October 19, 1914. We have been at Nieucapelle for the last three days. The war is getting picturesque. Blue or red burnous are now to be seen as the army passes along. The horses are small and their riders perched on the saddle like monkeys. The whole tribe must have set out together, as there are several generations, from youths to old men with faces like parchment.
At eight o'clock, we had been ordered to assemble at Oudecapelle. We found the horde of goumiers there, giving a touch of Orientalism to the melancholy Flemish landscape. Our men fraternised with them, and details about Arab life were soon forthcoming.
These Bedouins were accustomed to be paid three francs a day and to have the right of pillaging in the enemy's country. They were constantly asking, after crossing a field, if they were not yet in Germany. Armed with big knives, they kept brandishing them with the gesture of cutting off an enemy's head, at the same time grinning in a way that showed their white teeth. They have a great partiality, too, for ears. Among them was a tall negro, who kept repeating in very bad French: "Francise, Belgise, Anglise, all comrades!" Thereupon he would hold out a huge hand and pretend to be drawing his gloves on, rather a suggestive way of asking for some, perhaps.
This country is by no means an easy one for them, cut up, as it is by wide, muddy ditches, in which their horses have to wallow breast high. In the distance, could be heard the English fleet, cannonading the coast and the German columns coming from Ostend. The French Marine Fusiliers, together with the Belgian 5th Division, went to Beerst. A violent combat was engaged there. Beerst was taken, lost, and then retaken by the Fusiliers. German reinforcements, coming from Roulers, compelled all the troops to beat a retreat. It was decided that we should defend the bridge-head at Dixmude. Our Brigade and the French Marine Fusiliers were entrusted with this. We were placed under the command of Admiral Ronarc'h. There was a very frugal board at the Admiral's Headquarters. We managed to find a biscuit and a tin of pressed meat and, what was better still, we found—a mattress.
October 20th. An attack on the bridge-head is imminent. We have received orders to take position at Kapelhoeck with our three batteries, the 40th, 41st, and 42nd. A violent and ceaseless cannonading was to be heard from early morning. Shrapnels, hidden in fleecy clouds, and mine-shells, with a clanging noise and black smoke, kept falling on Dixmude and bursting with a deafening noise.
We were camping in a deserted farm. The dogs had lost their voices and the cattle were wandering about at their own will. At eleven o'clock, the 40th Battery, under Commander Aerts, was sent to the north of Dixmude, near the Keiserhoek Mill, and the 41st, under Commander Huet, towards Essen.
At noon, just as some atrociously salt pork was simmering on the fire, we were sent with the 42nd battery, under Commander Schouten, to take up our position at Keiserhoek, near the 40th, in order to support the 12th Line Regiment. Major Hellebaut, who commanded the Artillery of Brigade B., Hazard, a pupil of the Military School, a Brigadier Trumpeter, and I were in front. We trotted at a good rate over the paved road and, without uttering a word, crossed the bridge, and went along the streets leading to the Square. A few Infantry Companies, in line by the houses, watched us in bewilderment.
On arriving at West Street, we halted and dismounted in front of the house of the Notary, M. Baert. This house was empty. We left our horses in charge of the Trumpeter and continued our way on foot, through Dixmude, towards Keiserhoek. The town was awful to behold; the streets were absolutely deserted and full of débris of all kinds and of shell-holes. The houses were shattered, the walls cracked, the tiles in fragments, and the window-panes broken. In the street leading to Keyem, we noticed enormous splashes of blood. It was no use trying to find which side of the street was more sheltered. We were walking in the very centre of the firing line.[11]
Suddenly, on a window ledge, we caught sight of Max, a young Malines collie, which our soldiers had adopted at Boom and which had gone with us on one waggon or another everywhere. The poor dog was trembling now with fear. We took him away with us and continued our way. A waggon came back with half of its team. The whole road was being swept with shrapnels and it was impossible to keep straight on. We turned to the right by the Handzaem canal and endeavoured to find Lieutenant-Colonel van Rolleghem, who was in command of the 12th Line Regiment. Thanks to the trees along the canal bank, we reached the trenches. The Colonel was not there. We were advised to try the other side of the canal. A boat was at hand and we crossed, under the sharp whizzing of shrapnels. The Colonel was at the extreme end of the winding line of the Blood Putteken trenches. It was impossible to employ the 42nd Battery there. The 40th, which had been able to put only two of its cannons on the battery in an orchard to our right, had not been able to stay at Keiserhoek.[10]It had two of its horses killed and would have lost a cannon if it had not been for the self-sacrifice of Quartermaster Vivier. The trenches were being shelled. Thanks to wrong observation, the German firing was concentrated on a line of willows, the indistinct outline of which appeared to be a hundred yards away from the retrenchments. Orders were given to us to return to Kapelhoek. We had to go once more into the Dixmude hell. Just as we reached the big Square, a big shell of 21 centimetres fell twenty yards away, at the corner of West Street, filling the whole street with opaque grey smoke. We ran through this to the middle of a heap of stones, bricks, and beams. Another projectile entered by the air-hole of a house and killed the band of the 12th Line Regiment which had taken refuge in a cellar. In the meantime, the 41st Battery, returning from Eessen, joined us and the three batteries crossed the bridge over the Yser, arriving at a trot at Kapelhoek. They opened a violent fire on the ground to the south of the cemetery, and the Boches were obliged to clear out. That evening we entered a farm-house, and found five beds in a state which proved that there had been a hasty flight from there. We jumped into the beds just as we were. There was a deafening noise of Artillery and the sharp crack of guns.