On 13th October the Allies reached Thourout,[34] where they divided into two parts. Admiral Ronarc'h and his Marines, along with the Belgian forces which had been holding Ghent, moved west to the Yser, where they joined the remnants of the Belgian army which had retreated through Bruges. Here the undaunted King Albert, accompanied by his devoted wife, Queen Elizabeth, rejoined the exhausted army, and helped to reorganize it for the terrible struggles which lay before it. Meanwhile Sir Henry Rawlinson's forces pressed on southwards, and arrived at Roulers,[35] _en route_ for Ypres, on 13th October, the day on which Lille fell into the hands of the Germans. By that time part of the German army which had been besieging Antwerp, and had been released for other operations when it fell, had swept through Bruges, and had occupied Ostend. German soldiers were seen strolling on the sands which in the early days of July had been crowded with laughing bathers and merry holiday-makers. Many of the German soldiers had never seen the sea before, and they gazed upon it with open-mouthed interest, straining their eyes in the vain attempt to see the shores of that island kingdom which was so steadfastly blocking their path to victory. * * * * * Mr. C. Underwood, an interpreter who was attached to the 7th Division, which played such an important part in the fighting retreat from Ghent, tells us[36] that it was the delay caused by sending back the transports of his division to Dover that prevented Sir Henry Rawlinson from marching to the relief of Antwerp.