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We hurried on back to Ramscapelle, sentries popping up at intervals to enquire our business. Floods stretched on either side of the road as far as the eye could see. We were obliged to crawl at a snail's pace as it grew darker.
I Reach the First Line Belgian Trenches And become a Belgian Soldier for the Time Being A Night Attack An Adventure whilst Filming a Mitrailleuse Outpost Among the Ruins of Ramscapelle I Leave the Company and Lose my Way in the Darkness A Welcome Light and a Long Sleep How Little does the Public know of the Dangers and Difficulties a Film Operator has to Face. Leaving London, I crossed to France.
A battery of French artillery rattled over the cobblestones. The wheels were caked with clay, and the guns were covered with a grey dust. They were going up Dixmude way, or along to Ramscapelle. The men sat their horses as though they were glued to the saddles. One of them had a loose sleeve pinned across his chest, but a strong grip on his bridle with his left hand.
He was full of regrets that he was not able to accompany me, but being on duty he dare not move. With a hearty shake of the hand and best wishes we parted, and, keeping under cover of the ruined buildings as much as possible, I made my way through Ramscapelle.
I hoped to drop in with an isolated action or a few outpost duels, for up to the present things were going exceedingly slow from my point of view. Arranging for a dispatch rider to take me along to Ramscapelle, away I went. The roads were in a frightful condition after months of rain, and shell-holes were dotted all over the surface.
"The battle-front was determined by the nature of the land. It stretched from the sea through Ramscapelle, Dixmude, Roulers, Paschendaal to Ypres and the rage of battle swayed like a tossing ship in ocean storm. Even now Germany does not know the greatness and terror of the battles fought there. Only names are known, such as Middelkerke, Zonnebeeke, Warneton, etc.
Not till I had gone to my café did I realise the danger I had exposed myself to, but somehow I had seemed so confident that I should not get hit, that to film the explosions entirely absorbed all my thoughts. Next morning I decided to tour the front line, if possible from Dixmude to Nieuport, making Ramscapelle a centre.
A British squadron, operating from the Channel, broke the attack of the German right, and during the last week of October the Belgians held the middle crossings, with the assistance of part of the French Eighth Army. All immediate danger was removed from this section by October 31, 1914, after the Belgians had flooded the country and driven the Württembergers back at Ramscapelle.
Dixmude, quiet in its ruins, trembled again, and crumbled a little more, under the vibration of the enemy's shells, firing at long range towards the Franco-Belgian troops. Here and there, near Pervyse and Ramscapelle, guns, not yet located, fired "pot shots" on the chance of killing something soldiers or civilians, or the wounded on their stretchers.
But the motor-cycle suffered considerably, and leaving it alongside the road to await a breakdown lorry to repair it or a shell to finish it I proceeded on foot to Ramscapelle. Within a hundred yards of the ruined town, from the shelter of a wrecked barn came the voice of a Belgian soldier peremptorily ordering me to take cover.
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