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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, In the Claws of the German Eagle, by Albert
+Rhys Williams
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: In the Claws of the German Eagle
+
+Author: Albert Rhys Williams
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2004  [eBook #11414]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by A. Langley
+
+
+
+IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE
+
+ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+My thanks go to the Editors of The Outlook for permission to
+reproduce the articles which first appeared in that magazine.
+
+Also to many friends all the way from Maverick to Pasadena.
+Above all to Frank Purchase, my comrade in the first weeks of the
+war and always.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+Instead of a Preface
+
+Part I
+The Spy-Hunters Of Belgium
+
+Chapter
+     I. A Little German Surprise Party
+    II. Sweating Under The German Third Degree
+   III. A Night On A Prison Floor
+    IV. Roulette And Liberty
+
+Part II
+On Foot With The German Army
+
+     V. The Gray Hordes Out Of The North
+    VI. In The Black Wake Of The War
+   VII. A Duelist From Marburg
+  VIII. Thirty-Seven Miles In A Day
+
+Part III
+With The War Photographers In Belgium
+
+    IX. How I Was Shot As A German Spy
+     X. The Little Belgian Who Said, "You Betcha"
+    XI. Atrocities And The Socialist
+
+Part IV
+Love Among The Ruins
+
+Chapter
+
+   XII. The Beating Of "The General"
+  XIII. America In The Arms Of France
+   XIV. No-Man's-Land
+
+Afterword
+
+
+
+
+
+Instead Of A Preface
+
+The horrible and incomprehensible hates and brutalities of the
+European War! Unspeakable atrocities! Men blood-lusting like a lot
+of tigers!
+
+Horrible they are indeed. But my experiences in the war zone
+render them no longer incomprehensible. For, while over there, in
+my own blood I felt the same raging beasts. Over there, in my own
+soul I knew the shattering of my most cherished principles.
+
+It is not an unique experience. Whoever has been drawn into the
+center of the conflict has found himself swept by passions of
+whose presence and power he had never dreamed.
+
+For example: I was a pacifist bred in the bone. Yet, caught in Paris
+at the outbreak of the war, my convictions underwent a rapid
+crumbling before the rising tide of French national feeling. The
+American Legion exercised a growing fascination over me. A little
+longer, and I might have been marching out to the music of the
+Marseillaise, dedicated to the killing of the Germans. Two weeks
+later I fell under the spell of the self-same Germans. That long gray
+column swinging on through Liege so mesmerized me that my
+natural revulsion against slaughter was changed to actual
+admiration.
+
+Had an officer right then thrust a musket into my hand, I could
+have mechanically fallen into step and fared forth to the killing of
+the French. Such an experience makes one chary about dispensing
+counsels of perfection to those fighting in the vortex of the world-storm.
+Whenever I begin to get shocked at the black crimes of the belligerents,
+my own collapse lies there to accuse me.
+
+It is in the spirit of a non-partisan, then, that this chronicle of
+adventure in those crucial days of the early war is written. It is a
+welter of experiences and reactions which the future may use as
+another first-hand document in casting up its own conclusions.
+There is no careful culling out of just those episodes which support
+a particular theory, such as the total and complete depravity of the
+German race.
+
+Despite my British ancestry, the record tries to be impartial--
+without pro- or anti-German squint. If the reader had been in my
+skin, zigzagging his way through five different armies, the things
+which I saw are precisely the ones which he would have seen. So I
+am not to blame whether these episodes damn the Germans or
+bless them. Some do, and some don't. What one ran into was
+largely a matter of luck.
+
+For example: In Brussels on September 27, 1914, I fell in with a
+lieutenant of the British army. With an American passport he had
+made his way into the city through the German lines. We both
+desired to see Louvain, but all passage thereto was for the
+moment forbidden. Starting out on the main road, however, sentry
+after sentry passed us along until we were halted near staff
+headquarters, a few miles out of the city, and taken before the
+commandant. We informed him of our overweening desire to view
+the ruins of Louvain. He explained, as sarcastically as he could,
+that war was not a social diversion, and bade us make a quick
+return to Brussels, swerving neither to the right nor left as we went.
+
+As we were plodding wearily back, temptation suddenly loomed up
+on our right in the shape of a great gas-bag which we at first took
+to be a Zeppelin. It proved to be a stationary balloon which was
+acting as the eye of the artillery. It was signaling the range to the
+German gunners beneath, who were pounding away at the Belgians.
+In our excitement over the spectacle, we went plunging across fields
+until we gained a good view of the great swaying thing, tugging away
+at the slender filament of rope which bound it to the earth.
+
+Sinking down into the grass, we were so intent upon the sharp
+electric signaling as to be oblivious to aught else, until a voice rang
+a harsh challenge from behind. Jumping to our feet, we faced a
+squad of German soldiers and an officer who said:
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Came out to see the big balloon," we somewhat naively informed
+him.
+
+"Very good!" he said. And then, quite as if he were rewarding our
+manifest zeal for exploration, he added, "Come along with me and
+you can see the big commandant, too."
+
+Three soldiers ahead and three behind, we were escorted down
+the railroad track in silence until we began to pass some cars filled
+with the recently wounded in a fearfully shot-to-pieces state. Some
+one mumbled "Englishmen!" and the whole crowd, bandaged and
+bleeding as they were, rose to the occasion and greeted us with
+derisive shouts.
+
+"Put the blackguards to work," growled one.
+
+"No! Kill the damn spies!" shouted another, as he pulled himself
+out of the straw, "kill them!"
+
+A huge fellow almost wild from his wounds bellowed out: "Why
+don't you stick your bayonet into the cursed Englishmen?" No
+doubt it would have eased his pain a bit to see us getting a taste of
+the same thing he was suffering.
+
+Our officer, as if to make concessions to this hue and cry, growled
+harshly: "Don't look around! Damn you! and take your hands out of
+your pockets!"
+
+We heaved sighs of relief as we left this place of pain and hate
+behind. But a new terror took hold of us as a turn in the track
+brought our destination into view. It was the staff headquarters in
+which, two hours before, the commandant had ordered us to make
+direct return to Brussels.
+
+"Wait here," said the officer as he walked inside.
+
+We stood there trying to appear unconcerned while we cursed the
+exploring bent in our constitutions, and mentally composed
+farewell letters to the folks at home.
+
+But luck does sometimes light upon the banners of the daring. It
+seems that in the two hours since we had left headquarters a
+complete change had been made in the staff. At any rate, an
+officer whom we had not seen before came out and addressed us
+in English. We told him that we were Americans.
+
+"Well, let's see what you know about New York," he said.
+
+We displayed an intensive knowledge of Coney Island and the
+Great White Way, which he deemed satisfactory.
+
+"Nothing like them in Europe!" he assured us. "I did enjoy those
+ten years in America. I would do anything I could for one of you
+fellows."
+
+He backed this up by straightway ordering our release, and
+authenticated his claim to American residence by his last shot:
+
+"Now boys, beat it back to Brussels."
+
+We stood not on the order of our beating, but beat at once.
+
+One may pick out of such an experience precisely what one
+wishes to pick out: the imbecile hatred in the Teuton--the perfidy of
+the British--the efficiency or the blundering of the German--or
+perchance the foolhardiness of the American, just as his
+nationalistic bias leads him.
+
+So, from the narratives in this book, one may select just the
+material which supports his theory as to the merits or demerits of
+any nation. To myself, out of these insights into the Great
+Calamity, there has come re-enforcement to my belief in the
+essential greatness of the human stuff in all nations. Along with
+this goes a faith that in the New Internationalism mankind will lay
+low the military Frankenstein that he has created, and realize the
+triumphant brotherhood of all human souls.
+
+
+
+
+
+Part I
+The Spy-Hunters Of Belgium
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+A Little German Surprise Party
+
+
+
+"Two days and the French will be here! Three days at the outside,
+and not an ugly Boche left. Just mark my word!"
+
+This the patriarchal gentleman in the Hotel Metropole whispered to
+me about a month after the Germans had captured Brussels. They
+had taken away his responsibilities as President of the Belgian
+Red Cross, so that now he had naught to do but to sit upon the
+lobby divan, of which he covered much, being of extensive girth.
+But no more extensive than his heart, from which radiated a genial
+glow of benevolence to all--all except the invaders, the sight or
+mention of whom put harshness in his face and anger in his voice.
+
+"Scabbard-rattler!" he mumbled derisively, as an officer
+approached. "Clicks his spurs to get attention! Wants you to look
+at him. Don't you do it. I never do." He closed his eyes tightly, as if
+in sleep.
+
+Oftentimes he did not need to feign his slumber. But sinking slowly
+down into unconsciousness his native gentleness would return
+and a smile would rest upon his lips; I doubt not that in his dreams
+the Green-Gray troops of Despotism were ridden down by the Blue
+and Red Republicans of France.
+
+Once even he hummed a snatch of the Marseillaise. An extra loud
+blast from the distant cannonading stirred him from his reverie. "Ah
+ha!" he exclaimed, clasping my arm, the artillery--"it's getting nearer
+all the time. They are driving back the Boches, eh? We'll be free
+to-morrow, certain. Then we'll celebrate together in my country-
+home."
+
+Walking over to the door, he peered down the street as if he
+already expected to catch a glint of the vanguard of the Blue and
+Red. Twice he did this and returned with confidence unshaken.
+"Mark my word," he reiterated; "three days at the outside and we
+shall see the French!"
+
+That was in September, 1914. Those three days passed away into
+as many weeks, into as many months, and into almost as many
+years. I cannot help wondering whether the same hopes stirred
+within him at each fresh outburst of cannonading on the Somme.
+And whether through those soul-sickening months that white-
+haired man peered daily down those Brussels streets, yearning for
+the advent of the Red and Blue Army of Deliverance. Red and
+Blue it was ever in his mind. If once it had come in its new uniform
+of somber hue, it would have been a disappointing shock I fear.
+He was an old man then; he is now perhaps beyond all such
+human hurts. His pain was as real as anything I saw in all the war.
+I had little time to dwell upon it, however, for presently I was put
+into a situation that called for all my wits. I was introduced to it by
+the announcement of the porter:
+
+"An American gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+That was joyful news to one held within the confines of a captive
+city, from which all exit was, for the time being, closely barred.
+
+It was September 28th, my birthday, too. The necessity of
+celebrating this in utter boredom was a dismal prospect. Now this
+came upon me like a little surprise-party.
+
+Picking up a bit of paper on which I had been scribbling down a
+few memoranda that I feared might escape my mind, I hastened
+into the hallway to meet a somewhat spare, tall, and extremely
+erect-appearing man. He greeted me with a smile and a bow--a
+rather dry smile and a rather stiff bow for an American.
+
+So I queried, "You're an American, are you?"
+
+"Not exactly," he responded; "but I would like to talk with you."
+
+Without the shadow of a suspicion, I told him it would be a great
+relief from the tedium of the day to talk to any one.
+
+"But I would prefer to talk to you in your room," he added.
+
+"Certainly," I responded, stepping toward the elevator.
+
+The hotel was practically deserted, so I was somewhat surprised
+when two men, one a huge fellow built on a superdreadnaught
+plan, followed us in and got out with us on the fifth floor. The
+superdreadnaught sailed on into my room, which seemed a
+breach of propriety for an un-introduced stranger. He closed the
+door rudely behind him. I was prepared to resent this altogether
+high-handed intrusion, when my tall guest said, very simply, "I am
+representing the Imperial German Government."
+
+I rallied under the shock sufficiently to say, "Will you take a chair?"
+
+"No," came the laconic reply, "I will take you--and this," he said,
+reaching for the piece of scribble-paper I had in my hands, "and
+any baggage you have in your room."
+
+I assured him that I had none, as I really expected to stay in
+Brussels but a day. He pretended not to hear my reply, and said,
+
+"We better take it with us, for we will probably need it."
+
+He looked under the bed and unlocked the closet door. Finding
+nothing, he asked for the key to my room. I handed it over, Room
+Number 502.
+
+"You will be so good as to follow me now."
+
+Now every one knows that the Spy-Season in Europe opened with
+the beginning of the war. Spy hunting became at once a veritable
+mania.
+
+Consequently no self-respecting person returns from the war-zone
+without at least one hair-raising story of being taken as a spy.
+Being just an average species of American, I exhale no particular
+air of mystery or villainy; yet I suffered a score of times the laying
+on of hands by German, French, Belgian, and even Dutch authorities.
+
+But this experience is marked off from all my other ordeals in four
+ways. In the first place, instead of casually falling into the hands of
+my captors, they came after me in full force. In the second place, a
+specific charge of using money for bribing information was laid
+against me, and witnesses were at hand. In the third place, the
+leader of the party arrested me in civilian dress, but before
+examination and trial he changed to military uniform. In the fourth
+place, the officials were in such a surly mood that my message to
+the American Ambassador was undelivered, and at the last trial
+before the American representatives there was no apology, but
+rather the sullen attitude of those who had been balked in bagging
+their game.
+
+When my captor bade me follow him I asked:
+
+"Can I leave word with my friends?" For an answer he smiled
+satirically. By accident or design, the time chosen for my taking off
+was one when both of my two casual acquaintances were out of
+the hotel.
+
+"Not now, but a little later perhaps, when this is fixed up," my
+captor answered me.
+
+We stepped into a carriage. The two assistants at the little surprise
+party walked away, and my rising sense of fear was allayed by the
+friendly offer of a cigarette. It was a brand-new experience to ride
+away to prison in royal state like this. The almost pleasant attitude
+of my companion reassured me. "After all," I mused, "this is a
+lucky stroke; a little uncertain perhaps, but on the whole an
+interesting way to while away the tedium of an otherwise eventless
+birthday."
+
+We stopped before the Belgian Government building, on the Rue
+de la Loi, the headquarters of the German staff. At a word the
+sentries dropped back and my companion bade me walk down a
+long, dark corridor. I opened a door at the end, and found myself in
+a room with a few officers in chairs, and a large array of
+documents upon a table.
+
+The moment I came within the safe confines of that room the
+whole attitude of my captor changed. His mask of friendliness
+dropped away. Perhaps his spirit responded and adapted itself to
+the official atmosphere of the headquarters. Anyhow, at once he
+froze up into the most rigid formality. Sitting down, he wrote out
+what I deemed was the report of the morning's proceedings. I
+watched him writing with all the semblance and precision of a
+machine, except for a half-smile that sometimes flickered upon his
+close-pressed lips.
+
+He was a machine, or, more precisely, a cog in the great fighting
+machine that was producing death and destruction to Belgium.
+Just as the Germans have put men through a certain mold and
+turned out the typical German soldier, in like manner through other
+molds they have turned out according to pattern the German
+secret service man. He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his
+sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in
+its domain. This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the
+police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean
+Valjean. In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to "get"
+me, and in that flickering smile I saw an inhuman delight in putting
+the worst construction upon my case as he wrote it down.
+Hereafter he shall be known as Javert.
+
+Towards Javert I sustain a very distinct aversion. This is not the
+result of any evil twist put into my constitution by original sin. Quite
+the contrary. Hitherto I have always felt that I, like the man in
+Oscar Wilde's play, could forgive anybody anything, any time,
+anywhere. One can forgive even a hangman for doing his duty,
+however it may thwart one's plans. Some men must play the part
+of prosecutor and devil's advocate.
+
+But such was the cold, cynical delight in this fellow's doing his duty,
+such was his arrogant, overbearing attitude toward the helpless
+peasant prisoners, that I know my prayers for the end of the war
+were not motivated entirely by selfless considerations. I am
+hankering to get into the neighborhood of this fellow when he
+doesn't hold all the trump cards. In justice to Javert, I must say that
+he reciprocated my feeling magnificently, and, inasmuch as he
+was the cat and I the mouse, and a very small one at that, he
+probably found much more spiritual satisfaction in the exercise of
+his feelings than I did in mine. That is why I was anxious to have
+the war end and embrace the first opportunity to change our roles.
+I yearned to give him his proper place in the sun.
+
+Having completed my case, he demanded my papers, and then
+bade me open the door. There was a soldier waiting, and with him
+ahead and Javert behind, I was escorted into the courtyard. Here
+a double-door was opened, and I was thrust into a room filled with
+a motley collection of persons guarded by a dozen soldiers with
+rifles ready.
+
+The sight was anything but reassuring. I turned toward Javert and
+asked, somewhat frantically, I fear: "What is all this for? Aren't you
+going to do anything about my case?"
+
+My hitherto cool, smiling manner must have been an irritation to
+him. A German official, especially a petty one, takes everything
+with such deadly seriousness that he can't understand us taking
+things so debonairly, especially when it is his own magisterial self.
+
+So I think he thoroughly enjoyed my first signs of perturbation, and
+said: "Your case will be settled in a little while--perhaps directly."
+He turned to a soldier, bade him watch me, and disappeared.
+
+About five minutes later I heard outside the command "Halt!" to a
+squad of soldiers. The doors opened and Javert reappeared, this
+time in the full uniform of an officer. For the moment I thought he
+had come with a firing squad and they were going to make short
+shrift of me. The grim humor of disposing of my case thus
+"directly" came home to me. But merely flicking the ashes from his
+cigarette, he glanced round the room without offering the slightest
+recognition, and then disappeared. How he made his change from
+civilian clothes so quickly I can't understand. It seemed like a
+vainglorious display of his uniform in order to let us take full
+cognizance of his eminence.
+
+I began now a survey of my surroundings. Our room was in fact a
+hallway crammed with soldiers and prisoners. The soldiers, with
+fixed bayonets in their rifles, stood guard at the door. The
+prisoners, some thirty-five in number, were ranged on benches,
+overturned boxes, and on the floor. We were of every description,
+from well-groomed men of the city to artisans and peasants from
+the fields. The most interesting of the peasants was a young fellow
+charged with carrying dispatches through the lines to Antwerp. The
+most interesting of the well-dressed urban group was a theater
+manager charged with making his playhouse the center of
+distribution for the forbidden newspapers smuggled into Brussels.
+There was a Belgian soldier in uniform, woefully battered and
+beaten; and for the first time I saw a German soldier without his
+rifle. He, too, was a prisoner waiting trial, having been sent up to
+the headquarters accused of muttering against an under officer.
+
+All these facts I learned later. Then I sat paralyzed in an
+atmosphere charged with smoke and silence. The smoke came
+not from the prisoners, for to them it was forbidden, but from the
+soldiers, who rolled it up in great clouds. The silence came from
+the suspicion that one's next neighbor might be a spy planted
+there to catch him in some unwary statement. Each man would
+have sought relief from the strain by unbosoming his hopes and
+fears to his neighbor, but he dared not. That is one fearful curse of
+any cause that is buttressed by a system of espionage. It scatters
+everywhere the seeds of suspicion. All society is shot through with
+cynical distrust. It poisons the springs at the very source--one's
+faith in his fellows. Ordinarily one regards the next man as a
+neighbor until he proves himself a spy. In Europe he is a scoundrel
+and a spy until he proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is
+a neighbor.
+
+And then one is never certain. People were everywhere aghast to
+find even their life-long friends in the pay of the enemy. A large
+military establishment draws spies as certainly as a carcass draws
+vermin; the one is the inevitable concomitant of the other. It is the
+Nemesis of all human brotherhood.
+
+Now to be taken as a prisoner of war was to most men more of a
+Godsend than a tragedy. The prisoner knew that he was to be
+corralled in a camp. But he was alive at any rate and he had but to
+await the end of the war--then it was home again. The pictures
+show phalanxes of these men smiling as if they were glad to be
+captives. On the other hand there are no smiles in the pictures of
+the spies and francs-tireurs. They know that they are fated for a
+hasty trial, a drumhead decision, and to be shot at dawn. The
+prospect of that walk through the early morning dews to the
+execution-ground made their shoulders droop along with their
+spirits.
+
+With these thoughts on our mind we held our tongues and kept
+our eyes on the door, wondering who would be the next guest to
+arrive, and mentally conjecturing what might be the cause of his
+incarceration.
+
+The last arrival wore a small American flag wound round his arm,
+and around his waist he wore a belt which contained 100 pounds
+in gold. He spotted me, and, coming over to my corner, opened up
+a conversation in English. I thought at first that this was merely a
+clumsy German ruse to trap me into some indiscreet talking. To
+his kindly advances I curtly returned "Yeses" and "Noes."
+
+His name was Obels, a Belgian by birth but speaking English as
+well as German, French, and Flemish. He was an invaluable
+reporter for a great Chicago paper, and in his zeal for news had
+run smack into the Germans at Malines, and had been at once
+whisked off by automobile to Brussels for trial as a spy. He had a
+passionate devotion to his calling. No mystic could have been
+more consecrated to his Holy Church. I fully believe that he would
+have consented to be shot as a spy with a smile on his face if he
+could have got the story of the shooting to his paper. He was one
+of the most straightforth fellows I have ever met, and yet I
+regarded him there as I would a low-browed scoundrel. For a long
+time I would not speak to him. I dared not. He might have been a
+spy set to worm out any confidences, and then carry them to
+Javert.
