On the 27th of September, at Alost, my car was sheltering in the little street of the Morseel bridge, behind a barricade made of herring barrels. We had to wait there and could see nothing, whilst shells were falling all round us. Suddenly, a projectile fell right on the barricade and filled our car with herrings. It was a perfect infection, and never had our nostrils been poisoned by any odour as disagreeable as that. Whilst we were raging and holding our noses, a tall American fellow came up with a cinematograph photo apparatus.
"Captain," he said, "I am the operator of an American Cinematograph Company. May I have the honour of taking views of your motor-car in fighting position?" We had scarcely recovered from our amazement, when a shell dropped on a neighbouring house, which immediately fell on us and on the American, in the midst of a cloud of dust and a frightful noise. With the most superb calmness, Berlaymont called to me: "Look out, it is always a good thing to notice the objective." He got up and began searching for the objective. Just at this moment, we saw the Cinema American, who had stepped back a few yards and, with his apparatus still on its three feet, was taking views phlegmatically.
Between eleven o'clock and twelve, we received orders to fall back one hundred yards, in order to support the platoon of the 5th Lancers, under the command of Lieutenant van den Elschen. It was entrenched behind a barricade of tan bales. Our enemies were not visible and we were only aware of their presence by the arrival of shells. One of these projectiles broke in the window of the Delhaize grocery shop. It was most providential for us, as it allowed us to lunch copiously on the verandah, free of charge, with a musical accompaniment, composed of the latest tango airs, played on the piano by Lieutenant Poncelet. Things went on very well until another shell knocked down a chimney. As this fell on the verandah, we had to move from there. We returned to our barricade and found the Cinema operator getting our horsemen to rehearse a "Defence of Alost." "I have only taken a bombardment, so far," he explained, "and I should like to get a real fight."
Amused at this idea, the officers allowed him to direct operations. Commanded in nigger French, our horsemen first repulsed an imaginary attack of the enemy, by fire, and then executed a brilliant counter-attack. Victims were now wanted.
"Some dead men now, the ground must be strewn with corpses," ordered the American.
The excitement of the troops was such, though, that he had to repeat his injunctions, in order to keep the corpses lying still on the ground until the film had finished turning. These views appeared in the Daily Mirror, of October 1, 1914, under the title of "The Defence of Alost," and have been given in all the London Cinemas. My readers may, perhaps, see them later on on the screen at Brussels. They will know then that, of the whole story, only the bombardment was authentic.
On the 6th of October, our motor-car came very near having a fine feat of arms to its credit. At Schoonaerde, on the road from Wetteren to Termonde, the Germans had placed a battery of field Howitzers, which was bombarding our trenches on the left bank of the Escaut. The armoured car 7 and the Lancers were on observation about two miles away, near Wetteren, at the entrance to Wichelen. Between Schoonaerde and us, the road was only barred by the hamlet of Bohemen, which was weakly guarded by the enemy. We decided to attempt a big venture. Whilst Berlaymont, the man who feared nothing went off by the railway line with three sharp-shooters to attack Bohemen, I rushed into the hamlet at full speed with the motor-car. Some carts had been placed in a way to bar the road. Our car knocked them over, and we were then within six hundred metres of the enemy battery in action.
My chief gunner, Heureux, opened fire. It was a thing to see the way the artillery-men, taken by enfilade, came down! Those who survived, and there were very few of them, cut the tethers of the horses, sprang on to their backs, and made off. We thought the battery was ours, but alas! it was not. The Belgian Artillery saw an armoured car in a place where there could only be Boches. It opened a quick fire on us. Their shells ploughed up the ground and our armoured car was riddled with shrapnel fragments. The Belgians aimed too well and we were obliged to leave. Half an hour was lost in telephoning to the Commander of the Artillery that he was mistaken. We rushed into Bohemen again and saw our cannons once more. What joy it was!
But the Boches had had time to cover them. To our right, fifty metres away, the hedge along the railroad was held by sharp-shooters with a machine-gun. In front of us, a farm and its kitchen garden on the road were also occupied, and we were greeted by a fearful, direct fire. I gave up my steering wheel, for when Berlaymont is not there, I am the only one who can drive, and directed the fighting. Handled by Heureux, a clever marksman, our machine-gun spit forth what was certain death. The firing became weaker from every place on which we turned our gun. Suddenly, I felt a double shock in my right arm. The Boche machine-gun had just presented me with two balls. Heaven be thanked, I had seen it though, and Heureux silenced it by bringing down its gunners. Suddenly, and without ceasing his work, Heureux called out to his aid: "Go on charging, I cannot do any more."
I looked and saw that his left hand had been torn off by a dum-dum ball. I had another terrible shock myself, this time in the head. I was conscious of falling from the car to the ground ... and then ... I knew nothing more. When I came to myself I was lying at the bottom of the car, and my gun was still fizzling. It was being worked by the second gunner. Heureux, who had looked after me until I was conscious again, said, quite simply: