When, one Saturday afternoon in September,
we stepped on board the boat for Ostend, it was with
a thrill of expectation. For weeks we had read
and spoken of one thing only the War and
now we were to see it for ourselves, we were even
in some way to be a part of it. The curtain was
rising for us upon the greatest drama in all the lurid
history of strife. We should see the armies as
they went out to fight, and we should care for the
wounded when their work was done. We might hear
the roar of the guns and the scream of the shells.
To us, that was War.
And, indeed, we have seen more of
war in these few weeks than has fallen to the lot
of many an old campaigner. We have been through
the siege of Antwerp, we have lived and worked always
close to the firing-line, and I have seen a great
cruiser roll over and sink, the victim of a submarine.
But these are not the things which will live in our
minds. These things are the mere framing of the
grim picture. The cruiser has been blotted out
by the weary faces of an endless stream of fugitives,
and the scream of the shells has been drowned by the
cry of a child. For, though the soldiers may
fight, it is the people who suffer, and the toll of
war is not the life which it takes, but the life which
it destroys.
I suppose, and I hope, that there
is not a man amongst us who has not in his heart wished
to go to the front, and to do what he could.
The thought may have been only transitory, and may
soon have been blotted out by self-interest; and there
is many a strong man who has thrust it from him because
he knew that his duty lay at home. But to everyone
the wish must have come, though only to a few can come
the opportunity. We all want to do our share,
but it is only human that we should at the same time
long to be there in the great business of the hour,
to see war as it really is, to feel the thrill of its
supreme moments, perhaps in our heart of hearts to
make quite certain that we are not cowards. And
when we return, what do we bring with us? We
all bring a few bits of shell, pictures of ruined churches,
perhaps a German helmet and our friends
are full of envy. And some of us return with
scenes burnt into our brain of horror and of pathos
such as no human pen can describe. Yet it is
only when we sit down in the quiet of our homes that
we realize the deeper meaning of all that we have
seen, that we grasp the secret of the strange aspects
of humanity which have passed before us. What
we have seen is a world in which the social conventions
under which we live, and which form a great part or
the whole of most of our lives, have been torn down.
Men and women are no longer limited by the close barriers
of convention. They must think and act for themselves,
and for once it is the men and women that we see,
and not the mere symbols which pass as coin in a world
at peace. To the student of men and women, the
field of war is the greatest opportunity in the world.
It is a veritable dissecting-room, where all the queer
machinery that goes to the making of us lies open
to our view. On the whole, I am very glad that
I am a mere surgeon, and that I can limit my dissections
to men’s bodies. Human Anatomy is bad enough,
but after the last three months the mere thought of
an analysis of Human Motives fills me with terror.
Our boat was one of the older paddle
steamers. We were so fortunate as to have a friend
at Court, and the best cabins on the ship were placed
at our disposal. I was very grateful to that friend,
for it was very rough, and our paddle-boxes were often
under water. We consoled ourselves by the thought
that at least in a rough sea we were safe from submarines,
but the consolation became somewhat threadbare as
time went on. Gradually the tall white cliffs
of Dover sank behind us, splendid symbols of the quiet
power which guards them. But for those great
white cliffs, and the waves which wash their base,
how different the history of England would have been!
They broke the power of Spain in her proudest days,
Napoleon gazed at them in vain as at the walls of
a fortress beyond his grasp, and against them Germany
will fling herself to her own destruction. Germany
has yet to learn the strength which lies concealed
behind those cliffs, the energy and resource which
have earned for England the command of the sea.
It was a bad day for Germany when she ventured to
question that command. She will receive a convincing
answer to her question.
We reached Ostend, and put up for
the night at the Hotel Terminus. Ostend was empty,
and many of the hotels were closed. A few bombs
had been dropped upon the town some days before, and
caused considerable excitement about all
that most bombs ever succeed in doing, as we afterwards
discovered. But it had been enough to cause an
exodus. No one dreamt that in less than three
weeks’ time the town would be packed with refugees,
and that to get either a bed or a meal would be for
many of them almost impossible. Everywhere we
found an absolute confidence as to the course of the
war, and the general opinion was that the Germans
would be driven out of Belgium in less than six weeks.
Two of our friends in Antwerp had
come down to meet us by motor, and we decided to go
back with them by road, as trains, though still running,
were slow and uncertain. It was a terrible day,
pouring in torrents and blowing a hurricane.
Our route lay through Bruges and Ghent, but the direct
road to Bruges was in a bad condition, and we chose
the indirect road through Blankenberghe. We left
Ostend by the magnificent bridge, with its four tall
columns, which opens the way towards the north-east,
and as we crossed it I met the first symbol of war.
A soldier stepped forward, and held his rifle across
our path. My companion leaned forward and murmured,
“Namur,” the soldier saluted, and we passed
on. It was all very simple, and, but for the one
word, silent; but it was the first time I had heard
a password, and it made an immense impression on my
mind. We had crossed the threshold of War.
