At last came the day when the town was taken. The Germans suddenly brought up terrific reinforcements of heavy artillery, and heavy shells fell all round like hail--those enormous shells, the devil's own, which make holes six to eight yards wide by four yards deep. They came at the rate of fifty or sixty a minute, and in the craters they made there was at once a jumbled mass of masonry, furniture, carpets, corpses, a chaos of nameless horror. To continue there became truly a task beyond human endurance; it would have meant a massacre to the very last man, moreover without serving any useful purpose, for the abandonment of that mass of ruins, of that charnel-house, which was all that remained of the poor little Flemish town, was no longer a matter of importance. It had resisted just the necessary length of time. The essential point was that the Germans had been prevented from crossing over to the other bank of the Yser, at a time when, nevertheless, all the chances had seemed in their favour; the essential point was this especially, that they would never at any time cross over, now that reinforcements had arrived to hold them up in the south, and now that the floods were encroaching everywhere, barring the way in the north. On this side the barbarians' thrust was definitely countered. And it was our Naval Brigade, who almost by themselves, unwavering in the face of overwhelming numbers, had there supported our left wing, though losing _half_ of their effective and eighty per cent. of their officers. Then they said to themselves, those who were left of them: "Our flag--we shall get it this time." Besides, officers in high command, touched and amazed at so much bravery, had promised it to them, and so had the head of the French Government himself, one day when he came to congratulate them. But alas! they have not yet received it, and perhaps it will never be theirs, unless those officers in high command, to whom I have referred, who have partly pledged their word, intervene while there is yet time, before all these deeds of heroism have fallen into oblivion. For God's sake give them their flag, our Naval Brigade! And even before sending it to them it would be well, methinks, to decorate it with the Cross. * * * * * P.S.--Last week the Naval Brigade were mentioned at the head of the Army Orders of the day, _for having given proof of the greatest energy and complete devotion to duty in the defence of a strategic position of great importance_. FOOTNOTE: [1] Military slang term for tins of preserved meat. VIII TAHITI AND THE SAVAGES WITH PINK SKINS LIKE BOILED PIG _November, 1914._