+
+Left to himself, each man let his most pessimistic thoughts drag
+his spirits down. Gloom is contagious, and it soon became as
+heavy in the room as the gray clouds of smoke. The one bright,
+hopeful spot was the lone woman prisoner. She alone refused to
+succumb to the depressing atmosphere, and sought to play
+woman's ancient role of comforter. She tried to smile, and
+succeeded admirably, for she was very pretty. A wretched-looking
+lad huddled up on a bag in the corner tried to reciprocate, but with
+the tears glistening in his eyes he made a sorry failure of it. We
+were a hard crowd to smile to, and growing tired of her attempts to
+appear light-hearted, she at last gave herself up to her own
+grievances, and soon was looking quite as doleful as the rest of
+us. Our gloom was thrown into sharp relief by a number of soldiers
+grouped around a table in the corner laughing and shouting over a
+game of cards which they were playing for small stakes. We
+dragged out the long afternoon staring doggedly at the bayonets of
+our guards.
+
+Only once did the guards show any awareness of our existence.
+That was when suddenly the arrival of "Herr Major" was announced.
+As the door was opened to let him pass through our hall to the stairway,
+with a hoarse shout we were ordered to our feet. As his exalted
+personage paraded by we stood, hats in hand, with bared heads,
+with such humble and respectful expression as may be outwardly
+assumed towards a fellow-being whom all secretly despised or
+desired to kill. Was there really a murderous gleam in the averted
+eyes of those Belgians arrayed in salute before the Herr Major, or
+was it my imagination that put it there? Perhaps you can tell.
+
+Picture your country devastated, your towns burned, your flag
+prohibited, your farmers shot, your women and children terrified,
+your papers and public meetings suppressed, your streets
+patrolled by aliens with drawn swords as your enemies' bands
+triumphantly play their national airs. Picture, then, yourself lied
+about by hireling spies, thrown into prison, compelled to breathe
+foul air and sleep upon a floor, fed on black bread, and held day
+after day for sentence in nerve-racking suspense. Picture to
+yourself now the abject humiliation of being compelled to stand
+bare-headed in salute before these wreckers and spoilers of your
+land. Do you think you might keep back from your eyes sparks
+from that blazing rebellion in your soul? Then it was not
+imagination that made me see the murderous gleam in the eyes of
+those high-spirited Belgians. "Salute the Major!" the Germans
+shouted. What seeds of hate those words planted in those Belgian
+souls the future will show, when they who sow the wind shall reap
+the whirlwind.
+
+That is the unseen horror of war; pictures can reveal the damage
+wrought by shot and shell, fire and flood in the blasted cities and in
+the fields of the dead. But nothing can ever show the irreparable
+spiritual damage wrought to the human soul by hates, humiliations,
+fears and undying animosities.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+Sweating Under The German Third Degree
+
+
+
+By this time my lark-like spirit of the morning had folded its wings.
+My musings took on a decidedly somber tinge. "Were the Germans
+going to make a summary example of me to warn outsiders to cease
+prowling around the war zone?" "Was I going to be railroaded off
+to jail, or even worse?" It was no time to be wool gathering! It was
+high time for doing. "But what pretexts could they find for such action?"
+At any rate I resolved to furnish as few pretexts as possible.
+
+I set to work hunting carefully through my pockets for everything
+that might furnish the slightest basis for any charge against me.
+Before coming to Brussels I had been warned not to carry
+anything that might be the least incriminating, and there was not
+much on me; but I did have a pass from the Belgian commander
+giving me access to the Antwerp fortifications. I had figured on
+framing it as a souvenir of my adventures, but my molars now
+reduced it to an unrecognizable pulp. Cards of introduction from
+French and English friends fared a similar fate. Their remains were
+disposed of in the shuffling that accompanied the arrival of new
+prisoners. This had to be done most craftily, for we never knew
+where were the spying eyes.
+
+About six o'clock I was resting from my masticatory labors when
+Javert presented himself, accompanied by two soldiers. I was led
+away into the council room where first I had been taken in the
+morning. It was now turned into a trial chamber. Javert, as
+prosecutor, was seated on one side of the table, while around the
+farther end were ranged some officers and a few men in civilian
+clothes who proved to be secret service agents. I stood until the
+judge bade me take my seat at the vacant end of the table.
+
+One by one my documents were disposed of--an American
+passport issued in London; a permit from the German Consul at
+Maastricht, Holland, to enter "the territory of Belgium-Germany,"
+finally, this letter of introduction from the American Consulate at
+Ghent:
+
+Consulat Americain.
+
+Gand le 22 Septembre, 1914.
+Le Consul des Etats Unis d'Amerique a Gand, prie Messieurs les
+autorites de bien vouloir laisser passer le porteur de la presente
+Monsieur Albert Williams, citoyen Americain.
+
+JULIUS VAN HEE,
+Consul Americain.
+
+I pointed to the recent date on it, the 22nd of September, and to
+the signer of it, Julius van Hee.
+
+Van Hee was a man who met the Germans on their own ground.
+He informed the German officer at his hotel: "If you send any spy
+prowling into my room, I'll take off my coat and proceed to throw
+him out of the window." Shirt-sleeves diplomat indeed! Another
+time he requested permission to take three Belgian women
+through the lines to their family in Bruges. The German
+commandant said "No." "All right," said Van Hee, taking out a
+package of letters from captured German officers who were now in
+the hands of the Belgians, and dangling the packet before the
+commandant, "If I don't get that permit, you don't get these letters."
+He got the permit.
+
+After a few such clashes the invaders learned that when it came to
+this Schrecklichkeit business they had no monopoly on the article.
+Van Hee's name was not to be trifled with. But on the other hand
+there must necessarily have existed a certain resentment against
+him for his ruthless and effective diplomacy. It would no doubt
+afford Javert a pleasant sensation to take it out on any one
+appearing in any way as a protégé of Van Hee.
+
+"Yes, it's Van Hee's signature all right," muttered Javert with a
+shrug of his shoulders, "only he is not the consul, but the vice-
+consul at Ghent and let us remember that he is of Belgian
+ancestry--that wouldn't incline him to deep friendship with us."
+
+On a card of introduction from Ambassador Van Dyke there were
+the words "Writer for The Outlook." It's hard to understand how
+that escaped my very scrutinous search, but there it was.
+
+"Another anti-German magazine," commented, sardonically. I was
+marveling at the uncanny display of knowledge of this man at the
+center of the European maelstrom, aware of the editorial policy of
+an American magazine.
+
+"But that doesn't mean that I am anti-German," I protested; "we
+can retain our own private opinions."
+
+"Tommyrot," exclaimed Javert, "tommy-rot!" Strange language in a
+military court! Where had he laid hold of that choice bit of our
+vernacular?
+
+"You know perchance," he continued, "what the penalty is for
+newspaper men caught on the German side." I thought that surely
+I was going to reap the result of the adverse reports that the
+American correspondents had made already about the Germans,
+when he added, "But you are here on a different charge."
+
+The judge started to cross-examine me as to all my antecedents.
+My replies were in German--or purported to be--but in my
+eagerness to clear myself I must have wrought awful havoc with
+that classic language. I was forthwith ordered to talk English and
+direct my remarks to Javert, acting now as interpreter. In the midst
+of this procedure Javert, with a quick sudden stroke, produced the
+scribble-paper which he had seized in the morning, held it fairly in
+my face, and cried, "Whose writing is that?" The others all riveted
+their gaze upon me.
+
+I replied calmly, "It is mine."
+
+"I want you to put it into full, complete writing," cried Javert. "As it
+now stands it is a telegraphic code."
+
+That is the most complimentary remark that has ever been made
+upon my hieroglyphics. However, I shall be eternally grateful to
+Providence for my Horace Greeley style. For, while that document
+contained by no means any military secrets, there were, on the
+other hand, uncomplimentary observations about the Germans. It
+would not be good strategy to let these fall into their hands in their
+present mood. At Javert's behest, I set to work on my paper, and
+delivered to him in ten minutes a free, full, rapid translation of the
+abbreviated contents. On inspecting it Javert said, irritably, "I want
+an exact, precise transcript of everything here."
+
+"I thought you wanted it in a hurry," I rejoined.
+
+"No hurry at all. We have ample time to fix your case."
+
+These words do not sound a bit threatening, but it was the general
+setting in which they were said that made them so ominous, and
+which set the cold waves rippling up and down my spinal column.
+
+I set to work again, numbering every phrase in my scribble-paper,
+and then in the same number on the other paper giving a full,
+readable translation of it. I wrote out the things complimentary to
+the Germans in the fullest manner. But how was I going to take the
+sting out of the adverse comments?
+
+Phrase No. 1 meant "Musical nature of the German automobile
+horns." Their silver and flute-like notes had been a pleasing sound,
+rolling along the roads. That was good.
+
+Phrase No. 2 meant "The moderation of the Germans in not
+billeting more troops upon the hotels." I wondered why they had
+not commandeered quarters in more of the big empty hotels
+instead of compelling men to sleep in railway stations and in the
+open air. That was good.
+
+Phrase No. 3 meant "German officers never refused to contribute
+to the Belgian Relief Funds." These boxes were constantly shaken
+before them in every cafe, and not once was a box passed to an
+officer in vain. For all this I was very grateful and everything went
+on very merrily until I came to phrase Number 4.
+
+"If Bel I wld join posse Ger myself"; which, being interpreted,
+reads, "If I were a Belgian, I would join a posse against the
+Germans myself." That looked ugly, but I wanted to record for
+myself the ugly mood of resentment I had felt when I saw Belgians
+compelled to submit to certain humiliations and indignities from
+their invading conquerors.
+
+German or non-German--it makes no difference; any one who had
+seen those swaggering officers riding it rough-shod over those
+poor peasants would have felt the same tide of indignation
+mounting up in him. In that mood it would have given me genuine
+pleasure to have joined a little killing-party and wiped out those
+officers. Now these self-same officers were gathered round me
+trying to decide whether they were to have a little killing-party on
+their own account.
+
+There was sufficient justification for inciting their wrath in that one
+sentence as it stood, and they were all combining to entrap me by
+every possible means. Furthermore, they were hankering for a
+victim. I had only my wits to match against their desires. I cudgeled
+my brains as I never did before, but to no avail. Almost panic-
+stricken I was ready to give up in despair and throw myself upon
+the mercy of the court when, like a flash of inspiration, the right
+reading came. I transcribed that ugly phrase now to read: "If I were
+among the Belgians, I would join possibly the Germans myself."
+What more could the most ardent German patriot ask for? That
+met every abbreviation and made a beautifully exact reversal of
+the intended meaning. Not as an example in ethics, but as a
+"safety first" exhibit I must confess to a real pride in that piece of
+work. I handed it over with the cherubic expression of the prize-
+scholar in the Sunday School.
+
+Javert had figured on finding incriminating data in it. It was to be
+his chief evidence. He read it over with increasing disappointment
+and gave it the minutest analysis, comparing it closely with the
+original scribble-paper. For example, he called the attention of the
+judge to the fact that "guarded" in one paper was spelled
+"gaurded" in the other--some slip I had inadvertently made. He
+thought it might now be made a clew to some secret code, but,
+though he puzzled long and searchingly over the document, he
+extracted from it nothing more than an increased vexation of spirit.
+
+"Nothing on the surface here," Javert said to the judge; "but that
+only makes it look the more suspicious. Wait till we hear from the
+search of his room."
+
+At this juncture a man in civilian dress arrived, and, handing over
+the key of Room Number 502, reported that there was nothing to
+bring back. This nettled Javert, and he made and X-ray examination
+of my person, even tearing out the lining of my hat. Alas for him too late;
+his search disclosed nothing more damnatory than a French
+dictionary, which, because I was not an ostrich, I had been unable
+to get away with in the afternoon. A few addresses had been
+scribbled therein. He demanded a full account of each name.
+Some I had really forgotten.
+
+"That's strange," he sneered; "perhaps you don't find it convenient
+to remember who they are."
+
+Up till now I hadn't the slightest conception of the charge laid
+against me. Suddenly the judge crashed into the affair and took
+the initiative.
+
+"Why did you offer money to find out the movement of German
+troops!" he let go at me across the table in a loud voice.
+
+At the same time his aides converged on me a full, searching
+gaze. Going all day without food, for eight hours confined in a fetid
+atmosphere, and for two hours grilled by a dozen inquisitors, is an
+ordeal calculated to put the nerves of the strongest on edge.
+
+I simply replied, "I didn't do any such thing."
+
+"Don't lie!" "Tell the whole truth!" "Make a clean breast of it!" "No
+use holding anything back!" "We have the witnesses who will
+swear you did!" "Best thing for you is to tell all you know!"
+
+This fusillade of command and accusation they roared and
+bellowed at me, aiming to break down my defense with the
+suddenness of the onslaught. They succeeded for a moment. I
+couldn't rally my scattered and worn-out wits to think what the
+basis of this preposterous charge might be.
+
+Then I remembered a Dutchman who had accosted me the day
+before on a street-car. He had volunteered the information that he
+was taking people by automobile out through Liege into Holland,
+giving one thus the opportunity to see a great many troops and
+ruins along the way. I told him I had some money and would be
+glad to invest in such a trip, at the same time giving him my
+address at the Hotel Metropole. Guileless as he appeared, he
+turned out to be an agent of the German Government. He naturally
+wanted to make himself solid with his masters by delivering the goods,
+so he had twisted all my words into the most damning evidence,
+and had fixed up two or three witnesses ready to swear anything.
+
+"No use wasting time or effort to save this man," they told de Leval
+at the American Embassy, later. "We've got a cast-iron case
+against him, with witnesses to back it up."
+
+Javert no doubt proved himself an invaluable ally of the Dutchman
+in fixing up the charges. I don't believe he would manufacture a
+story out of whole cloth, but once his mind was set in a certain
+direction he could build up a good one on very shaky foundations.
+Perhaps he had an animus against these bumptious, undeferential,
+overcritical Americans, and thought it was time to give one of them
+a lesson. Perhaps he was tired of trapping ordinary garden variety
+spies of the Belgian brand. It would be a pleasing variation in the
+monotony of convicting defenseless, helpless Belgians if he
+could show that one of these fellows masquerading as Americans
+was a sham. Especially one of that journalistic tribe that had been
+sending out reports of German atrocities. Furthermore, it would
+redound greatly to his professional glory to hand me over to the
+General with a case proved to the hilt.
+
+There was no trick in the repertory of a prosecutor that was
+unknown to Javert. He now shifted to the confidential and dropping
+His voice very low, he said to me:
+
+"You know that if you make a full, complete confession, I'll promise
+to do my very best for you. And as a matter of fact you have been
+under the eyes of our Secret Service ever since you came to
+Belgium. We are aware of everything that you have done."
+
+Was that a bluff or the truth? If it was true then they knew about
+my capture near Louvain on the day before in suspicious
+observation of the signaling-balloon. If this was a bluff, then my
+confession would be simply a case of gratuitously damning myself
+and likewise endangering my companion of yesterday's adventure--the
+British lieutenant with the American passport. Yet again if Javert
+knew all he pretended to, silence about that episode would make
+it appear doubly heinous. So while with my tongue I retailed a simple,
+harmless version of my doings in Belgium in my brain I carried on a
+debate whether to make an avowal of the Louvain escapade or not.
+
+I came to the decision that Javert was just bluffing. Later
+developments proved me right. He knew nothing about it. Even
+the German Secret Service is not omniscient. Getting no results
+then from these wheedling tactics Javert shifted back to his
+bullying and essayed once more to browbeat me into a confession.
+Calling to his aid two officers who had been but casual onlookers
+they began volleying charges at me with machine-gun rapidity.
+
+"You know that you are a spy." "We know that you are a spy."
+"Why do you deny it?" "You know that you have been lying."
+"Better own up to all that you have done." "Out with it now!"
+
+When one officer grew tired, he rested. Then the next one took up
+the attack, and then he rested. But not one moment's respite for
+me. I don't know what they call it in German, but it was the third
+degree with a vengeance. Under this sweating process my nerves
+were being torn to tatters. I felt like screaming and it seemed that if
+this continued I would smash an officer with a chair and put an end
+to it all. But the fact that I am writing these lines shows that I didn't.
+Human nature is so constituted that it can always endure a little
+more, and though they kept the tension high for many minutes I
+did not buckle under the strain. However, I couldn't call up any
+arguments to show the utter absurdity of the charge against me.
+And my defense was very feeble.
+
+The onslaught now ceased as suddenly as it had begun. There
+was a coming and going of officers and some consultation in an
+undertone. The judge left the room and the impassive-faced
+Javert began that machine-like writing. After a while he stopped.
+
+"Will you give me some idea of what you expect to do with me?" I
+queried.
+
+"A full report of your case goes up to the General for decision and
+sentence," was his response.
+
+My spirits took a downward plunge. Then a fierce resentment
+amounting almost to rage came surging up within me. Masking it
+as well as I could, I asked permission to send word to the
+American authorities. Javert's reply was evasive.
+
+"I have had nothing to eat all day," I announced. "Can't you do
+something for me?"
+
+"Go to that door there and open it," said Javert.
+
+I did so and there stood four soldiers of the Kaiser, who ranged
+themselves two in front and two behind, and marched me away.
+Javert had a well-developed sense of the dramatic.
+
+While I am excoriating Javert as representing the genius of
+German officialdom, it is only fair that I should present his
+antithesis. By continually referring to the German army as a
+machine one gets the idea that it is an impersonal collection of
+inhuman beings remorselessly and mechanically devoted to duty.
+For a broad general impression that is perhaps a fair enough
+statement to start with; but when I am tempted to let it go at that,
+there is one striking exception that always rises up to point the
+finger of denial at this easy and common generalization. It is that of
+a young German officer, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts,
+with the most frank, open, ingenuous expression. One would
+expect to find him presiding at a Christian Endeavor social, rather
+than right here at the very pivot of the most terrible military
+organization of the world.
+
+I had caught his look riveted upon me in my trial, and recognized
+him when he came into the detention-room, to which the four
+soldiers had led me. Hurriedly, he said to me: "Really, you know, I
+ought not to come in here, but I heard your story, and it looks
+rather bad; but somehow I almost believe in you. Tell me the whole
+truth about your affair."
+
+I proceeded vehemently to point out my innocence, when he
+interrupted my story by asking, "But why did you make that
+Schreibfehler on your paper?" He followed my recital anxiously
+and sympathetically, and, looking me full in the face, asked, "Can
+you tell me on your Ehrenwort (word of honor) that you are not a
+spy? Remember," he added, solemnly, "on your Ehrenwort."
+
+Grasping both of his hands and looking him in the eye, I said, most
+fervently, "On my Ehrenwort, I am not a spy."
+
+There was an earnestness in my heart that must have
+communicated itself to my hands, because he winced as he drew
+his hands away; but he said, "I shall try to put in a word for you; I
+can't do much, but I shall do what I can. I must go now. Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+A Night On A Prison Floor
+
+
+
+"Prisoners are to be taken over into the left wing for the night," said
+an orderly to the guards.
+
+We had scarcely turned the corner, when an officer cried: "Not that
+way, Dummkopf!"
+
+"Our orders are for the left wing, sir," said the orderly.
+
+"Never saw such a set of damned blockheads!" yelled the officer
+in exasperation. "Can't you tell the difference between right and
+left? Right wing, right wing, and hurry up!"
+
+A little emery had gotten into the perfect-running machine. The
+corridors fairly clanged with orders and counter orders. After much
+confusion the general mix-up of prisoners was straightened out
+and we were served black bread and coffee.
+
+The strain of the day, along with the fever I had from exposure on
+the battlefields, made the rough food still more uninviting,
+especially as our only implements of attack were the greasy
+pocketknives of the peasants and canteen covers from the
+soldiers. The revolt of my stomach must have communicated itself
+to my soul. I determined for aggressive action on my own behalf. I
+resolved to stand unprotesting no longer while a solid case against
+me was being constructed. Not without a struggle was I to be
+railroaded off to prison or to Purgatory. Pushing up to the next
+officer appearing in the room, in firm but courteous tones I
+requested, as an American citizen, the right to communicate with
+the American authorities.
