Anything that had four wheels and a motor to drive them--diminutive
American run-abouts, slim, low-hung racing cars, luxurious
limousines with coronets painted on the panels, delivery-cars
bearing the names of shops in Antwerp and Ghent and Brussels,
lumbering motor-trucks, hotel omnibuses--all met the same fate,
which consisted in being daubed with elephant-grey paint, labelled
"S.M." (Service Militaire) in staring white letters, and started for the
front, usually in charge of a wholly inexperienced driver. It made an
automobile lover groan to see the way some of those cars were
treated. But they did the business. They averaged something like
twelve miles an hour--which is remarkable time for army transport--
and, strangely enough, very few of them broke down. If they did
there was always an automobile des reparations promptly on hand
to repair the damage. Before the war began the Belgian army had
no army transport worthy of the name; before the forts at Liege had
been silenced it had as efficient a one as any nation in Europe.

The headquarters of the motor-car branch of the army was at the
Pare des Automobiles Militaires, on the Red Star quays in Antwerp.
Here several hundred cars were always kept in reserve, and here
was collected an enormous store of automobile supplies and
sundries. The scene under the long, low sheds, with their
corrugated-iron roofs, always reminded me of the Automobile Show
at Olympia. After a car had once been placed at your disposal by
the Government, getting supplies for it was merely a question of
signing bons. Obtaining extra equipment for my car was Roos' chief
amusement. Tyres, tools, spare parts, horns, lamps, trunks--all you
had to do was to scrawl your name at the foot of a printed form and
they were promptly handed over. When I first went to Belgium I was