I did not wait to see the entry into Brussels. There are limits to the passive endurance even of a non-combatant. The only triumphant entry I shall willingly witness is the return there of the brown, tired, gay-hearted little Belgian soldiers, whom I have learned to admire as an army and sympathise with individually in their magnificent struggle against odds. The nature of our load made it wise to make a safe circuit west of Brussels, on our retreat. The watching lion at Waterloo, as we passed, seemed to wear a different look: surprised to see no battle array, indignant at his desertion. At first, by request, we did courier work, carrying the news to isolated town-garrisons. The further we got, the less curious did the people become for news. Resignation, apathy, stolid village optimism, according to the locality. Our armfulls of blue-eyed babies, five, six, and eight, brought the only smiles to the faces we saw. The great mass of cars had already gone; yesterday and before. A few hurrying cars, carts, and bicycles with luggage. Now and again in a village the little crowds of peasant fugitives with bundles. Occasionally some women, resting and cooking by the wayside. The further down the line, the more troublesome again became our familiar checks, the local watchmen, at their now pathetically futile barriers. It would have been cruel to assure them, when they became obstructive, that their authority was gone. We circled by Waterloo westward, almost as far as Oudenarde. At one village a swarm of little dark-eyed Flemings, in sabots, pretended to shoot us with large bows and arrows made of half-hoops, from behind a sham barrier of branches and wheel-barrows; a half-tragic commentary. At Ghent our car was within a single word of being "requisitioned." The babies fulfilled their object by capturing smiles and safe passage. At Bruges we have been kept for an hour because "German spies" have been signalled as having passed in a car up the road. Having got so far as to stop all the bridges, the dignitaries can do no more. The world is upset, and must wait. Ostend, Friday night. The crowd of carts and cars that accumulated at last proved too much even for the patience of the Gardes, and we all crushed through and over. Nowhere had the news been received; everywhere the blind is still kept down. It is a dangerous game to play, with men raging as I have heard them the last few days. But the result may justify it. It is no good recalling the shadow moments of pain and tragedy that cover like a cloud even the small corner which one man may see of this destruction and panic called war.