+
+He replied very decently that that was quite within my privileges,
+and forthwith the opportunity would be accorded me. I was looking
+for paper, when there came the order for all of us to move out into
+the courtyard. With a line of soldiers on either side, we were
+marched through labyrinthine passages and up three flights of
+stairs. Here we were divided into two gangs, my gang being led off
+into a room already nearly filled. We were told that it was our
+temporary abode, and we were to make the best of it. It was an
+administrative office of the Belgian Government now turned into a
+prison. There were the usual fixtures, including a rug on the floor
+and shelves of books. Ours was only one of many cells for
+prisoners scattered through the building. The spy-hunters had
+swooped down upon every suspect in Belgium and all who had
+been caught in the dragnet were being dumped into these rooms.
+
+We were thus informed by the officer whose wards we were. He
+was a fussy, quick-tempered, withal kind-hearted little fellow, and
+kept dashing in and out of the room, really perplexed over housing
+accommodations for the night. The spy-hunters had been successful
+in their work of rounding up their victims from all over the country and
+corralling them here until the place was filled to overflowing. Our
+official in charge was puffed up with pride in the prosperity of his
+institution, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, petulantly belectured
+us on adding ourselves to his already numerous burdens. This
+was highly humorous, yet we all feared to commit lese-majeste
+by expressing to him our collective and personal sorrow for
+so inconveniencing him, and our willingness to make amends
+for our thoughtlessness in getting arrested.
+
+After more hesitation than I had hitherto observed, arrangements
+for the night were completed and we were ordered to draw out
+blankets from the pile in the corner. The new arrivals and the old
+inmates maneuvered for the softest spots on the floor, which was
+soon covered over with bodies and their sprawling limbs, while a
+host of guards, fully armed, were posted at the door and along the
+hall.
+
+"I would give my right arm or my leg if I could get a flashlight of
+this," said Obels, the reporter, enthusiastically. This elation made
+him reckless as he went about, probing the experiences of each
+victim.
+
+"Great stuff!" "Great stuff!" he kept exclaiming. "Won't this open up
+some eyes in Chicago, eh!"
+
+He couldn't believe that the Providence which had led him to this
+Bonanza would now deny him the opportunity of getting out some
+of this wealth.
+
+In the midst of these activities he was haled before the tribunal. He
+returned, the spring out of his step and his zest for stories quite
+gone. Javert had successively branded him an "Idiot" a "Liar" and
+a "Spy."
+
+The information that several of the inmates had been imprisoned
+for a month or more spurred my drooping spirits and put me into
+action. I uncovered a pile of the office writing-paper and, with the
+aid of the Belgian who could speak English, I set to work preparing
+a letter to Ambassador Whitlock. Whether Javert was apprised of
+the doings of his charges or not I do not know, but in the midst of
+my writing he glided into the room, and, pouncing upon my
+manuscript, gathered it to himself, saying, "I'll take these." My
+Belgian friend protested that a superior officer had given me
+permission to do this. Javert handed back the paper, smiled, and
+disappeared. Knowing that every word would be closely scrutinized
+at the Staff Office, and that the least hint of anything derogatory to
+the German authorities would keep the letter in the building, I couched
+it in as pointed and telling terms as possible, having in mind the
+eyes of the Germans, quite as much as the Ambassador.
+
+
+Brand Whitlock,
+United States Ambassador,
+Brussels.
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+As a native American citizen, born in Ohio, and now imprisoned by
+the German authorities, I claim your intervention in my behalf. I am
+thirty years of age, resident of East Boston, Massachusetts, for six
+years. I am a graduate of Marietta College, Hartford Seminary, and
+studied in Cambridge University in England, and Marburg
+University in Germany.
+
+Saturday Mr. Van Hee, the American consul at Ghent, brought me
+here by automobile with Mr. Fletcher. Obliged to take back in his
+car three ladies for whom he obtained permission from the
+German Government, I was necessarily left behind; Mr. Van Hee
+promising to return for me when diplomatic business brought him
+to Brussels in a few days. Meantime I took a room at the Hotel
+Metropole. From it I was taken by the German authorities this
+morning. I do not know exactly what the charge against me is. I am
+accused of offering money for information relative to the
+movement of the German troops. I think that the man who worked
+up the case against me is a Dutchman with whom I spoke upon a
+car. He volunteered the information that he had been everywhere
+by automobile; and I asked him if he was the one who carried
+passengers out of Brussels by way of Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle.
+Won't you look into my case at once? Mr. Fletcher, who called on
+you Saturday, lent me some fifty dollars, so I am all right that way;
+but this is not a comfortable situation to be in, though the officers
+are very decent. If you want proof of my identity, you can
+communicate with the following people in America; they are my
+personal friends, and will confirm my absence from home on an
+extended vacation.
+
+His Excellency Governor Walsh, of the Commonwealth of
+Massachusetts; Dr. Charles Fleischer, Chief Rabbi in the
+Rabbinate of New England.
+
+(If there was any Jewish blood on the German Staff I was going to
+try to get the benefit of it.)
+
+The Honorable George W. Coleman, of the Ford Hall Convocation
+Meetings and President of the Pilgrim Amalgamated Associated
+Advertising Clubs of America.
+
+(Coleman being a cross between a Baptist deacon and an
+anarchist, I knew that he would not object to this bit of sabotage.)
+
+The Right Honorable William W. Mills, Esquire, President of the
+First National Bank of Marietta, Ohio, Treasurer of the University of
+Marietta, and Member of the National Council of Congregational
+Churches of America, etc., etc.
+
+If you will cablegram any of these, you will get an immediate reply.
+While I have no money for this now, I feel certain Mr. Fletcher, who
+is associated with Mr. Lane, of the United States Cabinet, will back
+you up, and there will be unlimited funds in America.
+
+Sincerely yours, ALBERT R. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+My attention has been called to the omission of the Angel Gabriel,
+Mary Pickford and Ty Cobb from the list of my intimate friends in
+the above document. That was not meant as a slight--purely an
+oversight. At any rate, I felt that the long list of men whose names
+were written here would make the right response to any cablegram.
+To atone for dragging them into the affray I call attention to the highly
+deferential and decorative manner in which I referred to them.
+Be it remembered that this document was prepared quite as
+much for German eyes as for the Ambassador's, and nothing
+gives a man standing and respect in the Teutonic mind as much
+as a name fearfully and wonderfully adorned. I resolved that my
+importance was not to suffer from lack of glory in my friends.
+I bestowed more honorary degrees on them than the average
+small college does in ten commencements. So lavish was I that
+my friends hardly recognize their own titular selves. An officer
+designated the guard who would deliver the letter. I gave it to
+him along with a franc, which he protestingly accepted. He reported
+that it was delivered to Javert. That was the last I ever heard from
+that message. I imagine that it was by no means the last that the
+German authorities heard from it, for when I related the story to
+the Ambassador some time later I saw a characteristic Brand
+Whitlock letter a-brewing. My message to Vice-Consul Naesmith
+and to the Hotel Metropole shared a like fate--they were undelivered.
+
+I simply offer the facts as they are. It may be that the courtesies of
+polite intercourse are not easy to observe in war. Certainly they
+were not obtrusive in Belgium. In extenuation it may be said that
+the Brussels postmen had struck about this time; but, on the other
+hand, through the forbidden shutters I saw fully fifty German Boy
+Scouts marshaled in the courtyard below.
+
+I had noticed them before as messengers going down the most
+unguarded by-ways of the slums, quite as if they were agents of a
+welcomed instead of hated army. They rode along serenely as if
+totally unconscious of the shining targets that they made. I felt
+certain that no American gang would let slip this opportunity for the
+heaving of a brick. Were Brussels boys made of flabbier stuff? Not
+if Belgian sons were of the same stripe as Belgian fathers. The fact
+then that none of these German Scouts were massacred, as was
+to be expected by all the rules of the game, showed how the threat
+of reprisals operated to curb the strongest natural impulses of the
+spirit. I presumed that one of these Scouts was speeding
+posthaste to the Ambassador with my note, but he never did.
+
+I am not berating the Germans. They were running their own war
+according to their own code. In this code reporters, onlookers, and
+uplifters of any brand were anathema.
+
+We had no rights. Our only right was to the convictions within our
+minds, provided we kept them there. I believe that were it not for
+the surmises of the English lieutenant who took them to the
+Ambassador I would be in prison yet. On second thought, I
+wouldn't, either. I couldn't have endured the strain much longer. If I
+had been caged in there a few hours more than I was, in my
+nervous tension I probably would have vented my sense of
+outraged justice by assaulting one of the officers myself. I wouldn't
+have had a long time then to speculate upon the immortality of the
+soul. I would have possessed first-hand information. One can
+understand why, for their own protection, the Germans imposed
+their iron laws upon the Belgians with their terrible penalties. What
+is hard to understand is the long-suffering patience and self-
+restraint of the Belgians. Occasionally some high-spirited or high-
+strung fellow was no longer able to keep the lid on the volcano of
+hatred and rage seething within him. This blowup brought down,
+not only upon his own head, but upon the whole community, the
+most hideous reprisals.
+
+By the time my writing was completed the men were pretty well
+settled down for the night. On the outside the roaring of the
+Austrian guns, which for days had been bombarding their way into
+Antwerp, now became less constant; less and less frequently the
+hoarse commands of the officers, mingled with the rumbling of the
+automobiles, came up from the courtyard below. At midnight the
+only sounds were the groans and moans of the twisting sleepers
+and the measured tread of the sentry as he paced up and down
+the hall, his silhouette darkening at regular intervals the glass door
+at the end of our little room.
+
+I was placed in a. sort of adjoining closet with six others. A motley
+mixture indeed; a Russian, an American, four Belgians, and a
+German--all prisoners awaiting our sentences. As a last move, the
+German soldier guards sandwiched themselves into the open
+spaces on the floor, their long bayonets glistening in the electric
+light that blazed down upon us. The peasants had characteristically
+closed the windows to keep out the baneful night air. In the main
+room a drop-light with shade flung its radiance on a table and lit up
+the anxious faces of the few men gathered round it. It showed one
+poor fellow bolt upright, unspeaking, unmoving, his fixed white
+eyeballs staring into space, as though he would go stark mad.
+Those eyes have forever burned themselves into my brain, a pitiful
+protest against a mad, wild world at war.
+
+Sleep was entirely out of the question with me. It wasn't the bad air
+or the hard floor or the snores of my comrades, but just plain cold
+fear. Now I possess an average amount of courage. Quite alone I
+walked in and out of Liege when the Germans were painting the
+skies red with the burning towns. My ribs were massaged all the
+way by ends of revolvers, whose owners demanded me to give
+forthwith my reasons for being there, they being sole arbiters of
+whether my reasons were good or bad. I got so used to a bayonet
+pointing into the pit of my stomach that it hardly looks natural in a
+vertical position.
+
+But this was a thrust from a different quarter. In the open a man
+feels a sporting chance, at any rate, even if a bullet can beat him
+on the run; but cooped up within four walls he is paralyzed by his
+horrible helplessness. He feels that a military court reverses
+ordinary procedure, holding that it is better for nine innocent to
+suffer than for one guilty one to escape. He knows that his fate is
+in the hands of a tribunal from whose arbitrary decision there is no
+appeal, and that decision he knows may depend upon the whim of
+the commandant, to whom a poor breakfast or a bad night's sleep
+may give the wrong twist. The terrible uncertainty of it preys upon
+one's mind.
+
+I certainly prayed that the commandant was getting a better night
+than mine, as I lay there staring up at the electric light with a
+hundred hates and fears pounding through my brain. "I'm a
+prisoner," was one thought. "Supposing the silence of the guns
+means that the Germans, beaten, are being pressed back into
+Brussels by the Allies. They may let us go. No, the Germans,
+maddened by defeat, might order us all to be shot," was one idea.
+"How does it feel to be blindfolded and stood up against a wall by a
+firing squad?" was another pleasant companion idea that kept vigil
+with me through the midnight hours. Then my fancies took a
+frenzied turn, "Suppose these be brutes of soldiers and they run
+us through, saying we were trying to escape."
+
+"Escape!" The word no sooner leaped into my mind than an
+almost uncontrollable impulse to escape seized me, or at least I
+thought one had. I got upon my feet, observing that the two
+soldiers lying beside me on the floor were fast asleep and the
+guards at the outer door were nodding. I stepped over their
+sleeping forms arid made a reconnoiter of the hallway. There in the
+semi-darkness stood seven soldiers of the Kaiser with their seven
+guns and their seven glistening bayonets.
+
+Cold steel is not supposed to act as a soothing syrup; but one
+glance at those bayonets and my uncontrollable impulse utterly
+vanished. You will observe that the bayonet is continually cropping
+up in my story. It does, indeed. A bayonet looks far different from
+what it did on dress parade. Meet one in war, and its true
+significance first dawns upon you. It is not simply a decoration at
+the end of a rifle, but it is made to stick in a man's stomach and
+then be turned round; and when you realize that this particular one
+is made to stick in your particular stomach, it takes on a still
+different aspect.
+
+I crawled back into my lair, resolved to seek for deliverance by
+mental means, rather than by physical; and as the first rays of light
+stole through the window I composed the following document to
+His Excellency:
+
+
+The Officer who has the case of the American, Albert B. Williams,
+under supervision: SIR:
+
+As you seem willing to be fair in hearing my case, may I take the
+liberty this morning of addressing you upon my charge? I fear that
+I made but a feeble defense of myself yesterday; but when I was
+accused of offering much money for information relative to the
+movements of German troops, the accusation came so suddenly
+that I could only deny it. May I now offer a few observations upon
+this charge, the nature of which just begins to become clear to
+me?
+
+In the first place, it was a sheer impossibility for me to offer "much
+money," because all I had was that which, as Mr. Van Hee knows,
+Mr. Fletcher gave me when I was left behind.
+
+In the second place, were I a spy, I certainly would not be offering
+money in a voice loud enough to be heard by the several
+witnesses that you have ready to testify.
+
+In the third place, while not attempting to impeach the character of
+my accuser, may I submit the fact that my own standing will be
+vouched for by His Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts, the
+President of the Pilgrim Amalgamated Associated Advertising
+Clubs of America, the chief Rabbi in the Rabbinate of New
+England, etc., etc.
+
+These men will attest the utter absurdity of any such charge being
+made against me.
+
+In the last place, may I suggest that the theory of an unintentional
+mistake throws the best light upon the case? For any conversation
+with my accuser was either in German or English. You know my
+German linguistic ability and the error that might be made there;
+and as for English, I challenge my accuser to understand three
+consecutive sentences in English.
+
+I trust you will take these facts into account before sentence is
+passed upon me.
+
+Respectfully yours,
+
+ALBERT R. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+By the time this was finished a stir in the courtyard below heralded
+the beginning of the day's activities. And what did this day hold in
+store for me?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Roulette And Liberty
+
+
+
+Our morning toilet was completed with the aid of one small, flimsy
+towel for thirty of us. Hot water tinctured with coffee and milk was
+served from a bucket with two or three cups. Bread which had
+been saved from the previous day was brought forth from pockets
+and hiding-places, and for some unaccountable reason a piece of
+good butter was brought in. Apparently the Germans were trying to
+escape the stigma of mistreating or underfeeding their prisoners.
+
+Orders were given to get ready to move out. After an hour, they
+were changed to "Clean up the room." When we had accomplished
+this, an inspecting officer entered and began to sniff and snort
+until his eyes fairly blazed with wrath, and then in a torrent of words
+he expressed his private and official opinion of us. So fast and
+freely did his language flow that I couldn't catch all the compliments
+he showered upon us; but "Verdammte!" "Donnerwetter!" and
+"Schwein!" were stressed frequently enough for me to retain
+a distinct memory of the same. One did not have to be a German
+linguist to get the drift of his remarks.
+
+They had an electric effect upon the prisoners, who with one
+accord got busy picking up microscopic and invisible bits from the
+floor. To see these men crawling around upon their stomachs
+must have been highly gratifying to His Self-inflated Highness. The
+highly gratifying thing to myself now is the fact that I did not do any
+crawling, but sat stolidly in my chair and stared back at him, letting
+my indignation get enough the better of my discretion even to
+sneer--at least I persuade myself now that I did. Outside of this
+little act of gallantry I am heartily ashamed of my conduct at the
+German Staff Headquarters. It was too acquiescent and obsequious
+for some of those bureaucrats rough riding it over those helpless,
+long-suffering, beaten Belgians.
+
+Having called us "Schwein," at high noon they brought in the swill.
+It was a gray, putrid-looking mess in a big, battered bucket. They
+told us that it came dried in bags and all that was necessary was to
+mix the contents with hot water. The mixture was put up in 1911
+and guaranteed to keep for 20 years. It looked as though it might
+have already forfeited on its guarantee. There was nothing to
+serve it with, and search of the room uncovered no implements of
+attack. Our discomfiture furnished a young soldier with much
+entertainment.
+
+"Nothing to eat your stew with? Well, just stand on that table there
+and dive right into the bucket."
+
+He was quite carried away with his own witticism, so that in sheer
+good nature he went and returned with six soup plates which were
+covered over with a thick grease quite impervious to cold water. I
+had my misgivings about the mess and dreaded its steaming
+odors. At last I summoned up courage and approached the
+bucket, using my fingers in lieu of a clothes-pin as a defense for
+my olfactory nerves. A surprise was in store for me; its palatability
+and quality were quite the opposite of its appearance. While I
+wouldn't enjoy that stew outside of captivity, and while the Brussels
+men refused in any way to succumb to its charm, it was at least
+very nutritious and furnished the strength to keep fighting.
+
+But it is hard to battle against the blues, especially when all one's
+comrades capitulate to them. Each man vied with the other in
+radiating a blue funk, until the air was as thick as a London fog.
+
+Picture, if you will, the scene. By a fine irony, the books on the
+shelves were on international law, and by a finer irony the book in
+green binding that caught my eye as it stood out from the black
+array of volumes was R. Dimmont's "The Origins of Belgian
+Neutrality." The Belgians who were enjoying the peculiar blessings
+of that neutrality were sprawled over the floor or pacing restlessly
+up and down the room, or, in utter despair, buried their heads in
+their arms flung out across the table.
+
+About three o'clock the name "Herr Peters" was called. He had
+been found guilty of mumbling to his comrades that their captain
+was pushing them too hard in an advance. One could believe the
+charge, for, as his name was called, he was sullen and unconcerned.
+"You are sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in a fortress.
+You must go at once."
+
+He muttered in an undertone something about "being luckier in
+prison in winter than out there on the cold, freezing ground," and,
+flinging his knapsack upon his shoulder, lumbered off. In how
+many such hearts is there this sullen revolt against the military
+system, and how much of a factor will it be to reckon with in the
+future?
+
+There were four prisoners quite separated from the rest of us. It
+was said that they were sentenced to be shot. I am not sure that
+they were; but we were strictly forbidden any intercourse with
+them. They were the most crestfallen, terror-stricken lot of men
+that ever I had laid eyes upon, and at four o'clock they were led
+away by a cordon of soldiers. There was enough mental suggestion
+about it to plunge the room into a deep silence. It was oppressive.
+
+At last Obels, the reporter, walked over and asked me if there
+were proofs of the immortality of the soul, excusing himself by
+saying that up to this time he had never had any particular time nor
+reason for reflection on this subject. That was the only
+psychological blunder that he made. However, it at last broke the
+heavy, painful silence, and we speculated together, instead of
+singly, how it might feel to have immortal bliss thrust upon us from
+the end of a German musket.
+
+I related to him my experience of the previous week. Some war
+photographers wanted a picture of a spy shot. I had volunteered to
+play the part of a spy, and, after being blindfolded, was led over
+against a wall, where a Belgian squad leveled their rifles at me. I
+assured him that the sensation was by no means terrible; but he
+would not be comforted. Death itself he wouldn't mind so much, if
+he could have found it in the open fighting gladly for his country;
+but it seemed a blot on his good name to be shot for just snooping
+around the German lines.
+
+On the whole, after weighing all the pros and cons, we decided
+that our pronounced aversion to being shot had purely an altruistic
+origin. It was a wicked, shameful loss to the human race. That
+point was very clear to us. But there was the arrant stupidity of the
+Germans to be reckoned with. They have such a distorted sense
+of real values. Rummaging through my pockets during these
+reflections, I fished up an advertising folder out of a corner where I
+had tucked it when it was presented to me by Dr. Morse. The
+outside read, "How We Lost Our Best Customer." Mechanically I
+opened it, and there, staring back at me from big black borders on
+the inside, were the two words, "HE DIED."
+
+These ruminations upon matters spiritual were interrupted by the
+strains from a brass band which went crashing by, while ten
+thousand hobnailed boots of the regiment striking the pavements
+in unison beat out time like a trip-hammer.
+
+"Perhaps the Germans are leaving Brussels," whispered a
+companion; "and wouldn't we grow wild or faint or crazy to see
+those guards drop away and we should find ourselves free men
+again!"
