IN THE TRACK OF THE HUNS
When I look back on those days, the most pathetic thing about it all
seems to me the absolute security in which we imagined ourselves
dwelling.
The King and Queen were in their Palace, that tall simple flat-fronted
grey house in the middle of the town. Often one saw the King, seated in
an open motor car coming in and out of the town, or striding quickly
into the Palace. Tall and fair, his appearance always seemed to me to
undergo an extraordinary change from the face as shewn in photographs.
It was because in real life those beautiful wide blue eyes of his,
mirrors of truth and simple courage, were covered with glasses.
And "la petite Reine," equally beloved, was very often to be seen too,
driving backwards and forwards to the hospitals, the only visits she
ever paid.
All theatres were closed, all concerts, all cinemas. All the galleries
were shut. Never a note of song or music was to be heard anywhere. To
open a piano at one's hotel would have been a crime.
And yet, that immense crowd gathered together in Antwerp for safety,
Ambassadors, Ministers and their wives and families, Consuls, Échevins,
merchants, stockbrokers, peasants, were anything but gloomy. A peculiar
tide of life flowed in and out through that vast cityful of people. It
was life, vibrant with expectation, thrilling with hope and fear,
without a moment's loneliness. They walked about the shady avenues. They
sat at their cafés, they talked, they sipped their coffee, or their
"Elixir d'Anvers" and then they went home to bed. After seven the
streets were empty, the cafés shut, the day's life ended.
Never a doubt crossed our minds that the Germans could possibly get
through those endless fortifications surrounding Antwerp on all sides.
Getting about was incredibly difficult. In fact, without a car, one
could see nothing, and there were no cars to be had, the War Office had
taken them all over. In despair I went to Sir Frederick Greville, the
English Ambassador, and after certain formalities and inquiries, Sir
Frederick very kindly went himself to the War Office, saw Count Chabeau
on my behalf, and arranged for my getting a car.
Many a dewy morning, while the sun was low in the East, I have started
out and driven along the road to Ghent, or to Liège, or to Malines, and
looking from the car I observed those endless forests of wire, and the
mined waters whose bridges one drove over so slowly, so softly, in such
fear and trembling. And then, set deep in the great fortified hillsides,
the mouths of innumerable cannon pointed at one; and here and there
great reflectors were placed against the dull earth-works to shew when
the enemy's aircraft appeared in the skies. Nothing seemed wanting to
make those fortifications complete and successful. It was heart-breaking
to see the magnificent old châteaux and the beautiful little houses
being ruthlessly cut down, razed to the earth to make clear ground in
all directions for the defence-works. The stumps of the trees used to
look to me like the ruins of some ancient city, for even they
represented the avenues of real streets and roads, and the black, empty
places behind them were the homes that had been demolished in this
overwhelming attempt to keep at least one city of Belgium safe and
secure from the marauding Huns.
Afterwards, when all was over, when Antwerp had fallen, I passed through
the fortifications for the last time on my way to Holland. And oh, the
sadness of it! There were the wire entanglements, untouched, unaltered!
The great reflectors still mirrored the sunlight and the stars. The
demolition of the châteaux and house had been all in vain. On this side
there had been little fighting, they had got in on the other side.
Every five minutes one's car would be held up by sentinels who rushed
forward with poised bayonets, demanding the password for the day.
That always seemed to me like a bit of mediæval history.
"Arrêtez!" cried the sentinels, on either side the road, lifting their
rifles as they spoke.
Of course we came to a stop immediately.
Then the chauffeur would lean far out, and whisper in a hoarse, low
voice, the password, which varied with an incessant variety. Sometimes
it would be "Ostend" or "Termond" or "Demain" or "General" or
"Bruxelles" or "Belgique," or whatever the War Office chose to make it.
Then the sentinel would nod. "Good," he would say, and on we would go.
The motor car lent me by the Belgian War Office, was driven by an
excitable old Belgian, who loved nothing better than to get into a
dangerous spot. His favourite saying, when we got near shell-fire, and
one asked him if he were frightened, was: "One can only die once." And
the louder the shells, the quicker he drove towards them; and I used to
love the way his old eyes flashed, and I loved too the keenly
disappointed look that crept over his face when the sentinels refused to
let him go any nearer the danger line, and we had to creep ignominiously
back to safety.
