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TWO MORE DAYS ON THE CHANNEL COAST 289
crowd of men, women and young girls ; they all seemed more
or less to be enjoying themselves. We met a couple of naval
officers, among them a cheery and amusing corvette com-
mander named Mönch. He told us that no British warships
had been seen in this direction. The sea had probably been
mined in this part. Not far north-east of Blankenberghe lies
Zeebrugge, the port of Bruges. The two towns are connected
by a canal, which might have been laid out with a ruler.
In the gloaming we drove past the great Belgian hospital
on the eastern outskirts of Ostend. A funeral was taking
place in its little cemetery. Several officers and a number of
men were standing round the grave. The naval chaplain had
just finished speaking and the band was playing a funeral
march. The funeral was that of Chief-Surgeon Dr. Lippe,
whose career had been ended yesterday by the shell from the
British destroyer.
In due course we got back once more to La Couronne and
assembled as usual for supper at eight o’clock. The restaurant
is neither as large nor as fine as at the Littoral, and we missed
above all the drowsy music of the swell breaking on the beach.
Our former large company has now been split up into several
little groups. Bess, Schönfelder, Kiibler and I stick together
as before. The clock strikes ten, we dawdle over our coffee
and cigars discussing the war, reciting Kipling and exchanging
anecdotes. We laugh till our sides ache over Schonfelder’s
desperate efforts to repeat quickly the words :
" Didon dma,
dit-on, du dos d’un dodu dindon." But he got his revenge by
confronting me with the following awkward problem : What
does the following sentence sound like when spelt backward :
" Ein Neger mit Gazelle zagt im Regen nie " ?
^
Such was the mood at our table, and such is the mood of
the fighting men all along the front. Anxiety as to the result,
nervousness, overwork, fear, are terms of which they do not
know the meaning. Nothing made a deeper impression on
me than this wonderful calm, this absolute certainty of
victory everywhere, this incredible superabundance of physi-
cal energy and of materiel in men, horses and iron. It seemed
to me that the German armies on the western front had not
yet realised the irresistible strength which they had at their
disposal. The apparent pause was a link in a strategic chain.
When the moment for the great decision arrived, the army
^ Spells the same backwards,
U
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