Time passed, and the war broke out. Terbeeke was not in the direct path
of the invaders, and, sheltered behind the forest, it almost seemed
to the townspeople as though they might escape the fate of the rest
of Belgium. But the respite was not for long. The low muttering of
distant guns grew every day louder; the stream of fugitives hurrying
through the forest and past the town towards the French frontier grew
always denser; at last the climax came. A British officer dashed into
the town at three o'clock in the morning and hurried into the Mairie.
The civilian population, it was announced, must evacuate their houses
instantly.
There followed the usual scenes of frantic terror and chaotic haste
that happened so often during the opening chapters of the Great War.
The one road out of the town was blocked with every kind of conveyance,
from bicycle to dog-carts; there were blocks at every corner; precious
minutes were wasted in useless recriminations; and long before the last
civilian had left, the turmoil of desperate fighting was heard coming
always nearer through the dim mystery of the forest.
It was one of the incidents of the Great Retreat. A flank battalion of
British infantry, by some mishap, lost direction. Cut off from the main
body, and fighting desperately, it was driven always further from the
path along which safety lay, until at last, flinging itself into the
forest of Terbeeke, for a whole day and night it held off the furious
attacks of a brigade of Prussians.
But the odds were too great. Slowly but surely the battalion was
forced back through the forest to the very outskirts. Back from there,
after another frantic assault, it reeled, reduced now to two sparse
companies--some three hundred men in all---across the little edging of
cornfields into the stricken streets of Terbeeke.
There, at last, it found some respite. The Prussians, having learnt
by bitter experience the fighting value of the "contemptible" little
force arrayed against them, jibbed at the open frontal attack across
bare plough-land, and remained hidden within the forest, awaiting
reinforcements.
Meanwhile the British remnant fought desperately to establish
themselves within the village and turn every house into a citadel;
while their commander, a lieutenant of something under twenty-one,
racked his brain for some way of escape. At one time it might have
been possible to skirt the northern edge of the marsh, but already
the attacking Prussians had pushed forward, and the British were now
enclosed within a triangle, formed as to its sides by the overwhelming
Prussian force, and as to its base by the impassable fastnesses of the
mere.
"Unless something happens pretty quick," said the C.O. to his
second-in-command, a boy of nineteen, "things are pretty considerably
all U-P." (He said something to that effect, I mean. Madame Tavernier's
narrative did not, of course, fill in such details.)
They were standing in the porch of the old church, gazing
disconsolately over the flat stretches of marshland. The Boche fire had
temporarily ceased, and they devoted the respite to seeking some way by
which the marsh might be crossed even at the eleventh hour. But there
was none, or none which they could discern.
"Wonder what they are waiting for?" said the boy, lighting a cigarette.
"Bringing up the guns, of course. It will be dark in an hour." The
young C.O. gazed hopelessly to where the sun was already dropping to
the cloud-capped western horizon, straining with ominous red the reedy
pools before them.
"Moon will be up, though."
"All the better for them. I should give the village another two hours.
And then----"
"You aren't going to surrender, surely?" There was the quiver of horror
in the young voice.
They were interrupted by the C.S.M. of B Company.
"Not more than ten rounds a man, sir," he reported. "Machine-gun out of
order." He made his report with the tranquil woodenness of his kind,
without a quiver of voice or muscle. (If you say that it is impossible
for me to know what these men said, or how they behaved, I can only
reply that I have been through the same sort of thing myself.)
"Thanks, major. Men come in that were sounding the marsh?"
"Report there is no way across, sir."
"They certainly won't find one now it's getting dark. Better get back
to your posts. They will begin again soon."
Even as he spoke there came the complaining whine of a four-inch shell
high overhead.