Nearer to
us, on the dry land, a body of soldiers marched up and down, drilling
industriously.
The priest pointed to them.
"They fought untrained, those Belgian boys. Next time they will fight
with greater discipline. But not with greater courage, Monsieur! I lift
my hat to the heroic spirit of brave little Belgium, which as long as
history tells a splendid tale, will be remembered. May God bless
Belgium and heal its wounds!"
He took off his broad black hat and stood bareheaded, with a great
wind blowing his soutane, gazing at those Belgian soldiers who, after
the exhaustion of retreat, gathered themselves into rank again and
drilled so that they might fight once more for the little kingdom they
had lost.
A few days later I saw how Belgians were still fighting on their own
soil, miserable but magnificent, sick at heart but dauntless in spirit.
5
It was in Calais, to which I had gone back for a day or two, that I
found my chance to get into the firing lines in Belgium. I was sitting at
an open window with my two friends when I saw a lady's face in the
street. The last time I had seen it was in an old English mansion, filled
with many gallant and gentle ghosts of history, and with laughing girls
who went scampering out to a game of tennis on the lawn below the
terrace from which a scent of roses and climbing plants was wafted
up on the drowsy air of an English summer.
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