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VIA GHENT AND BRUGES TO OSTEND 265
kilometres further on towards the south-west and we come
to a crossing, where we are stopped by an infantry picket. As
we halt we hear a violent cannonade within a short distance.
Our papers are examined, and we are told that an artillery
duel is going on at Middelkerke and that the German positions
are on the near side of the long canal connecting Ostend with
Nieuport and Dunkerque. A squadron of British warships
is said to be lying off the coast and bombarding the German
positions, which are also attacked from the land side by
Belgian and French troops. But the road to Ostend, which
runs first to the north-west and later to the north-north-east,
was said to be free. The soldiers thought that we were practi-
cally, if not entirely, safe from shells on that road. The most
dangerous point was the bend on the other side of the canal,
where the road changes its direction. We met coming from
Ostend several ammunition columns on the way to the troops
at Middelkerke, where numbers of wounded soldiers were re-
turning to the rear.
We got safely past the dangerous corner and arrived safe
and sound in the handsome and aristocratic town by the sea,
to which Baedeker has given the following testimonial
:
" Ostend is perhaps at present Europe’s most elegant watering-
place." We drove on to the avenue along the front with its
rows of big hotels facing the sea. Most of them are only
open during the season, which ends on the 15th September,
and during which some 45,000 visitors reside in the town.
But Ostend is also the terminus of one of the passenger routes
between England and the Continent and this traffic goes on
all the year round. Travellers held up by gales or by fatigue
can find hotels of a less pretentious kind, but they are situated
in the interior of the town.
It was two o’clock when we arrived. I had never been
to Ostend and knew none of the German officers, but I had my
pass and felt I ought to report myself to the commandant,
who was said to be stopping at the Hotel Littoral facing the sea,
so we proceeded there and lunched immediately in the res-
taurant, for Consul Petri’s time was nearly up and he had
to be back in Antwerp before nightfall. I accompanied him
and his Belgian friend to the door, thanked them for their
companionship and saw them drive off with a little Swedish
flag in front cracking in the breeze.
It looked strange, this grey and dreary sea, as one cast one’s
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