“I think everything will be all right now, Mr. Burgomaster,” he called down in a voice which could be distinctly heard throughout the lobby.  “You needn’t worry.  We’re going to save the city.”

Whereupon most of the civilians present heaved sighs of relief.  They felt that a real sailor had taken the wheel.  Those of us who were conversant with the situation were also relieved because we took it for granted that Mr. Churchill would not have made so confident and public an assertion unless ample reinforcements in men and guns were on the way.  Even then the words of this energetic, impetuous young man did not entirely reassure me, for from the windows of my room I could hear the German guns quite plainly.  They had come appreciably nearer.

That afternoon and the three days following Mr. Churchill spent in inspecting the Belgian position.  He repeatedly exposed himself upon the firing-line and on one occasion, near Waelhem, had a rather narrow escape from a burst of shrapnel.  For some unexplainable reason the British censorship cast a veil of profound secrecy over Mr. Churchill’s visit to Antwerp.  The story of his arrival, just as I have related it above, I telegraphed that same night to the New York World, yet it never got through, nor did any of the other dispatches which I sent during his four days’ visit.  In fact, it was not until after Antwerp had fallen that the British public was permitted to learn that the Sea Lord had been in Belgium.

Had it not been for the promises of reinforcements given to the King and the Cabinet by Mr. Churchill, there is no doubt that the Government would have departed for Ostend when originally planned and that the inhabitants of Antwerp, thus warned of the extreme gravity of the situation, would have had ample time to leave the city with a semblance of comfort and order, for the railways leading to Ghent and to the Dutch frontier were still in operation and the highways were then not blocked by a retreating army.

The first of the promised reinforcements arrived on Sunday evening by special train from Ostend.  They consisted of a brigade of the Royal Marines, perhaps two thousand men in all, well drilled and well armed, and several heavy guns.  They were rushed to the southern front and immediately sent into the trenches to relieve the worn-out Belgians.  On Monday and Tuesday the balance of the British expeditionary force, consisting of between five and six thousand men of the Volunteer Naval Reserve, arrived from the coast, their ammunition and supplies being brought by road, via Bruges and Ghent, in London motor-buses.  When this procession of lumbering vehicles, placarded with advertisements of teas, tobaccos, whiskies, and current theatrical attractions and bearing the signs “Bank,” “Holborn,” “Piccadilly,” “Shepherd’s Bush,” “Strand,” rumbled through the streets of Antwerp, the populace went mad.  “The British had come at last!  The city was saved!  Vive les Anglais!  Vive Tommy Atkins!”