ey
were as bloody as the battle I was to see within a few hours.

[Sidenote: Belgian soldiers.]

The old Flemish town of Furnes had much less military precision about it
than Dunkirk. It was on the very edge of the battle, and an occasional
shell was dropping in the town. One exploded as I crossed the bridge and
entered a narrow street, but it was on the far side of town, too far
away for the soldiers halted in the street to notice. These were tired
and dirty men, but not too tired to be courteous. They were also passing
jokes among themselves, and laughing. By that, even if I had not known
their uniforms, I could have told they were Belgians.

[Sidenote: The enemy held at the Yser.]

Every street and every courtyard in Furnes was full of Belgian soldiers.
They were resting for the day, waiting to go forward at night-fall to
relieve the men on the firing line only five miles away. Even above the
noises of the street I could hear the answer of their small field
artillery to the heavy assault of the German guns. Nothing I heard the
soldiers say, however, would have given the idea that the Belgians
considered themselves outclassed by their enemy. They seemed superbly
unconscious of the absurdity of their position. This was the tenth day
they had held the Germans at the Yser, and they had done it with rifles
and machine guns, taking punishment every minute from the big
fieldpieces the Germans had brought against them. So far they had lost
twelve thousand men at that ditch, but the thought of giving it up had
evidently not even occurred to them. They could not give it up, one of
them explained to me later, it was all they had left. There was a little
irritation in his tone, too, as he said it, such as one might feel
toward a child who was slow at grasping a simple fact.

[Sidenote: Military automobiles and wagons.]

The town square was full of military automobiles and a few provision
wagons. I did not see any fieldpieces or machine guns. Every last one
was right up on the firing-line. My feet were tired from walking over
the Belgian blocks, and I held tenaciously to the sidewalk passing
around the square, though it was mostly taken up with cafe tables and
bay trees in boxes. At one point the tables were empty and a single
sentry was sauntering up and down. I stopped to ask him the way to the
_gendarmerie_, and, in the middle of giving me the directions, he came
to attention, as a door opened behind me, and saluted.