ttle
rifle-snaps in all that mighty thundering seeming only to accent the
loneliness and helplessness of their position, and spun on down the
transverse road, toward another trench. The progress of the motor
seemed slow and disappointing. Not that the spot a quarter of a mile
off was at all less likely to be hit, yet one felt conscious of a
growing desire to be somewhere else. And, though I took off my hat to
keep it from blowing off, I found that every time a shell went over I
promptly put it on again, indicating, one suspected, a decline in what
the military experts call morale.

As we bowled down the road toward a group of brick houses on the left, a
shell passed not more than fifty yards in front of us and through the
side of one of these houses as easily as a circus rider pops through a
tissue-paper hoop. Almost at the same instant another exploded--where,
I haven't the least idea, except that the dust from it hit us in the
face. The motor rolled smoothly along meanwhile, and the Belgian soldier
driving it stared as imperturbably ahead of him as if he were back at
Antwerp on the seat of his taxicab.

You get used to shells in time, it seems, and, deciding that you either
are or are not going to be hit, dismiss responsibility and leave it all
to fate. I must admit that in my brief experience I was not able to
arrive at this restful state. We reached at last the city gate through
which we had left Antwerp, and the motor came to a stop just at the
inner edge of the passage under the fort, and I said good-by to the
young Englishman ere he started back for the trenches again.

"Well," he called after me as I started across the open space between
the gate and the houses, a stone's throw away, "you've had an experience
anyway."

I was just about to answer that undoubtedly I had when--
"Tzee-ee-ee-er-r"--a shell just cleared the ramparts over our heads and
disappeared in the side of a house directly in front of us with a roar
and a geyser of dust. Neither the motor nor a guest's duty now detained
me, and, waving him good-by, I turned at right angles and made with true
civilian speed for the shelter of a side street.

The shells all appeared to be coming from a southeast direction, and in
the lee of houses on the south side of the street one was reasonably
protected. Keeping close to the house-fronts and dodging--rather
absurdly, no doubt--into doorways when that wailing whistle came up from
behind, I went zigz