Just off Dunkirk a French scout ship talked with us by the language of
the whipping signal flags; but the ordinary Channel craft came and went
without hindrance or seeming fear, and again it was hard for us to make
ourselves believe that we had reached a zone where the physical,
tangible business of war went forward.
And Ostend and, after Ostend, the Belgian interior--those were
disappointments too; for at Ostend bathers disported on the long,
shining beach and children played about the sanded stretch. And, though
there were soldiers in sight, one always expects soldiers in European
countries. No one asked to see the passports we had brought with us,
and the customs officers gave our hand baggage the most perfunctory of
examinations. Hardly five minutes had elapsed after our landing before
we were steaming away on our train through a landscape which, to judge
by its appearance, might have known only peace, and naught but peace,
for a thousand placid years.
It is true we saw during that ride few able-bodied male adults, either
in the towns through which we rushed or in the country.
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