+
+The passing music had a jubilating effect upon our guards, who
+paraded gayly up and down the room. One simple, good-hearted
+fellow harangued us in a bantering way, pointing out our present
+sorry plight as evidence of the sad mistake we had made in not
+being born in Germany. He felt so happy that he took a little
+collection from us, and in due time returned with some bread and
+chocolate and soda water. But even the soda water, as if adjusting
+itself to the spiritlessness of the prisoners, refused to effervesce.
+The music had by contrast seemed only to increase the general
+depression.
+
+Only one free spirit soared above his surroundings. He was a
+young Belgian--Ernest de Burgher by name--a kindly light amidst
+the encircling gloom. He took everything in life with a smile. I am
+sure that if death as a spy had been ordered for him at the door,
+he would have met that with the same happy, imperturbable
+expression. He had quite as much reason as I, if not more, for
+joining our gloom-party. He, too, was waiting sentence. For six
+days his wild, untamed spirit had been cabined in these walls; but
+he had been born a humorist, and even in bonds he sought to play
+the clown. He went through contortions, pitched coins against
+himself, and staggered around the room with a soda-water bottle
+at his lips, imitating a drunkard. But ours was a tough house even
+for his irrepressible spirit to play to. Despite all his efforts, we sat
+around like a convention of corpses, and only once did his comic
+spirit succeed.
+
+One prisoner sunk down in a comatose condition in his chair, as
+though his last drop of strength and life had oozed away. Now de
+Burgher was one of those who can resist anything but temptation.
+He stole over and tied the man's legs to his chair. Then he got a
+German soldier to tap the hapless victim on the shoulder. Roused
+from his stupor to see the soldier standing over him like a
+messenger of doom, the poor fellow turned ashen pale. He sprang
+to his feet, but the chair bound to his legs tripped him up and he
+fell sprawling on the floor. He apparently regarded the chair as
+some sort of German infernal machine clutching him, and he lay
+there wrestling with his inanimate antagonist as though it were a
+demon. As soon as the victim understood the joke he joined in the
+burst of merriment that ran round the room; but it was of short
+duration. The gloom got us again, despite all that de Burgher could
+do, and finally he succumbed to the prevailing atmosphere and
+gave us up as a bad job.
+
+He was a diminutive fellow, battered and rather the worse for wear.
+Ever shall I think of him not only as the happy-souled, but as the
+great-souled. My introduction into the room was at the point of a
+steel bayonet. With him, that served me far better than any gilt-
+edged introduction of high estate. He didn't know what crime was
+charged against, me, but he felt that it must have been a sacrifice
+for Belgium's sake. The fact that I was persona non grata to the
+Germans was a lien upon his sympathy, and gave me high rank
+with him at once. He instinctively divined my feelings of fear and
+loneliness, and straightway set out to make me his ward, his
+comrade, and his master.
+
+Never shall I forget how, during that long night in prison, he
+crawled over and around the recumbent forms to where I lay upon
+the floor courting sleep in vain. I was frightened by this maneuver,
+but he smiled and motioned me to silence. Reaching up beneath
+my blanket, he unlaced one shoe and then the other. At first I
+really thought that he was going to steal them, but the reaction
+from the day had set in and I was too tired and paralyzed to make
+any protest. Laying the shoes one side, he remarked, "That will
+ease your feet." Then stripping off his coat and rolling it into a
+bundle, he placed it as a pillow beneath my head.
+
+A great, big hulking American, treated tenderly by this little Belgian,
+how could I keep the tears from my eyes? And as they came
+welling up--tears of appreciation for the generous fineness of his
+spirit--he took them to be tears of grief, brought on by thoughts of
+home and friends and all those haunting memories. But he was
+equal to the occasion.
+
+In a little vacant space he made a circle of cigarettes and small
+Belgian coins. In the center he placed a small box, and on it laid a
+ruler. "This is the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo, and you are the
+rich American," he whispered, and with a snap of the finger he
+spun the ruler round. Whenever it stopped, he presented me my
+prize with sundry winkings and chucklings, interrupted by furtive
+glances towards the door.
+
+Rouge-et-noir upon a prison floor! To him existence was such a
+game--red life or black death, as the fates ordained. His spirit was
+contagious, and I found myself smiling through my tears. When he
+saw his task accomplished, gathering in his coins, he crawled
+away.
+
+His was a restless spirit. Only once did I see him steadfastly quiet.
+That was the next morning, when he sat with his eyes fixed upon
+an opening in the shutter. He insisted upon my taking his seat, and
+adjusting my angle of vision properly. There, framed in a window
+across the forbidden courtyard, was a pretty girl watering flowers.
+She was indeed a distracting creature, and de Burgher danced
+around me with unfeigned glee. His previous experience with
+Americans had evidently led him to believe that we were all
+connoisseurs in pretty girls. I tried valiantly to uphold our national
+reputation, but my thoughts at the time were much more heavenly
+than even that fair apparition framed in the window, and I fear I
+disappointed de Burgher by my lack of enthusiasm.
+
+My other comrade, Constance Staes, must not be forgotten. For
+some infraction of the new military regulations he had been hustled
+off to prison, but he, too, was born for liberty, a free-ranging spirit
+that fetters could never bind. He made me see the Belgian soul
+that would never be subservient to German rule. The Germans
+can be overlords in Belgium only when such spirits have either
+emigrated or have been totally exterminated.
+
+To Constance Staes every rule was a challenge. That's the reason
+he had been put in jail. He had trespassed on forbidden way in
+front of the East Station. Here in prison smoking was forbidden. So
+Staes, with one eye upon the listless guard, would slip beneath a
+blanket, take a pull at his cigarette, and come up again as innocent
+as though he had been saying his prayers. I refused the offer of a
+pull at his cigarette, but not the morsel of white bread which he
+drew from behind a picture and shared with me. That bread,
+broken and shared between us in that upper room, is to me an
+eternal sacrament. It fed my body hunger then; never shall it
+cease to feed the hunger of my soul.
+
+Whenever temptation to play the cynic or think meanly of my
+fellow-man shall come, my mind will hark back to those two
+unpretending fellows and bow in reverence before the selflessness
+and immensity of the human soul. Needing bread, they gave it
+freely away; needing strength, they poured themselves out
+unsparingly; needing encouragement, they became the ministers
+thereof. For not to me alone, but to all, they played this role of
+servant, priest, and comforter.
+
+As I write these lines I wonder where their spirits are now.
+Speeded thence, they may have already made the next world
+richer by their coming. I do not know that; but I do know that they
+have made my soul infinitely richer by their sojourn here; I do not
+know whether they were Catholic or Atheist, but I do know how
+truly the Master of all souls could say to these two brave little
+Belgians: "When I was an hungered, ye gave me food; when I was
+thirsty, ye gave me drink; when I was a stranger, ye took me in;
+when I was sick and in prison, ye visited me."
+
+The prison is the real maker of democracy. I saw that clearly when,
+at five o'clock, joy came marching into the room. It was an officer
+who was its herald with the simple words, "The theater manager is
+free." That was a trumpet blast annihilating all rank and caste. The
+manager, forgetting his office and his dignity, and embracing with
+his right arm a peasant and with his left an artisan, danced round
+the room in a delirium of delight. Twenty men were at one time
+besieging him to grasp his hand, and tears, not rhetorically, but
+actually, were streaming down their faces--Russian, German,
+Belgian, and American, high and low, countrymen and citymen,
+smocked and frocked. We were fused altogether in the common
+emotion of joy and hope. For hope was now rampant. "If one man
+can be liberated," we argued, "why not another? Perhaps the
+General was thus giving vent to a temporary vein of good humor."
+Each man figured that he might be the fortunate one upon whom
+this good luck would alight.
+
+At five-thirty there was much murmuring in the corridor, and
+presently my Ehrenwort lad of the previous night came bursting
+into the room, crying, "The American! The American!" I do not
+have to describe the thrill of joy that those words shot through me;
+but I wish that I might do justice to the beaming face of my young
+officer friend. I am sure that I could not have looked more radiant
+than he did when, almost like a mother, he led me forth to greet de
+Leval and two other assistants from the American Ambassador.
+Now de Leval is not built on any sylph-like plan, but he looked to
+me then like an ethereal being from another world--the angel who
+opened the prison door.
+
+I presumed that I was to walk away without further ado; but not so
+easy. We proceeded into another office, where the whole
+assemblage was standing. I have no idea who the high superior
+officer was; but he held in his hand a blue book which contained a
+long report of my case, with all the documents except the defense
+I had written. Again I was cross-examined, and my papers were
+carefully passed upon one by one.
+
+One they could not or would not overlook, and to it throughout all
+this last examination they kept perpetually referring. When I had
+made my thirty-seven-mile journey into Liege on August 20,1 had
+secured this paper at Maastricht signed by the Dutch and German
+authorities. Over the Dutch seal were the words, "To the passing
+over the boundary into Belgian-Germany of Mr. Albert Williams
+there exists on the part of the undersigned no objection. Signed,
+The Commissioner of Police Souten." Over the German seal were
+the words, "At the Imperial German Vice-Consulate the foregoing
+signature is hereby attested to be that of Souten, the Police
+Commissioner of Maastricht." For this beautifully non-committal
+affair I had delivered up six marks. I would have cheerfully paid six
+hundred to disown it now.
+
+"What explanation is there for his possession of that paper?"
+asked the General sternly.
+
+De Leval pleaded cleverly, dilating upon the natural inquisitiveness
+and roaming disposition of the American race.
+
+"I know what the Wanderlust is," said the General, "but I fail to
+understand the peculiar desire of this man to travel only in
+dangerous and forbidden war zones."
+
+"In the second place," the General continued, "there is no doubt
+that he has made some remark to the effect that in the long run
+Germany cannot win. That was overheard by an officer in a cafe
+and is undeniable. The other charges we will for the time waive,"
+said the General, drawing himself up with a fine hauteur. "But his
+identifying evidence is very flimsy. Can you produce any better?"
+
+Suddenly I bethought me of the gold watch in my pocket. It was a
+presentation from some two hundred people of small means in an
+industrial district in Boston. Three of the aides successively and
+successfully damaged their thumbnails in their eagerness to pry
+open the back cover. That is a source of considerable satisfaction
+to me now; but it was embarrassing in that delicate situation when
+my fate hung almost by a thread, and a trifle could delay my
+release for days. If the General damaged his own thumb on it, I
+feel sure that I would have been remanded back to prison. But,
+luckily, the cover sprang open and revealed to the eyes the words:
+"From friends at Maverick."
+
+De Leval adroitly turned this to the best advantage. It was the last
+straw. The General capitulated. Walking over into the adjoining
+room, he wrote on the blue folder: "Er ist frei gelassen." I would
+give lots for those folders; but, though safety was by no means
+certain, I found I yet had nerve enough to take a venture. When I
+was bidden to pick up my papers strewn across the desk, I tried
+my best to gather in some of the other documents. Besides the
+copies of the letter I wrote to the Ambassador the only thing I got
+on my case was this letter, written by Mr. Whitlock to Baron von de
+Lancken, the official German representative in charge of the
+dealings with the American Embassy. It has the well-known
+Whitlock straight-from-the-shoulder point and brevity to it.
+
+
+BRUXELLES, le 29 Septembre, 1914, EXCELLENCE:
+
+J'apprends a l'instant que Mr. Williams, citoyen Americain
+residente a l'Hotel Metropole, aurait ete arrete lundi par les
+Autorites allemande.
+
+Pour le cas ou il n'aurait pas encore ete mis en liberte, je vous
+saurais gre de me faire connaitre les raisons de cette arrestation,
+et de me donner le moyen de communiquer aussitot avec lui, pour
+pourvoir eventuellement lui fournir toute protection dont il pourrait
+avoir besoin.
+
+Veuillez agreer, Excellence, la nouvelle assurance de ma haute
+consideration.
+
+(S) BRAND WHITLOCK. A Son Excellence Monsieur le Baron von
+der Lancken, Bruxelles.
+
+
+Before my final liberation I was escorted into the biggest and
+busiest office of all.
+
+Here I was given an Erlaubnis to travel by military train through
+Liege into Germany, and from there on out by way of Holland. The
+destination that I had in mind was Ghent, but passing through the
+lines thereto was forbidden. Instead of going directly the thirty
+miles in three hours, I must go around almost a complete circle,
+about three hundred miles in three days. But nothing could take
+the edge off my joy. A strange exhilaration and a wild desire to
+celebrate possessed me. With such a mood I had not hitherto
+been sympathetic; on the contrary, I had been much grieved by
+the sundry manifestations of what I deemed a base spirit in certain
+Belgians. One of them had said, "Just wait until the Allies' army
+comes marching into Brussels! Oh, then I am going out on one
+glorious drunk!" In the light of the splendid sacrifices of his fellow-
+Belgians, this struck me as a shocking degradation of the human
+spirit.
+
+I could not then understand such a view-point. But I could now. In
+the removal of the long abnormal tension one's pent-up spirits
+seek out an equally abnormal channel for expression. I, too, felt
+like an uncaged spirit suddenly let loose. I didn't get drunk, but I
+very nearly got arrested again. In my headlong ecstasy I was deaf
+to the warnings of a German guard saying, "Passage into this
+street is forbidden." I checked myself just in time, and in chastened
+spirit made my way back to the Metropole.
+
+Three times I was offered the prohibited Antwerp papers that had
+been smuggled into the city and once the London Times for
+twenty-five cents. The war price for this is said often to have run up
+to as many dollars.
+
+An English, woman, or at any rate a woman with a beautiful
+English accent, opened a conversation with the remark that she
+was going directly through to Ghent on the following day and that
+she knew how to go right through the German lines. That was
+precisely the way that the Germans had just forbidden me to go.
+But this accomplice (if such she was) got no rise out of me. To all
+intents I was stone-deaf. Compared to me, she would have found
+the Sphinx garrulous indeed. She may have been as harmless as
+a dove but, after my escapade, I wouldn't have talked to my own
+mother without a written permit from the military governor. The
+Kaiser himself would have found it hard work breaking through my
+cast-iron spy-proof armor of formality. I had good reason, too, not
+to let down the bars, for I was trailed by the spy-hunters. Not until
+ten days later when I passed over the Holland border did I feel
+release from their vigilant eyes. My key at the Metropole was never
+returned to me and I know that my room was searched once, if not
+twice, after my return to the hotel.
+
+It would be interesting to see how all this tallies with the official
+report of my case in the archives at Berlin. Perhaps some of these
+surmises have shot far wide of the mark. Javert, for instance, may
+not be a direct descendant of the ancient Inquisitor who had
+charge of the rack and the thumb screws, as I believed. In his own
+home town he may be a sort of mild-mannered schoolmaster and
+probably is highly astounded as well as gratified to find himself
+cast as the villain in this piece. Perhaps I may have been at other
+times in far greater danger. I do not know these things. All I know
+is that this is a true and faithful transcript of the feelings and sights
+that came crowding in upon me in that most eventful day and
+night.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+On Foot With The German Army
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Gray Hordes Out Of The North
+
+
+
+The outbreak of the Great War found me in Europe as a general
+tourist, and not in the capacity of war-correspondent. Hitherto I had
+essayed a much less romantic role in life, belonging rather to the
+crowd of uplifters who conduct the drab and dreary battle with the
+slums. The futility of most of these schemes for badgering the poor
+makes one feel at times that these battles are shams and
+unavailing. This is depressing. It is thrilling, then, suddenly to
+acquire the glamorous title of war-correspondent, and to have
+before one the prospect of real and actual battles.
+
+Commissioned thus and desiring to live up to the code and
+requirement of the office, I naturally opined that war-
+correspondents rushed immediately into the thick of the fight. Later
+I discovered what a mistake that was. Only very young and green
+ones do so. The seasoned correspondent is inclined to view the
+whole affair more dispassionately and with a larger perspective.
+But being of the verdant variety, I naturally figured that if the
+Germans were smashing down through Belgium onto Liege that
+that was where I should be. By entering gingerly through the back
+door of Holland, I planned to join them in their march down the
+Meuse River.
+
+To The Hague came descriptions of the hordes pressing down out
+of the north through the fire-swept, blood-drenched plain of
+northern Belgium. This could be seen from the Dutch frontier at
+Maastricht. But passage thereto was interdicted by the military
+authorities. Ambassador Van Dyke's efforts were unavailing.
+Possessing a red-card, I enlisted the help of Troelstra, the socialist
+leader of the Netherlands.
+
+He had just returned from an audience with the Queen. The
+government, seeking to rally all classes to face a grave crisis, was
+paying court to the labor leaders. Accordingly, the war department,
+at Troelstra's behest, received me with a handsome show of
+deference. I was escorted from one gold-laced officer to another.
+Each one smiled kindly, listened attentively and regretted
+exceedingly that the granting of the desired permission lay outside
+his own particular jurisdiction. They were polite, ingratiating,
+obsequious even, but quite unanimous. At the end I came out by
+the same door wherein I went--minus a permission.
+
+Up till now my progress through the fringes of the war zone had
+been in defiance of all orders and advice. Having failed here
+officially, I took the matter in my own hands. Finding a seat in a
+military train, I stuck steadfastly by it so long as our general
+direction was south. At Eindhoven hunger compelled me to alight.
+As I was stepping up to the hotel-bar, I felt a tap on my shoulder
+and some one in excellent English said:
+
+"You are under suspicion, sir. Follow me. Don't look around. Don't
+get excited. If you are all right you don't need to get excited; if you
+aren't it won't do you any good to get excited."
+
+With this running fire of comment he led me into a side-room
+where a half-hour's examination satisfied him of my good intent.
+Without further untoward incident I came to Maastricht in
+Limbourg. Limbourg is the name of the narrow strip of Dutch
+territory which runs down between Germany and Belgium. At one
+place this tongue of land is but a few miles wide. If the Germans
+could have marched their troops directly across this they might
+have been spared the two weeks' slaughter at the forts of Liege
+and Paris, in all probability, would have fallen before them. It was a
+great temptation to the Germans. That's the reason the Dutch
+troops had been massed here by the tens of thousands--to
+prevent Germany succumbing to that temptation.
+
+At our approach to the great Meuse bridge an officer shouted into
+each compartment:
+
+"Every window closed. All cigars and pipes extinguished."
+
+"Why?" we asked.
+
+"The bridge is mined with explosives and a stray spark might set
+them off," a soldier informed us.
+
+The first German attempt to set foot on the bridge would be the
+signal for sending the great structure crashing skywards.
+
+The end of the run was Maastricht, now become a town of crucial
+interest. It was like a city besieged. Barricades of barbed wire and
+paving stones ripped from street ran everywhere. Iron rails and
+ties blocked the exits and the small cannon disconcertingly thrust
+their nozzles down upon one out of the windows.
+
+I lingered here long enough to secure a carriage and with it made
+quick time across the harvest fields. We were soon up on the little
+hill back of Meuse. The sun was sinking and for the first time war,
+in all its terrible spectacular splendor, smote me hard. From the hill
+at my feet there stretched away a great plain filled with a dense
+mass of German soldiery. One could scarcely believe that there
+were men there so well did their gray-green coats blend with the
+landscape. One would think that they were indeed a part of it,
+could he not feel the atmosphere vibrant with the mass personality
+of the myriad warriors tramping down the crops of the peasants. In
+the rear the commissariat vans and artillery still came lumbering
+up, while in the very front pranced the horses of the dreaded
+Uhlans, who looked with contempt, I imagined, on the Dutch
+soldiers as they stood there with the warning that here was
+Netherlands soil.
+
+In the fighting German and Belgian troops had already been
+pushed up against this line. Here they were greeted with the
+challenge: "Lay down your arms. This is the neutral soil of
+Holland." Thus many were interned until the end of the war.
+
+As even darkened into night, the endless plain became stippled
+over with points of flame from countless campfires. There were
+beauty and mystery in this vast menace sweeping the soul of the
+onlooker now with horror, and now with admiration. There was a
+terrible background to the spectacle--glowing red and luminous. It
+was made of the still blazing towns of Mouland and Vise, burned to
+the ground by order of the invaders. The fire had been set as a
+warning to the inhabitants round about. They were taking the
+warning and hastening by the thousands across the border into
+Holland, their only haven of safety.
+
+When we drove down from the hill into Eysden, we were in the
+midst of these peasants, fleeing before the red wrath rolling up into
+the sky. They came shambling in with a few possessions on which
+they had hurriedly laid their hands, singly or in families, a pitiful
+procession of the disinherited.
+
+Some of the men were moaning as they marched along, but most
+of them were taking it with the tragic oxlike resignation of the
+peasant, stupefied more than terrified, puzzled why these soldiers
+were coming down into their quiet little villages to fight out their
+quarrels. The women were crying out to Mary and all the saints.
