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STILL IN ANTWERP 257
splendour. The interior was brightly illumined with electric
light, but the church itself is jealously hidden in the midst
of a dense cluster of houses.
As it was still daylight, we decided to cross over to St. Anne’s
on the western bank of the Scheldt. The ferries were still
plodding steadily to and fro, but were now only bringing
refugees back to Antwerp. One of the ferries was just lying to,
and a broad gangway was thrown out to bridge the interval
of one yard between the ferry and the quay. A restive grey
horse shied at the gangway, reared, backed and fell into the
river, " He is lost," cried the marines, " he will find no
place where he can get ashore." The horse swam out into the
Scheldt, but soon turned back. Meanwhile it was caught in the
swirling current and disappeared. A boat went out to its aid,
and towed it to a steep stairway. The horse was now spent
and no longer attempted to swim. Ropes and lines were
passed round its body and with united strength they pulled
it up to the pavement. Here the horse lay as if dead. They
rubbed it with straw. Presumably it revived, for when we
returned from the other bank it was gone. It was only a
horse ! And yet it had caused men’s hearts to beat faster for
a good half-hour !
Yet, strangely enough, all the dead cavalry and transport
horses whose swollen bodies lie on the road between Brussels
and Antwerp, failed to move us deeply—not to speak of the
graves with the small white crosses which we pass so heedlessly
on our road.
A last gleam of daylight was still lingering when we drove
up to the imposing Hopital Militaire, where I wished to call
on Sister Martha for the last time. She was the only German
among a number of Belgian Sisters. The medical staff con-
sists partly of German naval surgeons, partly of Belgians.
The surgeon-in-chief, whom I had met in Kobe, had been
in Stockholm in July, just before the war broke out. The hos-
pital had 700 beds, most of which were now occupied by Belgian
soldiers, a few Germans and seventeen Englishmen. I talked
to six of the latter in one of the pavilions. When I asked what
they thought of the war they all replied :
" Sir, we had got
our orders, all we had to do was to obey’ and do our duty !
"
One of them admitted : "I suppose we could not well look on
idly when the Germans were capturing the world’s trade."
Another thought it was absurd that men should go out and
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