By the afternoon of 3rd October the prospect was black indeed. Forts Waelhem and Lierre had been pounded into silence, and a strong German force was striving to cross the Nethe. Already several pontoon bridges had been built, but in each case they had been blown to pieces before they could be used. Nevertheless every soldier knew that unless help came the Germans were bound to be over the river before long. The Belgians, who had been fighting desperately for a fortnight, were now weary and heavy-eyed from lack of sleep; the hospitals were overflowing with wounded; and the citizens began to lose heart. Preparations were made to transfer the government to Ostend, and many of the well-to-do inhabitants departed for Holland or England. The next day, however, brought good news--a British force was coming with heavy guns. At one o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday, 4th October, Mr. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, reached Antwerp, where he remained for three days. He persuaded the authorities to continue their resistance, and went out to the trenches, where he had a rather narrow escape from a burst of shrapnel. His arrival awakened a new spirit of hopefulness in the townsfolk. Late that evening the vanguard of the British force arrived by train from Ostend. It consisted of a brigade of marines, 2,000 strong. Without an hour's delay the men were marched off to the trenches on the Nethe, where they lay to the left of the weary Belgians, who were inspired to fresh efforts at their coming. Next day the whole of the British force, 6,000 in all, arrived. Four battalions of marines were the only regulars in the force; the remainder were volunteers, many of whom had never before handled a rifle. Some of them had no pouches or water-bottles or overcoats, while others had to stick their bayonets in their putties or tie them to their belts with string. Each of the two naval brigades into which the force was organized consisted of four battalions named after famous admirals. The 1st Brigade consisted of the Drake, Benbow,[162] Hawke,[163] and Collingwood[164] battalions; the 2nd Brigade, of the Nelson, Howe,[165] Hood,[166] and Anson[167] battalions. There were many London naval volunteers in one of the brigades. Though their equipment was very imperfect and their training had scarcely begun, they fought in the trenches with all the cheerfulness and doggedness of their race. [Illustration: The Flight into Holland. _From a picture by Allan Stewart._] Much was expected from a British armoured train which had been built in Antwerp, and was mounted with four 4.7-inch naval guns, worked by Belgian gunners under the direction of British bluejackets. Unfortunately it had but little opportunity of harassing the enemy.