"Get back!" they shouted, believing that I was making for the pontoon.
They turned me back, and I hesitated a moment. A terrible explosion,
louder than anything I had yet heard, rocked the city to its
foundations. For a moment the walls of the houses trembled and every
window on the waterfront was broken. The retreating Belgian army had
blown up that pontoon bridge and with it what then seemed the last hope
of escape for the few remaining survivors. For a few moments wreckage
writhed in midstream like a great sea creature in agony of death.

Past me rushed groups of Belgian soldiers, the remainder of a few
hundred who had been left to cover the British and Belgian retreat, fire
the last shots from the forts, and spike the guns as the Germans
approached. Pitiable was the terror of these fellows when they saw the
bridge gone. Many of them were out of their heads through exposure and
exhaustion; not a few of them wept. One sergeant tore off his uniform
and fatigue cap and tried to exchange them for my citizen's clothes.

The worst fire of the entire bombardment was concentrated during these
moments; the racket was stupendous. Because gunboats, barges, lighters,
tenders, rowboats, were commandeered by the military authorities to
ferry across soldiers and wounded there was slim chance for
noncombatants. Above the noise of bomb and shrapnel Belgian gunboats
added to the confusion by cannonading big boats along the quay. This
was done in order that the Germans might not make use of them for the
pursuit. It speaks volumes for my military knowledge that for a brief
moment I imagined the Germans had embarked upstream and were going to
make a river battle of it.

By this time the American correspondents had left the Queen's, going
in different directions for different purposes. Hunt and Thompson, I