+Indeed all the little crosses along the waysides or in the walls were
+decked with flowers in gratitude for what had been spared them. In
+most cases it was little more than their lives, their brood of
+children, and their dogs that followed on.
+
+My driver finally landed me in a shack on the outskirts of Eysden,
+which boasted the name of a hotel. It had the worst bed I ever
+slept in, and the only window was a hole in the roof.
+
+I wandered out among the unfortunates, now herded in halls and
+schools and packed in the homes of the friendly villagers. They
+were full of the weirdest tales of loot and murder. And while there
+were no tears in their eyes there was tragedy in their voices.
+
+"It would be worth while getting over to the sources and verifying
+the truth of these stories," I remarked.
+
+"A sheer impossibility, and only a fool would want to go," was one
+laconic commentary.
+
+I kept up my plaint and was overheard by Souten, head of the
+Limbourg police.
+
+"American, aren't you?" he interjected. "Well, I have done more
+work here in the last five days than I did in the five years that I lived
+in New York. Had the best time in my life there. If you want to go
+sight-seeing in Belgium, take this paper and get it countersigned at
+the German consulate. It's the only one I've given out to-day."
+
+I hurried off to the consul who, in return for six marks, duly
+impressed it with the German seal. Later on I would gladly have
+given six hundred marks to disown it.
+
+"Of course you understand that this is simply a paper issued by
+the civil authorities," said the consul, as he passed it out. "Use it at
+your own risk. If you go ahead and get shot by the military
+authorities, don't come back and blame us."
+
+I promised that I wouldn't and was off again to my hotel.
+
+As darkness deepened, with two Hollanders come to view the
+havoc of war, I sat on the stoop of our little inn. A great rumbling of
+cannon came from the direction of Tongres. A sentry shot rang out
+on the frontier just across the river which flowed not ten rods away.
+This was the Meuse, which ran red with the blood of the
+combatants, and from which the natives drew the floating corpses
+to the shore. Now its gentle lapping on the stones mingled with the
+subdued murmur of our talk. In such surroundings my new friends
+regaled me with stories of pillage and murder which the refugees
+had been bringing in from across the border. All this produced a
+distinct depreciation in the value that I had hitherto attached to my
+permit to go visiting across that border. Souten's declarations of
+friendship for America had been most voluble. It began dawning
+on me that his apparently generous and impulsive action might
+bear a different interpretation than unadulterated kindness.
+
+At this juncture, I remember, a great light flared suddenly up. It
+was one of the fans of a wind-mill fired by the Germans. In the
+foreground we could see the soldiers standing like so many gray
+wolves silhouetted against the red flames. In that light it did seem
+that motives other than pure affection might have prompted the
+Police Commissioner's action. The hectic sleep of the night was
+broken by the endless clatter of the hoofs of the German cavalry
+pushing south.
+
+My courage rose, however, with the rising sun. In the morning I
+climbed to the lookout on the hill. The hosts had vanished. A
+trampled, smoldering fire-blackened land lay before me. But there
+was the lure of the unknown. I walked down to where the great
+Netherlands flag proclaimed neutral soil. The worried Dutch
+pickets honored the signature of Souten and with one step I was
+over the border into Belgium, now under German jurisdiction. The
+helmeted soldiers across the way were a distinct disappointment.
+They looked neither fierce nor fiery. In fact, they greeted me with a
+smile. They were a bit puzzled by my paper, but the seal seemed
+echt-Deutsch and they pronounced it "gut, sehr gut." I explained
+that I wished to go forwards to Liege.
+
+"Was it possible?"
+
+For answer they shrugged their shoulders.
+
+"Was it dangerous?"
+
+"Not in the least," they assured me.
+
+The Germans were right. It was not dangerous--that is, for the
+Germans. By repeatedly proclaiming the everlasting friendship of
+Germany and America, and passing out some chocolate, I made
+good friends on the home base. They charged me only not to
+return after sundown, giving point to their advice by relating how,
+on the previous night, they had shot down a peasant woman and
+her two children who, under the cloak of darkness, sought to
+scurry past the sentinels. They told this with a genuine note of grief
+in their voices. So, with a hearty hand-shake and wishes for the
+best of luck, they waved adieu to me as I went swinging out on the
+highroad to Liege.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+In The Black Wake Of The War
+
+
+
+A half mile and I came for the first time actually face to face with
+the wastage of war. There was what once was Mouland, the little
+village I had seen burning the night before. The houses stood
+roofless and open to the sky, like so many tombstones over a
+departed people. The whitewashed outer walls were all shining in
+the morning sun. Inside they were charred black, or blazing yet
+with coals from the fire still slowly burning its way through wood
+and plaster. Here and there a house had escaped the torch.
+
+By some miracle in the smashed window of one of these houses a
+bright red geranium blossomed. It seemed to cry for water, but I
+dared not turn aside, for fear of a bullet from a lurking sentry. In
+another a sewing-machine of American make testified to the thrift
+and progressiveness of one household. In the last house as I left
+the village a rocking-horse with its head stuck through the open
+door smiled its wooden smile, as if at any rate it could keep good
+cheer even though the roofs might fall.
+
+My road now wound into the open country; and I was heartily glad
+of it, for the hedges and the houses at Mouland provided fine
+coverts for prowling German foragers or for Belgians looking for
+revenge. Dead cows and horses and dogs with their sides ripped
+open by bullets lay along the wayside. The roads were deep
+printed with the hoofs of the cavalry. The grain-fields were
+flattened out. Nine little crosses marked the place where nine
+soldiers of the Kaiser fell.
+
+This smiling countryside, teeming with one of the densest
+populations in the world, had been stripped clean of every
+inhabitant. Along the wasted way not the sign of a civilian, or for
+that matter even a soldier, was to be seen. I was glad even of the
+presence of a pig which, with her litter, was enjoying the unwonted
+pleasure of rooting out her morning meal in a rich flower-garden.
+She did not reciprocate, however, with any such fellow feeling.
+Perhaps of late she had seen enough of the doings of the genus
+homo. Surveying me as though I had been the author of all this
+destruction, she gave a frightened snort and plunged into a nearby
+thicket.
+
+I craved companionship of any living creature to break the spell of
+death and silence. I was destined to have the wish gratified in
+abundance. Fifteen minutes brought me to the outskirts of Vise,
+and there, coming over the hills and wending their way down to the
+river, were two long lines of German soldiers escorting wagons of
+the artillery and the commissariat. They came slowly and
+noiselessly trudging on and I was upon them as they crossed the
+main road before I realized it. The men were covered with dust; so
+were the horses. The wagons were in their somber paint of gray.
+There was something ominous and threatening in the long sullen
+line which wound down over the hill. The soldiers were evidently
+tired with the tedious uneventful march, and the drivers were
+goaded to irritability by the difficulty of the descent. Could I have
+retreated I would have done so with joy and would never have
+stopped until my feet were set on Holland soil.
+
+But I dared not do it. As the train came to a stop, I started bravely
+across the road. A soldier, dropping his gun from his shoulder,
+cried:
+
+"Halt!"
+
+"Is this the way to Vise?" I asked.
+
+"Perhaps it is," he replied, "but what do you want in Vise?"
+
+As he spoke, he kept edging up, pointing his bayonet directly at
+me. A bayonet will never look quite the same to me again. Total
+retreat, as I remarked, was out of the question. My inward
+anatomy, however, did the next best thing. As the bayonet point
+came pressing forward, my stomach retired backward. I could feel
+it distinctly making efforts to crawl behind my spine. At my first
+word of German his face relaxed. Ditto my stomach.
+
+"You are an American," he said. "Well, good for that. I don't know
+what we would have done were you a Belgian. Our orders are to
+suffer no Belgian in this whole district."
+
+Then he began an apologia which I heard repeated identically
+again and again, as if it were learned by rote: "The Germans had
+peacefully entered the land; boiling hot water was showered on
+them from upper stories; they were shot at from houses and
+hedges; many soldiers had thus been killed; the wells had been
+poisoned. Such acts of treachery had necessarily brought
+reprisals, etc., etc." It was the defense so regularly served up to
+neutrals that we learned in time to reproduce it almost word for
+word ourselves.
+
+We all rise to the glorification of suffering little Belgium. Whatever
+brief we may hold for her though, we ought not to picture even her
+peasant people as a mild, meek and inoffensive lot. That isn't the
+sort of stuff out of which her dogged and continuing resistance was
+wrought. That isn't the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the
+German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to
+mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three
+days of grace. But before the German avalanche hurled itself on
+Liege it was this peasant population which bore the first brunt of
+the battle.
+
+A mistake in the branching roads brought this home to me. I
+turned off in the direction of Verviers and was puzzled to see the
+road on either side strewn with tree-trunks, their sprawling limbs
+still green with leaves. It was along this highway that the invaders
+first entered Belgium. The peasants, turning their axes loose on
+the poplars and the royal elms that lined the road, had filled it with
+a tangle of interlocking limbs.
+
+The Imperial army arrived with cannon which could smash a fort to
+pieces as though it were made of blue china, but of what avail
+were these against such yielding obstructions? Maddened that
+these shambling creatures of the soil should delay the military
+promenade through this little land, officers rushed out and held
+their pistols at the heads of the offenders, threatening to blow their
+brains out if they did not speedily clear the way. Many a peasant
+did not live to see his house go up in flames--his dwelling dyed by
+his own blood was now turned into a funeral pyre. These were the
+first sacrificial offerings of Belgium on the altar of her
+independence.
+
+I now entered Vise, or rather what once had been the little city of
+Vise. It was almost completely annihilated and its three thousand
+inhabitants scattered. Through the mass of smoking ruins I
+pushed, with the paving-stones still hot beneath my feet. Quite
+unawares I ran full tilt into a group of soldiers, looking as ugly and
+dirty as the ruins amongst which they were prowling.
+
+The green-gray field-uniform is a remarkable piece of obliterative
+coloration. I had seen it blend with grass and trees, but in this
+instance it fitted in so well with the stones and debris they were
+poking over that I was right amongst them without warning. They
+straightened up with a sudden start and scowled at me. Hollanders
+and Belgians had faithfully assured me that such marauding bands
+would shoot at sight. Here was an excellent test-case. Three
+hundred marks, a gold watch and a lot of food which crammed my
+pockets would be their booty.
+
+I took the initiative with the bland inquiry, "What are you hunting
+for, corpses?"
+
+"No," they responded, pointing to their mouths and stomachs,
+"awful hungry. Hunting something to eat."
+
+I bade a mental farewell to my food-supplies as I emptied out my
+pockets before these ravagers. I expected everything to be
+grabbed with a summary demand for more. From these despoilers
+of a countryside I was ready for any sort of a manifestation--any,
+except the one that I received. With one accord they refused to
+take any of my provisions. I recovered from my surprise sufficiently
+to understand that they were thanking me for my good will while
+they were constantly reiterating:
+
+"It is your food and you will need every bit of it."
+
+In the name of camaraderie I persuaded each to take a piece of
+bread and chocolate. They received this offering with profound
+gratitude. With much cautioning and many solemn Auf Wiedersehens
+bestowed upon me, I was off again.
+
+Below Vise an entirely new vista opened to me. Tens of thousands
+of soldiers were marching over the pontoon bridges already flung
+across the river. Perhaps five hundred more were engaged in
+building a steel bridge which seemed to be a hurried but
+remarkable piece of engineering. It was replacing the old structure
+which had been dynamited by the Belgians, and which now lay a
+tangled mass of wreckage in the river.
+
+For the next eight miles to Jupilles the country was quite as much
+alive as the first four miles were dead. It was swarming with the
+military. Through all the gaps in the hills above the River Meuse
+the German army came pouring down like an enormous tidal
+wave--a tidal wave with a purpose, viz: to fling itself against the
+Allies arranged in battle line at Namur, and with the overwhelming
+mass of numbers to smash that line to bits and sweep on
+resistlessly into Paris. I thought of the Blue and Red wall of French
+and English down there awaiting this Gray-Green tide of Teutons.
+
+By the hundreds of thousands they were coming; patrols of cavalry
+clattering along, the hoof-beats of the chargers coming with
+regular cadence on the hard roads; silent moving riders mounted
+on bicycles, their guns strapped on their backs; armored
+automobiles rumbling slowly on, but taking the occasional spaces
+which opened in the road with a hollow roaring sound and at a
+terrific pace; individual horsemen galloping up and down the road
+with their messages, and the massed regiments of dust-begrimed
+men marching endlessly by.
+
+I was glad to have the spell which had been woven on me broken
+by strains of music from a wayside cafe, or rather the remains of a
+cafe, for the windows had been demolished and wreckage was
+strewn about the door, but the piano within had survived the
+ravages. Though it was sadly out of tune, the officer, seated on a
+beer keg, was evoking a noise from its battered keys, and to its
+accompaniment some soldiers were bawling lustily:
+
+"Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles!"
+
+The only other music that echoed up along those river cliffs came
+from a full-throated Saxon regiment.
+
+Evidently the Belgians from Vise to Liege had not roused the ire of
+the invaders as furiously as had the natives on the other side of
+Vise. They had as a whole established more or less friendly
+relations with the alien hosts.
+
+On the other side of Vise nothing had availed to stay the wrath of
+the Germans. Flags of truce made of sheets and pillow-cases and
+white petticoats were hung out on poles and broom handles; but
+many of these houses before which they hung had been burned to
+the ground as had the others.
+
+One Belgian had sought for his own benefit to conciliate the
+Germans, and as the Kaiser's troops at the turn of the road came
+upon his house, there was the Kaiser's emblem with the double-
+headed eagle raised to greet them. The man had nailed it high up
+in an apple tree, that they might not mistake his attitude of truckling
+disloyalty to his own country, hoping so to save his home. But let it
+be said to the credit of the Germans, that they had shown their
+contempt for this treachery by razing this house to the ground, and
+the poor fellow has lost his earthly treasures along with his soul.
+
+I now came upon some houses that were undamaged and
+showed signs of life therein. Below Argenteau there was a vine-
+covered cottage before which stood a peasant woman guarding
+her little domain. Her weapon was not a rifle but several buckets of
+water and a pleasant smile. I ventured to ask how she used the
+water. She had no time to explain, for at that very moment a
+column of soldiers came slowly plodding down the dusty road. She
+motioned me away as though she would free herself from whatever
+stigma my presence might incur. A worried look clouded her face,
+as though she were saying to herself: "I know that we have been
+spared so far by all the brigands which have gone by, but perhaps
+here at last is the band that has been appointed to wipe us out."
+
+This water, then, was a peace-offering, a plea for mercy.
+
+As soon as the soldiers looked her way she put a smile on her
+face, but it ill concealed her anxiety. She pointed invitingly to her
+pails. At the sight of the water a thirsty soldier here and there
+would break from the ranks, rush to the pails, take the proffered
+cup, and hastily swallow down the cooling draught. Then returning
+the cup to the woman, he would rush back again to his place in the
+ranks. Perhaps a dozen men removed their helmets, and, extracting
+a sponge from the inside, made signs to the woman to pour water
+on it; then, replacing the sponge in the helmet, marched on refreshed
+and rejoicing.
+
+A mounted officer, spying this little oasis, drew rein and gave the
+order to halt. The troopers, very wearied by the long forced march,
+flung themselves down upon the grass while the officer's horse
+thrust his nose deep into the pail and greedily sucked the water
+up. More buckets were being continually brought out. Some of
+them must surely have been confiscated from her neighbors who
+had fled. The officer, dismounting, sought to hold converse with his
+hostess, but even with many signs it proved a failure. They both
+laughed heartily together, though her mirth I thought a bit forced.
+
+I do not remember witnessing any finer episode in all the war than
+that enacted in this region where the sky was red with flames from
+the neighbors' houses, and the lintels red with blood from their
+veins. A frail little soul with only spiritual weapons, she fought for
+her hearth against a venging host in arms; facing these rough war-
+stained men, she forced her trembling body to outward calm and
+graciousness. Her nerve was not unappreciated. Not one soldier
+returned his cup without a word of thanks and a look of admiration.
+
+Nor did this pluck go unrewarded. Three months later, passing
+again through this region as a prisoner, I glimpsed the little cottage
+still standing in its plot by the flowing river. I want to visit it again
+after the war. It will always be to me a shrine of the spirit's splendid
+daring.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+A Duelist From Marburg
+
+
+
+A squad of soldiers stretched out on a bank beckoned me to join
+them; I did so and at once they begged for news. They were not of
+an order of super-intelligence, and informed me that it was the
+French they were to fight at Liege. Unaware that England had
+entered the lists against Germany, "Belgium" was only a word to
+them. I took it upon myself to clear up their minds on these points.
+An officer overheard and plainly showed his disapproval of such
+missionary activity, yet he could not conceal his own curiosity. I
+sought to appease him by volunteering some information.
+
+"Japan," I blandly announced, "is about to join the foes of
+Germany." As the truth, that was unassailable; but as diplomacy it
+was a wretched fluke.
+
+"You're a fool!" he exploded. "What are you talking about? Japan
+is one of our best friends, almost as good as America. Those two
+nations will fight for us--not against us. You're verruckt."
+
+That was a severe stricture but in the circumstances I thought best
+to overlook the reflection upon my mentality. One of the soldiers
+passed some witticism, evidently at my expense; taking advantage
+of the outburst of laughter, I made off down the road. They did not
+offer to detain me. The officer probably reasoned that my being
+there was guarantee enough of my right to be there, taking it for
+granted that the regular sentries on the road had passed upon my
+credentials. However, I made a very strong resolution hereafter to
+be less zealous in my proclamation of the truth, to hold my tongue
+and keep walking.
+
+In the midst of my reflections I was startled by a whistle, and,
+looking back, saw in the distance a puff of steam on what I
+supposed was the wholly abandoned railway, but there, sure
+enough, was a train rattling along at a good rate. I could make out
+soldiers with guns sitting upon the tender, and presumed that they
+were with these instruments directing the operations of some
+Belgian engineer and fireman. In a moment more I saw I was
+mistaken, for at the throttle was a uniformed soldier, and another
+comrade in his gray-green costume was shoveling coal into the
+furnace. One of the guards, seeing me plodding on, smilingly
+beckoned to me to jump aboard. When I took the cue and made a
+move in that direction he winked his eye and significantly tapped
+upon the barrel of his gun. The train was loaded with iron rails and
+timbers, and I speculated as to their use, but farther down the line I
+saw hundreds of men unloading these, making a great noise as
+they flung them down the river bank to the water's edge. They
+were destined for a big pontoon bridge which these men were, with
+thousands of soldiers, throwing across the stream. Ceaselessly
+the din and clangor of hammerings rang out over the river. My way
+now wound through what was, to all purposes, one German camp,
+strung for miles along the Meuse. The soldiers were busy with
+domestic duties. Everywhere there was the cheer and rhythm of
+well-ordered industry in the open air. In one place thousands of
+loaves of black bread were being shifted from wagon to wagon. In
+another they were piling a yard high with mountains of grain. The
+air was full of the drone of a great mill, humming away at full
+speed, while the Belgian fields were yielding up their golden
+harvests to the invaders. Apples in great clusters hung down
+around the necks of horses tethered in the orchards. With their
+keepers they were enjoying a respite from their hard fatiguing
+exertions.
+
+Here and there among the groves, or along the wayside, was a
+contrivance that looked like a tiny engine; smoke curled out of its
+chimney and coals blazed brightly in the grate. They were the
+kitchen-wagons, each making in itself a complete, compact
+cooking apparatus. Some had immense caldrons with a spoon as
+large as a spade. In these the stews, put up in dry form and
+guaranteed to keep for twenty years, were being heated. A savory
+smell permeated the air and at the sound of the bugle the men
+clustered about, each looking happy as he received his dish filled
+with steaming rations.
+
+Through this scene the native Belgians moved freely in and out.
+Tables had been dragged out into the yard, and around them
+officers were sitting eating, drinking, and chatting with the peasant
+women who were serving them and with whom they had set up an
+entente cordiale. Indeed, these Belgians seemed to be rather
+enjoying this interruption in the monotony of their lives, and a few
+were making the most of the great adventure. In one case I could
+not help believing that a certain strikingly-pretty, self-possessed girl
+was not altogether averse to a war which could thus bring to her
+side the attentions of such a handsome and gallant set of officers
+as were gathered round her. At any rate, she was equal to the
+occasion, and over her little court, which rang with laughter, she
+presided with a certain rustic dignity and ease.
+
+The ordinary soldier could make himself understood only with
+motions and sundry gruntings, and consequently had to content
+himself with smoking in the sun or sleeping in the shade.
