While he ran he recollected something which he had read in the newspaper that morning. Antwerp had fallen and was occupied by the Germans. The Belgian Army and British troops had retired. The Belgian people, driven from their homes, had fled to the coast, and now the enemy had reached Ostend.
A glimmer of the truth was revealed to him. These boats which he had seen making for Haddisport were surely Flemish fishing smacks bringing the hard-pressed, homeless Belgians across to the friendly refuge of England.
CHAPTER XVII.
TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE.
Seth Newruck's belief was confirmed when he reached the harbour and met his Scoutmaster and Darby Catchpole.
"Give whatever help you can, Newruck," said Mr. Bilverstone. "These boats coming in are from Ostend, with Belgian refugees, who will want food. Many of them will be ill, some wounded. The boats will be brought up alongside the Kingfisher, first of all. Then the people will be taken to the public hall."
The jetties and quays were crowded with townsfolk, watching the trawlers drift slowly in to the outer harbour. As the first boat came alongside the quay there was an audible gasp of pity for the forlorn victims of war. The little craft was thronged with women and children, looking miserably ill and hungry, and still showing in their grim faces the lingering horror of all they had gone through, mingled with doubt as to the manner in which they would be received in a foreign land.
Then caps were raised in silent salute, handkerchiefs were waved in welcome, and the townsfolk pressed forward eagerly to throw down tins of biscuits, bags of buns, bananas, and chocolate, and to pass cans of hot coffee and milk.
Among the most eager was Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, who had loaded her motor-car with food from a neighbouring confectioner's and got Darby Catchpole to help her to distribute it as each boat was warped in. All the time, tears of sympathy and sorrow were running down her cheeks, and she spoke to the Belgians in French, which some of them understood. Once, when a particular boat was passing, crowded with women, all of whom seemed to be ill, she took off her rich coat and threw it down to one of them and then returned to her car to buy yet more food.
There were over fifty boats in all, bringing considerably more than a thousand of the poorest refugees from all parts of Belgium, with such little treasures as they had been able to snatch from their desolated homes. Many of them had brought their dogs, their cats, and their canaries. Many were wounded, and had to be taken to the hospitals. Some were taken to houses in the town, but most of them were driven in cars to the public hall, where they were well cared for.