"Does not your master ever go towards the fighting?" I asked him.
"Non, madame," he answered sadly, "Mon general, he is the PAPA of the
Commissariat! He does not go near the fighting. He only looks after the
eating."
We left Antwerp one morning about nine o'clock, and sped outwards
through the fortifications, being stopped every ten minutes as usual by
the sentinels and asked to show our papers. On we ran along the white
tree-lined roads through exquisite green country. The roads were crowded
constantly with soldiers coming and going, and in all the villages we
found the Headquarters of one or other Division of the Belgian Army,
making life and bustle indescribable in the flagged old streets, and
around the steps of the quaint mediæval Town Halls and Cathedrals.
[Illustration: A FRIENDLY CHAT.]
We had gone a long way when we were brought to a standstill at a little
place called Heyst-op den Berg, where the sentinels leaned into our car
and had a long friendly chat with us.
"You cannot go any further," they said. "The Germans are in the next
town ahead; they are only a few kilometres away."
"What town is it?" I asked.
"Aerschot," they replied.
"That is on the way to Louvain, is it not?" I asked. "I have been trying
for a long time to get to Louvain!"
"You can never get to Louvain, Madam," the sentinels told me smilingly.
"Between here and Louvain lies the bulk of the German Army."
Just then, a _chasseur_, mounted on a beautiful fiery little brown
Ardennes horse, came galloping along, shouting as he passed, "The
Germans have been turned out of Aerschot; we have driven them out, _les
sales cochons!_"
He jumped off his horse, gave the reins to a soldier and leapt into a
train that was standing at the station.
A sudden inspiration flashed into my head. Without a word I jumped out
of the motor car, ran through the station, and got into that train just
as it was moving off, leaving my old Belgian to look after the car.
Next moment I found myself being carried along through unknown regions,
and as I looked from the windows I soon discovered that I had entered
now into the very heart of German ruin and pillage and destructiveness.
Pangs of horror attacked me at the sight of those blackened roofless
houses, standing lonely and deserted among green, thriving fields. I saw
one little farm after another reduced to a heap of blackened ashes, with
some lonely animals gazing terrifiedly into space. Sometimes just one
wall would be standing of what was once a home, sometimes only the front
of the house had been blown out by shells, and you could see right
inside,--see the rooms spread out before you like a panorama, see the
children's toys and frocks lying about, and the pots and pans, even the
remains of dinner still on the table, and all the homely little things
that made you feel so intensely the difference between this chill,
deathly desolation and the happy domestic life that had gone on in such
peaceful streams before the Huns set their faces Belgium-wards.
Mile after mile the train passed through these ravaged areas, and I
stood at the window with misty eyes and quickened breath? looking up and
down the lonely roads, and over the deserted fields where never a soul
was to be seen, and in my mind's eye, I could follow those peasants,
fleeing, fleeing, ever fleeing from one village to another, from one
town to another, hunted and followed by the cruel menace of War which
they, poor innocent ones, had done so little to deserve.
The only comfort was to think of them getting safely across to England,
and as I looked at those little black and ruined homes, I could follow
the refugees in their flight and see them streaming out of the trains at
Victoria and Charing Cross, and being taken to warm, comfortable homes
and clothed and fed by gentle-voiced English people. And then, waking
perhaps in the depths of the night to find themselves in a strange land,
how their thoughts would fly, with what awful yearning, back to those
little blackened homes, back to the memories of the cow and the horse
and the faithful dogs, and the corn in the meadows, and the purple
cabbages uncut and the apples ungarnered! Yes, I could see it all, and
my heart ached as it had never ached before.
When I roused myself from these sad thoughts, I looked about me and
discovered that I was in a train full of nothing but soldiers and
priests. I sat very still in my corner. I asked no questions, and spoke
to no one. I knew by instinct that this train was going to take me to a
place that I never should have arrived at otherwise, and I was right.
The train took me to Aerschot, and I may say now that only one other
War-Correspondent arrived there.
Alighting at the station at Aerschot, I looked about me, scarcely
believing that what I saw was real.
The railway station appeared to have fallen victim to an earthquake.