutting off and surrounding the eastern army very near to fatal Sedan?

Is it an attempt to force a decisive action before attacking Paris, since the Allies, in spite of their costly retreat, are still an undefeated army, now safely established in a strong defensive position? Is it this attempt, combined with the intention of joining forces with the Rheims armies of von Buelow and Wurtemberg, and of cutting communications behind the army opposing the Crown Prince?

Or has there really been some definite change of plan forced upon the northern army of von Kluck? Has he recognised the danger of pressing in upon Paris from the north and north-west between the scissors of the armies in the Marne and of some other army in the west and north, still unknown to us. The difficult change of line is, in that case, to be made in order to secure a concentration of the armies, and a later attack on Paris from the east. This I suggested as an explanation yesterday. It is the more certain coup, if it can be brought off; and it is less exposed during its operation to any threat from the north than would be a diagonal blow at north-west Paris. A few days will show; but I expect to hear shortly that the armies have been engaged on the east side of the Oise, along the Marne.

I traversed to-day all the region from Paris to the north country, passing through the subtle Paris entrenchments and over the nervous Seine bridges, all ready to be dynamited.

The country, forest and field, was strikingly beautiful in really hot sunshine. But empty. The picturesque white villages were deserted and green-shuttered; the grey stone towns with only a few silent soft-footed peasants, and solitary neglected children. Here and there a few black-hooded women were hanging a wayside cross or shrine with votive flowers. There was again the oppressive expectant feeling of the country that is left open to the enemy, undefended. Under the trees, or trekking aimlessly along the roads, knots and processions of homeless peasants, with their high carts heaped with household goods. Here and there a little drove of their cattle. All the folk, brown, depressed but resigned. As the tide of Germans has passed south and east, they have been creeping inevitably back, with a sort of homing instinct. A few blue cavalry patrols, French, caused them succeeding fear and reassurance. Magny, Mantes, Gisors, Gournay, Beauvais, back and fro, we made certain that the tide was retreating; and followed on the tail of our own advance close enough to get clear as to the general position. The wayside refugees were from local villages, and we could do little to relieve them except to help some of the more helpless on their way.

At Pontoise, a French cavalry column was passing through eastward, the direction of the new move. The women stood ready with bottles and jugs, and ran beside the horses to receive back the glasses, cramming cigarettes into the smiling troopers' hands. Several of the men, with difficulty controlling their horses, plucked the red wool tassels from their epaulettes, and gave them in return as souvenirs.

At Mantes we came upon a collection of motors, families flying from Paris to the north on the safe western route. For miles together we ran through entrenchments and fortified positions, prepared to meet the expected stroke of the hammer at the west of Paris. Only a few troops remained in the trenches, sparks of colour through the orchards on the great rolling wooded uplands. The others have moved eastwards, to the scene of the battle now imminent on the east of Paris.

We met a brown, battered company of our own men also. They were resting from their exhausting retreat, and lined the roads, cheerfully greeting columns of French who moved eastward past and through them.

Later, the shuttle was weaving in different fashion. Here, on road and train, our troops in their turn—but this time fresh-complexioned reinforcements—were pouring eastward; while the worn-looking French soldiers stood aside, or lay resting to let them pass, with hearty jokes and salutes.

Then we ran out north into open undefended territory. Again deserted villages. Now and then a sharp contrast, when we hit some level crossing, and a line of trains passed us, pouring continually south with crowded carriages and trucks of ever fresh reinforcements.

Beauvais is unoccupied by either side, but it remains a funereal town. A few women in black, a few inhabitants creeping back. Silent clusters on the Cathedral steps.

Here an incident occurred, illustrative of the interpenetration of the armies in these "open" districts.

We were sitting at coffee in the square. A car, blowing a continuous blast, rushed through. In it were two grey figures, German officers, with a grey-tunicked driver. They flashed through, sitting very low. Immediately there was a quick, quiet rush of women and boys to the shelter of the Mairie and the Cathedral. The movement seemed instinctive. Their faces remained expressionless, almost apathetic.

Ten minutes later we were carefully leaving the town. When the German patrols take to motors, one cannot count upon the start we had in Belgium against the customary Uhlan horse. Another motor dashed quickly past. In it were two other grey-tunicked German cavalrymen. But these were prisoners, being run through south from near Amiens. Supposing these two cars had met, what would have happened?

I have asked a number of questions, to some of which we know the answers. I will venture one more. Why have the valuable little sea-ports been left absolutely unguarded against the small raiding German patrols that alone at present threaten all the coast? Not an army of occupation, but a few hardened men landed, would be sufficient to protect much that is valuable, but which now lies open to any chance three men with arms. And time allows the Germans to spare little more.

