ould have sensed the atmosphere of that
town. To me the little seaside village, built for summer gayety, had
more of the romance of war in it than any place I have seen.

The half dozen summer hotels and all the villas were filled with the
mothers, wives, and children of the Belgian soldiers whose firing line I
had just left. Their homes had been in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent. Now
they were in the last little town in Belgium. To some their soldiers had
already returned, and they were dining as merrily as if to-morrow did
not hold out a reasonable likelihood of being killed. At the doors of
the hotels and on the street were many others waiting, and, as the
street had filled up with another French artillery division bivouacked
for a few hours, they could not see their men folk until they were close
at hand.

[Sidenote: Refugees at La Panne.]

Now and then as we passed we could hear little gasps of happiness. For
some, of course, there were disappointment and bad news. But they must
have carried their sorrow to their chambers, as La Panne was all gayety.

A comment on the Belgian soldiers made at the beginning of the war
occurred to me: "They shoot the enemy all day; at night they come home
and kiss mother. In the morning they kiss mother again and go back to
shoot some more."

They certainly showed themselves capable of shaking off the horrors of
war before their women folk. To see them there in La Panne that night
you might have thought it was all a sham battle if it had not been for
a conviction of reality that would not shake off.

It was nearly ten o'clock, now but Belgian soldiers relieved from the
firing line and off duty for the night were still coming into La Panne.
In the Hotel Des Arcades, which incidentally, has no arcades, the bar
and the dining room were full of soldiers. Officers and their men were
eating and drinking together in the pleasant democratic way they have in
the Belgian army. Room was made for us at the long central table in the
dining room, and all at the table were solicitous to see that we were at
once given plenty to eat and drink. Several of the fifteen men at the
table had hands or heads bandaged, but that did not seem to detract from
their gayety.

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Belgian soldiers.]

A joke was being told as we sat down, and every one was taking a lively
interest in it, the narrator was a bearded man of fifty, and he was
telling to the delight of the others how his son had