meet with the same fate as armed civilians.  This drastic ruling resulted in many amusing episodes.  When it was learned that the Germans were approaching Ghent, sixteen hundred civil guardsmen threw their rifles into the canal and, stripping off their uniforms, ran about in the pink and light-blue under-garments which the Belgians affect, frantically begging the townspeople to lend them civilian clothing.  As a whole, however, these citizen-soldiers did admirable service, guarding the roads, tunnels and bridges, assisting the refugees, preserving order in the towns, and, in Antwerp, taking entire charge of provisioning the army.

No account of Antwerp in war time would be complete without at least passing mention of the boy scouts, who were one of the city’s most picturesque and interesting features.  I don’t quite know how the city could have got along without them.  They were always on the job; they were to be seen everywhere and they did everything.  They acted as messengers, as doorkeepers, as guides, as orderlies for staff officers, and as couriers for the various ministries; they ran the elevators in the hotels, they worked in the hospitals, they assisted the refugees to find food and lodgings.  The boy scouts stationed at the various ministries were on duty twenty-four hours at a stretch.  They slept rolled up in blankets on the floors; they obtained their meals where and when they could and paid for them themselves, and made themselves extremely useful.  If you possessed sufficient influence to obtain a motor-car, a boy scout was generally detailed to sit beside the driver and open the door and act as a sort of orderly.  I had one.  His name was Joseph.  He was most picturesque.  He wore a sombrero with a cherry-coloured puggaree and a bottle-green cape, and his green stockings turned over at the top so as to show knees as white and shapely as those of a woman.  To tell the truth, however, I had nothing for him to do.  So when I was not out in the car he occupied himself in running the lift at the Hotel St. Antoine.  Joseph was with me during the German attack on Waelhem.  We were caught in a much hotter place than we intended and for half an hour were under heavy shrapnel fire.  I was curious to see how the youngster—­for he was only fourteen—­ would act.  Finally he turned to me, his black eyes snapping with excitement.  “Have I your permission to go a little nearer, monsieur?” he asked eagerly.  “I won’t be gone long.  I only want to get a German helmet.”  It may have been the valour of ignorance which these broad-hatted, bare-kneed boys displayed, but it was the sort of valour which characterized every Belgian soldier.  There was one youngster of thirteen who was attached to an officer of the staff and who was present at every battle of importance from the evacuation of Brussels to the fall of Antwerp.  I remember seeing him during the retreat of the Belgians from Wesemael, curled up in the tonneau of a car and sleeping through all the turmoil and confusion.