+Everywhere was the atmosphere of physical relaxation after the
+long journey. So far did my tension wear off, that I even forgot the
+resolution to hold my tongue. Two officers leaning back in their
+chairs at a table by the wayside surveyed me intently as I came
+along. Rather than wait to be challenged, I thought it best to turn
+aside and ask them my usual question, "How does one get to
+Liege?"
+
+One of them answered somewhat stiffly, adding, "And where did
+you learn your German?" "I was in a German university a few
+months," I replied. "Which one?" the officer asked. "Marburg," I
+replied.
+
+"Ah!" he said, this time with a smile; "that was mine. I studied
+philology there."
+
+We talked together of the fine, rich life there, and I spoke of the
+students' duels I had witnessed a few miles out.
+
+"Ah!" he said, uncovering his head and pointing to the scars
+across his scalp; "that's where I got these. Perhaps I will get some
+deeper ones down in this country," he added with a smile.
+
+Ofttimes in the early morning hours I had trudged out to a
+students' inn on the outskirts of Marburg. As many times I had
+heard the solemn announcement of the umpire warning all
+assembled to disperse as the place might be raided by the police
+and all imprisoned. That was a mere formality. No one left. The
+umpire forthwith cried "Los," there was a flash of swords in the air
+as each duelist sought, and sometimes succeeded, in cutting his
+opponent's face into a Hamburg steak. It was a sanguinary affair
+and undoubtedly connived at by the officials. When I had asked
+what was the point of it all, I was told that it developed Mut and
+Enschlossenheit--a fine contempt of pain and blood. That dueling
+was not without its contribution to the general program of German
+preparedness. Only now the bloodletting was gone at on a
+colossal scale.
+
+"Yes, that's where I received these cuts," this young officer said,
+"and if I do not get some too deep down here I'll write to you after
+the war," he added with another smile. As I gave him my address,
+I asked for his.
+
+"It's against all the rules," he answered. "It can't be done. But you
+shall hear from me, I assure you," he said with a hearty
+handshake.
+
+Only once all the way into Liege did I feel any suspicion directed
+towards me. That was when I presented my paper to the next
+guard, a morose-looking individual. He looked at it very puzzled,
+and put several questions to me. His last one was,
+
+"Where is your home?"
+
+"I come from Boston, Massachusetts," I replied.
+
+Encouraged with my success with the last officers, I ventured to
+ask him where he came from.
+
+Looking me straight in the eyes, he replied very pointedly, "Ich
+komme aus Deutschland."
+
+Good form among invading armies, I found, precluded the guest
+making inquiry into anyone's antecedents. I made a second
+resolution to keep my own counsel, as I hurried down the road.
+
+There was no release from his searching eyes until a turn in the
+highway put an intervening obstacle between myself and him. But
+this relief was short-lived, for no sooner had I rounded the bend
+than a cry of "Halt!" shot fear into me. I turned to see a man on a
+wheel waving wildly at me. I thought it was a summons back to my
+inquisitor, and the end of my journey. Instead, it was my officer
+from Marburg, who dismounted, took two letters from his pocket,
+and asked me if I would have the kindness to deliver them to the
+Feld Post if I got through to Liege. He said that seemed like a God-
+given opportunity to lift the load off the hearts of his mother and his
+sweetheart back home. Gladly I took them, with his caution not to
+drop them into an ordinary letter-box in Liege, but to take them to
+the Feld Post or give them to an officer. I went on my way rejoicing
+that I could add these letters to my credentials. I now passed down
+the long street of Jupilles, which was plastered with notices from
+the German authorities guaranteeing observance of the rights of
+the citizens of Jupilles, but threatening to visit any overt acts
+against the soldiers "with the most terrible reprisals."
+
+I arrived on the outskirts of Liege with the expectation of seeing a
+sorry-looking battered city, as the reports which had drifted to the
+outer world had made it; but considering that it had been the
+center around which the storm of battle had raged for over two
+weeks, it showed outwardly but little damage. The chief marks of
+war were in the shattered windows; the great pontoon bridge of
+barges, which replaced the dynamited structure by the Rue
+Leopold, and hundreds of stores and public buildings, flying the
+white flag with the Red Cross on it. The walls, too, were fairly white
+with placards posted by order of the German burgomaster Klyper.
+It was an anachronism to find along the trail of the forty-two
+centimeter guns warnings of death to persons harboring courier
+pigeons.
+
+Another bill which was just being posted was the announcement of
+the war-tax of 50,000,000 francs imposed on the city to pay for the
+"administration of civil affairs." That was the first of those war-
+levies which leeched the life blood out of Belgium.
+
+The American consul, Heingartner, threw up his hands in
+astonishment as I presented myself. No one else had come
+through since the beginning of hostilities. He begged for
+newspapers but, unfortunately, I had thrown my lot away, not
+realizing how completely Liege had been cut off from the outer
+world. He related the incidents of that first night entry of German
+troops into Liege. The clatter of machine gun bullets sweeping by
+the consulate had scarcely ceased when the sounds of gun-butts
+battering on the doors accompanied by hoarse shouts of "Auf
+Steigen" (get up) reverberated through the street. As the doors
+unbolted and swung back, officers peremptorily demanded
+quarters for their troops, receiving with contempt the protests of
+Heingartner that they were violating precincts under protection of
+the American flag.
+
+On the following day, however, a wholehearted apology was
+tendered along with an invitation to witness the first firing of the big
+guns.
+
+"Put your fingers in your ears, stand on your toes, and open your
+mouth," the officer said. There was a terrific concussion, a black
+speck up in the heavens, and a ton of metal dropped down out of
+the blue, smashing one of the cupolas of the forts to pieces. That
+one shot annihilated 260 men. I shuddered as we all do. But it
+should not be for the sufferings of the killed. For they did not suffer
+at all. They were wiped out as by the snapping of a finger.
+
+The taking of those 260 bodies out of the world, then, was a
+painless process. But not so the bringing of these bodies into the
+world. That cost an infinite sum of pain and anguish. To bring
+these bodies into being 260 mothers went down into the very
+Valley of the Shadow of Death. And now in a flash all this life had
+been sent crashing into eternity. "Women may not bear arms, but
+they bear men, and so furnish the first munitions of war." Thus are
+they deeply and directly concerned in the affairs of the state.
+
+The consul with his wife and daughter gave me dinner along with a
+cordial welcome. At first he was most appreciative of my exploits.
+Then it seemed to dawn on him that possibly other motives than
+sheer love of adventure might have spurred me on. The harboring
+of a possible spy was too large a risk to run in the uncertain
+temper of the Germans. In that light I took on the aspects of a
+liability.
+
+The clerks of the two hotels to whom I applied assumed a like
+attitude. In fact every one with whom I attempted to hold converse
+became coldly aloof. Holding the best of intents, I was treated like
+a pariah. The only one whom I could get a raise from was a
+bookseller who spoke English. His wrath against the spoilers
+overcame his discretion, and he launched out into a bitter tirade
+against them. I reminded him that, as civilians, his fellow-
+countrymen had undoubtedly been sniping on the German troops.
+That was too much.
+
+"What would you do if a thief or a murderer entered your house?"
+he exploded. "No matter if he had announced his coming, you
+would shoot him, wouldn't you?"
+
+Realizing that he had confided altogether too much to a casual
+passerby, he suddenly subsided. The only other comment I could
+drag out of him was that of a German officer who had told him that
+"one Belgian could fight as good as four Germans." My request for
+a lodging-place met with the same evasion from him as from the
+others.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+Thirty-Seven Miles In A Day
+
+
+
+"Death if you try to cross the line after nightfall." Thus my soldier
+friends picketing the Holland-Belgium frontier had warned me in
+the morning. That rendezvous with death was not a roseate
+prospect; but there was something just as omnious about the
+situation in Liege. To cover the sixteen miles back to the Dutch
+border before dark was a big task to tackle with blistered feet. I
+knew the sentries along the way returning, but I knew not the
+pitfalls for me if I remained in Liege. This drove me to a prompt
+decision and straightway I made for the bridge.
+
+It was no prophetically favorable sight that greeted me at the
+outset. A Belgian, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts, had
+just been shot, and the soldiers, rolling him on a stretcher, were
+carrying him off. I made so bold as to approach a sentry and ask:
+"What has he been doing?" For an answer the sentry pointed to a
+nearby notice. In four languages it announced that any one caught
+near a telegraph pole or wire in any manner that looked suspicious
+to the authorities would be summarily dealt with. They were
+carrying him away, poor lad, and the crowd passed on in heedless
+fashion, as though already grown accustomed to death.
+
+When the troops at the front are taking lives by the thousands,
+those guarding the lines at the rear catch the contagion of killing.
+Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I
+speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a
+field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a
+drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against
+the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's
+vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating
+myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart
+turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less
+in my pocket.
+
+There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself
+along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier. I
+was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed
+after me stalking so fiercely past them. But the great automobiles
+plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being
+continually covered by this gray powder. What I most feared was
+lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent
+answers.
+
+Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place.
+Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper
+of the inn. I pointed to my throat. She understood at once my signs
+of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank
+until I was ashamed.
+
+"How much!" I asked.
+
+She shook her head negatively. I pushed a franc or two across the
+table.
+
+"No," she said smilingly but with resolution.
+
+"I can't take it. You need it on your journey. We are all just friends
+together now."
+
+So my dust and distress had their compensations. They had
+brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow.
+
+It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich
+region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of
+supply. There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle
+on the opposite bank of the river; they were raising a great noise
+as the soldiers drove their wagons among them, throwing down
+the hay and grain. Otherwise, the army had settled down from the
+hustling activities of the morning, and the guards had been posted
+for the oncoming evening. I knew now that I was progressing at a
+good pace because near Wandre I noticed a peasant's wagon
+ahead, and soon overtook it. It was carrying eight or nine Belgian
+farm-hands, and the horse was making fair time under constant
+pressure from the driver.
+
+I did not wish to add an extra burden to the overloaded animal, but
+it was no time for the exercise of sentiment. So I held up a two-
+franc piece to the driver. He looked at the coin, then he looked at
+the horse, and then, picking out the meekest and the most
+inoffensive of his free passengers, he bade him get off and
+motioned me to take the vacated seat at my right as a first-class
+paying passenger. Two francs was the fare, and he seemed highly
+gratified with the sum, little realizing that he could just as well have
+had two hundred francs for that seat. We stopped once more to
+hitch on a small wood-cart, and with that bumping behind us, we
+trailed along fearfully slowly. Gladly would I have offered a
+generous bounty to have him urge his horse along, but I feared to
+excite suspicion by too lavish an outlay of money. So I sat tight
+and let my feet dangle off the side, glad of the relief, but feeling
+them slowly swelling beneath me.
+
+I was saving my head as well as my feet, for the perpetual
+matching of one's wits in encounters with the guards was
+continually nerve-frazzling. But now as the cart joggled past, the
+guard made a casual survey of us all, taking it for granted that I
+was one of the local inhabitants. For this respite from constant
+inquisition I was indebted to the dust, grime and sweat that
+covered me. It blurred out all distinction between myself and the
+peasants, forming a perfect protective coloration.
+
+To slide past so many guards so easily was a net gain indeed.
+However, the end of such easy passing came at the edge of
+Charrate, where the driver turned into his yard, and I was dumped
+down into an encampment of soldiers. Acting on the militarists'
+dictum that the best defensive is a strong offensive I pushed my
+way boldly into the midst of a group gathered round a pump and
+made signs that I desired a drink. At first they did not understand,
+or, thinking that I was a native Belgian, they were rather taken
+aback by such impertinence; but one soldier handed me his cup
+and another pumped it full. I drank it, and, thanking them, started
+off. This calm assurance gained me passage past the guard, who
+had stood by watching the procedure. In the next six hundred
+yards I was brought to a standstill by a sudden "Halt!" At one of the
+posts some soldiers were ringed around a prisoner garbed in the
+long black regulation cassock of a priest. Though he wore a white
+handkerchief around his arm as a badge of a peaceful attitude, he
+was held as a spy. His hands and his eyes were twitching
+nervously. He seemed to be glad to welcome the addition of my
+company into the ranks of the suspects, but he was doomed to
+disappointment, for I was passed along. The next guard took me
+to his superior officer directly. But the superior officer was the
+incarnation of good humor and he was more interested in a little
+repast that was being made ready for him than in entering into the
+questions involved in my case.
+
+"Search him for weapons," he said casually, while he himself
+made a few perfunctory passes over my pockets. No weapons
+being found, he said, "Let him go. We've done damage here
+enough."
+
+These interruptions were getting to be distressingly frequent. I had
+journeyed but a few hundred yards farther when a surly fellow
+sprang out from behind a wagon and in a raucous voice bade me
+"Stand by." He had an evil glint in his eye, and was ready to go out
+of his way hunting trouble. Totally dissatisfied with any answer I
+could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no
+doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and
+humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me
+cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a
+self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still
+more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me to your superior officer."
+
+He softened down like a child, and, standing aside, motioned me
+along.
+
+I would put nothing past a bully of that stripe. He was capable of
+committing any kind of an atrocity. And his sort undoubtedly did.
+But what else can one expect from a conscript army, which, as it
+puts every man on its roster, must necessarily contain the worst as
+well as the best? Draft 1,000 men out of any community in any
+country and along with the decent citizens there will be a certain
+number of cowards, braggarts and brutes. When occasion offers
+they will rob, rape and murder. To such a vicious strain this fellow
+belonged.
+
+The soldier whom next I encountered is really typical of the
+Gemutlichheit of the men who, on the 20th of August, were
+encamped along the Meuse River. I was moving along fast now
+under the cover of a hedge which paralleled the road when a voice
+called out "Halt!" In a step or two I came to a stop. A large fellow
+climbed over the hedge, and, coming on the road, fell, or rather
+stumbled over himself, into the ditch. I was afraid he was drunk,
+and that this tumble would add vexation to his spirits; but he was
+only tired and over-weighted, carrying a big knapsack and a gun, a
+number of articles girdled around his waist, along with too much
+avoirdupois. It seems that even in this conquered territory the
+Germans never relaxed their vigilance. Fully a thousand men
+stood guarding the pontoon bridge, and this man, who had gone
+out foraging and was returning with a bottle of milk, carried his full
+fighting equipment with him, as did all the others. I gave him a
+hand and pulled him to his feet, offering to help carry something,
+as he was breathing heavily; but he refused my aid. As we walked
+along together I gave him my last stick of chocolate, and, being
+assured by my demeanor that I was a friend, he showed a real
+kindly, fatherly interest in me.
+
+"A bunch of robbers, that's what these Belgians are," he asserted
+stoutly. "They charged me a mark for a quart of milk."
+
+I put my question of the morning to him: "Is it dangerous traveling
+along here so late?" His answer was anything but reassuring.
+"Yes, it is very dangerous."
+
+Then he explained that one of his comrades had been shot by a
+Belgian from the bluffs above that very afternoon and that the men
+were all very angry. All the Belgians had taken to cover, for the
+road was totally cleared of pedestrians from this place on to
+Mouland.
+
+"Well, what am I to do?" I asked.
+
+"Go straight ahead. Swerve neither to the right nor left. Be sure
+you have no weapons, and stop at once when the guard cries
+'Halt!' and you will get through all right. But, above all, be sure to
+stand stock still immediately at the challenge. Above all--that," he
+insisted.
+
+"But did I not stop still when you cried 'Halt!' a minute ago?" I
+asked.
+
+"No," he said; "you took two or three steps before you came to a
+perfect stop. See, this is the way to do it." He started off briskly,
+and as I cried "Halt!" came to a standstill with marvelous and
+sudden precision for a man of his weight.
+
+"Do it that way and cry out, 'Ready, here!' and it will be all right."
+
+I would give a great deal for a vignette of that ponderous fellow
+acting as drillmaster to this stray American. The intensity of the
+situation rapidly ripened his interest into an affection. I was fretting
+to get away, but the amenities demanded a more formal leave-
+taking. At last, however, I broke away, bearing with me his paternal
+benediction. Far ahead a company of soldiers was forming into
+line. Just as I reached the place they came to attention, and at a
+gesture from the captain I walked like a royal personage down
+past the whole line, feeling hundreds of eyes critically playing upon
+me. I suspect that the captain had a sense of humor and was
+enjoying the discomfiture he knew I must feel.
+
+Estimating my advance by the signboards, where distances were
+marked in kilometers, it appeared that I was getting on with
+wretched slowness, considering the efforts I was making. At this
+rate, I knew I should never reach the Holland frontier by nightfall,
+and from the warnings I had received I dreaded to attempt
+crossing after sundown. Sleeping in the fields when the whole
+country was infested by soldiers was out of the question, so I
+turned to the first open cottage of a peasant and asked him to take
+me in for the night. He shook his head emphatically, and gave me
+to understand it would be all his life were worth if he did so. So I
+rallied my energies for one last effort, and plunged wildly ahead.
+
+The breeze was blowing refreshingly up the river, the road was
+clear, and soon I was rewarded by seeing the smoke still curling
+up from the ruins of Vise. I looked at my watch, which pointed to
+the time for sunset, and yet there was the sun, curiously enough,
+some distance up from the horizon. The fact of the matter is that I
+had reset my watch at Liege, and clocks there had all been
+changed to German time. With a tremendous sense of relief I
+discovered that I had a full hour more than I had figured on.
+
+There was ample time now to cover the remaining distance, and
+so I rested a moment before what appeared to be a deserted
+house. Slowly the shutters were pushed back and a sweet-faced
+old lady timorously thrust her head out of an upper window. She
+apparently had been hiding away terror-stricken, and there was
+something pathetic in the half-trusting way she risked her fate
+even now. In a low voice she put some question in the local patois
+to me. I could not understand what she was asking, but concluded
+that she was seeking comfort and assurance. So I sought to
+convey by much gesturing and benevolent smiling that all was
+quiet and safe along the Meuse. She may have concluded that I
+was some harmless, roaming idiot who could not answer a plain
+question; but it was the best I could do, and I walked on to Vise
+with the fine feeling of having played the role of comforter.
+
+At Vise I was heartened by two dogs who jumped wildly and
+joyously around me. I gathered courage enough here to swerve to
+the right, and from the window of a still burning roadside cafe
+extracted three wine-glasses as souvenirs of the trip.
+
+Presently I was in Mouland, whose few forlorn walls grouped about
+the village church made a pathetic picture as they glowed
+luminously in the setting sun. A flock of doves were cooing in the
+blackened ruins. Now I was on the home-stretch; and, that there
+might be no mistake with my early morning comrades, I cried out
+in German, "Here comes a friend!" With broad smiles on their
+faces, they were waiting there to receive me.
+
+They made a not unpicturesque group gathered around their
+camp-fire. One was plucking a chicken, another making the straw
+beds for the night. A third was laboriously at work writing a post-
+card. I ventured the information that I had made over fifty
+kilometers that day. They punctured my pride somewhat by stating
+that that was often the regular stint for German soldiers. But,
+pointing to their own well-made hobnailed boots, they added,
+"Never in thin rubber soles like yours." After emptying my pockets
+of eatables and promising to deliver the post-card, I passed once
+more under the great Dutch banner into neutral territory.
+
+My three Holland friends were there with an automobile, and,
+greeting me with a hearty "Gute Knabe!" whisked me off to
+Maastricht. For the next three days I did all my writing in bed,
+nursing a, couple of bandaged feet. I wouldn't have missed that
+trip for ten thousand dollars. I wouldn't go through it again for a
+hundred thousand.
+
+
+Part 3
+With the War Photographers in Belgium
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+How I Was Shot As A German Spy
+
+
+
+IN the last days of September, the Belgians moving in and through
+Ghent in their rainbow-colored costumes, gave to the city a
+distinctively holiday touch. The clatter of cavalry hoofs and the
+throb of racing motors rose above the voices of the mobs that
+surged along the streets.
+
+Service was normal in the cafes. To the accompaniment of music
+and clinking glasses the dress-suited waiter served me a five-
+course lunch for two francs. It was uncanny to see this blaze of life
+while the city sat under the shadow of a grave disaster. At any
+moment the gray German tide might break out of Brussels and
+pour its turbid flood of soldiers through these very streets. Even
+now a Taube hovered in the sky, and from the skirmish-line an
+occasional ambulance rumbled in with its crimsoned load.
+
+I chanced into Gambrinus' cafe and was lost in the babbling sea of
+French and Flemish. Above the melee of sounds, however, I
+caught a gladdening bit of English. Turning about, I espied a little
+group of men whose plain clothes stood out in contrast to the
+colored uniforms of officers and soldiers crowded into the cafe.
+Wearied of my efforts at conversing in a foreign tongue, I went
+over and said: "Do you really speak English!" "Well, rather!"