I very soon had other things to think about. The
road from Ostend to Blankenberghe is about the one
good motor road in Belgium, and my companion evidently
intended to demonstrate the fact to me beyond all
possibility of doubt. We were driving into the
teeth of a squall, but there seemed to be no limits
to the power of his engine. I watched the hand
of his speedometer rise till it touched sixty miles
per hour. On the splendid asphalt surface of the
road there was no vibration, but a north-east wind
across the sand-dunes is no trifle, and I was grateful
when we turned south-eastwards at Blankenberghe, and
I could breathe again.
As I said, that road by the dunes
is unique. The roads of Belgium, for the most
part, conform to one regular pattern. In the centre
is a paved causeway, set with small stone blocks,
whilst on each side is a couple of yards of loose
sand, or in wet weather of deep mud. The causeway
is usually only just wide enough for the passing of
two motors, and on the smaller roads it is not sufficient
even for this. As there is no speed limit, and
everyone drives at the top power of his engine, the
skill required to drive without mishap is considerable.
After a little rain the stone is covered with a layer
of greasy mud, and to keep a car upon it at a high
speed is positively a gymnastic feat. In spite
of every precaution, an occasional descent into the
mud at the roadside is inevitable, and from that only
a very powerful car can extricate itself with any
ease. A small car will often have to slowly push
its way out backwards. In dry weather the conditions
are almost as bad, for often the roadside is merely
loose sand, which gives no hold for a wheel.
For a country so damp and low-lying as Belgium, there
is probably nothing to equal a paved road, but it
is a pity that the paving was not made a little wider.
Every now and then we met one of the huge, unwieldy
carts which seem to be relics of a prehistoric age rough
plank affairs of enormous strength and a design so
primitive as to be a constant source of wonder.
They could only be pulled along at a slow walk and
with vast effort by a couple of huge horses, and the
load the cart was carrying never seemed to bear any
proportion to the mechanism of its transport.
The roads are bad, but they will not account for those
carts. The little front wheels are a stroke of
mechanical ineptitude positively amounting to genius,
and when they are replaced by a single wheel, and
the whole affair resembles a huge tricycle, one instinctively
looks round for a Dinosaur. Time after time we
met them stuck in the mud or partially overturned,
but the drivers seemed in no way disconcerted; it
was evidently all part of the regular business of
the day. When one thinks of the Brussels coachwork
which adorns our most expensive motors, and of the
great engineering works of Liege, those carts are
a really wonderful example of persistence of type.
We passed through Bruges at a pace
positively disrespectful to that fine old town.
There is no town in Belgium so uniform in the magnificence
of its antiquity, and it is good to think that so
far, at any rate it has escaped destruction.
As we crossed the square, the clock in the belfry
struck the hour, and began to play its chimes.
It is a wonderful old clock, and every quarter of
an hour it plays a tune a very attractive
performance, unless you happen to live opposite.
I remember once thinking very hard things about the
maker of that clock, but perhaps it was not his fault
that one of the bells was a quarter of a tone flat.
At the gates our passports were examined, and we travelled
on to Ghent by the Ecloo Road, one of the main thoroughfares
of Belgium. Beyond an occasional sentry, there
was nothing to indicate that we were passing through
a country at war, except that we rarely saw a man
of military age. All were women, old men, or
children. Certainly the men of Belgium had risen
to the occasion. The women were doing everything working
in the fields, tending the cattle, driving the market-carts
and the milk-carts with their polished brass cans.
After leaving Ghent, the men came into view, for at
Lokeren and St. Nicholas were important military stations,
whilst nearer to Antwerp very extensive entrenchments
and wire entanglements were being constructed.
The trenches were most elaborate, carefully constructed
and covered in; and I believe that all the main approaches
to the city were defended in the same way. Antwerp
could never have been taken by assault, but with modern
artillery it would have been quite easy to destroy
it over the heads of its defenders. The Germans
have probably by now rendered it impregnable, for
though in modern war it is impossible to defend one’s
own cities, the same does not apply to the enemy.
In future, forts will presumably be placed at points
of strategic importance only, and as far as possible
from towns.
Passing through the western fortifications,
we came upon the long bridge of boats which had been
thrown across the Scheldt. The river is here
more than a quarter of a mile wide, and the long row
of sailing barges was most picturesque. The roadway
was of wooden planks, and only just wide enough to
allow one vehicle to pass at a time, the tall spars
of the barges rising on each side. It is strange
that a city of such wealth as Antwerp should not have
bridged a river which, after all, is not wider than
the Thames. We were told that a tunnel was in
contemplation. The bridge of boats was only a
tribute to the necessities of war. We did not
dream that a fortnight later it would be our one hope
of escape.