"Sunday, October 11.—Came aboard collier yesterday afternoon, and still aboard now. There are about 2,000 men here. Accommodation for none, so I slept between the funnel and the engine-room grating. Some even slept on the cylinders. Don't know when we shall shove off."
When Mr. Winston Churchill explained why the Naval Brigade had been sent to Antwerp, he said that it was "part of a large operation for the relief of the city which more powerful considerations prevented from being carried out." On the day after the Naval Brigade reached Antwerp (6th October), a part of the Fourth British Army Corps, under General Sir Henry Rawlinson, landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge,[29] and at once marched eastwards. The original object of this force, always supposing that Antwerp held out, was to join hands with the troops defending the city, and then advance across the Scheldt so as to cut the German lines of communication. On the evening of his arrival in Belgium Sir Henry Rawlinson visited Antwerp, and saw with his own eyes that the fortress could not be saved. His business now was to cover the retreat of the forces which had vainly tried to hold the city.
CHAPTER VI.
WITH RAWLINSON IN BELGIUM.
When Rawlinson's troops reached Ghent, on 7th October 1914, they fell in with the first body of retreating Belgians, and also with a brigade of French Marine Fusiliers, 6,000 strong, which had been hastily organized and rushed northwards that very morning. Most of them were Breton[30] reservists and recruits who had never fought on land before. Their chief was Admiral Ronarc'h,[31] a big, broad-shouldered, cool seaman, with eyes of Celtic blue. The Germans called these Bretons lads and graybeards "the girls with the red pompoms."[32] They were soon to discover that the Bretons were not playing at war, but that they were fighters of iron resolution and fiery courage.
When the troops under Rawlinson were disembarking at Ostend and Zeebrugge, fourteen transports, containing the 7th British Division, which had been assembled on the borders of the New Forest, were on the way to join him in Belgium. Just when the transports were off Ostend they received a wireless message ordering them to recross the Channel to Dover. A grain ship had just been blown up off Ostend, and it was feared that the transports would be sent to the bottom too. They were therefore ordered back to Dover to wait until the mines were swept up along the Belgian coast. On the day when the retirement from Antwerp was in full swing, the 7th Division disembarked at Zeebrugge, and marched to the outskirts of Bruges. The agony of Antwerp was then over, and all that could be done was to help to cover the retreat of the forces now marching away from the city.