+answered the one who seemed to act as leader of the group. "We
+are the only ones now and it will be scarcer still around here in a
+few days." "Why!" I asked.
+
+"Because Ghent will be in German hands." This brought an
+emphatic denial from one of his confreres who insisted that the
+Germans had already reached the end of their rope. A certain
+correspondent, joining in the argument, came in for a deal of
+banter for taking the war de luxe in a good hotel far from the front.
+
+"What do you know about the war?" they twitted him. "You've
+pumped all your best stories out of the refugees ten miles from the
+front, after priming them with a glass of beer."
+
+They were a group of young war-photographers to whom danger
+was a magnet. Though none of them had yet reached the age of
+thirty, they had seen service in all the stirring events of Europe and
+even around the globe. Where the clouds lowered and the seas
+tossed, there they flocked. Like stormy petrels they rushed to the
+center of the swirling world. That was their element. A free-lance, a
+representative of the Northcliffe press, and two movie-men
+comprised this little group and made an island of English amidst
+the general babel.
+
+Like most men who have seen much of the world, they had
+ceased to be cynics. When I came to them out of the rain, carrying
+no other introduction than a dripping overcoat, they welcomed me
+into their company and whiled away the evening with tales of the
+Balkan wars.
+
+They were in high spirits over their exploits of the previous day,
+when the Germans, withdrawing from Melle on the outskirts of the
+city, had left a long row of cottages still burning. As the enemy
+troops pulled out the further end of the street, the movie men
+came in at the other and caught the pictures of the still blazing
+houses. We went down to view them on the screen. To the gentle
+throbbing of drums and piano, the citizens of Ghent viewed the
+unique spectacle of their own suburbs going up in smoke.
+
+At the end of the show they invited me to fill out their automobile
+on the morrow. Nearly every other motor had been commandeered
+by the authorities for the "Service Militaire" and bore on the front
+the letters "S. M." Our car was by no means in the blue-ribbon
+class. It had a hesitating disposition and the authorities, regarding
+it as more of a liability than an asset, had passed it over.
+
+But the correspondents counted it a great stroke of fortune to have
+any car at all; and, that they might continue to have it, they kept it
+at night carefully locked in a room in the hotel.
+
+They had their chauffeur under like supervision. He was one of
+their kind, and with the cunning of a diplomat obtained the permit
+to buy petrol, most precious of all treasures in the field of war.
+Indeed, gasoline, along with courage and discipline, completed the
+trinity of success in the military mind.
+
+With the British flag flying at the front, we sped away next morning
+on the road to Termonde. At Melle we came upon the blazing
+cottages we had seen pictured the night before. Here we
+encountered a roving band of Belgian soldiers who were in a free
+and careless mood and evinced a ready willingness to put
+themselves at our disposal. Under the command of the photographers,
+they charged across the fields with fixed bayonets, wriggled up
+through the grass, or, standing behind the trenches, blazed away
+with their guns at an imaginary enemy. They did some good acting,
+grim and serious as death. All except one.
+
+This youth couldn't suppress his sense of humor. He could not, or
+would not, keep from laughing, even when he was supposed to be
+blowing the head off a Boche. He was properly disciplined and put
+out of the game, and we went on with our maneuvers to the
+accompaniment of the clicking cameras until the photographers
+had gathered in a fine lot of realistic fighting-line pictures.
+
+One of the photographers sat stolidly in the automobile smoking
+his cigarette while the others were reaping their harvest.
+
+"Why don't you take these too?" I asked.
+
+"Oh," he replied, "I've been sending in so much of that stuff that I
+just got a telegram from my paper saying, 'Pension off that Belgian
+regiment which is doing stunts in the trenches.'"
+
+While his little army rested from their maneuvers the Director-in-
+Chief turned to me and said:
+
+"Wouldn't you like to have a photograph of yourself in these war-
+surroundings, just to take home as a souvenir?"
+
+That appealed to me. After rejecting some commonplace
+suggestions, he exclaimed: "I have it. Shot as a German Spy.
+There's the wall to stand up against; and we'll pick a crack firing-
+squad out of these Belgians. A little bit of all right, eh?"
+
+I acquiesced in the plan and was led over to the wall while a
+movie-man whipped out a handkerchief and tied it over my eyes.
+The director then took the firing squad in hand. He had but
+recently witnessed the execution of a spy where he had almost
+burst with a desire to photograph the scene. It had been
+excruciating torture to restrain himself. But the experience had
+made him feel conversant with the etiquette of shooting a spy, as it
+was being done amongst the very best firing-squads. He made it
+now stand him in good stead.
+
+"Aim right across the bandage," the director coached them. I could
+hear one of the soldiers laughing excitedly as he was warming up
+to the rehearsal. It occurred to me that I was reposing a lot of
+confidence in a stray band of soldiers. Some one of those
+Belgians, gifted with a lively imagination, might get carried away
+with the suggestion and act as if I really were a German spy.
+
+"Shoot the blooming blighter in the eye," said one movie man
+playfully.
+
+"Bally good idea!" exclaimed the other one approvingly, while one
+eager actor realistically clicked his rifle-hammer. That was
+altogether too much. I tore the bandage from my eyes, exclaiming:
+
+"It would be a bally good idea to take those cartridges out first."
+Some fellow might think his cartridge was blank or try to fire wild,
+just as a joke in order to see me jump. I wasn't going to take any
+risk and flatly refused to play my part until the cartridges were
+ejected. Even when the bandage was readjusted "Didn't-know-it-
+was-loaded" stories still were haunting me. In a moment,
+however, it was over and I was promised my picture within a
+fortnight.
+
+A week later I picked up the London Daily Mirror from a
+newsstand. It had the caption:
+
+
+Belgian Soldiers Shoot a German Spy Caught at Termonde
+
+
+I opened up the paper and what was my surprise to see a big
+spread picture of myself, lined up against that row of Melle
+cottages and being shot for the delectation of the British public.
+There is the same long raincoat that runs as a motif through all the
+other pictures. Underneath it were the words:
+
+"The Belgians have a short, sharp method of dealing with the
+Kaiser's rat-hole spies. This one was caught near Termonde and,
+after being blindfolded, the firing-squad soon put an end to his
+inglorious career."
+
+One would not call it fame exactly, even though I played the star-
+role. But it is a source of some satisfaction to have helped a royal
+lot of fellows to a first-class scoop. As the "authentic spy-picture of
+the war," it has had a broadcast circulation. I have seen it in
+publications ranging all the way from The Police Gazette to
+"Collier's Photographic History of the European War." In a
+university club I once chanced upon a group gathered around this
+identical picture. They were discussing the psychology of this "poor
+devil" in the moments before he was shot. It was a further source
+of satisfaction to step in and arbitrarily contradict all their
+conclusions and, having shown them how totally mistaken they
+were, proceed to tell them exactly how the victim felt. This high-
+handed manner nettled one fellow terribly:
+
+"Not so arbitrary, my friend!" he said. "You haven't any right to be
+so devilish cocksure."
+
+"Haven't I?" I replied. "Who has any better right? I happen to be
+that identical man!" But that little episode has been of real value to
+me. It is said that if one goes through the motions he gets the
+emotions. I believe that I have an inkling of how a man feels when
+he momentarily expects a volley of cold lead to turn his skull into a
+sieve.
+
+That was a very timely picture. It filled a real demand. For spies
+were at that time looming distressingly large in the public mind.
+The deeds they had done, or were about to do, cast a cold fear
+over men by day and haunted them by night. They were in the
+Allies' councils, infesting the army, planning destruction to the
+navy. Any wild tale got credence, adding its bit to the general
+paralysis, and producing a vociferous demand that "something be
+done." The people were assured that all culprits were being duly
+sentenced and shot. But there was no proof of it. There were no
+pictures thereof extant. And that is what the public wanted.
+
+"Give the public what it wants," was the motto of this enterprising
+newspaper man. Herewith he supplied tangible evidence on which
+they could feast their eyes and soothe their nerves.
+
+As to the ethics of these pictures, they are "true" in that they are
+faithful to reality. In this case the photographer acted up to his
+professional knowledge and staged the pictures as he had actually
+seen the spy shot. They must find their justification on the same
+basis as fiction, which is "the art of falsifying facts for the sake of
+truth." And who would begrudge them the securing of a few
+pictures with comparative ease?
+
+Most of the pictures which the public casually gazes on have been
+secured at a price--and a large one, too. The names of these men
+who go to the front with cameras, rather than with rifles or pens,
+are generally unknown. They are rarely found beneath the
+pictures, yet where would be our vivid impression of courage in
+daring and of skill in doing, of cunning strategy upon the field of
+battle, of wounded soldiers sacrificing for their comrades, if we had
+no pictures? A few pictures are faked, but behind most pictures
+there is another tale of daring and of strategy, and that is the tale
+concerning the man who took it. That very day thrice these same
+men risked their lives.
+
+The apparatus loaded in the car, we were off again. Past a few
+barricades of paving-stones and wagons, past the burned houses
+which marked the place where the Germans had come within five
+miles of Ghent, we encountered some uniformed Belgians who
+looked quite as dismal and dispirited as the fog which hung above
+the fields. They were the famous Guarde Civique of Belgium. Our
+Union Jack, flapping in the wind, was very likely quite the most
+thrilling spectacle they had seen in a week, and they hailed it with a
+cheer and a cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" (Long live England!) The
+Guarde Civique had a rather inglorious time of it. Wearisomely in
+their wearisome-looking uniform, they stood for hours on their
+guns or marched and counter-marched in dreary patrolling, often
+doomed not even to scent the battle from afar off.
+
+Whenever we were called to a halt for the examination of our
+passports, these men crowded around and begged for newspapers.
+We held up our stock, and they would clamor for the ones with
+pictures. The English text was unintelligible to most of them, but
+the pictures they could understand, and they bore them away to
+enjoy the sight of other soldiers fighting, even if they themselves
+were denied that excitement. Our question to them was always
+the same, "Where are the Germans?"
+
+Out of the conflicting reports it was hard to tell whether the
+Germans were heading this way or not. That they were expected
+was shown by the sign-posts whose directions had just been
+obliterated by fresh paint--a rather futile operation, because the
+Germans had better maps and plans of the region than the
+Belgians themselves, maps which showed every by-path, well and
+barn. The chauffeur's brother had been shot in his car by the
+Germans but a week before, and he didn't relish the idea of thus
+flaunting the enemy's flag along a road where some German
+scouting party might appear at any moment. The Union Jack had
+done good service in getting us easy passage so far, but the driver
+was not keen for going further with it.
+
+It was proposed to turn the car around and back it down the road,
+as had been done the previous day. Thus the car would be
+headed in the home direction, and at sight of the dreaded uniform
+we could make a quick leap for safety. At this juncture, however, I
+produced a small Stars and Stripes, which the chauffeur hailed
+with delight, and we continued our journey now under the aegis of
+a neutral flag.
+
+It might have secured temporary safety, but only temporary; for if
+the Englishmen with only British passports had fallen into the
+hands of the Germans, like their unfortunate kinsmen who did
+venture too far into the war zone, they, too, would have had a
+chance to cool their ardor in some detention-camp of Germany.
+This cheerful prospect was in the mind of these men, for, when we
+espied coming around a distant corner two gray-looking men on
+horseback, they turned white as the chauffeur cried, "Uhlans!"
+
+It is a question whether the car or our hearts came to a dead
+standstill first. Our shock was unnecessary. They proved to be
+Belgians, and assured us that the road was clear all the way to
+Termonde; and, except for an occasional peasant tilling his fields,
+the country-side was quite deserted until at Grembergen we came
+upon an unending procession of refugees streaming down the
+road. They were all coming out of Termonde. Termonde, after
+being taken and retaken, bombarded and burned, was for the
+moment neutral territory. A Belgian commandant had allowed the
+refugees that morning to return and gather what they might from
+among the ruins.
+
+In the early morning, then, they had gone into the city, and now at
+high noon they were pouring out, a great procession of the
+dispossessed. They came tracking their way to where--God only
+knows. All they knew was that in their hearts was set the fear of
+Uhlans, and in the sky the smoke and flames of their burning
+homesteads. They came laden with their lares and penates,--
+mainly dogs, feather beds, and crayon portraits of their ancestors.
+
+Women came carrying on their heads packs which looked like
+their entire household paraphernalia. The men were more
+unassuming, and, as a rule, carried a package considerably lighter
+and comporting more with their superior masculine dignity. I recall
+one little woman in particular. She was bearing a burden heavy
+enough to send a strong American athlete staggering down to the
+ground, while at her side majestically marched her faithful knight,
+bearing a bird-cage, and there wasn't any bird in it, either.
+
+Nothing could be more mirth-provoking than that sight; yet,
+strangely enough, the most tear-compelling memory of the war is
+connected with another bird-cage. Two children rummaging
+through their ruined home dug it out of the debris. In it was their
+little pet canary. While fire and smoke rolled through the house it
+had beat its wings against the bars in vain. Its prison had become
+its tomb. Its feathers were but slightly singed, yet it was dead with
+that pathetic finality which attaches itself to only a dead bird--its
+silver songs and flutterings, once the delight of the children, now
+stilled forever.
+
+The photographers had long looked for what they termed a first-
+class sob-picture. Here it was par excellent. The larger child stood
+stroking the feathers of her pet and murmuring over and over
+"Poor Annette," "Poor Annette!" Then the smaller one snuggling
+the limp little thing against her neck wept inconsolably.
+
+Instead of seizing their opportunity, the movie man was clearing
+his throat while the free lance was busy on what he said was a
+cinder in his eye. Yet this very man had brought back from the
+Balkan War of 1907 a prime collection of horrors; corpses thrown
+into the death-cart with arms and legs sticking out like so much
+stubble; the death-cart creeping away with its ghastly load; and the
+dumping together of bodies of men and beasts into a pit to be
+eaten by the lime. This man who had gone through all this with
+good nerve was now touched to tears by two children crying over
+their pet canary. There are some things that are too much for the
+heart of even a war-photographer.
+
+To give the whole exodus the right tragic setting, one is tempted to
+write that tears were streaming down all the faces of the refugees,
+but on the contrary, indeed, most of them carried a smile and a
+pipe, and trudged stolidly along, much as though bound for a fair.
+Some of our pictures show laughing refugees. That may not be
+fair, for man is so constituted that the muscles of his face
+automatically relax to the click of the camera. But as I recall that
+pitiful procession, there was in it very little outward expression of
+sorrow.
+
+Undoubtedly there was sadness enough in all their hearts, but
+people in Europe have learned to live on short rations; they rarely
+indulge in luxuries like weeping, but bear the most unwonted
+afflictions as though they were the ordinary fortunes of life. War
+has set a new standard for grief. So these victims passed along
+the road, but not before the record of their passing was etched for
+ever on our moving-picture films. The coming generation will not
+have to reconstruct the scene from the colored accounts of the
+journalist, but with their own eyes they can see the hegira of the
+homeless as it really was.
+
+The resignation of the peasant in the face of the great calamity
+was a continual source of amazement to us. Zola in "Le Debacle"
+puts into his picture of the battle of Sedan an old peasant plowing
+on his farm in the valley. While shells go screaming overhead he
+placidly drives his old white horse through the accustomed
+furrows. One naturally presumed that this was a dramatic touch of
+the great novelist. But similar incidents we saw in this Great War
+over and over again.
+
+We were with Consul van Hee one morning early before the
+clinging veil of sleep had lifted from our spirits or the mists from the
+low-lying meadows. Without warning our car shot through a bank
+of fog into a spectacle of medieval splendor--a veritable Field of
+the Cloth of Gold, spread out on the green plains of Flanders.
+
+A thousand horses strained at their bridles while their thousand
+riders in great fur busbies loomed up almost like giants. A
+thousand pennons stirred in the morning air while the sun burning
+through the mists glinted on the tips of as many lances. The crack
+Belgian cavalry divisions had been gathered here just behind the
+firing-lines in readiness for a sortie; the Lancers in their cherry and
+green and the Guides in their blue and gold making a blaze of
+color.
+
+It was as if in a trance we had been carried back to a tourney of
+ancient chivalry--this was before privations and the new drab
+uniforms had taken all glamour out of the war. As we gazed upon
+the glittering spectacle the order from the commander came to us:
+
+"Back, back out of danger!"
+
+"Forward!" was the charge to the Lancers.
+
+The field-guns rumbled into line and each rider unslung his
+carbine. Putting spurs to the horses, the whole line rode past
+saluting our Stars and Stripes with a "Vive L'Amerique." Bringing
+up the rear two cassocked priests served to give this pageantry a
+touch of prophetic grimness.
+
+And yet as the cavalcade swept across the fields thrilling us with its
+color and its action, the nearby peasants went on spreading
+fertilizer quite as calm and unconcerned as we were exhilarated.
+
+"Stupid," "Clods," "Souls of oxen," we commented, yet a
+protagonist of the peasant might point out that it was perhaps as
+noble and certainly quite as useful to be held by a passion for the
+soil as to be caught by the glamour of men riding out to slaughter.
+And Zola puts this in the mind of his peasants.
+
+"Why should I lose a day? Soldiers must fight, but folks must live.
+It is for me to keep the corn growing."
+
+Deep down into the soil the peasant strikes his roots. Urban
+people can never comprehend when these roots are cut away how
+hopelessly-lost and adrift this European peasant in particular
+becomes. Wicked as the Great War has seemed to us in its
+bearing down upon these innocent folks, yet we can never
+understand the cruelty that they have suffered in being uprooted
+from the land and sent forth to become beggars and wanderers
+upon the highroads of the world.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The Little Belgian Who Said, "You Betcha"
+
+
+
+In the fighting around Termonde the bridge over the Scheldt had
+been three times blown up and three times reconstructed. Wires
+now led to explosives under the bridge on the Termonde side, and
+on the side held by the Belgians they led to a table in the room of
+the commanding officer. In this table was an electric button. By the
+button stood an officer. The entrance of the Germans on that
+bridge was the signal for the officer to push that button, and thus to
+blow both bridge and Germans into bits.
+
+But the Belgians were taking no chances. If by any mishap that
+electric connection should fail them, it would devolve upon the
+artillery lined upon the bank to rake the bridge with shrapnel. A
+roofed-over trench ran along the river like a levee and bristled with
+machine guns whose muzzles were also trained upon the bridge.
+Full caissons of ammunition were standing alongside, ready to
+feed the guns their death-dealing provender, and in the rear, all
+harnessed, were the horses, ready to bring up more caissons.
+
+Though in the full blaze of day, the gunners were standing or
+crouching by their guns. The watchers of the night lay stretched
+out upon the ground, sleeping in the warm sun after their long,
+anxious vigil. Stumbling in among them, I was pulled back by one
+of the photographers.
+
+"For heaven's sake," he cried, "don't wake up those men!"
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because this picture I'm taking here is to be labeled 'Dead Men in
+the Termonde Trenches,' and you would have them starting up as
+though the day of resurrection had arrived."
+
+After taking these pictures we were ready to cross the bridge; but
+the two sentries posted at this end were not ready to let us. They
+were very small men, but very determined, and informed us that
+their instructions were to allow no one to pass over without a
+permit signed by the General. We produced scores of passes and
+passports decorated with stamps and seals and covered with
+myriad signatures. They looked these over and said that our
+papers were very nice and undoubtedly very numerous, but
+ungraciously insisted on that pass signed by the General.
+
+So back we flew to the General at Grembergen. I waited outside
+until my companions emerged from the office waving passes.
+They were in a gleeful, bantering mood. That evening they
+apprised me of the fact that all day I had been traveling as a rich
+American with my private photographers securing pictures for the
+Belgian Relief Fund.
+
+Leaving our automobile in charge of the chauffeur, we cautiously
+made our way over the bridge into the city of Termonde, or what
+was once Termonde, for it is difficult to dignify with the name of city
+a heap of battered buildings and crumbling brick--an ugly scar
+upon the landscape.
+
+I was glad to enter the ruins with my companions instead of alone.
+It was not so much fear of stray bullets from a lurking enemy as
+the suggestion of the spirits of the slain lingering round these
+tombs. For Termonde appeared like one vast tomb. As we first
+entered its sepulchral silences we were greatly relieved that the
+three specter-like beings who sat huddled up over a distant ruin
+turned out not to be ghosts, but natives hopelessly and pathetically
+surveying this wreck that was once called home, trying to rake out
+of the embers some sort of relic of the past.
+
+A regiment of hungry dogs came prowling up the street, and,
+remembering the antics of the past week, they looked at us as if
+speculating what new species of crazy human being we were. To
+them the world of men must suddenly have gone quite insane, and
+if there had been an agitator among them he might well have
+asked his fellow-dogs why they had acknowledged a race of
+madmen as their masters. Indeed, one could almost detect a
+sense of surprise that we didn't use the photographic apparatus to
+commit some new outrage. They stayed with us for a while, but at
+the sight of our cinema man turning the crank like a machine gun,
+they turned and ran wildly down the street.
