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Updated: June 13, 2025
For hours these long-drawn-out movements of troops went on, to the wail of bugles, and under the eye of the lonely sentinel on the sand-crest; then the soldiers poured back into the town, and La Panne was once more a busy common-place bain-de-mer.
His name and nature would not have been Dalmar-Kalm if he had. His first words at sight of the two ministering angels by his side were: "You must have brought me bad luck, I believe. Never have I had an accident with my car until to-day, but now all goes wrong. For the second time I am en panne. It is too much. This viper of a Joseph says we cannot go on."
There is only one way that leads there the King's high way. Look, monsieur, you can see the beginning of it down there. I hope you wish me well on that road, for I shall never take another." So he bade me good afternoon very courteously and walked away among the dunes to his little cottage at La Panne.
Every morning of the summer I have passed boys between eighteen and twenty-five, clad in fresh khaki, as they go riding down the poplar lane from La Panne to the trenches, the first twenty with bright silver bugles, their cheeks puffed and red with the blowing. Twelve months of wounds and wastage, wet trenches and tinned food, and still they go out with hope.
There is, for example, the soft panne velvet made by pressing the goods after it has been woven until it presents a satiny finish, then there is what is known as mirror velvet, a product woven from more than one shade of silk, and which in a strong light has a changeable quality."
From Westende it will be continued to Nieuport-Bains, crossing the Yser by movable bridges, and thence to La Panne, and so onwards, winding through the dunes, over the French borders, and perhaps as far as Paris!
But in Dunkirk I expected to rest and relax. I needed sleep after La Panne. I thought something should be done about it. My informant shrugged his shoulders. He was English, and entirely fair. "Dunkirk is a fortified town," he explained. "It is quite legitimate. But you may sleep to-night. The raids are always daylight ones." So I commenced dinner calmly.
The rain had ceased, but the electric flashlight showed great pools of water, through which we were obliged to walk. The hamlet was very silent not a dog barked. There were no dogs. I do not recall seeing any dogs at any time along the front, except at La Panne. What has become of them? There were cats in the destroyed towns, cats even in the trenches. But there were no dogs.
La Panne, with the guns of Nieuport constantly in one's ears, and the low, red flash of them along the sandy beach; with ambulances bringing in their wounded now that night covers their movements; with English gunboats close to the shore and a searchlight playing over the sea.
The Walmer Castle and the Canterbury were the two little packets employed, and they have certainly seen life since the war began. Great was our excitement if we caught sight of Field Marshal French on his way to G.H.Q., or King Albert, his tall form stooping slightly under the cares of State, as he stepped into his waiting car to be whirled northwards to La Panne.
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