or putting it
in order again if it should be possible.

A perfect autumn afternoon found us tearing southwards on the road
to Boom in Mrs. W.'s powerful Minerva. We were going to a point
rather close to the German lines, and our safety might depend on a
fast car and a cool hand on the wheel. We had both, for though the
hand was a lady's, its owner had earned the reputation of being the
most dangerous and the safest driver in Antwerp, and that is no mean
achievement. We called, as was our custom, at the Croix Rouge
stations we passed, and at one of them we were told that there were
some wounded in Termonde, and that, as the Germans were
attacking it, they were in great danger. So we turned off to the right,
and jolted for the next twenty minutes over a deplorable paved road.

The roar of artillery fire gradually grew louder and louder, and we
were soon watching an interesting little duel between the forts of
Termonde, under whose shelter we were creeping along, on the one
side, and the Germans on the other. The latter were endeavouring to
destroy one of the bridges which span the Scheldt at this point, one
for the railway and one for the road; but so far they had not
succeeded in hitting either. It was a week since our last visit to
Termonde, and it seemed even more desolate and forsaken than
before. The Germans had shelled it again, and most of the remaining
walls had been knocked down, so that the streets were blocked at
many points and the whole town was little more than a heap of bricks
and mortar. There was not a living creature to be seen, and even the
birds had gone. The only sound that broke the utter silence was the
shriek of the shells and the crash of their explosion. We were
constantly checked by piles of fallen debris, and from one street we
had to back the car out and go round by another way. At the end of a
long street of ruined houses, many bearing the inscription of some
braggart, "I did this," we found our wounded men. They were in a
monastery near the bridge at which the Germans were directing their
shells, several of which had already fallen into the building. There
had been four wounded men there, but two of them, badly hurt, were
so terrified at the bombardment that they had crawled away in the
night. The priest thought that they were probably dead. Think of the
poor wounded wretches, unable to stand, crawling away in the
darkness to find some spot where they could die in peace. Two
remained, and