ces had been knocked off, and the
fragments lay in the streets; a good many windows were broken, and
in a few cases a shell had entered an attic and blown up the roof.
Plainly only small shells had been used. We did not realize that many
of the houses we passed were just beginning to get comfortably
alight, and that there was no one to put out the fires that had only
begun so far to smoulder. A few people were about, evidently on their
way out of Antwerp, but the vast bulk of the population had already
gone. It is said that the population of half a million numbered by the
evening only a few hundreds. We passed a small fox terrier lying on
the pavement dead, and somehow it has remained in my mind as a
most pathetic sight. He had evidently been killed by a piece of
shrapnel, and it seemed very unfair. But probably his people had left
him, and he was better out of it.

We turned into the Marche aux Souliers, and drew up at the Hotel St.
Antoine, and as we stepped down from the car a shell passed close to
us with a shriek, and exploded with a terrific crash in the house
opposite across the narrow street. We dived into the door of the hotel
to escape the falling debris. So far the shells had been whistling
comfortably over our heads, but it was evident that the Germans were
aiming at the British Headquarters, and that we had put our heads
into the thick of it, for it was now positively raining shells all round
us. But we scarcely noticed them in our consternation at what we
found, for the British Staff had disappeared. We wandered through
the deserted rooms which had been so crowded a few days before,
but there was not a soul to be seen. They had gone, and left
no address. At last an elderly man appeared, whom I took to be
the proprietor, and all he could tell us was that there was no one
but himself in the building. Of all the desolate spots in the world
I think that an empty hotel is the most desolate, and when you have
very fair reason to believe that a considerable number of guns are
having a competition as to which can drop a shell into it first, it
becomes positively depressing. We got into our car and drove
down the Place de Meir to the Belgian Croix Rouge, where we
hoped to get news of our countrymen, and there we were told
that they had gone to the Belgian Etat Majeur near by. We had
a few minutes' conversation with the President of the Croix Rouge,
a very good friend of ours, tall and of striking appearance, with