The History of the World War I. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ the next couple of days I saw the King of Belgium a number of times. He spent his nights at a small villa on the seashore at La Panne, a hundred yards possibly beyond the hotel where I spent mine. He passed through the streets as unnoticed as any one of the other Belgians who had retreated from Antwerp and Ghent ahead of the army, but preferred the chilly nights in an unheated seaside hotel in Belgium to comfort somewhere beyond. It seemed to be a point of courtesy on the part of the Belgians not to bother their king with ceremony at this trying time. I doubt if he cares much for ceremony, anyhow. Searching around for a single adjective to describe him, I should call him off-handed. His manner, even then, while alert, was casual. It is easy to see why the Belgians love him. If kings had always been as simple and direct as Albert, I am inclined to think democracy would have languished.

      Luncheon at La Panne.

      At La Panne, which I reached at noon on a little steam railway running from Furnes, I had luncheon with several Belgian soldiers and a Belgian in civilian clothes, who told me I would see all the fighting I was looking for at Nieuport, just beyond. The civilian, a tall youth with a blond beard, volunteered to show me the way to the beach, the shortest route, and ended by going all the way. He told me he was recovering from an "attack of Congo," which I take to be an intermittent fever. He had just been mustered out of the civic guard and was waiting for a uniform to join the army. He had the afternoon free and his Belgian sense of hospitality impelled him to see that the stranger was properly looked after.

      For several miles along the wide, flat beach, which stretches unobstructed as far as Ostend, except for the piers at Nieuport-les-Bains and Westende, there were Belgian soldiers bathing in the shallow water. Some of them, cavalrymen, were riding naked into the deeper water, and this, mind you, was late October. They were even playing jokes on one another, and did not seem to be paying any attention to the fifteen English and French cruisers and gunboats which were standing off the shore almost opposite them, keeping up a steady stream of fire obliquely along the beach at the sand dunes just beyond the pier at Nieuport-les-Bains. In these dunes, five miles away, big German guns were hidden.

      Fishermen unconcerned.

      Farther on, and even right up to the pier at Nieuport, we passed, along the beach behind the shrimp fishermen, who seemed even less interested in the novel fight on land and sea. The barelegged men and women were as industriously taking advantage of the low-tide as if nothing at all were happening. The French and English warships were directly opposite them, and, by this time, they were drawing the German fire. German shells, probably from siege guns, were plumping down into the water all around them only a couple of miles off-shore, but, though the shrimpers looked up occasionally when the explosion of a shell fairly shook the face of the ocean, their attention would be directed again to their work before the column of water raised by the shell had had time to fall again. The shelling kept up about an hour, but none of the warships was struck. They kept moving at full-speed in an uneven line, making it impossible to get their range.

      A panorama of battle.

      Germans try to cross the Yser.

      Just before we reached the pier heavy cannonading began inland. We climbed the sand dunes and there we came suddenly upon a perfect panoramic view of the battle all the way from the dunes across the inundated fields to Dixmude in the distance. The whole line of battle for ten miles was in the midst of a German attack, covered by a terrific artillery fire. Over the white, red-tiled cottages of the fishermen, almost lost among the lesser sand dunes, we could make out the Belgian line by the fire of their rifle and machine guns. At two points we could see the Yser Canal and at one of these the Germans were trying to throw across a pontoon bridge.

      We could see it only through the smoke of breaking shells, but it was the most exciting event I have ever witnessed. At three miles or more, though, the figures of the men were so small, it was hard to keep the fact in mind that those who dropped were not merely stooping, but had been shot. Eager to get closer, we ran over the sand dunes, but never got another view of it.

      Running to see a battle.

      My Belgian friend knew his way and we trotted along a raised path among the fields toward Nieuport. It was under fire, but it seemed worth the risk to get close enough so we could see the pontoons being rushed into the water. As we neared Nieuport, however, the firing became much more active and we stopped for second thought. After catching our breath, we decided to pass through the edge of Nieuport and to go on to the village of Ramscapelle to the south of it. Few shells seemed to be breaking there.

      Almost under fire.

      Along the cross road we took, alternately running and walking. The Belgian trenches were perhaps a half mile beyond us, and we could make out the tap-tap of the rifle fire which had been only a continuous cracking a mile in the rear. Into this the machine guns cut with a whir. Spent bullets dropped here and there in the inundated field to the west of us, but the German shell fire must have been right in the trenches.

      Somewhere before we reached Ramscapelle we crossed a road with military automobiles going both ways, but my desire to get behind the sheltering buildings of Ramscapelle was too strong at the moment to take it in.

      Fires and explosions in Ramscapelle.

      About a hundred yards from the village there was a house on the edge of a canal, and we stopped behind it, safe from bullet-fire, to catch our breath again. It was as far as we were destined to get. All at once shells began dropping on the village, and I have not seen shells drop so fast in so small an area. In the first minute there must have been twenty. Three fires broke out almost at once. Between the explosions we could hear the falling tiles.

      The short October day grew unexpectedly dusk and the fires in the village reflected in the water on the fields. After the bombarding had been going on without the least let-up for fully fifteen minutes, a bent old woman, a man perhaps older but less bent, and a younger woman appeared on the road to Furnes just beyond us, hurrying along without once looking back. They were the only people we saw and the destruction of the town looked like the most ruthless piece of vandalism. It had a military purpose, however. The Germans were concentrating an attack on it with the hope of reaching Furnes. They occupied it that night, but were later driven out again. I have learned since some of the villagers remained through that bombardment, and were killed in their houses.

      Destruction of Ramscapelle.

      While we stood sheltered by the house on the canal, speculating as to which one of the houses still standing in Ramscapelle would be hit next, the light from those on fire reflected on the dark, brackish water of the canal, which was running in with the tide. Presently we noticed something in the water, and, stooping down in the twilight, we made out the body of a man face downward. The color of the coat and the little short skirt to it showed it was the body of a German soldier. It passed on and was followed by three more before we left. They had been in the water several days.

      The fire from the trenches died down at dusk and we made our way back along the empty crossroad. Half way back to the dunes we passed a Red Cross motor ambulance, headed toward Ramscapelle. On the seat beside the driver was a young English woman. She was wearing the gray-brown coat and gray-brown puttees of the English soldier. We called out to her we thought the town was empty, but the only answer we got from the speeding ambulance was an assuring wave of the young woman's hand, which was evidently meant to inform us she knew where she was going.

      Ambulances and infantry pass.

      On the main road from Nieuport to Furnes, which we followed a short distance, there were dozens of ambulances going to the rear and a long column of infantry going forward. Headed toward the rear there were also many wounded men on foot. They had been dressed at Nieuport, but there were not enough ambulances to take them all away. One who was walking slowly and painfully told me he had a СКАЧАТЬ