ON THE WAY TO ANTWERP
A couple of days afterward, however, feeling thoroughly ashamed of
having fled, and knowing that Ostend was now reinforced by English
Marines, I gathered my courage together once more, and returned to
Belgium.
This time, so that I should not run away again so easily, I took with me
a suit-case, and a couple of trunks.
These trunks contained clothes enough to last a summer and a winter, the
MS. of a novel--"Our Marriage," which had appeared serially, and all my
chiffons.
In fact I took everything I had in my wardrobe. I thought it was the
simplest thing to do. So it was. But it afterwards proved an equally
simple way of losing all I had.
Getting back to Ostend, I left my luggage at the Maritime Hotel, and
hurried to the railway station.
I had determined to go to Antwerp for the day and see if it would be
possible to make my headquarters in that town.
"Pas de train!" said the ticket official.
"But why?"
"C'est la guerre!"
"Comment!"
"_C'est la guerre, Madame!_"
That was the answer one received to all one's queries in those days.
If you asked why the post had not come, or why the boat did not sail for
England, or why your coffee was cold, or why your boots were not
cleaned, or why your window was shut, or why the canary didn't
sing,--you would always be sure to be told, "c'est la guerre!"
Next morning, however, the train condescended to start, and three hours
after its proper time we steamed away from Ostend.
Slowly, painfully, through the hot summer day, our long, brown train
went creeping towards Anvers!
Anvers!
The very name had grown into an emblem of hope in those sad days, when
the Belgians were fleeing for their lives towards the safety of their
great fortified city on the Scheldt.
Oh, to see them at every station, crushing in! In they crowd, and in
they crowd, herding like dumb, driven cattle; and always the poor,
white-faced women with their wide, innocent eyes, had babies in their
arms, and little fair-haired Flemish children hanging to their skirts.
Wherever we stopped, we found the platforms lined ten deep, and by the
wildness with which these fugitives fought their way into the crowded
carriages, one guessed at the pent-up terror in those poor hearts! They
_must_, they _must_ get into that train! You could see it was a matter
of life and death with them. And soon every compartment was packed, and
on we went through the stifling, blinding August day--onwards towards
Antwerp.
But when a soldier came along, how eager everyone was to find a place
for him! Not one of us but would gladly give up our seat to any
_soldat_! We would lean from the windows, and shout out loudly, almost
imploringly, "Here, soldat! _Here!_" And when two wounded men from
Malines appeared, we performed absolute miracles of compression in that
long, brown train. We squeezed ourselves to nothing, we stood in back
rows on the seats, while front rows sat on our toes, and the passage
between the seats was packed so closely that one could scarcely insert a
pin, and still we squeezed ourselves, and still fresh passengers came
clambering in, and so wonderful was the spirit of goodwill abroad in
these desperate days in Belgium, that we kept on making room for them,
even when there was absolutely no more room to make!
Then a soldier began talking, and how we listened.
Never did priest, or orator, get such a hearing as that little
blue-coated Belgian, white with dust, clotted with blood and mud, his
yellow beard weeks old on his young face, with his poor feet in their
broken boots, the original blue and red of his coat blackened with
smoke, and hardened with earth where he had slept among the beet-roots
and potatoes at Malines.
He told us in a faint voice: "I often saw King Albert when I was
fighting near Malines. Yes, he was there, our King! He was fighting too,
I saw him many times, I was quite near him. Ah, he has a bravery and
magnificence about him! I saw a shell exploding just a bare yard from
where he was. Over and over again I saw his face, always calm and
resolute. I hope all is well with him," he ended falteringly, "but in
battle one knows nothing!"
"Yes, yes, all is well," answered a dozen voices. "King Albert is back
at Antwerp, and safe with the Queen!"
A look of radiant happiness flashed over the poor fellow's face as he
heard that.
Then he made us all laugh.
He said: "For two days I slept out in the fields, at first among the
potatoes and the beet-roots. And then I came to the asparagus." He drew
himself up a bit. "_Savez-vous_? The asparagus of Malines! It is the
best asparagus in the world? _C'est ça! AND I SLEPT ON IT, ON THE
MALINES ASPARAGUS!_"
About noon that day we had arrived close to Ghent, when suddenly the
train came to a standstill, and we were ordered to get out and told to
wait on the platform.
"Two hours to wait!" the stationmaster told us.
The grey old city of Ghent, calm and massive among her monuments,
looked as though war were a hundred miles away. The shops were all open.
