The History of the World War I. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ Just in front of the driver was a slit with a lip extending over it, giving it somewhat the effect of the casque belonging to an ancient suit of armor. That was the only opening except the one for the barrel of the rapid-fire gun in the turret. The armor was dented in a dozen places where bullets had glanced off, but it had only been penetrated at one spot, about six inches from the muzzle of the gun. From the soldier at the steering gear I learned that that bullet had passed over the shoulder of the man in the turret.

      Bombardment of Nieuport.

      Twenty-four hours later, at Nieuport, when the German shells seemed to be falling in every street and on every house, I saw this car again, going forward at not less than forty miles an hour. The turret was being swung to bring the gun-muzzle forward, as if the gunner were expecting to go into action almost immediately. As the last of the Belgian trenches were just the other side of the town, I have no doubt that he did.

      A walk to the firing line.

      Getting out of Dunkirk was rather more of a problem than going in. To obtain permission to ride toward the Belgian line in any kind of conveyance was an elaborate performance, and quite properly so, as I soon learned. There were preparations for defence going on there which should not have been publicly known. The country was full of spies. Four suspects had been picked up on the boat coming from Folkestone. If I had realized what I was to see in the next few miles I would not have attempted what I did. But, as I was anxious to get on and the firing-line was only twenty miles away, I decided to walk.

      A French hat and a French suit of clothes, I think, were alone responsible for my success in passing through the city gate. Two military automobiles were stopped and forced to show their credentials, but I strolled through unmolested. Once outside, the reservists guarding the various barricades let me pass as soon as I showed them my passport viséd in Dunkirk. I was stopped many times, too, trying each time not to give an appearance of too great interest in the works of defence being built all around me.

      Sand-dune barricades.

      Even though this cannot be published for some time I do not feel free to tell what these defences were. I have no doubt there are complete descriptions of these works in the hands of the German army, their spy system is so thorough, but I would not care to have any military secrets escape through anything I write. I think I can go so far as to say, though, that I received a liberal education in how to barricade sand-dunes and low-lying fields.

      Ten miles out of Dunkirk I was surprised to see a civilian on a bicycle, as civilians were no longer permitted to go near the theatre of war on bicycles, a precaution taken against spies. As he approached I recognized Mr. J. Obels, the Belgian correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, whom I had last seen under arrest near Brussels when the German army first passed through Belgium. He told me he had been kept in prison seventeen days by the German military governor of Brussels, but, once released, was given every possible kind of pass. I was relieved to see him alive and free.

      As Obels left me to continue his journey to Dunkirk and on to London to deliver his own "copy," he advised me to go directly to Furnes, the most considerable town in what was left of Belgium, and have my passport viséd again. So I continued down the long, flat highway, bordered on both sides by sunken fields, toward the cannonading I could now hear ahead. The road had been fairly full of automobiles, motor-trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles over its whole length, but it became crowded now with the addition of a long string of Parisian motor-buses taking several infantry regiments forward. A whole artillery division of yellow French "Schneiders" also took up its share of the wide road, and at the barricades there were traffic blockades lasting at times for ten minutes.

      The road to Furnes.

      All the way from Dunkirk I had been struck by the character of the land. As I approached Furnes, the dykes were being opened and half the fields were already inundated. It seemed a poor country for military operations. There were at most three highways, all defended. They could only be taken at a price no army could afford, and any departure from them meant being mired in the heavy fields, now being hastily harvested of a bumper crop of sugar-beets: at one place a whole French regiment in uniform was gathering the beets preparatory to inundation. With the dykes open these fields would be covered with four feet of water half the time. The only possible course for an army was over the sand-dunes, which lay a mile to the north, looking like the imitation mountains you see in the scenic-railways at every amusement resort in the United States.

      Tommies' battles on the sand-dunes.

      A reservist with whom I walked a mile or so told me Dunkirk had never been successfully attacked except over those sand-dunes, and the English and French had fought some of the bloodiest battles of history there against the Spanish, when they held Dunkirk. I doubt, though, that they were as bloody as the battle I was to see within a few hours.

      Belgian soldiers.

      The old Flemish town of Furnes had much less military precision about it than Dunkirk. It was on the very edge of the battle, and an occasional shell was dropping in the town. One exploded as I crossed the bridge and entered a narrow street, but it was on the far side of town, too far away for the soldiers halted in the street to notice. These were tired and dirty men, but not too tired to be courteous. They were also passing jokes among themselves, and laughing. By that, even if I had not known their uniforms, I could have told they were Belgians.

      The enemy held at the Yser.

      Every street and every courtyard in Furnes was full of Belgian soldiers. They were resting for the day, waiting to go forward at night-fall to relieve the men on the firing line only five miles away. Even above the noises of the street I could hear the answer of their small field artillery to the heavy assault of the German guns. Nothing I heard the soldiers say, however, would have given the idea that the Belgians considered themselves outclassed by their enemy. They seemed superbly unconscious of the absurdity of their position. This was the tenth day they had held the Germans at the Yser, and they had done it with rifles and machine guns, taking punishment every minute from the big fieldpieces the Germans had brought against them. So far they had lost twelve thousand men at that ditch, but the thought of giving it up had evidently not even occurred to them. They could not give it up, one of them explained to me later, it was all they had left. There was a little irritation in his tone, too, as he said it, such as one might feel toward a child who was slow at grasping a simple fact.

      Military automobiles and wagons.

      The town square was full of military automobiles and a few provision wagons. I did not see any fieldpieces or machine guns. Every last one was right up on the firing-line. My feet were tired from walking over the Belgian blocks, and I held tenaciously to the sidewalk passing around the square, though it was mostly taken up with café tables and bay trees in boxes. At one point the tables were empty and a single sentry was sauntering up and down. I stopped to ask him the way to the gendarmerie, and, in the middle of giving me the directions, he came to attention, as a door opened behind me, and saluted.

      Two Belgian generals.

      Two men came out of the door, one rather tall, with an easy manner, and smartly dressed as a general in the Belgian army. The other was older, also a general, wearing, if anything, the more gold braid of the two. They entered a waiting automobile and drove off as casually as two men at home might leave their office for their club.

      Something about the first of the two men impressed me as familiar. I had only seen his back, but that had arrested my attention. I thought possibly I had seen him at the beginning of the war in Brussels, so I asked the sentry his name.

      King Albert.

      "That is our king, Albert," he said quite simply.

      During СКАЧАТЬ