“Monsieur, what am I to say?” and the accompanying gesture was eloquent. “It is only a little cargo boat, an English coaster. If she nears the quay there will be a riot, and perhaps thousands of lives lost. The harbour-master has sent me to ask the mayor if he should not signal her to anchor outside until daylight.”
Prompt decision and steadfast action were Dalroy’s chief qualities. If luck favoured him he might set his own project on foot before the mayor’s messenger burked it by a civic order. He thanked the man and rode off.
Happily the tram came from Blankenberge without undue delay. He had only dismounted when the engine clanked into the station square. Already his soldier’s eye had noted that the Gordons and some of the Belgian soldiers had retained their rifles and bayonets.
“Get your crowd into motion at once,” he said to the doctor, as soon as the latter alighted. “Nothing you have gone through during the last two months will equal the excitement of the next quarter of an hour. But, if your cripples can fix bayonets and show a bold front, we have a fighting chance—no more. And unless we leave Ostend before to-morrow morning it’ll be a German prison for you and a firing party for me.”
Men who have smelt war and death, not once but many times, do not hesitate and argue when a staff officer talks in that strain.
With an almost marvellous rapidity the members of the mission and the wounded able to walk were formed up, stretchers were lifted, and the march began. Dalroy and the doctor headed the procession with the Gordons, and the mere appearance of a Highlander enforces awe in any part of Europe.
Dalroy explained matters as they went, and impressed on the escort the absolute necessity of showing a determined front. On nearing the packed mass of people clamouring outside the Gare Maritime he vociferated some sharp orders, the rifles came from the “slope” to the “ready,” and those on the outskirts of the throng saw a number of war-stained kilties advancing on them with threatening mien.
By some magic a way was opened out. The vanguard knew exactly how to act, and faced about when the main gates were reached. Here there was a hitch, but a threat to fire a volley through the bars was effectual, and the whole party got through, though even the hardened doctors looked grave when they heard the wail of anguish that went up from the multitude without as the gates clashed against further ingress.
Of course, as might be expected, there were hundreds of influential people, both British subjects and Belgians, already inside. To them Dalroy gave no immediate heed. Merely requesting the doctor to keep his contingent together and distinct, he sought the harbour-master.