e and I pulled through it. A couple of large trees that had
been blown down across the road next intervened, but the horse, lame as
he was, cleared them.

I reached the Belgian Chateau; strafing was going on fearfully in an
endeavor to smash the headquarters; men were running hither and thither,
stringing telephone wires as quickly as they were shot away; battalions
of infantry, fresh troops who had not yet been up the line, were working
their way to their destination; chaos seemed to reign on every hand. And
yet, there was order. Leaving the Belgian Chateau, there was a hedge for
two or three hundred yards which afforded me cover until I got to the
road; there I saw a group of enemy airplanes gradually lowering until
they got down to within a few hundred yards of the railroad; they
dropped their bombs on the batteries here, starting monster ammunition
fires and killing and wounding the gunners.

Although pandemonium reigned everywhere, the guns never hesitated to go
on with their work as steadfastly as though they were digging drains in
peace time. The fierceness of the fire caused the horse to balk
continually, and I again had to get off its back and lead it. This fire
was from guns from practically every quarter of the Empire. It was
impossible to make any speed now, even with the horse, as the road was
black with holes everywhere, and I started to go around what is known as
Snake Road. Shells were dropping everywhere; dead horses were piled one
on top of the other; huge lorries were lying in the ditches and men were
emptying them of their contents and carrying the ammunition on their
backs up to the batteries. Here and there were small hills of empty
shell cases; there was also considerable danger from the loaded shells
that were scattered about that had been spilled from the ammunition
wagon, as a kick from the horse on the fuse would have exploded any one
of them.

As the lorries advanced up the Snake Road and delivered their
ammunition, they left by another road running straight south; this
latter was packed with ambulances waiting to take wounded out, and
civilians were running madly here and there endeavoring to get out of
the fire zone.

I reached Ouderham, which was at that time out of the range of the fire;
estaminets were getting ready to close for the night, the hour of ten
having struck. The ammunition drivers were lying around taking things
easy and not expecting an ammunition call, but the moment I