s of Belgian cavalry, coming to the defence
of the country outside Antwerp. Cavalry halting at a fork of the road by
a little fir-wood. A road that is rather like the road just outside
Wareham as you go towards Poole. More troops. And after the troops an
interminable procession of labourers trudging on foot. At a distance you
take them for refugees, until you see that they are carrying poles and
spades. Presently the road cuts through the circle of stakes and barbed
wire entanglements set for the German cavalry. And somewhere on our left
(whether before or after Saint Nicolas I cannot remember), across a
field, the rail embankment ran parallel with our field, and we saw the
long ambulance train, flying the Red Cross and loaded with wounded, on
its way from Antwerp to Ghent. At this point the line is exposed
conspicuously, and we must have been well within range of the German
fire, for the next ambulance train--but we didn't know about the next
ambulance train till afterwards.

After the circle of the stakes and wire entanglements you begin to think
of the bombardment. You strain your ears for the sound of the siege-guns
from Namur. Somewhere ahead of us on the horizon there is Antwerp.
Towers and tall chimneys in a very grey distance. Every minute you look
for the flight of the shells across the grey and the fall of a tower or
a chimney. But the grey is utterly peaceful and the towers and the tall
chimneys remain. And at last you turn in a righteous indignation and
say: "Where is the bombardment?"

The bombardment is at the outer forts.

And where are the forts, then? (You see no forts.)

The outer forts? Oh, the outer forts are thirty kilometres away.

No. Not there. To your right.

And you, who thought you would have died rather than see the siege of
Antwerp, are dumb with disgust. Your heart swells with a holy and
incorruptible resentment of the sheer levity of the Commandant.

A pretty thing--to bring a War Correspondent out to see a bombardment
when there isn't any bombardment, or when all there ever was is a
hundred--well then, _thirty_ kilometres away.[11]

It was twilight as we came into Antwerp. We approached it by the west,
by the way of the sea, by the great bridge of boats over the Scheldt.
The sea and the dykes are the defence of Antwerp on this side. Whole
regiments of troops are crossing the bridge of boats. Our car crawls by
inches at a time. It is jammed tight among some baggage wagons. It
dise