Antwerp Road

by Henry van Dyke

Along the straight, wet road, through a line of trees, coloured green and gold, dripping with the rain of a late October afternoon, a huge crowd of people was moving slowly, with the patient, sad slowness of tired feet and heavy hearts.

But they were in a hurry, all of these old men and women, fathers and mothers, and little children; they were flying as fast as they could; either away from something that they were afraid of, or towards something that they wanted. That was the strange thing – the movement on the road was in two directions.

Some were escaping from damaged or destroyed homes to be free of the war. Some were heading back to their broken homes to escape the sadness of exile. But all were fugitives, trying to get along the road one way or the other, and moving no faster than snails.

I saw many different things on that road and remembered them without noticing it. There was a boy trying hard to push a cart with his pale mother in it, and his two little sisters walking very slowly at his side.

A farmer with his two girls driving their thin, sad cows back to some unknown field. A bony horse pulling a cart loaded with beds and furniture. On top sat a wrinkled grandmother with the tiniest baby in her arms, while the rest of the family walked alongside – and the cat was on the softest blanket.

Two dogs, with red tongues out, pulling a heavy cart while the owner pushed behind and the woman pulled from the front. Strange, ancient carts packed with passengers. Couples and groups and sometimes larger crowds of foot-travellers. Now and then a man or woman on their own, old and dirty, eyes on the road, walking with difficulty through the mud and the mist, under the yellowing leaves.

All these clear pictures I saw, but it was all one vision – a vision of humanity with its animals running away – an extremely slow, painful escape!

I saw no tears. I heard no complaint. But beneath the patient hurry on all those confused faces I saw a question.

"What have we done? Why has this thing happened to us and our children?"

Somewhere I heard a trumpet. The helmets of German soldiers shone for a moment, far down the wet road. Through the hot sunset came the dull, distant noise of the unseen guns of victory.

That was the only answer.