to a supper which I had not expected to eat. There was a
strange excitement in my body, which trembled a little after the day's
adventures. It seemed very strange to be sitting down to table with
cheerful faces about me. But some of the faces were not cheerful.
Those of us who knew of the disappearance of de Broqueville sat
silently over our soup.

Then suddenly there was a sharp exclamation of surprise--of sheer
amazement--and Lieutenant de Broqueville came walking briskly
forward, alive and well. ... It seemed a miracle.

It was hardly less than that. For several hours after our departure
from Dixmude he had remained in that inferno. He had missed us
when he went down into the cellars to haul out another wounded
man, forgetting that he had given us the order to start. There he had
remained with the buildings crashing all around him until the enemy's
fire had died down a little. He succeeded in rescuing his wounded, for
whom he found room in a Belgian ambulance outside the town, and
walked back along the road to Furnes. So we gripped his hands and
were thankful for his escape.

10

Early next morning I went into Dixmude again with some of the men
belonging to the "flying column." It was more than probable that there
were still a number of wounded men there, if any of them were left
alive after that night of horror when they lay in cellars or under the
poor shelter of broken walls. Perhaps also there were men but lately
wounded, for before the dawn had come some of the Belgian infantry
had been sent into the outlying streets with mitrailleuses, and on the
opposite side German infantry were in possession of other streets or
of other ruins, so that bullets were ripping across the mangled town.
The artillery was fairly quiet. Only a few shells were bursting over the
Belgian lines--enough to keep the air rumbling with irregular
thunderclaps. But as we approached the corner where we had waited
for news of de Broqueville one of these shells burst very close to us
and ploughed up a big hole in a field across the roadside ditch. We
drove more swiftly with empty cars and came into the streets of
Dixmude. They were sheets of fire, burning without flame but with a
steady glow of embers. They were but cracked shells of houses,
unroofed and swept clean of their floors and furniture, so that all but
the bare walls and a few charred beams had been consumed by the
devouring appetite of fire. Now and again one of the beams bro