As I hastened down the Avenue de Keyser shells were bursting in every quarter.  Several fell into the adjoining street.  At the hotel I found my friend Fox had been up to the Red Cross Hospital to inquire about a motor car in which we hoped to get away.  It had gone, as had the entire personnel of the hospital.

We began to wonder how we should escape.  However, Fox had a bicycle, and Mr. Singleton, Chief of the Boy Scouts in Antwerp, had given me the key of a house not far off, in which he told me there was one if I wanted it in an emergency.  I ventured into that dangerous part of the city again to get it.  I got to the house safely and found the bicycle, but as there was no tube in the back tire it was useless.  On my return journey I was startled to see in the street through which I had just walked a hole six feet deep, which had just been made by a shell.

On returning to the hotel I joined in a meal, eaten under the weirdest [Transcriber:  original ‘wierdest’] conditions imaginable.  Descending into the cellars of the hotel with Miss Mack and Mr. Fox we found the entire staff gathered there uncertain what to do and not knowing what was to happen to them.  We were all hungry, and one of the men dashed upstairs to the kitchen and brought down whatever food he could lay his hands on, and we all partook of pot luck.  Considering all the circumstances we made a very jolly meal of it.  We toasted each other in good red wine of the country, pledging each other with “Vive la Belgique” and “Vive l’Angleterre,” and altogether we were a merry party, although at the time German shells were whirling overhead and any moment one might have upset our picnic and buried us in the debris of the hotel.

How many of the inhabitants of Antwerp remained in the city that night it is impossible to say, but it is pretty certain they were all in the cellars of their houses or shops.

The admirable Burgomaster, M. De Vos, had in one of his several proclamations made many suggestions for safety during the bombardment for the benefit of those who took refuge in cellars.  Among the most useful of them perhaps was that which recommended means of escape to adjoining cellars.  The power of modern artillery is so tremendous that a cellar might very well become a tomb if shells were to fall on the building overhead.

We went to bed early that night but sleep was impossible in the noise caused by the explosion of the shells in twenty different quarters of the town.  About 3 o’clock in the morning a twenty-eight centimeter shell fell into the square in front of the hotel and broke all the windows in the neighboring house.  In spite of the terrific din one got to sleep at last.

About 6 o’clock Fox roused me and said he thought it was time we got out, as the Germans were entering the city.  We hurried from the hotel, and found in the square a squad of Belgian soldiers who had just come in from the inner line of forts.  They told us it was not safe for us to remain any longer.  The streets were now completely deserted.