rumbled, nearer and nearer, for a fortnight, were now beyond the outer
line of forts and within striking distance of the town. That night, an
hour or two after midnight, in my hotel by the water-front, I awoke to
the steady clatter of hoofs on cobblestones and the rumble of wheels. I
went to the window, on the narrow side street, black as all streets had
been in Antwerp since the night that the Zeppelin threw its first bombs,
and looked out. It was a moonlight night, clear and cold, and there
along the Quai St. Michael, at the end of the street, was an army in
retreat. They were Belgians, battered and worn out with their unbroken
weeks of hopeless fighting; cavalrymen on their tired horses,
artillerymen, heads sunk on their chests, drowsing on their lurching
caissons; the patient little foot-soldiers, rifles slung across their
shoulders, scuffling along in their heavy overcoats.

In the dark shadow of the tall old houses a few people came out and
stood there watching silently, and, as one felt, in a sort of despair.
All night long men were marching by--and in London they were still
reading that it was but a "demonstration" the Germans were engaged in--
down the quay and across the pontoon bridge--the only way over the
Scheldt--over to the Tete-de-Flandres and the road to Ghent. They were
strung along the street next morning, boots mud-covered, mud-stained,
intrenching shovels hanging to their belts, faces unshaven for weeks,
just as they had come from the trenches; yet still patient and cheerful,
with that unshakable Flemish good cheer. Perhaps, after all, it was not
a retreat; they might be swinging round to the south and St. Nicholas to
attack the German flank...

But before they had crossed, another army, a civilian army, flowed down
on and over the quay. For a week people had been leaving Antwerp, now
the general flight began. From villages to the east and southeast, from