The withdrawal of the garrison from Antwerp began on Thursday and, everything considered, was carried out in excellent order, the troops being recalled in units from the outer line, marched through the city and across the pontoon-bridge which spans the Scheldt and thence down the road to St. Nicolas to join the retreating field army.  What was implied in the actual withdrawal from contact with the enemy will be appreciated when I explain the conditions which existed.  In places the lines were not two hundred yards apart and for the defenders no movement was possible during the daylight.  Many of the men in the firing-line had been on duty for nearly a hundred hours and were utterly worn out both mentally and physically.  Such water and food as they had were sent to them at night, for any attempt to cross the open spaces in the daytime the Germans met with fierce bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire.  The evacuation of the trenches was, therefore, a most difficult and dangerous operation and that it was carried out with so comparatively small loss speaks volumes for the ability of the officers to whom the direction of the movement was entrusted, as does the successful accomplishment of the retreat from Antwerp into West Flanders along a road which was not only crowded with refugees but was constantly threatened by the enemy.  The chief danger was, of course, that the Germans would cross the river at Termonde in force and thus cut off the line of retreat towards the coast, forcing the whole Belgian army and the British contingent across the frontier of Holland.  To the Belgian cavalry and carabineer cyclists and to the armoured cars was given the task of averting this catastrophe, and it is due to them that the Germans were held back for a sufficient time to enable practically the whole of the forces evacuating Antwerp to escape.  That a large proportion of the British Naval Reserve divisions were pushed across the frontier and interned was not due to any fault of the Belgians, but, in some cases at least, to their officer’s misconception of the attitude of Holland.  Just as I was leaving Doel on my second trip up the river, a steamer loaded to the guards with British naval reservists swung in to the wharf, but, to my surprise, the men did not start to disembark.  Upon inquiring of some one where they were bound for I was told that they were going to continue down the Scheldt to Terneuzen.  Thereupon I ordered the launch to run alongside and clambered aboard the steamer.

“I understand,” said I, addressing a group of officers who seemed to be as much in authority as anyone, “that you are keeping on down the river to Terneuzen?  That is not true, is it?”

They looked at me as though I had walked into their club in Pall Mall and had spoken to them without an introduction.

“It is,” said one of them coldly.  “What about it?”

“Oh, nothing much,” said I, “except that three miles down this river you’ll be in Dutch territorial waters, whereupon you will all be arrested and held as prisoners until the end of the war.  It’s really none of my business, I know, but I feel that I ought to warn you.”