Monday.

The great battle on the new front has begun. This is the third day of the fighting. The German left, pushing south past Ourcq, got as far as Coulommiers, at the same time pressing upon Paris from the east. They have retired again upon Meaux, in this quarter. Of the fortunes further east there is no news. The British troops are holding a vital point in the defensive against the double move, the direct blow south and the eastern attack upon the city.

The countermove of the Allied left wing to meet the German change of front has been carried out with remarkable rapidity. The alternate passing of our own and the French troops through each other's positions in taking up their fresh lines was an interesting time of intricate manœuvre to watch. Paris has become a pivot; no longer the direct object of defence or attack. Any victory of the German right outside the eastern line of defence, would have the advantage for the Germans of sending both armies intermingled back upon and through the forts, impeding their fire. The new move thus places Paris in the position of the prize of the battle.

The north is clear of both armies. Amiens is the most westerly town occupied by the enemy. The new position of the Allies has led to an abandonment of all the sea-ports. The inhabitants have been ordered to disarm, and the bases and stores have been removed.

The recent moves of the Allies have suggested, in their mass, remarkable mobility and promptitude. They have worked with a precision and simplicity that have made them seem the product of very cool design, and even of long anticipation. The Germans would seem to have made the mistake of considering our army out of the game. They have advanced heedlessly across it, unaware of its elastic recovery and of its reinforcement.

The very complexity of the few moves met with in detail during the last few days has given considerable reassurance. Their very disconnection from the course of apparent events, engagements already officially acknowledged, shows them to be no expedient of the moment, but part of a prepared scheme, played now on the chosen field, and with the moves following an expected order.

I have been spending most of the day witnessing the development of one of the expected moves. The sunlit fields were alive with marching troops. The headquarters, at Rouen, were crowded with staff officers. Several nationalities and all arms were represented. There was the quivering suspicious atmosphere that accompanies an action in near prospect. Beyond certain boundaries, Evreux, Les Andelys, Gisors, I was told I should go in "peril of life," "at my own risk." Long before I had traversed them sufficiently to be satisfied of the positions, through the orderly, coloured confusion of an army in the field, the risk had been sufficient, without crossing the bounds to find the enemy. There was anxiety, strain, but there was the new excitement of men on the offensive. We are assured of our defensive lines. We can afford to take the initiative.

There was plenty of personal incident—a conversation with a fierce general in a shady, deserted château, agreeable in process and issue; arrest and escort by a clattering Lancer patrol; the sight of dismounted cavalrymen making embrasures in the walls of an orchard, with momentarily turned, scowling faces.

In general purport the hours with this elusive force were more interesting than the sight of an actual engagement—that is, all the spectator can see of one.

Later in the day, in the course of a wide circle, I came down from the north on the rear of the German right flank. This country was supposed to be deserted. But the German army is well in touch with the chess-board in the north and west. The peasants told me of the proximity of two hundred Uhlans and a battery of guns. But it was impossible to find any trace of a further German advance westward.

The check to the Germans near Coulommiers is promising. Their right wing seems to have recognised that the forces opposed are too strong, for several reasons, for their congenial fashion of attack, and is falling back. Their combined armies have withdrawn too far south-east to attack Paris again by any surprise move. They have been moving to break the line of our armies opposed to them directly south, and to cut through them well east of Paris, towards Sézanne. There is a general atmosphere of reassurance among our troops to-day. The tide has turned, and I date the turn from September 6th.

Tuesday.

There is a very satisfactory development of the position beginning on the west of Paris. Much of the north-west region, which for a time was left unoccupied (including the sea-ports), is again in process of resumption. The rapidity of the German hammer-attack made a concentration of our troops necessary outside the weaker defences of the city. It was remarkable, the pace and precision with which the Allied Armies, after ten days of continuous fighting, and their hurry of difficult retreat across France, took up position on their new base at Paris. They converted a widespread movement of defensive retreat, over an infinite number of small tactical points, into a finely consolidated, new strategic position. But they could do no more for the moment in the north than hold the railway lines through which the reinforcements were being poured.

Then came the German new front to the south. The Allies' reinforcements had to swing to meet them, or rather to pour men across to adjust the balance at the threatened points. To this the fresh British reinforcements were specially devoted; again to hold the key, and more than one key, of the new lines of defence.

The movement is complete. Strengthened at the weak link, the French have been able again to set their grasp upon the "open" country of the line north of the Seine. The boundaries of the extension, and the ultimate intention of the movement may be best left to the intelligent to surmise. Its significance for us is its reassurance as to the confidence of our armies in the strength of their eastern line of defence, its evidence that they are now strong enough to attempt in turn offensive movements and resume their connections, only briefly threatened and never entirely interrupted, with their north-western sea-bases.

