At one o'clock in the afternoon, I was back again as far as the St. Heribert Fort. The Commander informed me that he no longer had telephonic communication with the Governor of the position. He could only give me all the information he had from private sources. The Germans had crossed the Sambre in great masses and were being held, at the present moment, between Fosse and St. Gerard, by a French army. The Meuse also had been forced by the enemy at Dinant. The situation was, therefore, most critical for the Namur garrison. It would probably be completely encircled and it only had one road left for retreat towards France. I decided to go to Ermeton-sur-Biert, through Arbre and Bioul, and await events there. We accordingly set off and, as I was mounting my horse, I gave one last look at the town. The sight was both imposing and terrible. In Namur itself, many of the houses were burning. The Citadel seemed to have a halo round it, formed by the fleecy bursting of the shrapnels. Farther away, the villages of Champion, Bonnine, and Bouge were in flames. Muffled detonations, repeated by the echoes, reverberated on every side. On all the roads from Namur and from Flawinne, could be seen the heads of the column of troops of the 4th Division, who were endeavouring to escape from the grasp of the enemy. Poor Namur! With heavy hearts, we then began that long retreat, which was to lead us, by Belgian and French roads, to the environs of Paris. I arrived at Ermeton-sur-Biert towards half past eight in the evening. I went a little further on than the village and fixed on an oat-field for our bivouac. An uninterrupted firing could be heard from a northerly direction. The march of the German troops was indicated, over half the horizon, by the villages and farms in flames. In a south-easterly direction, an immense glow, in strong contrast to the darkness of the night, revealed the incredible crime of Dinant. Whilst some of my gunners were dressing the wounds of half a dozen French soldiers whom we had picked up at Denee, and the drivers were getting some oats for their tired horses, I remained at the roadside, anxiously questioning the dark figures who passed by in the night. The most contradictory rumours were circulating. According to some, the British troops had driven the Germans back, between Mons and Charleroi. According to others, on the contrary, we had already been turned by these same Germans.