, Termonde, and
other cities to the south and west. Intermittently for two days and
nights I watched them from my room in the Queen's. From five yards
beneath my window ledge came the shuffle, shuffle of unending feet,
the creak and groans of heavy cart wheels, the talk and babble of
guttural tongues, the yelp of hounds, as the thousands moved and
wept and surged and jostled along throughout the night and into the
uncertain mist of that October morning. They were so close I could
have jumped into their carts or dropped a pebble on their heads.
Infinitely more impressive than the retreat of the allied armies or the
victorious entry of the Germans a little later, was the pageant of this
pitiful army without guns or leaders.

The twenty-foot entrance to that pontoon bridge seemed to me like
the mouth of a funnel through which poured the dense misery of an
entire nation. Think of this army's composition: a great city was
emptying itself of human life; not only a great city, but all the people
driven to it from the outside, all who had congregated in Belgium's
last refuge and its strongest fort. They bore themselves bravely, the
greater number plodding along silently in the footsteps of those who
went ahead, with no thoughts of their direction, some of them even
chatting and laughing. You saw great open wagons carrying baby
carriages, perambulators, pots and kettles, an old chair, huge
bundles of household goods, and the ubiquitous Belgian bicycle
strapped to the side. There were small wagons, and more great
wagons crowded with twenty, thirty, forty people: aged brown women,
buried like shrunk walnuts in a mass of shawls, girls sitting listlessly
on piles of straw, and children fitfully asleep or very much awake and
crying lustily.

Sometimes the men and boys mounted their bicycles, rode for a
dozen yards, were stopped by the procession, and then, for want of
better occupation, rang their bells. One saw innumerable yelping
dogs: big Belgian police hounds harnessed to the cart and doing their
share of work, others sniffing along the outskirts and plainly
advertising for an owner. There were noisy cattle, too, some of which
escaped. Long after the city was evacuated I saw a cow bellowing
under an archway of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

In this way the city emptied itself, but so slowly that the very slowness
of the movement wore the marchers out. Each family group was
limited to the speed of its oldest member.