These I am not at liberty to describe, but they
have for the most part only a small significance in relation to the
events described in this letter. For eight days the struggle has been
very severe on the Yser, and night and day hundreds of guns have been
sending shells across the space dividing the two armies. Since the end
of October the Germans had been established at St. Georges and
Lombartzyde, close to Nieuport, and their trenches between Nieuport and
Nieuport-les-Bains were separated from those of the French and Belgians
only by a canal twenty yards wide running from Furnes through Nieuport
to the sea.
I left Furnes on a French motor truck carrying bread and meat to the
troops at Nieuport. For about three miles the truck followed the canal,
passing the village of Wulpen, and then came to a stop. We had arrived
near the bridge over which we must pass to reach Nieuport. As we slowly
approached the bridge I asked the chauffeur: "What is delaying us?" "It
is a little too warm for the moment," he replied.
When a soldier admits that things are warm it is certain that there is
serious fighting afoot. To the right and left over the fields we could
see the inundations. On the roads our soldiers were moving and the guns
of the Allies were filling the air with thunder. In the intervals one
could hear the spitting of quick-firers and the lesser chorus of rifle
fire.
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