A French Division reinforced us, thus enabling us to make a vigorous counter-offensive, but without regaining all the lost land. The Artillery struggle began again more fiercely than ever. The heavy guns were used almost entirely. Their projectiles seemed to cut the air. The explosions were terrible, sending up into the air enormous masses of earth. The splitting of the shells was such that at 800 metres fragments arrived like a whirlwind with a threatening bee-like noise. We picked up a fragment 45 centimetres long, by 12 broad and 6 in thickness. _Taubes_ were flying overhead. Around Dixmude, the network of trenches was getting more and more complicated. It was getting gradually smaller, and the encircling movement had commenced. We remained at Dixmude until the 6th of November. On that day, French batteries came to relieve us, and on that day we had only one cannon left out of twelve; the eleven others had been disabled. We had seen the grip getting tighter and tighter, the cannonading more violent, the firing more intense, and the assaults more frequently repeated. When necessity obliged us to leave, we had, at any rate, seen the inanity of the adversaries' furious attacks and their recoil from the quiet, mounting water and the inundation, which had just begun at the right moment. We had been able to guard intact the last shred of our beloved Belgium. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 10: According to information taken from an account by Major Hellebaut.] [Footnote 11: This information was obtained from an account given by Artillery Major Hellebaut.] [Footnote 12: The Major's name was von Oidtmann. He was in command of a Battalion of the 222nd Augusta Regiment. The Lieutenant's linen was marked P. and P.C.] CHAPTER XXVII Four Hours with the Boches From the Diary of Dr. van der Ghinst, of the Cabour (Adinkerque) Military Ambulance, and an Account given by Leon Deliens, Private of the 11th Line Regiment _October 24th._ Dixmude, at night. By the sinister light of the burning houses, the Belgian soldiers and the French Marine Fusiliers were moving about among the ruins, in the midst of the flames which skimmed along the ground. With blackened faces, haggard eyes, and unkempt beards, their uniforms covered with blood and with dust, they went up and down the streets, springing over the stones, beams, and _debris_ of all kinds, and climbing over walls. The gigantic shadows which they threw added to the phantasmagoria of the strange scene. From time to time a shrapnel burst, vibrating in the air with the sound of a huge timing-fork, or with a great flood of light the explosion of a shell made the cracked walls shake.