From my elevated position I had an excellent view also of the great oil tanks on the opposite side of the Scheldt. They had been set on fire by four bombs from a German taube, and a huge, thick volume of black smoke was ascending 200 feet into the air. The oil had been burning furiously for several hours, and the whole neighborhood was enveloped in a mist of smoke.
In all directions were fire and flames and oil-laden smoke. It was like a bit of Gustave Doré's idea of the infernal regions. From time to time great tongues of fire shot out from the tanks, and in this way, the flames greedily licking the sides of other tanks, the conflagration spread. How long this particular fire raged I cannot say, for I saw neither the beginning nor the end of it, but while I watched its progress it seemed to represent the limit of what a fire was capable of.
After watching for some considerable time the panorama of destruction that lay unrolled all around me, I came down from my post of observation on the cathedral roof, and at the very moment I reached the street a 28-centimeter shell struck a confectioner's shop between the Place Verte and the Place Meir. It was one of these high explosive shells, and the shop, a wooden structure, immediately burst into flames.
The city by this time was almost deserted, and no attempt was made to extinguish the fires that had broken out all over the southern district. Indeed, there were no means of dealing with them.
As far back as Tuesday in last week the water supply from the reservoir ten miles outside the city was cut off, and as this was the city's main source of supply, indeed practically its only source, great apprehension was felt. The reservoir is just behind Fort Waelhem, and the German shells had struck it, doing great mischief. It left Antwerp without any regular inflow of water, and the inhabitants had to do their best with artesian wells. Great efforts were made by the Belgians from time to time to repair the reservoir, but it was always thwarted by German shell fire. The health of the city was thereby menaced, for there was danger of an epidemic.
Happily, stricken Antwerp was spared this added terror. It had plenty of other sorts, and some of these I experienced when, after leaving the cathedral, I made my way to the southern section of the city, where shells were bursting at the rate of five a minute. With great difficulty and not without risk I got as far as Rue la Moière.
There I met a terror-stricken Belgian woman, the only other person in the streets besides myself. In hysterical gasps she told me the Banque Nationale and the Palais de Justice had been struck and were in flames, and that her husband had been hit by a shell just five minutes before I came upon the scene, his mangled remains lying not a hundred yards away from where we were standing.
It was obviously impossible to proceed further, and so I retraced my steps toward the quay. As I was passing the Avenue de Keyser a shell burst within twenty yards of me. I was knocked down by the force of the concussion. A house not ten yards from where I was was struck and actually poured (I can think of no other word to describe what happened) into the street in a shower of bricks. A broken brick struck me on the shoulder, but its force was spent and I received no injury.
I had scarcely picked myself up and was hastening to a place of safety, if there were one, when a man about 40 years of age, almost half naked, rushed out of a house, screaming loudly. He had gone mad.
At this time I was fortunate enough to meet Frank Fox of The Morning Post. Mr. Fox is an ex-officer of artillery, and he told me he had found a hotel which, as long as the Germans fired in the direction they were then firing, was not within the reach of their guns. This was the Hotel Wagner, which stands behind the Opera House on the Boulevard de Commerce. It was the only hotel in the city except the Queens Hotel, in which some representatives of American newspapers had been staying, that was open. There I found Miss Louise Mack, an Australian authoress, and she, Fox, and myself were among the few British subjects left in the port.