n the centre, and loose sand on each side. Long avenues of trees
kept us in inky darkness, and how the drivers succeeded in keeping
on the causeway I really do not know. Every now and then one of the
buses would get into the sand; then all the men would collect, dig the
wheels clear, and by sheer brute force drag the bus back to safety.
Twice it seemed absolutely hopeless. The wheels were in the loose
sand within a foot of a deep ditch, and the least thing would have sent
the bus flying over on to its side into the field beyond; and on both
occasions, while we looked at one another in despair, a team of huge
Flemish horses appeared from nowhere in the darkness and dragged
us clear. Think of an inky night, the Germans close at hand, and
every half-hour or so a desperate struggle to shoulder a heavily
loaded London bus out of a ditch, and you may have some faint idea
of the nightmare we passed through.

As we crept along the dark avenues, the sky behind us was lit by an
ever-increasing glare. Away to the south-east, at no great distance, a
village was blazing, but behind us was a vast column of flame and
smoke towering up to heaven. It was in the direction of Antwerp, and
at first we thought that the vandals had fired the town; but though the
sky was lit by many blazing houses, that tall pillar came from the great
oil-tanks, set on fire by the Belgians lest they should fall into German
hands. A more awful and terrifying spectacle it is hard to conceive.
The sky was lit up as if by the sunrise of the day of doom, and thirty
miles away our road was lighted by the lurid glare. Our way led
through woods, and amongst the trees we could hear the crack and
see the flash of rifle-fire. More than once the whiz of a bullet urged us
to hurry on.

At Selsaete, only a mile from the Dutch frontier, we turned southwards
towards Ghent, and for an interminable distance we followed the bank
of a large canal. A few miles from Ghent we met Commander
Samson, of the Flying Corps, and three of his armoured cars. The
blaze of their headlights quite blinded us after the darkness in which
we had travelled, but the sight of the British uniforms and the machine
guns was a great encouragement. The road was so narrow that they
had to turn their cars into a field to let us pass. We had just come up
with a number of farm waggons, and the clumsy Flemish carts, with
their huge horses, the grey armoured cars, with their blazing
headlights, and our four r