"By this time our heaviest guns were in position and a well-placed shell tore through the cracked and battered masonry and exploded in the main magazine. With a thunderous crash, the mighty walls of the fort fell. Pieces of stone and concrete 25 cubic meters in size (as big as a large room) were hurled into the air. "When the dust and fumes passed away, we stormed the fort across ground literally strewn with the bodies of troops who had gone out before to storm the fort and never returned. All the men left alive in the fort were wounded and most were unconscious. A corporal, with one arm shattered, valiantly tried to drive us back by firing his rifle. Buried in the débris and pinned beneath a massive beam was General Leman. "'Respect for the general! He is dead!' said a Belgian aide-de-camp. "With gentleness and care, which showed they respected the man who had resisted them so valiantly and stubbornly, our infantry released the general's wounded form and carried him away. We thought him dead, but he recovered consciousness, and looking round, said, "'It is as it is. The men fought bravely.' "Then, turning to us, he added, "'Put in your dispatches that I was unconscious.' "We brought him to our commander, General von Emmich, and the two generals saluted. We tried to speak words of comfort, but he was silent--he is known as the silent general. "'I was unconscious. Be sure and put that in your dispatches.' "More he would not say." Fort Boncelles disputed with Fort Loncin the honor of being the last to fall. It is not known, definitely, which of the two resisted longest. The night before the fall of Fort Loncin, the electric-lighting system of Boncelles was destroyed. The men--the master among them--fought all night through in utter darkness, groping for the machinery of their guns and in momentary expectation of suffocation and death from the German shells. The high-explosive charges tore and shattered the armor-steel and masonry as though they had been cardboard, and shortly before dawn, wide breaches in the walls showed the peaceful starlight shining through. Though the fort was a wreck, three guns were working still. A fragment of shell struck the master. He fell. His comrade, dropping to one knee beside him, heard the dying man whisper, "Take this to my wife!" The comrade reached his hand to the designated pocket, took out the little packet, put it inside his tunic and returned to his gun. An hour after sunrise a shell tore through the rear cupola of Boncelles and plucked it up as a weed is torn up by its roots. The German officer who was directing the attack offered to accept a surrender. The Belgian commandant answered, "We have still two guns to fight with!"