Our boat was one of the older paddle steamers.  We were so fortunate as to have a friend at Court, and the best cabins on the ship were placed at our disposal.  I was very grateful to that friend, for it was very rough, and our paddle-boxes were often under water.  We consoled ourselves by the thought that at least in a rough sea we were safe from submarines, but the consolation became somewhat threadbare as time went on.  Gradually the tall white cliffs of Dover sank behind us, splendid symbols of the quiet power which guards them.  But for those great white cliffs, and the waves which wash their base, how different the history of England would have been!  They broke the power of Spain in her proudest days, Napoleon gazed at them in vain as at the walls of a fortress beyond his grasp, and against them Germany will fling herself to her own destruction.  Germany has yet to learn the strength which lies concealed behind those cliffs, the energy and resource which have earned for England the command of the sea.  It was a bad day for Germany when she ventured to question that command.  She will receive a convincing answer to her question.

We reached Ostend, and put up for the night at the Hotel Terminus.  Ostend was empty, and many of the hotels were closed.  A few bombs had been dropped upon the town some days before, and caused considerable excitement—­about all that most bombs ever succeed in doing, as we afterwards discovered.  But it had been enough to cause an exodus.  No one dreamt that in less than three weeks’ time the town would be packed with refugees, and that to get either a bed or a meal would be for many of them almost impossible.  Everywhere we found an absolute confidence as to the course of the war, and the general opinion was that the Germans would be driven out of Belgium in less than six weeks.

Two of our friends in Antwerp had come down to meet us by motor, and we decided to go back with them by road, as trains, though still running, were slow and uncertain.  It was a terrible day, pouring in torrents and blowing a hurricane.  Our route lay through Bruges and Ghent, but the direct road to Bruges was in a bad condition, and we chose the indirect road through Blankenberghe.  We left Ostend by the magnificent bridge, with its four tall columns, which opens the way towards the north-east, and as we crossed it I met the first symbol of war.  A soldier stepped forward, and held his rifle across our path.  My companion leaned forward and murmured, “Namur,” the soldier saluted, and we passed on.  It was all very simple, and, but for the one word, silent; but it was the first time I had heard a password, and it made an immense impression on my mind.  We had crossed the threshold of War.  I very soon had other things to think about.  The road from Ostend to Blankenberghe is about the one good motor road in Belgium, and my companion evidently intended to demonstrate the fact to me beyond all possibility of doubt.  We were driving into the teeth of a squall, but there seemed to be no limits to the power of his engine.  I watched the hand of his speedometer rise till it touched sixty miles per hour.  On the splendid asphalt surface of the road there was no vibration, but a north-east wind across the sand-dunes is no trifle, and I was grateful when we turned south-eastwards at Blankenberghe, and I could breathe again.