Jean began to bite his moustache and walk up and down, smiling intermittently, a queer distracted-looking smile that showed his white teeth. He always did that when he was thinking how to circumvent the authorities. He had a word here with an officer, and a word there with a gendarme. Then he came back to us: "We shall all go and interview the stationmaster, and see what can be done!" So we went to the stationmaster, and Jean produced his papers, and Julie produced hers, and the old professor from Liège produced his, and I produced my English passport. Jean talked a great deal, and the stationmaster shook his head a great deal, and there was an endless colloquy, such as Belgians dearly love; and just as I thought everything was lost, the stationmaster hastened off into the dark with a little lantern and told us to follow him right across the train lines, and we came to a bewildering mass of lights, and at last we reached a spot in the middle of many train lines which seemed extremely dangerous, when the stationmaster said, "Stand there! And when train 57 comes along get immediately into the guard's van! There is only one." We waited a long time, and the night grew cold and dark before 57 came along. When it puffed itself into a possible position we all performed miracles in the way of climbing up an enormous step, and then we found ourselves in a little wooden van, with one dim light burning, and one wooden seat, and in we got, seating ourselves in a row on the hard seat, and off we started through the night for Ghent. Looking through a peep-hole, I suddenly stifled an exclamation. Pointing straight at me were the muzzles of guns. "Mais oui," said Jean. "That is what this train is doing. It is taking guns to Ghent. There are big movements of troops going on." We were shaken nearly to pieces. And we went so slowly that we scarcely moved at all. But we arrived at Ghent at last, arrived of course, as usual in war time, at a station one had never seen or heard of before, in a remote, far-off portion of the town, and then we had to find our way back to the town proper, a long, long walk. It was twelve o'clock when we got into the beautiful old dreamlike town. First we went to the Hotel Ganda. "Full up!" said the fat, white-faced porter rudely. "No room even on the floor to sleep." "Can you give us something to eat?" we pleaded. "Impossible! The kitchens are shut up." He was a brute of a porter, an extraordinary man who never slept, and was on duty all night and all day. He was hand in glove with the Germans all the time, his face did not belie him; he looked the ugliest, stealthiest creature, shewing a covert rudeness towards all English-speaking people, that many of us remember now and understand. In the pitch darkness we set out again, clattering about the flagged streets of Ghent, a determined little party now, with our high spirits quite unchecked by hunger and fatigue, to try to find some sleeping place for the night.