e vision splendid. He longed to be there, taking part in the drive.
Instead, he was being sent to Belgium, some shrewd head in the War
Office having decided that his linguistic powers, joined to a recent
first-hand knowledge of local conditions, would be far more profitably
employed in Flanders than as a squadron leader in France.

Thus, when that day of mellow autumn had sped all too swiftly, and he
had said his last good-bye to Irene, it was to Dover he went, being
ferried thence to Ostend in a destroyer.

In those early weeks of the war all England was agog with the belief
that Antwerp would prove a rankling thorn in the ribs of the Germans,
while men in high places cherished the delusion that a flank attack was
possible along the Ostend-Bruges-Brussels line.

But Dalroy was an eminently sane person. Two hours of clear thinking in
the train re-established his poise. When the Lieutenant-Commander in
charge of the destroyer took him below in mid-Channel for a smoke and a
drink, and the talk turned on strategy, the soldier dispelled an
alluring mirage with a breath of common sense.

"The scheme is nothing short of rank lunacy," he said. "We haven't the
men, France can spare none of hers, and Belgium must be crushed when the
big battalions meet. Germany has at least three millions in the field
already. Paris has been saved by a miracle. By some other miracle we may
check the on-rush in France, but, if we start dividing our forces, even
Heaven won't help us."

"Surely you'll admit that we should strengthen the defence of Antwerp?"
argued the sailor.

"I think it impracticable. Liege only held out until the new siege
howitzers arrived. Namur fell at once. Why should we expect Antwerp to
be impregnable?"

The navy deemed the army pessimistic, but, exactly a month later, the
Lieutenant-Commander remembered that conversation, and remarked to a
friend that about the middle of September he took to Ostend "a chap on
the Staff who seemed to know a bit."

It is now a matter of historical fact when Von Kluck and Sir John French
began their famous race to the north, the Belgian army only escaped from
Antwerp by the skin of its teeth. The city itself was occupied by the
Germans on October 9th, Bruges was entered on the 13th, Von Bessler's
army reached the coast on the 15th, and the British and Belgians were
attacked on the line of the Yser next day.

Thus, fate decreed that Dalroy should witness the beginning and the end
o