The driver,
seated crosswise on a projecting tongue of wood, guides the horse by
mysterious signals conveyed through jerks of the piece of string, and
steers the cart by leaning over and shoving the small front steering
wheel to the right or left by hand. The Flemish horses are very placid
and are never startled by motors, gun fire, or anything else.
Away to the right we could see the spires of a church in a little
village nestling among the trees. Our road took its tortuous course
through fields as flat as a board. Tall trees flanked the roadside
which was separated from the fields by ditches three or four feet
wide, serving to drain both road and fields and ultimately emptying
into some canal or creek. In this particular part of Flanders hedges
were not in universal use for fences. In one place we execrated the
Germans for having cut down dozens of the roadside trees, only to
discover later that the British themselves had cut them down in order
to clear the course for aeroplanes ascending and descending to the
aerodrome close by.
We overhauled a trotting dog team dragging a heavy little milk cart
and driven by a boy who ran alongside. At the sound of the motor horn
the dogs turned sharply to the right without waiting for orders from
the boy, ran over his foot, and nearly upset the cart. One judged that
they had had some previous and possibly not pleasant experiences with
motor cars, and were taking no chances.
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