Then somebody said "We're in Holland!" and there were shouts of laughter from everybody in the car except the little Belgian. Then shouts of laughter from the Dutch sentries and Customs officers, who enjoyed this excellent joke as much as we did. We were now out of our course by I don't know how many miles and short of petrol. But one of the Customs officers gave us all we wanted. It's heart-breaking the way these dear Belgians take the British. They have waited so long for our army, believing that it would come, till they could believe no more. In Ghent, in Antwerp, you wouldn't know that Belgium had any allies; you never see the British flag, or the French either, hanging from the windows. The black, yellow and red standard flies everywhere alone. Now that we _have_ come, their belief in us is almost unbearable. They really think we are going to save Antwerp. Somewhere between Antwerp and Saint Nicolas the population of a whole village turned out to meet us with cries of "_Les Anglais! Les Anglaises!_" and laughed for joy. Terrible for us, who had heard Belgians say reproachfully: "We thought that the British would come to our help. But they never came!" They said it more in sorrow than in anger; but you couldn't persuade them that the British fought for Belgium at Mons. We got into Ghent about midnight. Dr. ---- is to stay at the Hotel de la Poste to-night. [_Monday, 5th._] The mosquitoes from the canal have come up and bitten me. I was ill all night with something that felt like malarial fever, if it isn't influenza. Couldn't get up--too drowsy. Mr. L. came in to see me first thing in the morning. He also came to hear at first hand the story of our run into Antwerp. He was extremely kind. He sat and looked at me sorrowfully, as if he had been the family doctor, and gave me some of his very own China tea (in Belgium in war-time this is one of the most devoted things that man can do for his brother). He was so gentle and so sympathetic that my heart went out to him, and I forgot all about poor Mr. Davidson, and gave up to him the whole splendid "scoop" of the British troops at Saint Nicolas. I couldn't tell him much about the run into Antwerp. No doubt it was a thrilling performance--through all the languor of malaria it thrills me now when I think of it--but it wasn't much to offer a War Correspondent, since it took us nowhere near the bombardment. It had nothing for the psychologist or for the amateur of strange sensations, and nothing for the pure and ardent Spirit of Adventure, and nothing for that insatiable and implacable Self, that drives you to the abhorred experiment, determined to know how you will come out of it. For there was no more danger in the excursion than in a run down to Brighton and back; and I know no more of fear or courage than I did before I started.