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272 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
by intermittent rows of houses. Towards Middelkerke the
life and trafftc increased. Long food and ammunition columns
were being brought up to the rear of the troops. In a street
in the little town the men were busy hiding the light canvas
awnings of the provision wagons with twigs and branches,
and the vehicles looked like so many leafy bowers. Yet I was
unpleasantly impressed by the sight of this kind of leafy bower,
for in my mind it was too closely associated with impending
danger. As I have said before, this sort of disguise is necessi-
tated by the enemy’s air scouting.
We asked a picket where the General~in-Command von
Werder had his quarters, and were directed to a modest little
house. The General was busy at the moment receiving details
of the situation in this part of the theatre of war. A report
on the subject had to be sent to Main Headquarters. As soon
as this matter was disposed of, we were shown in. The General
received us with the greatest kindness. He was in brilliant
spirits and possesses in a high degree that immovable equa-
nimity required in difficult situations. Lieutenant-Colonel
Wittisch was told to lend us an officer familiar with the field
of battle, who would take us to a point of vantage from which
we could obtain a view of the situation without too much
exposing ourselves to the enemy’s fire. The Colonel asked
whether he might not undertake this job himself, and so we
promptly seated ourselves in his open car and continued on
our way along the sea-front under cover of the only row of
houses separating us from the sea. These houses are, however,
intersected by several narrow streets like the openings in a
gallery, through which we caught sight of the sea and two
destroyers which had detached themselves from the British
squadron and were now two kilometres away. They were
clearly out to observe what was passing on shore, but did not
fire, at least not at the moment.
On reaching the last of the stone houses at the western
end of Middelkerke we alighted from the car and proceeded
on foot some distance south to the crest of the highest dune in
the neighbourhood. At this point we were only a little over
seven kilometres from Nieuport, which was in the hands of
the Allies. We had with us a map of the neighbourhood and
commanded a wide radius of the blood-drenched country.
Below the crest of the dune, to the south-west, stood the
nearest German batteries. They were just on the point of
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