f bread, which he offered to us all round, and he said he would
like a cup of tea! The shells could do what they liked outside, and if
one of them was rude enough to intrude, it could not be helped. We
must show them that we could pay no attention to anything so vulgar
and noisy. At any rate, the effect on us was electrical. The contrast
between the German shells and the German sausage was too much
for us, and the meeting broke up in positive confusion. Alas that
sausage, the unparalleled trophy of an incomparable moment, was
left behind on the table, and I fear the Germans got it.

General Paris had been obliged to shift his headquarters to the
Pilotage, on the docks and at the farthest end of the city from us. He
was very considerate, and after some discussion said that we had
better leave Antwerp, and sent Colonel Farquharson with us to get six
buses. The Pilotage is at the extreme north end of the Avenue des
Arts, which extends the whole length of Antwerp, and the buses were
on the quay by the Arsenal at the extreme south end, so that we had
to drive the whole length of this, the most magnificent street of
Antwerp, and a distance of about three miles. It was an extraordinary
drive. In the whole length of that Avenue I do not think that we passed
a single individual. It was utterly deserted. All around were signs of
the bombardment--tops of houses blown off, and scattered about
the street, trees knocked down, holes in the roadway where shells
had struck. On the left stood the great Palais de Justice, with most of
its windows broken and part of the roof blown away, and just beyond
this three houses in a row blazing from cellar to chimney, the front
wall gone, and all that remained of the rooms exposed. As I said, only
small shells had been used, and the damage was nothing at all to that
which we afterwards saw at Ypres; but it gave one an impression of
dreariness and utter desolation that could scarcely be surpassed.
Think of driving from Hyde Park Corner down the Strand to the Bank,
not meeting a soul on the way, passing a few clubs in Piccadilly
burning comfortably, the Cecil a blazing furnace, and the Law Courts
lying in little bits about the street, and you will get some idea of
what it looked like. The scream of the shells and the crash when
they fell near by formed quite a suitable if somewhat Futurist
accompaniment.

But the climax of the entertainment, the bonne bouche of the
afternoon, was reserved for the