Business was being briskly done. Ladies were buying gloves and ribbons,
old wide-bearded gentlemen were smoking their big cigars. Here and there
was a Belgian officer. The shops were full of English papers.
I went into the Cathedral. It was Saturday morning, but great crowds of
people, peasants, bourgeoisie and aristocracy, were there praying and
telling their rosaries, and as I entered, a priest was finishing his
sermon.
"Remember this, my children, remember this," said the little priest.
"Only silence is great, the rest is weakness!"
It has often seemed to me since that those words hold the key-note to
the Belgian character.
"_Seul la silence est grande; la reste est faiblesse._"
For never does one hear a Belgian complain!
At last, over the flat, green country, came a glimpse of Antwerp, a
great city lying stretched out on the flat lands that border the river
Scheldt.
From the train-windows one saw a bewildering mass of taxi-cabs all
gathered together in the middle of the green fields at the city's
outskirts, for all the taxi-cabs had been commandeered by the
Government. And near them was a field covered with monoplanes and
biplanes, a magnificent array of aircraft of every kind, with the
sunlight glittering over them like silver; they were all ready there to
chase the Zeppelin when it came over from Cologne, and in the air-field
a ceaseless activity went on.
Slowly and painfully our train crept into Antwerp station. The pomp and
spaciousness of this building, with its immense dome-like roof, was very
striking. It was the second largest station in the world. And in those
days it had need to be large, for the crowds that poured out of the
trains were appalling. All the world seemed to be rushing into the
fortified town. Soldiers were everywhere, and for the first time I saw
men armed to the teeth, with bayonets drawn, looking stern and
implacable, and I soon found it was a very terrible affair to get inside
the city. I had to wait and wait in a dense crowd for quite an hour
before I could get to the first line of Sentinels. Then I shewed my
passport and papers, while two Belgian sentinels stood on each side of
me, their bayonets horribly near my head.
Out in the flagged square I got a fiacre, and started off for a drive.
My first impression of Antwerp, as I drove through it that golden day,
was something never, never to be forgotten.
As long as I live I shall see that great city, walled in all round with
magnificent fortifications, standing ready for the siege. Along the
curbstones armed guards were stationed, bayonets fixed, while dense
crowds seethed up and down continually. In the golden sunlight thousands
of banners were floating in the wind, enormous banners of a size such as
I had never seen before, hanging out of these great, white stately
houses along the avenues lined with acacias. There were banners
fluttering out of the shops along the Chaussée de Malines, banners
floating from the beautiful cathedral, banners, banners, everywhere.
Hour after hour I drove, and everywhere there were banners, golden, red
and black, floating on the breeze. It seemed to me that that black
struck a curiously sombre note--almost a note of warning, and I confess
that I did not quite like it, and I even thought to myself that if I
were a Belgian, I would raise heaven and earth to have the black taken
out of my national flag. Alas, one little dreamed, that golden summer
day, of the tragic fate that lay in wait for Antwerp! In those days we
all believed her utterly impregnable.
After a long drive, I drove to the Hotel Terminus to get a cup of tea
and arrange for my stay.
It gave me a feeling of surprise to walk into a beautiful, palm-lined
corridor, and see people sitting about drinking cool drinks and eating
ices. There were high-spirited dauntless Belgian officers, in their
picturesque uniforms, French and English business men, and a sprinkling
of French and English War-Correspondents. A tall, charming grey-haired
American lady with the Red Cross on her black chiffon sleeve was having
tea with her husband, a grey-moustached American Army Doctor. These were
Major and Mrs. Livingstone Seaman, a wealthy philanthropic American
couple, who were devoting their lives and their substance to helping
Red Cross work.
Suddenly a man came towards me.
"You don't remember me," he said. "You are from Australia! I met you
fifteen years ago in Sydney."
It was a strange meeting that, of two Australians, who were destined
later on to face such terrific odds in that city on the Scheldt.
"My orders are," Mr. Frank Fox told me as we chatted away, "to stick it
out. Whatever happens, I've got to see it through for the _Morning
Post_."
"And I'm going to see it through, too," I said.
"Oh no!" said Mr. Fox. "You'll have to go as soon as trouble threatens!"
"Shall I?" I thought.
But as he was a man and an Australian, I did not think it was worth
while arguing the matter with him. Instead, we talked of Sydney, and old
friends across the seas, the Blue mountains, and the Bush, and our poets
and writers and painters and politicians, friends of long ago,
forgetting for the moment that we were chatting as it were on the edge
of a crater.