Towards evening we ran into the French outposts again, at Ypres. They are well over the frontier, and ready.
We turned north at last in the dark, realising that even in these few hours the tide of Germans had almost cut us off, even from the coast. No province was to be left us by the immense efficiency of the machine. It was moving now over undefended country. It has been notably revised since Liége.
But a cry from a dark group under the dark trees on a lonely twelve miles of road again stopped us: "Nous avons peur" (we are afraid) wailed sadly, as we shot past. Two wounded soldiers, with two children who had been to visit them. They, like many others, were from the heroic Liége forts. They would be safe at their homes in Courtrai. On the road, wandering, as many more were, right across the German line of advance, they were in considerable danger.
To run for Courtrai was to run from the French lines, directly at the head of the probable German advance.
Peasants, however, assured us that nothing had been seen; and it would complete our locating of the positions of all the armies in this corner of the world, if we found trace of the enemy.
It was an exhilarating night run. Still the knots of folk at the corners, but now even the children were silent.
We dropped them, our last load, at the cross road entering Courtrai. The car was turned to come back; when, from far down the other branch, towards Deynze, came the roar of a racing car at full speed, devouring the silence. Half a mile off sounded a shot, and again two, nearer us, a little later. We started to move, and in a few seconds a car with three Belgians in uniform rushed past us. One lay back, and his arm was being bound up by his companion. They shouted warning. "They are back there: we have come over one." And again: "Look out! There are more in front!"
We did our best to keep up with them—a rather wild race in the dark, on roads straight but rough, for long black miles at a time. They drew ahead, but this served also to draw the fire from us. Twice again a shot sounded sharply in front. But we only had the half-gleam of the lamps on a shadow-man and a frightened shadow-horse, when we, in turn, passed the Uhlan patrols who had fired.
It was not worth continuing as far as the French lines, clearly the object of the car ahead. We turned off on the first good diagonal to the north. We had learned what we wished. These were the usual Uhlans clearing the ground; ahead of an advance to the west; not for the present to the north.
The return to Ostend all through the night was strange in its quieter fashion. The Flemish peasant, once he is frightened or suspicious, becomes a dangerous man. We had serious difficulties at infinite numbers of barriers. And always the halt brought round a muttering, shuffling swarm of hostile faces and voices. Along the roads we passed small carts and wagons, creaking slowly with families of fugitives. There was no reason for any one to fly in view of the general surrender, but suspicion and panic were spreading, and stories of German savagery wildly exaggerated and widely believed.