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238 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
packed together in certain parts of the harbour. Here also
we came across barricades of iron girders and barbed-wire
entanglements, and behind a parapet close by stood a Belgian
gun with the breech-block missing.
Comte de Smets dc Naeyer was the name of a fine-looking
Belgian training-ship with light grey hull, white masts and
spick and span rigging, but there was nothing on board to
arouse our interest. We also paid a little visit to the great
Australian liner, Tasmania. In the officers’ cabins all drawers
had been pulled out and everything of value taken away.
Nothing but books, papers and a quantity of accounts and
other objects of no value remained. But on a writing-table in
the captain’s own cabin stood a portrait of a woman and a
photograph of a group of bonny children. In the dining
saloon a table stood laid with a silver coffee-pot, half-full, cups
and a box of cigars which had more or less been ransacked of
its contents. All the passenger staterooms were empty and
deserted. As we wandered through the endless corridors our
steps gave off a hollow and eerie echo, and we actually stopped
once or twice to discover whether it was really the echo of our
own steps we heard, or whether someone was following us.
One might believe almost anything in such times as these.
Fugitives might for instance have hidden themselves on board.
We shouted, but the sound of our voices died away in the
abandoned ship and there was no answer. We looked into the
forecastle, but nobody now slept in these bunks, so often
rocked by the ocean swell. The same grave-like silence every-
where. It was quite uncanny to walk about this ghost-ship,
this " flying Dutchman " with its crew of invisible spirits
who seemed to eye us from every nook and cranny.
At half-past six we returned to the capital and it was pitch-
dark before we arrived ninety minutes later. At first the
road was fairly clear, but later on we drove past incessant
columns marching on their way to Ghent. As so many times
before, a kaleidoscope of horses, riders and wagons were
brought into successive relief by the light of our lamps. The
men, otherwise singing and joking, were now still and sat as
if moulded in the saddle. Once again we heard this eternal
clatter of iron-shod hoofs against the stone paving, this end-
less tramp, tramp, tramp which is the music of the marching
columns. The rattle of the wagons, the creaking of the iron-
tyred wheels, the jingling of the chains, the chafing of the
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