Over a cup of tea at Colonel Bridges' headquarters, I met an old acquaintance in Lady Ross, who had that day handed to the Queen of the Belgians a cheque for £1,000 for Belgian sufferers. Lady Ross told me of an interesting conversation with King Albert at luncheon. After discussing at length the general subject of the difficulty of realisation of war's hardships and atrocities by those whose homes have been far from the actual scenes of war, the conversation drifted to the refugee question. King Albert agreed that all able-bodied Belgians of military age should be with the Army, and declared emphatically his intention to press for steps that would lead to such a consummation. The result of my visit to Furnes and Nieuport-les-Bains was to confirm my impression that the Germans had fortified their positions along the coast, and so entrenched themselves that to take Ostend by direct land attack was impossible, except at very great cost indeed. The assistance that could be given by the Admiralty to such a project was greatly discounted by the fact that the ships available were out of range when outside the sandbanks that lay near the coast, and outclassed by the enemy's land batteries when inside the banks. Many folk visited the Belgian Army in the trenches during those January days. Less than a week after we had visited Furnes, a couple of us ran to Dunkirk on Sunday to buy some fresh fish, a delicacy as rare as it was wholesome. While in Dunkirk I saw Lord Northcliffe and my old friend Max Pemberton, who had come over for a "weekend at the Front" with the Belgians. The next day eighteen German aeroplanes flew over Dunkirk and dropped several bombs, doing some material damage and killing one civilian. On Tuesday, January 12th, General de Lisle ran to Boeschoeppe, south-west of the St. Eloi area, to see General T. O'D. Snow and his 27th Division. While waiting for the General I had good opportunity to see and talk to some of the newly arrived men. They had been marched about fourteen miles before being put into the trench-line, then marched back to billets when relieved. Some had come back from eight to eleven miles on foot. As they were not supplied with changes of socks or any sort of patent solution for their feet, and as the trenches were at places knee-deep in water, a general epidemic of frost-bitten feet could but be expected. Limping along the frozen road, with socks wound about their poor feet, I felt great sympathy for the Tommies. Before three days had passed I heard that the 27th Division sick-list had been augmented by over two thousand cases of "bad feet." One Brigade Major in the Division told of over one thousand cases in his Brigade alone. A bad business, entailing great suffering and more permanent disablement than a little, all for want of proper foresight.