At last we crossed the border from Brabant into Flanders, and galloping up a long hill we found ourselves in Ninove. It was in a terrific state of excitement. Here we saw the results of the fighting I had heard at Enghien on the Saturday. The Germans had pillaged and destroyed. Houses lay tumbled on the streets, the peasants stood grouped in terror, the air was full of the smell of burning. At a house where we bought some apples we saw a sitting-room after the Huns had finished it. Every bit of glass and china in the room was smashed, tumblers, wine-glasses, jugs, plates, cups, saucers lay in heaps all over the floor. All the pictures were cut from the frames, all the chairs and tables were broken to bits. The cushions were torn open, the bookshelves toppled forward, the books lay dripping wet on the grey carpet as if buckets of water had been poured over them. Jam tins, sardine tins, rubbish and filth were all over the carpet, and bottles were everywhere. It was a low, degrading sight. CHAPTER XXVII "THE ENGLISH ARE COMING" I am back in Antwerp and the unexpected has happened. We are besieged. The siege began on Thursday. The mental excitement of these last days passes all description. And yet Antwerp is calm outwardly, and but for the crowds of peasants, pouring into the city with their cows and their bundles, one would hardly know that the Germans were really attacking us at last. The Government has issued an order that anyone who likes may leave Antwerp; but once having done so no one will be permitted to return; and that quite decides us; we will remain. All day long the cannon are booming and pounding; sometimes they sound so near that one imagines a shell must have burst in Antwerp itself; and sometimes they grow fainter, they are obviously receding. Or so we tell ourselves hopefully. We are always hopeful; we are always telling each other that things are going better. Everyone is talking, talking, talking. Everyone is asking, "What do you think? Have you heard any news?" Everyone is saying, "But of course it will be all right!" "The Germans have been driven back five kilometres," says one civilian. "Have you heard the news? The Germans have been driven back six kilometres!" says another. And again: "Have _you_ heard the good news? Germans driven back seven kilometres!" And at last a curious mental condition sets in. We lose interest in the cannon, and we go about our business, just as if those noises were not ringing in our ears, even as we sit at dinner in our hotel. There is one little notice pasted up about the hotel that, simply as it reads, fills one with a new and more active terror than shell-fire:-- "_Il n'y a pas d'eau!_" This is because the German shells have smashed the Waterworks at Wavre S. Catherine. And so, in the meantime, Antwerp's hotels are flooded with carbolic, and we drink only mineral waters, and wait (hopeful as ever) for the great day when the bathrooms will be opened again.