The Dutch soldiers on the frontier take the same view: 'Any fate but Prussia!' But they have a fear: 'In other countries this is an officer's war; not of the people. Who knows what 'they' will decide up there! But, as far as we have a voice, no traffic with Germany!'--and then usually follows an anecdote concerning a recent civic snub to a member of the royal family, which need not be set out. There is strong repudiation of the story that German troops have been allowed across Dutch Limburg: 'They were refugees, all who passed; and, of course, we welcome all such. Why, we even have the German Crown Prince's family at the Hague.' (This is generally believed!) A Dutch fishing-smack, with an Irish skipper, put me across yesterday, Thursday, on to the south bank of the Scheldt. A warm sleepy sunset, and a drowsy peaceful little toy port. A burst of warlike energy had carried the fishermen as far as the making of wire entanglements; but gaps, large enough for the passing of the stouter burghers, had been considerately left. I travelled some distance on a goods truck. When it halted, a few idle, polite sentries, anxious to avoid responsibility, passed me on to a cavalry patrol. Pleasant, talkative fellows, they handed me over in turn, on the frontier, to a company of mounted Belgian volunteers with whom they had been fraternising. These had as yet seen no fighting themselves; but there was only one subject of talk, the Highlanders: 'There are 20,000 of them, and they pipe all the time! At Mons they played while the rest shot, and the pipers can play with one hand and shoot with the other; it must be terrible!' I had this story ten times over. And again, of the British: 'They are uncanny fellows! Why, even in hopeless positions on a retreat they never go on retiring till they are told to!' The patrol was without its officer. It is a tragic little episode, illustrative of the conditions of war. His mother was Dutch; and she lay dying just across the frontier, in Holland. As a Belgian officer, he could not cross to see her in uniform or with arms, or he would be imprisoned. If he crossed as a civilian, he would be treated as a deserter. He was away, trying, in vain, to get some relaxation of the laws governing neutral territory. Only a mile or two off, and yet he must be too late. As no passenger train to Antwerp would leave before next day, one of my new friends packed me into a van, one of a long train of vans on trucks going up with supplies to the front. The intention was to join the main line at St. Nicholas, and take the train thence in the morning to Antwerp. But as the supply train ran on to near Malines, there was every reason for going with it. A few of the Malines residents were creeping back, in the dusk, to the empty town. The Belgians have shown remarkable pertinacity in these 'interval' returns. A father and son, sleeping in their cart on the road, gave me a lift into the town.