They stepped up from the boats, new, ruddy, well equipped, intact--they rolled forward, with drums beating, o'er the Belgian land. Now all who ever will arrive in Zeebruges from o'er the sea will arrive after the Seventh Division. The war-pilgrim, paying his due of honour to those who came that day, cannot follow very far on their road unless he die also. If he chooses to follow any one soldier, will he not very likely come soon to the road's end and a grey wooden cross where his soldier's destiny dipped into eternity? Follow, then, the many who ran in the great torch race of the war, where the spent runner handed the torch from his hand to another, who in turn ran with it blazing till he fell, thus from Zeebruges to Ypres; from Ypres, flaming, to Neuve Chapelle; from Neuve Chapelle, flaming, to Loos; then aflame to the defence of the Salient; then a long blaze to the sevenfold altar of the Somme ... man to man, unit to unit, period to period, till the November when the race was won. Was it not characteristic of the old war that the "Contemptibles" of the Seventh, landing at Zeebruges, should at once be marched thirty miles in the wrong direction and then brought back by train. Antwerp was the beacon; Antwerp was not yet taken; the Naval Brigade was trying to save it. It was to fall, Zeebruges was to fall, Ostende itself was to fall--all very rapidly. When the boys got to Bruges it was rumoured that the Germans had had a set-back; when they got to Ostende they heard that Antwerp had been taken. When they got back to Bruges terror had seized the city. When they got to Ghent they took the Antwerp road--and then they came back, to Ypres. The cobbled way to Bruges is not marked by destruction. The trees give shade, the houses stand, the fields are ploughed. Alice in an estaminet says she learned French from the French prisoners kept there--her bar used to be crowded with them. The Belfry of Bruges stands against the sky ahead--as if lifted out of the plain up to heaven itself. You cross a canal which looks like a moat, and are in Bruges itself, a perfectly whole, undamaged, serene and peaceful city. Trams, shops, carts pulled by dogs, rows of estaminets, old gateways, old churches, and then the Grande Place. The broad market-place is empty, but one sits facing the great tower and listens to the ever-repeating chimes of the bells--silver in the evening hour. It is--no, it is impossible--yes, it is "The Rosary" which is being played by the bells. "_I ... strive ... to kiss the Cross_," yells the steeple, and then goes plaintive and trickles tunefully away. * * * * * "Well, here I am and here I remain," says an old man sitting behind me with a coffee-glass which he has long since drained. "Till England becomes sane, I stay here." "The cost of living is just as high in Peebles as in London," says a woman sitting opposite him.