ght at Lierre. We
were in bad luck and got stopped at every railroad crossing along the
way. Troop and supply trains were pouring down toward the front and Red
Cross trains were bringing back the wounded in large numbers. Both sides
must have suffered heavily during the day, and there may be several days
more of this sort of fighting before there is a lull.

When we got back to the hotel we found Sir Francis waiting for us with a
glowing telegram and an equally glowing face. It was the most
enthusiastic message yet received from the British War Office, which has
been very restrained in its daily bulletins. For the first time that day
it spoke with a little punch, speaking of the "routed enemy" and their
being "vigorously pressed." We tumbled through a hasty bath and got down
to dinner in short order.

After dinner it was the same old performance of going over to the Grand
Hotel and labouring with Monsieur de Woeste, who was still bent on
getting home to his clean linen without further delay. It took the
united arguments of the Cabinet, which was in session, to convince him
that it would be useless and foolish to try to get away. Finally he
yielded, with a worse grace than on the previous evening. I had a
comfortable visit with several of the Ministers, who were glad to hear
news of their families in Brussels, and asked me to remember all sorts
of messages to be given on my return. I only hope that I shall not get
the messages mixed and get too affectionate with the wrong people. The
Cabinet was going through the latest telegrams from the various fields
of action. They even had some from Servia and were decidedly cheered up,
a big change from the dogged determination with which they were facing
bad news the last time I was in Antwerp.

Saturday morning the Colonel and I were called at six, and at seven we
got away in a pouring rain over the same road to Lierre that we had
travelled the day before. There was a big force of workmen hard at it in
the vicinity of the outer forts, burning houses and chopping down trees
and building barbed-wire entanglements. It is a scene of desolation, but
it is necessary in a fight like this.

We found things moving rapidly at headquarters in Lierre. Messengers
were pouring in and orders going out with twice the activity of the day
before. The movement had been under way for two hours when we got there
and the guns were booming all around. After learning as much as we could
of the dispo