the figures of the men were so small, it was hard to keep the
fact in mind that those who dropped were not merely stooping, but had
been shot. Eager to get closer, we ran over the sand dunes, but never
got another view of it.

[Sidenote: Running to see a battle.]

My Belgian friend knew his way and we trotted along a raised path among
the fields toward Nieuport. It was under fire, but it seemed worth the
risk to get close enough so we could see the pontoons being rushed into
the water. As we neared Nieuport, however, the firing became much more
active and we stopped for second thought. After catching our breath, we
decided to pass through the edge of Nieuport and to go on to the village
of Ramscapelle to the south of it. Few shells seemed to be breaking
there.

[Sidenote: Almost under fire.]

Along the cross road we took, alternately running and walking. The
Belgian trenches were perhaps a half mile beyond us, and we could make
out the tap-tap of the rifle fire which had been only a continuous
cracking a mile in the rear. Into this the machine guns cut with a whir.
Spent bullets dropped here and there in the inundated field to the west
of us, but the German shell fire must have been right in the trenches.

Somewhere before we reached Ramscapelle we crossed a road with military
automobiles going both ways, but my desire to get behind the sheltering
buildings of Ramscapelle was too strong at the moment to take it in.

[Sidenote: Fires and explosions in Ramscapelle.]

About a hundred yards from the village there was a house on the edge of
a canal, and we stopped behind it, safe from bullet-fire, to catch our
breath again. It was as far as we were destined to get. All at once
shells began dropping on the village, and I have not seen shells drop so
fast in so small an area. In the first minute there must have been
twenty. Three fires broke out almost at once. Between the explosions we
could hear the falling tiles.

The short October day grew unexpectedly dusk and the fires in the
village reflected in the water on the fields. After the bombarding had
been going on without the least let-up for fully fifteen minutes, a bent
old woman, a man perhaps older but less bent, and a younger woman
appeared on the road to Furnes just beyond us, hurrying along without
once looking back. They were the only people we saw and the destruction
of the town looked like the most ruthless piece of vandalism. It had a
military purpose, how