who accepted it thankfully." The mist lifted, but it was still very dark. Black night on every hand, save down by Quatrecht, where two torches were blazing, two farms that had been fired. The men listened, straining their ears. It was just a watch, on land instead of at sea. But nothing stirred till 9 o'clock. Then suddenly the veil was rent: shells with luminous fuses burst a few yards from the trenches; the enemy had received artillery reinforcements; our position was soon to become untenable. "We saw the Boches by the light of the shells, creeping along the hedges and houses like rats. We fired into the mass, and brought them down in heaps, but they kept on advancing. The Commander was unwilling for us to expose ourselves further; he gave orders to abandon Gontrode and fall back a little further upon Melle, behind the railway bank."[12] We lost a few men in the retreat. But our position was excellent. About 60 metres from the trenches our machine-guns poured out hell-fire on the enemy, whom we had allowed to approach. A splendid charge by the Fusiliers completed his discomfiture. It was four in the morning. At 7 a.m. our patrols brought us word that Gontrode and Quatrecht were evacuated; the Germans had not even stopped to pick up their wounded. The Fusiliers did this good office for them when they went to reoccupy Gontrode, taking the opportunity to collect a good number of German helmets.[13] Meanwhile the brigade had passed under the command of General Capper, of the 7th English Division, who had just arrived at Ghent, where his men received an ovation like that bestowed on our own sailors. Indeed, there is a strong likeness between them. The Englishmen in their dark dun-coloured uniform, with their clear eyes and rhythmic gait, are also of an ocean race, and do not forget it. They swung along, their rifles under their arms, or held by the barrel against their shoulders like oars, singing the popular air adopted by the whole British army: _It's a long, long way to Tipperary._ Apparently Ghent lies on the road to this goal, for the _Tommies_ can never have been gayer. These fine troops, which advanced to the firing line as if they had been going to a Thames regatta, were the admiration not only of the citizens of Ghent, but of our own sailors, who felt an unexpected tenderness for them. Had not the hereditary foe become our staunchest ally? "We look upon them as brothers," wrote a sailor of the Passage Lauriec to his family next day.