The last two days have been spent in following this movement in far more detail than can yet be written. Its interest has been due to its moral effect as much as to its strategical importance. The great issue is being fought out, for the present, on the east of Paris.

After leaving our new headquarters to-day we swung across to the east. The country—Forges, Gournay, Gisors, Clermont—is still unoccupied. The beautiful brown and grey stone villages with faint-red roofs and dark mediæval gateways are shuttered and empty. A few noiseless children, a woman or two, a hungry couple of curs on the dusty cobbles. The roads are clear of refugees, wandered further afield in their high-wheeled laden carts. Only here and there a few stolid, hardy or resigned village folk cling on, and form clusters before a solitary open restaurant, headed by some sturdy Maire. The restaurant has still good bread and wine, nothing more.

The fields are almost deserted; miles of rich meadow and crops in the white sunshine. One or two farmers or women with stout little sons at work in the crops, make rare and startling breaks in the passing lonely landscape.

But there was a change to-day. Every now and then in remote places a scouting car with a splash of uniforms, or a vicious-looking mitrailleuse car with helmets cloaked in linen, threatening over its grey edges, met us in the miles of shaded lanes.

Some of the small towns had again guards, military or civic, who gave us pause; while each protested that the new military control had made some different kind of "pass" necessary. Some wanted a red one, some a blue. Some wanted a "visé" from the local Maire. Fortunately during most of the hot day, the Maires were absent or asleep, and it was agreed to be better to wake the one at the next village. The next village was generally also asserted to be a regimental headquarters. In these cases it usually proved to be utterly deserted.

In one little town, near Clermont, we came in for a strange echo of the war. A woman in a high cart drove past quickly, while we were talking with the Maire and the woman of the inn. There was a sudden silence. Then a dramatic, passionate outburst from the handsome, sibyl-faced hostess, who had two sons at the war:

"Think of it: that woman! There were three of our soldiers chased from the fight at Creil. They took refuge with her. She is rich and has a garden. She hid them in the hayloft; threw their uniforms in the garden. The Germans came. They slept in her house. They said: 'We are forced to fight; it is not of our seeking: the French attacked us.' They found the uniforms. They put a pistol to her breast: 'We will shoot you if you do not say where are those soldiers.' She cried: "In the loft." They shot them; all three. The traitress!—and it would have been so easy for a woman to lie!"

A village near Creil itself gave us another echo. A German field-cap hung over the forge. The old smith, one of the last men now left in the village, explained it had fallen from the head of one of three or four German soldiers who had been chased through the street a few days before. "It shall hang there till the owner returns for it," he added grimly, "May my great-grandchildren see it still hanging so!"

And yet one more, and this within sound of the guns, that have been echoing nearer or fainter these last days. A woman ran out of the door of a solitary cottage towards Senlis, waving her arm. One stops quickly these days. A man was dying inside. She had burned his uniform; but I knew at once he was a German. He had been shot while scouting; had hid himself, and crawled to her house. We did what we could for him. From him I learned that the Germans are already reinforcing to meet the western move, and of many things that are hidden from us—no doubt, for our good—or vaguely guessed at. It was no matter of "communication with the enemy"; he was already past the line that divides small irritable tribal mortals; he was joining issue with the last great common foe.

We left him to die in the care of the woman who had not "passed by on the other side." Her son would visit her shortly—she had refused to leave her cottage—and would bury him in the field. No one else was to know.

This is the meaning of the machine of war: The man joins the machine for the honour of the nation. The machine drives him, one of a nameless herd, for a few days, beyond his strength, to his death, for the honour of the machine. And yet the nation is made up of the men; and the machine is made up of the men; and the men die. But for such machines we should know better what is the honour of the nation—that is, of the men—for the men would judge of it, as men, for themselves.

We approached as near as we could venture—for we were behind the enemy—north of Betz and close to the sound of the guns. We saw as much as anyone is likely to see of the fighting in such warfare: the distant sight of greeny-white smoke-balls bursting over trees on a far hill; the slight movement, round the edges of distant woods that sloped towards us, of small grey dots, that were assumed to be the enemy.

Returning across the north of Paris by circuitous ways, we came round by the west, through the entrenched positions. During the day, we passed over five bridges already mined with dynamite, and one wooden bridge with the props half cut through. It is a stimulating experience to crawl over bridges, like Kew Bridge for size and sunny situation, with the warning from armed soldiers at either end that too much vibration may send them exploding into the air, or dropping into the river. We are warned to avoid even the comfort of a cigarette; and there are other impediments to make the passage tortuous and exciting.