With our hearts full of fury, we were all determined to give our lives for our King and our Country, and our fellow-feeling caused the soul of each man to rise to the same level. Whilst the others were keeping watch, with the help of a few men I endeavoured to get the accursed shell out of our machinery. It was nearly three in the morning when we succeeded in our task. Everything was quickly put in order, and it was with a hearty outburst of our national anthem that our brave men greeted the light which poured from the electric projectors twenty minutes later. This seemed like life renewed, and with it came renewed hope. Another day had commenced and the Fort was not taken. That morning, alas, all hope was crushed, for, as soon as it was daylight, huge projectiles came at regular intervals and we could not reply to them, as they came from too great a distance. Towards nine o'clock, when I was in the officers' shooting gallery, a shock, accompanied by a terrific report, shook the whole interior of the Fort. An immense "38" had just burst in the powder-room and the Fort was blown up. I was thrown against the opposite wall, and dragged myself to the door through the _debris_. With another officer, I crossed the hall, which had been transformed into a barracks, and there a fearful sight met my eyes. At the moment of the explosion, a hundred and forty men of the garrison had been lying there on straw or on mattresses, and now, in tragic horror, I saw the whole of this place on fire. Straw, mattresses, and soldiers, all were burning together! In the midst of this brasier, wretched men were struggling, with their clothes all in flames, like veritable living torches. We could scarcely drag one of them from the furnace. It was a horrible death, worthy of the martyrs of old. From the midst of the fire, dominating the groans, moans, and shrieks of suffering, some voices could be heard uttering the supreme cry of "Hurrah for the King!" "Hurrah for our Country!" CHAPTER VII Loncin Fort From Accounts by the Army Doctors: Maloens, of the 3rd Battery of Heavy Howitzers; Courtin, of the 1st Chasseurs; Roskam, of the 14th Line Regiment; Defalle, Director of the Calais Municipal Creche Ambulance; and Quartermaster Krantz, of the Gendarmerie On the morning of August 6, 1914, Lieutenant-General Leman suddenly arrived at the Loncin Fort. "An attempt has just been made to assassinate me," he said to Captain Naessens, Commander of the Fort, "I have come to take refuge behind your cannons." The Captain immediately asked him for orders. "I have no orders to give you here," replied the General. "You give your own orders in the Fort. My business is to attend to the defence of the fortified position." The Commander of the Fort immediately called his men together and addressed them in French and in Flemish: "General Leman has done us the great honour of taking refuge with us, my boys," he said. "Shall we give up the General?"