But presently she grabbed me by the arm, closing the door with the other hand.

“Monsieur, I am an old fool of a woman, because I have those two beauties there.  It is not of myself that I am afraid.  If I could strangle a German and wring his neck, I would let the rest cut me into bits.  But those girls of mine—­those two roses!  I can’t let them take risks!  You understand—­those Germans are a dirty race.  Tell me, is it time for us to go?”

I could not tell her if it were time to go.  With two such girls I think I should have fled, panic-stricken.  And yet I did not believe the Germans would find Dunkirk an easy place to take.  I had been round its fortifications, and had seen the details of elaborate works which even against German guns might prove impregnable.  Outside the outer forts the ground was bare and flat, so that not a rabbit could scuttle across without being seen and shot.  Sandbag entrenchments and earthworks, not made recently, because grass had clothed them, afforded splendid cover for the French batteries.  Bomb-proof shelters were dotted about the fields, and for miles away, as far as the Belgian frontier, were lines of trenches and barbed-wire entanglements.  To the eye of a man not skilled in military science all these signs of a strong defence were comforting.  And yet I think they were known to be valueless if the enemy broke through along the road to Dunkirk.

A cheerful priest whom I met across an iron bridge told me the secret of Dunkirk’s real defences.

“We have just to turn on a tap or two,” he said, laughing at the simplicity of the operation, “and all those fields for miles will be flooded within an hour or two.  Look, that low-lying land is under water already.  The enemy’s guns would sink in it.”

He pointed away to the south-west, and I saw that many of the fields were all moist and marshy, as though after torrential rain.  Nearer to us, on the dry land, a body of soldiers marched up and down, drilling industriously.

The priest pointed to them.

“They fought untrained, those Belgian boys.  Next time they will fight with greater discipline.  But not with greater courage, Monsieur!  I lift my hat to the heroic spirit of brave little Belgium, which as long as history tells a splendid tale, will be remembered.  May God bless Belgium and heal its wounds!”

He took off his broad black hat and stood bareheaded, with a great wind blowing his soutane, gazing at those Belgian soldiers who, after the exhaustion of retreat, gathered themselves into rank again and drilled so that they might fight once more for the little kingdom they had lost.

A few days later I saw how Belgians were still fighting on their own soil, miserable but magnificent, sick at heart but dauntless in spirit.

5