to the
grand assault. A moment later a dozen dog batteries came trotting
up and took position on the left of the infantry. At 5.30 to the minute
the whistles of the officers sounded shrilly and the mile-long line of
men swept forward cheering. They crossed the roadway, they
scrambled over ditches, they climbed fences, they pushed through
hedges, until they were within a hundred yards of the line of
buildings which formed the outskirts of the town. Then hell itself
broke loose. The whole German front, which for several hours past
had replied but feebly to the Belgian fire, spat a continuous stream
of lead and flame. The rolling crash of musketry and the ripping
snarl of machine-guns were stabbed by the vicious pom-pom-pom-
pom-pom of the quick-firers. From every window of the three-storied
chateau opposite us the lean muzzles of mitrailleuses poured out
their hail of death. I have seen fighting on four continents, but I have
never witnessed so deadly a fire as that which wiped out the head of
the Belgian column as a sponge wipes out figures on a slate.

The Germans had prepared a trap and the Belgians had walked--or
rather charged--directly into it. Three minutes later the dog batteries
came tearing back on a dead run. That should have been a signal
that it was high time for us to go, but, in spite of the fact that a storm
was brewing, we waited to see the last inning. Then things began to
happen with a rapidity that was bewildering. Back through the
hedges, across the ditches, over the roadway came the Belgian
infantry, crouching, stooping, running for their lives, Every now and
then a soldier would stumble, as though he had stubbed his toe,
and throw out his arms and fall headlong. A bullet had hit him. The
road was sprinkled with silent forms in blue and green. The fields
were sprinkled with them too. One man was hit as he was struggling
to get through a hedge and died standing, held upright by the thorny
branches. Men with blood streaming down their faces, men with
horrid crimson patches on their tunics, limped, crawled, staggered
past, leaving scarlet trails behind them. A young officer of
chasseurs, who had been recklessly exposing himself while trying to
check the retreat of his men, suddenly spun around on his heels,
like one of those wooden toys which the curb vendors sell, and then
crumpled up, as though all the bone and muscle had gone out of
him. A man plunged into a half-filled ditch and lay there, with his