.. So, gloriously, I
drove back to the beer-tavern with the fifty-five army rations which
were enough to feed fifty-five starving people for a week, and was
received with cheers. That night, conscious of good deeds, I laid
down in the straw of a school-house which had been turned into a
barracks, and by the light of several candle-ends, scribbled a long
dispatch, which became a very short one when the British censor had
worked his will with it.
22
After all, the ambulance column did not have to stay in Poperinghe,
but went back to their old quarters, with doctors, nurses and nuns,
and all their properties. The enemy had not followed up its
advantages, and the Belgian troops, aided by French marines and
other French troops who now arrived in greater numbers, thrust them
back and barred the way to Dunkirk. The waters of the Yser had
helped to turn the tide of war. The sluice-gates were opened and
flooded the surrounding fields, so that the enemy's artillery was
bogged and could not move.
For a little while the air in all that region between Furnes and Nieuport,
Dixmude and Pervyse, was cleansed of the odour and fume of battle.
But there were other causes of the German withdrawal after one day,
at least, when it seemed that nothing short of miraculous aid could
hold them from a swift advance along the coast.
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