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230 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
fuse screwed off. The projectiles had not been used, and had
been allowed to fall into German hands in this mutilated state.
It now became impossible to drive quickly. The road was
filled to overflowing with transport columns and Uhlans. They
were on their way to Antwerp and were later bound for Ghent.
In the west we heard the roar of cannon in the distance. The
Germans were giving themselves no peace. Impregnable
Antwerp had fallen in the course of a few days, yet the con-
querors were swiftly hurrying westward, ever onward towards
the sea. England had wanted war, and England was to have
her fill and was to get more than she had bargained for since
the days of Wellington. Entire companies of marines came
marching on, magnificent specimens, all of the true Germanic
type. Here and there they halted in villages, where they
dragged out chairs and placed them along the house walls
to get a good and convenient view of the ever-changing,
never-ceasing life on the open road. At a corner in the badly
ravaged village of Waelhem stood a clownish figure, beating
a cracked drum. He wore a crazy-looking top-hat on his
head and had drawn sooty lines on his face to represent
moustache, imperial and eyebrows. He sang a Flemish song,
twisted his body into extraordinary shapes and looked in-
describably comical and jovial. The soldiers were beside
themselves with laughter, and we could not help sharing their
merriment as the performer broke off his song for a moment
to greet us with a whimsical salute.
As we again swung round the cathedral at Malines, where
we stayed in the morning, Kes dropped the remark that it
seemed to him as if several days had since elapsed. And he
was right, for we had indeed seen and experienced much on
this remarkable journey. We had come armed as if for battle,
but everything had passed off peacefully, and a rumour that
what was left of the Belgian army intended to attack the
western bank of the Scheldt, had not yet been borne out by
events. We had seen none but German soldiers amid the
quaint old-fashioned and lavish architecture of the streets and
market-places surrounding Antwerp’s venerable cathedral.
The few people remaining out of Antwerp’s civil population
were very peaceable citizens and seemed resolved to accept
their fate. But in Brussels, whither we returned in the gloam-
ing, we found nobody who would believe in Antwerp’s fall,
for had not the allied leaders nourished the belief that this
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