and to whom
we owed a great deal in many ways. He had left his beautiful house,
with X-ray apparatus on which he had spent his fortune, incomparably
superior to any other that I have ever seen, and here he was trudging
along the road, with his wife, his two children, and their nurse. They
were going to St. Nicholas, on their way to Holland, and were
delighted to get a lift. Unfortunately, by some mistake, the nurse and
children left the bus at Zwyndrecht, a few miles from Antwerp, the
doctor came on to St. Nicholas, and his wife went right through with
us to Ghent. It took him three days to find the children, and when we
last heard from him he was in Holland, having lost everything he had
in the world, and after two months he had not yet found his wife. And
this is only an instance of what has happened all over Belgium.

We reached St. Nicholas about eight o'clock, having covered thirteen
miles in three hours. It was quite dark, and as we had a long night
before us we decided to stop and get some food for ourselves and
our patients. There was not much to be had, but, considering the
stream of fugitives, it was wonderful that there was anything. We
hoped now to be able to push on faster, and to reach Ghent before
midnight, for it is only a little over twenty miles by the direct road. To
our dismay, we found that Lokeren, half-way to Ghent, was in the
hands of the Germans, and that we must make a detour, taking us
close to the Dutch border, and nearly doubling the distance. Without
a guide, and in the dark, we could never have reached our
destination; but we were fortunate enough to get a guide, and we set
out on our long drive through the night. Twenty minutes later a
German scouting party entered St. Nicholas. It was a narrow margin,
but it was sufficient.

We were rather a downhearted party when we set out northwards
towards the Dutch frontier, for we had been told that the three buses
we had sent on in advance had gone straight on to Lokeren, and had
undoubtedly fallen into the hands of the Germans, who had made
certain of holding the road by destroying the bridge. We hoped that
they might have discovered this in time, and turned back, but we
could not wait to find out. We knew that the enemy were quite close.
At first we used our lights, but a shrapnel whistling overhead warned
us that we were seen, and for the remainder of the night we travelled
in darkness. These were minor roads, with a narrow paved causeway
i