I walked one day back toward Antwerp, along that awful road which ran by Contich and Waerloos to Waelhem. Daily along that road the German shells fell nearer to the city, so that whenever one went out to the place that he had visited yesterday he was likely to find himself disagreeably surprised. One day I found myself, (I would not have been there had I known it,) perhaps a mile inside the range of the enemy's guns. A Red Cross car had dropped me and picked up wounded men instead, and there was nothing for it but to walk back along the road.
Along the road from the foremost trenches came a dozen Belgian soldiers, just relieved after twenty-four hours of what it is difficult to describe otherwise than as hell. Muddied from head to heel, they could hardly drag their feet along, and, glad of any company, I fell in and walked with the last straggler of the little band, while the shrapnel with its long-drawn scream—whew-ew-ew-ew-bang!—broke on either side of us.

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