made nothing of them, of their bodies nothing but the parts they worked
with: feet and hands. Nothing mattered, nothing existed but the war, and
the armies, the Belgian army, beaten.

Antwerp was falling. And afterwards it would be Ghent, and then Ostend.
And then there would be no more Belgium.

But John wouldn't hear of it. Ghent wouldn't fall.

"It won't fall because it isn't a fortified city," she objected. "But
it'll surrender. It'll have to."

"It won't. If the Germans come anywhere near we shall drive them back."

"They _are_ near. They're all round in a ring with only a little narrow
opening up _there_. And the ring's getting closer."

"It's easier to push back a narrow ring than a wide one."

"It's easier to break through a thin ring than a thick one, and who's
going to push?"

"We are. The British. We'll come pouring in, hundreds of thousands of us,
through that little narrow opening up there."

"If we only would--"

"Of course we shall. If I thought we wouldn't, if I thought we were going
to let the Belgians down, if we _betrayed_ them--My God! I'd kill
myself.... No. No, I wouldn't. That wouldn't hurt enough. I'd give up my