n duty for nearly a
hundred hours and were utterly worn out both mentally and
physically. Such water and food as they had were sent to them at
night, for any attempt to cross the open spaces in the daytime the
Germans met with fierce bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire. The
evacuation of the trenches was, therefore, a most difficult and
dangerous operation and that it was carried out with so
comparatively small loss speaks volumes for the ability of the
officers to whom the direction of the movement was entrusted, as
does the successful accomplishment of the retreat from Antwerp
into West Flanders along a road which was not only crowded with
refugees but was constantly threatened by the enemy. The chief
danger was, of course, that the Germans would cross the river at
Termonde in force and thus cut off the line of retreat towards the
coast, forcing the whole Belgian army and the British contingent
across the frontier of Holland. To the Belgian cavalry and carabineer
cyclists and to the armoured cars was given the task of averting this
catastrophe, and it is due to them that the Germans were held back
for a sufficient time to enable practically the whole of the forces
evacuating Antwerp to escape. That a large proportion of the British
Naval Reserve divisions were pushed across the frontier and
interned was not due to any fault of the Belgians, but, in some cases
at least, to their officer's misconception of the attitude of Holland.
Just as I was leaving Doel on my second trip up the river, a steamer
loaded to the guards with British naval reservists swung in to the
wharf, but, to my surprise, the men did not start to disembark. Upon
inquiring of some one where they were bound for I was told that they
were going to continue down the Scheldt to Terneuzen. Thereupon I
ordered the launch to run alongside and clambered aboard the
steamer.

"I understand," said I, addressing a group of officers who seemed to
be as much in authority as anyone, "that you are keeping on down
the river to Terneuzen? That is not true, is it?"

They looked at me as though I had walked into their club in Pall Mall
and had spoken to them without an introduction.

"It is," said one of them coldly. "What about it?"

"Oh, nothing much," said I, "except that three miles down this river
you'll be in Dutch territorial waters, whereupon you will all be
arrested and held as prisoners until the end of the war. It's really
none of my business, I know, bu