The game of secrecy has been played too long. It has deceived nobody and increased the unrest. It is to be hoped that the good sense of the Belgians will forgive it, for the sake of its innocent purpose, when the hour of triumphant return comes. I left Brussels again late in the evening and worked down towards Louvain, in the dark, meeting the last of the fugitive crowds and the trains of wounded. Leaving the car securely hidden, by by-lanes and cobble-ways I got forward, avoiding the flank of the retreating Belgians, and making for the light of two burning cottages--my last sight of Louvain. A few small fights were still going on, as sound and sight indicated. Covering parties of Belgians, in small numbers, were heroically sacrificing themselves to protect the strategic retreat on its northward wheel. Below a slight field-slope, upon the crest of which the flash of rifle fire and the long snake-rattle of the mitrailleuse showed where some section was still making a last stand, I found a shelter. I had made for the west of their certain line of retreat down the fields, and hid uncomfortably in a ditch of bushes, which discovered itself, accidentally and somewhat painfully, in the dark. Clearly, only a few men were holding the trench above. The whistle of shot, well overhead and to my left, was continuous. Soon there was the buzz of a motor down an invisible lane below, and one of the German cars, fitted with a mitrailleuse-wheel, got into position, to begin raking them from the rear. By means of motors, in this flood of advance, the Germans have moved up light guns and infantry at the speed of cavalry. A few scattered shots getting nearer told me that the men above me were running back. One, blundering so that I could hear his feet, clearly wounded, stopped running, as the sound showed, near me. I got him after a time into the same ditch as myself. It ran along close to where he fell. Having cleared this corner, the Germans had evidently something better to do. The firing above and below stopped. After a long wait I managed to get the little trooper, one of a regiment I had chatted with last week, down to an abandoned cottage in the lane below. Only an arm wound; so I left him, bandaged, for the Red Cross to fetch in. I got back slowly, keeping the line by the burning cottages. The drive that followed will not easily be forgotten--at headlong speed through awkward lanes. Only once--we were running without lights--did a challenge stop us; but we chanced its being a friend, and only heard the stray shot after us, in the dark. Some day I may be able to write the story of the "audacious chauffeur." He swept me thirty miles through the night with extraordinary nerve and skill. Only one of several daring runs.