; then appeared more or less clad figures, who gazed anxiously
at the cloaked men standing at the door (for the Germans lay at the back
of every mind). However, the talismanic charm of 'Englishmen' did
wonders. It was 4.30 a.m. before I tumbled into an extremely comfortable
bed, and had barely laid my head upon the pillow--so it seemed--when a
great knocking at the door aroused me with a start from vivid dreams of
home, as an orderly entered the room with the alarming statement that
the column was moving off in ten minutes. It was seven o'clock, and I
felt inclined for another twelve hours in bed; there were no ablutions
that morning. A flying leap into my clothes; a most indiscriminate
packing of my valise, which I left my servant struggling with, in an
inexperienced attempt to roll it up correctly, and I swallowed a cup of
coffee which my kind hostess had provided for me (why is coffee always
so hot when one is in a hurry?), and I mounted my horse in the nick of
time to fall in with my column as it moved off.

It was a long weary march over a very flat country, intersected with
dykes, and only broken by the ubiquitous poplar trees; and one had ample
time to think, and sometimes doze, as we marched along on our
twenty-five mile trek. At the midday halt, a little diversion enlivened
the proceedings in the shape of pulling two bogged horses out of a
narrow cut where they had been 'watered.' We managed with the help of
ropes and planks to get the poor brutes on to terra firma again, more
dead than alive.

Then on and on, hour after hour, halting ten minutes each hour for a
needed breather and rest, until Ostend hove in sight. Visions of a
comfortable billet rose before one's luxurious mind, but no such luck;
right through the city we marched, finding the station square crammed
with terror-stricken and most wretched-looking refugees; until, some
four miles out, we lighted upon the most filthy and forsaken place to be
found on the map of civilization--Steene. The houses were so vile and
malodorous, that it was with great reluctance the O.C. allowed the men
to enter. By this time it was very dark and very cold, and it was with
purely animal instinct that we found the way to our mouths in the
darkness, and tried to make believe that we enjoyed the biscuit and
bully beef which formed our rations.

Then came the somewhat important question of where to sleep. I deemed
myself among the fortunate in securing a stretcher, and dos