At the end of a fortnight the reinforcements had not yet arrived, and the Fusiliers were still "holding out." These men had no illusions as to the fate awaiting them. They knew they were doomed, but they understood the grandeur of their sacrifice. "The post of honour was given to us sailors," wrote Fusilier P., of Audierne, on November 5; "we were to hold that corner at all costs and to die rather than surrender. And indeed we did stand firm, although we were only a handful of men against a force six times as large as ours, with artillery." They numbered exactly 6,000 sailors and 5,000 Belgians, under the command of Colonel (acting General) Meiser, against three German army corps. Their artillery was very insufficient, at least at the beginning. They had no heavy guns and no air-planes,[25] nothing to give them information but the reports of the Belgian cyclists and the approximate estimates of the men in the trenches. "How many of you were there?" asked a Prussian major who had been taken prisoner, speaking the day after the fall of Dixmude. "Forty thousand, at least!" And when he heard that there had been only 6,000 sailors, he wept with rage, muttering: "Ah! if we had only known!" FOOTNOTES: [23] In spite of this, four Belgian divisions held the road from Ypres to Ostend, between Dixmude and Middelkerke, unaided, till October 23, and then the line of the Yser from Dixmude to Nieuport. [24] Pierre Loti, _Illustration_ for December 12, 1914. [25] But this was not due to defective organisation. It must be remembered that the brigade was destined for Antwerp, and that unforeseen circumstances had caused it to become a detached corps, operating far from our bases. VI. THE CAPTURE OF BEERST Save for an unimportant suburb beyond the Handzaeme Canal, Dixmude lies entirely on the right bank of the Yser. Nevertheless, our general line of defence on October 16, both up and down stream, went beyond the line traced by the course of the river. From Saint-Jacques-Cappelle to the North Sea, by way of Beerst, Keyem, Leke, Saint-Pierre, etc., little rural settlements but yesterday unknown, drowsing in the gentle Flemish calm, the arc of the circle it described followed, almost throughout its course as far as Slype, the roadside light railway from Ypres to Ostend. The Fusiliers flanked this front from Saint-Jacques to the confluence of the Vliet. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Belgian Divisions occupied the rest of the horse-shoe, but the effectives of these reduced divisions had not been made up; some of the regiments had been reduced from 6,000 to 2,000 men; whole companies had melted away. The remnants continued to stand their ground with fine courage. Until when? They had been asked, like our Fusiliers, to hold out for four days, and it was not until October 23, at the end of nine days, that General Grossetti and his reinforcements arrived.[26]