+
+Emptied bottles looted from winecellars were strung along the
+curbs. To some Germans they had been more fatal than the
+Belgian bullets, for while one detachment of the German soldiers
+had been setting the city blazing with petrol from the petrol flasks,
+others had set their insides on fire with liquors from the wine flasks,
+and, rolling through the town in drunken orgy, they had fallen
+headlong into the canal.
+
+There is a relevant item for those who seek further confirmation as
+to the reality of the atrocities in Belgium. If men could get so
+drunken and uncontrolled as to commit atrocities on themselves (i.e.,
+self-destruction), it is reasonable to infer that they could commit
+atrocities on others--and they undoubtedly did. The surprise lies
+not in the number of such crimes, but the fewness of them.
+
+Three boys who had somehow managed to crawl across the
+bridge were prodding about in the canals with bamboo poles.
+
+"What are you doing?" we inquired.
+
+"Fishing," they responded.
+
+"What for?" we asked.
+
+"Dead Germans," they replied.
+
+"What do you do with them--bury them?"
+
+"No!" they shouted derisively. "We just strip them of what they've
+got and shove 'em back in."
+
+Their search for these hapless victims was not motivated by any
+sentimental reasons, but simply by their business interest as local
+dealers in helmets, buttons and other German mementos.
+
+We took pictures of these young water-ghouls; a picture of the
+Hotel de Ville, the calcined walls standing like a shell, the inside a
+smoking mass of debris; then a picture of a Belgian mitrailleuse
+car, manned by a crowd of young and jaunty dare-devils. It came
+swinging into the square, bringing a lot of bicycles from a German
+patrol which had just been mowed down outside the city. After
+taking a shot at an aeroplane buzzing away at a tremendous
+distance overhead, they were off again on another scouting trip.
+
+I got separated from my party and was making my way alone
+when a sharp "Hello!" ringing up the street, startled me. I turned to
+see, not one of the photographers, but a fully-armed, though
+somewhat diminutive, soldier in Belgian uniform waving his hand
+at me.
+
+"Hello!" he shouted; "are you an American?"
+
+I could hardly believe my eyes or my ears, but managed to shout
+back, "Yes, yes, I'm an American. Are you?" I asked dubiously.
+
+"You betcha I'm a 'Merican," he replied, coming quickly up to me. It
+was my turn again.
+
+"What are you doing down here--fighting?" I put in fatuously.
+
+"What the hell you think I'm doing?" he rejoined.
+
+I now felt quite sure that he was an American. Further offerings of
+similar "language of small variety but great strength" testified to his
+sojourn in the States.
+
+"You betcha I'm a 'Merican," he reiterated, "though I was over
+there but two years. My name is August Bidden. I worked in a
+lumber-mill in Wagner, Wisconsin. Came back here to visit my
+family. The war broke out. I was a Reservist and joined my
+regiment. I'm here on scout-duty. Got to find out when the
+Germans come back into the city."
+
+"Been in any battles?"
+
+"You betcha," he replied.
+
+"Kill any Germans?"
+
+"You betcha."
+
+"Did you enjoy it?"
+
+"You betcha."
+
+"Any around here now?"
+
+"You betcha. A lot of them down in the bushes over the brook."
+Then his eyes flashed a sudden fire as though an inspired idea
+had struck him. "There's no superior officer around," he exclaimed
+confidentially. "Come right down with me and you can take a pot-
+shot at the damned Boches with my rifle." He said it with the air of
+a man offering a rare treat to his best friend. I felt that it devolved
+on me to exhibit a proper zest for this little shooting-party and save
+my reputation without risking my skin. So I said eagerly:
+
+"Now are you dead sure that the Germans are down there!"
+implying that I couldn't afford any time unless the shooting was
+good.
+
+"You betcha they're down there," was his disconcerting reply. "You
+can see their green-gray uniforms. I counted sixteen or seventeen
+of them."
+
+The thought of that sixteen-to-one shot made my cheeks take on
+the color of the German uniforms. The naked truth was my last
+resort. It was the only thing that could prevent my zealous friend
+from dragging me forcibly down to the brookside. He may have
+heard the chattering of my teeth. At any rate he looked up and
+exclaimed, "What's the matter? You 'fraid?"
+
+I replied without any hesitation, "You betcha."
+
+The happy arrival of the photographer at this juncture, however,
+redeemed my fallen reputation; for a soldier is always peculiarly
+amenable to the charms of the camera and is even willing to quit
+fighting to get his picture taken.
+
+This photograph happens to hit off our little episode exactly. It
+shows Ridden serene, smiling, confident, and my sort of evasive
+hangdog look as though, in popular parlance, I had just "got one
+put over me."
+
+Then, while seated on a battered wall, Ridden poured out his story
+of the last two months of hardships and horrors. It was the single
+individual's share in the terrific gruelling that the Belgian army had
+received while it was beaten back from the eastern frontier to its
+stand on the river Scheldt. Always being promised aid by the Allies
+if they would hold out just a little longer, they were led again and
+again frantically to pit their puny strength against the overwhelming
+tide out of the North. For the moment they would stay it. Eagerly
+they would listen for sounds of approaching help, asking every
+stranger when it was coming. It never came. From position to
+position they fell back, stubbornly fighting, a flaming pillar of sparks
+and clouds of smoke marking the path of their retreat.
+
+Though smashed and broken that army was never crushed. Its
+spirit was incarnate in this cheerful and undaunted Ridden. He
+recounted his privations as nonchalantly as if it was just the way
+that he had planned to spend his holiday. As a farewell token he
+presented me with an epaulet from an officer he had killed, and a
+pin from a German woman spy he had captured.
+
+"Be sure to visit me when you get back to America," I cried out
+down the street to him.
+
+He stood waving his hand in farewell as in greeting, the same
+happy ingenuous look upon his face and sending after me in reply
+the same old confident standby, "You betcha." But I do not cherish
+a great hope of ever seeing Ridden again. The chances are that,
+like most of the Belgian army, he is no longer treading the gray
+streets of those demolished cities, but whatever golden streets
+there may be in the City Celestial. War is race suicide. It kills the
+best and leaves behind the undermuscled and the under-brained
+to propagate the species.
+
+Striking farther into the heart of the ruins, we beheld in a section all
+burned and shattered to the ground a building which stood straight
+up like a cliff intact and undamaged amidst the general wreckage.
+As we stumbled over the debris, imagine our surprise when an old
+lady of about seventy thrust her head out of a basement window.
+She was the owner of the house, and while the city had been the
+fighting ground for the armies she had, through it all, bravely stuck
+to her home.
+
+"I was born here, I have always lived here, and I am going to die
+here," she said, with a look of pride upon her kindly face.
+
+Madame Callebaut-Ringoot was her name. During the
+bombardment of the town she had retired to the cellar; but when
+the Germans entered to burn the city she stood there at the door
+watching the flames rolling up from the warehouses and factories
+in the distance. Nearer and nearer came the billowing tide of fire. A
+fountain of sparks shooting up from a house a few hundred yards
+away marked the advance of the firing squad into her street, but
+she never wavered. Down the street came the spoilers, relentless,
+ruthless, and remorseless, sparing nothing. They came like priests
+of the nether world, anointing each house with oil from the petrol
+flasks and with a firebrand dedicating it to the flames. Every one,
+panic-stricken, fled before them. Every one but this old lady, who
+stood there bidding defiance to all the Kaiser's horses and all the
+Kaiser's men.
+
+"I saw them smashing in the door of the house across the way,"
+said Madame Callebaut, "and when the flames burst forth they
+rushed over here, and I fell down on my knees before them, crying
+out, 'For the love of Heaven, spare an old woman's house!'"
+
+It must have been a dramatic, soul-curdling sight, with the wail of
+the woman rising above the crashing walls and the roaring flames.
+And it must have been effective pleading to stop men in their wild
+rush lusting to destroy. But Madame Callebaut was endowed with
+powerful emotions. Carried away in her recital of the events, she
+fell down on her knees before me, wringing her hands and
+pleading so piteously that I felt for a moment as if I were a fiendish
+Teuton with a firebrand about to set the old lady's house afire. I
+can understand how the wildest men capitulated to such pleadings,
+and how they came down the steps to write, in big, clear words,
+
+"NICHT ANBRENNEN"
+(Do not set fire)
+
+Only they unwittingly wrote it upon her neighbor's walls, thus
+saving both houses.
+
+How much a savior of other homes Madame Callebaut had been
+Termonde will never know. Certainly she made the firing squad
+first pause in the wild debauch of destruction. For frequently now
+an undamaged house stood with the words chalked on its front,
+"Only harmless old woman lives here; do not burn down."
+Underneath were the numbers and initials of the particular corps of
+the Kaiser's Imperial Army. Often the flames had committed Lese
+majeste by leaping onto the forbidden house, and there amidst the
+charred ruins stood a door or a wall bearing the mocking
+inscription, "Nicht Anbrennen."
+
+Another house, belonging to Madame Louise Bal, bore the words,
+"Protected; Gute alte Leute hier" (good old people here). A great
+shell from a distant battery had totally disregarded this sign and
+had torn through the parlor, exploding in the back yard, ripping the
+clothes from the line, but touching neither of the inmates. As the
+Chinese ambassador pertinently remarked when reassured by
+Whitlock that the Germans would not bombard the embassies,
+"Ah! but a cannon has no eyes."
+
+These houses stood up like lone survivors above the wreckage
+wrought by fire and shell, and by contrast served to emphasize the
+dismal havoc everywhere. "So this was once a city," one mused to
+himself; "and these streets, now sounding with the footfalls of
+some returning sentry, did they once echo with the roar of traffic?
+And those demolished shops, were they once filled with the babble
+of the traders? Over yonder in that structure, which looks so much
+like a church, did the faithful once come to pray and to worship
+God? Can it be that these courtyards, now held in the thrall of
+death-like silence, once rang to the laughter of the little children?"
+One said to himself, "Surely this is some wild dream. Wake up."
+
+But hardly a dream, for here were the ruins of a real city, and fresh
+ruins, too. Still curling up from the church was smoke from the
+burning rafters, and over there the hungry dogs, and the stragglers
+mournfully digging something out of the ruins. However preposterous
+it seemed, none the less it was a city that yesterday ran high with
+the tide of human life. And thousands of people, when they recall
+the lights and shadows, the pains and raptures, which make up the
+thing we call life, will think of Termonde. Thousands of people,
+when they think of home and all the tender memories that cluster
+round that word, say "Termonde."' And now where Termonde was
+there is a big black ragged spot--an ugly gaping wound in the
+landscape. There are a score of other wounds like that.
+
+There are thousands of them.
+
+There is one bleeding in every Belgian heart.
+
+The sight of their desolated cities cut the soldiers to the quick.
+
+They turned the names of those cities into battle cries. Shouting
+"Remember Termonde and Louvain," these Belgians sprang from
+the trenches and like wild men flung themselves upon the foe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Atrocities And The Socialist
+
+
+
+"With these sentries holding us up at every cross-roads, there is no
+use trying to get to Antwerp," said the free-lance.
+
+"Yes, there is," retorted the chauffeur. "Watch me the next time."
+He beckoned to the first sentry barring the way, and, leaning over,
+whispered into the man's ear a single word. The sentry saluted,
+and, stepping to one side, motioned us on in a manner almost
+deferential. We had hardly been compelled to stop.
+
+After our tedious delays this was quite exhilarating. How our
+chauffeur obtained the password we did not know, nor did we
+challenge the inclusion of 8 francs extra in his memorandum of
+expenses. As indicated, he was a man of parts. The magic word of
+the day, "France," now opened every gate to us.
+
+Behind the Antwerp fortifications the Belgian sappers and miners
+were on an organized rampage of destruction. On a wide zone
+every house, windmill and church was either going up in flames or
+being hammered level to the ground.
+
+We came along as the oil was applied to an old house and saw
+the flames go crackling up through the rafters. The black smoke
+curled away across the wasted land and the fire glowed upon the
+stolid faces of the soldiers and the trembling woman who owned it.
+To her it was a funeral pyre. Her home endeared by lifetime
+memories was being offered up on the altar of Liberty and
+Independence. Starting with the invaders on the western frontier,
+clear through to Antwerp by the sea, a wild black swathe had been
+burnt.
+
+By such drastic methods space was cleared for the guns in the
+Belgian forts, and to the advancing besiegers no protection would
+be offered from the raking fire. The heart of a steel-stock owner
+would have rejoiced to see the maze of wire entanglement that ran
+everywhere. In one place a tomato-field had been wired; the green
+vines, laden with their rich red fruit, were intertwined with the steel
+vines bearing their vicious blood-drawing barbs whose intent was
+to make the red field redder still. We had just passed a gang
+digging man-holes and spitting them with stakes, when an officer
+cried:
+
+"Stop! No further passage here. You must turn back."
+
+"Why?" we asked protestingly.
+
+"The entire road is being mined," he replied.
+
+Even as he spoke we could see a liquid explosive being poured
+into a sort of cup, and electric wires connected. The officer
+pictured to us a regiment of soldiers advancing, with the full tide of
+life running in their veins, laughing and singing as they marched in
+the smiling sun. Suddenly the road rocks and hell heaves up
+beneath their feet; bodies are blown into the air and rained back to
+the earth in tiny fragments of human flesh; while brains are
+spattered over the ground, and every crevice runs a rivulet of
+blood. He sketched this in excellent English, adding:
+
+"A magnificent climax for Christian civilzation, eh! And that's my
+business. But what else can one do?"
+
+For the task of setting this colossal stage for death, the entire
+peasant population had been mobilized to assist the soldiers. In
+self-defense Belgium was thus obliged to drive the dagger deep
+into her own bosom. It seemed indeed as if she suffered as much
+at her own hands, as at the hands of the enemy. To arrest the
+advancing scourge she impressed into her service dynamite, fire
+and flood. I saw the sluice-gates lifted and meadows which had
+been waving with the golden grain of autumn now turned into silver
+lakes. So suddenly had the waters covered the land that hay-
+cocks bobbed upon the top of the flood, and peasants went out in
+boats to dredge for the beets and turnips which lay beneath the
+waters.
+
+The roads were inundated and so we ran along an embankment
+which, like a levee, lifted itself above the water wastes. The sun,
+sinking down behind the flaming poplars in the west, was touching
+the rippling surface into myriad colors. It was like a trip through
+Fairyland, or it would have been, were not men on all sides busy
+preparing for the bloody shambles.
+
+After these elaborate defensive works the Belgians laughed at any
+one taking Antwerp, the impregnable fortress of Western Europe.
+The Germans laughed, too. But it was the bass, hollow laugh of
+their great guns placed ten to twenty miles away, and pouring into
+the city such a hurricane of shell and shrapnel that they forced its
+evacuation by the British and the Belgians. Through this vast array
+of works which the reception committee had designed for their
+slaughter, the Germans came marching in as if on dress parade.
+
+A few shells were even now crashing through Malines and had
+played havoc with the carillon in the cathedral tower. During a lull
+in the bombardment we climbed a stairway of the belfry where,
+above us, balanced great stones which a slight jar would send
+tumbling down. On and up we passed vents and jagged holes
+which had been ripped through these massive walls as if they
+were made of paper. It was enough to carry the weight of one's
+somber reflections without the addition of cheerful queries of the
+movie-man as to "how would you feel if the German gunners
+suddenly turned loose again?"
+
+We gathered in a deal of stone ornaments that had been shot
+down and struggled with a load of them to our car. Later they
+became a weight upon our conscience. When Cardinal Mercier
+starts the rebuilding of his cathedral, we might surprise him with
+the return of a considerable portion thereof. To fetch these
+souvenirs through to England, we were compelled to resort to all
+the tricks of a gang of smugglers.
+
+I made also a first rate collection of German posters. By day I
+observed the location of these placards, announcing certain death
+to those who "sniped on German troops," "harbored courier-
+pigeons," or "destroyed" these self-same posters.
+
+At night with trembling hands I laid cold compresses on them until
+the adhering paste gave way; then, tucking the wet sheets
+beneath my coat, I stole back to safety. At last in England I feasted
+my eyes on the precious documents, dreaming of the time when
+posterity should rejoice in the possession of these posters relating
+to the German overlordship of Belgium, and give thanks to the
+courage of their collector. Unfortunately, their stained and torn
+appearance grated on the aesthetic sensibilities of the maid.
+
+"Where are they?" I demanded on my return to my room one time,
+as I missed them.
+
+"Those nasty papers?" she inquired naively.
+
+"Those priceless souvenirs," I returned severely. She did not
+comprehend, but with a most aggravatingly sweet expression said:
+
+"They were so dirty, sir, I burned them all up."
+
+She couldn't understand why I rewarded her with something akin
+to a fit of apoplexy, instead of a liberal tip. That day was a red-letter
+one for our photographers. They paid the price in the risks which
+constantly strained their nerves. But in it they garnered vastly more
+than in the fortnight they had hugged safety.
+
+But, despite all our efforts, there was one object that we were after
+that we never did attain. That was a first-class atrocity picture.
+There were atrocity stories in endless variety, but not one that the
+camera could authenticate. People were growing chary of verbal
+assurances of these horrors; they yearned for some photographic
+proof, and we yearned to furnish it.
+
+"What features are you looking for?" was the question invariably
+put to us on discovering our cameras.
+
+"Children with their hands cut off," we replied. "Are there any
+around here?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Hundreds of them," was the invariable assurance.
+
+"Yes, but all we want is one--just one in flesh and bone. Where
+can we find that?"
+
+The answer was ever the same. "In the hospital at the rear, or at
+the front." "Back in such-and-such a village," etc. Always
+somewhere else; never where we were.
+
+Let no one attempt to gloss the cruelties perpetrated in Belgium.
+My individual wish is to see them pictured as crimson as possible,
+that men may the fiercer revolt against the shame and horror of
+this red butchery called war. But this is a record of just one
+observer's reactions and experiences in the war zone. After weeks
+in this contested ground, the word "atrocity" now calls up to my
+mind hardly anything I saw in Belgium, but always the savageries I
+have witnessed at home in America.
+
+For example, the organized frightfulness that I once witnessed in
+Boston. Around the strikers picketing a factory were the police in
+full force and a gang of thugs. Suddenly at the signal of a shrill
+whistle, sticks were drawn from under coats and, right and left,
+men were felled to the cobblestones. After a running fight a score
+were stretched out unconscious, upon the square. As blood
+poured out of the gashes, like tigers intoxicated by the sight and
+smell thereof, the assailants became frenzied, kicking and beating
+their victims, already insensible. In a trice the beasts within had
+been unleashed.
+
+If in normal times men can lay aside every semblance of restraint
+and decency and turn into raging fiends, how much greater cause
+is there for such a transformation to be wrought under the stress of
+war when, by government decree, the sixth commandment is
+suspended and killing has become glorified. At any rate my
+experiences in America make credible the tales told in Belgium.
+
+But there are no pictures of these outrages such as the Germans
+secured after the Russian drive into their country early in the war.
+Here are windrows of mutilated Germans with gouged eyes and
+mangled limbs, attesting to that same senseless bestial ferocity
+which lies beneath the veneer.
+
+All the photographers were fired with desire to make a similar
+picture in Belgium, yet though we raced here and there, and
+everywhere that rumor led us, we found it but a futile chase.
+
+Through the Great Hall in Ghent there poured 100,000 refugees.
+Here we pleaded how absolutely imperative it was that we should
+obtain an atrocity picture. The daughter of the burgomaster, who
+was in charge, understood our plight and promised to do her best.
+But out of the vast concourse she was able to uncover but one
+case that could possibly do service as an atrocity.
+
+It was that of a blind peasant woman with her six children. The
+photographers told her to smile, but she didn't, nor did the older
+children; they had suffered too horribly to make smiling easy.
+When the Germans entered the village the mother was in bed with
+her day-old baby. Her husband was seized and, with the other
+men, marched away, as the practice was at that period of the
+invasion, for some unaccountable reason. With the roof blazing
+over her head, she was compelled to arise from her bed and drag
+herself for miles before she found a refuge. I related this to a
+German later and he said: "Oh, well, there are plenty of peasant
+women in the Fatherland who are hard at work in the fields three
+days after the birth of their child."
+
+The Hall filled with women wailing for children, furnished
+heartrending sights, but no victim bore such physical marks as the
+most vivid imagination could construe into an atrocity.
+
+"I can't explain why we don't get a picture," said the free lance.
+"Enough deviltry has been done. I can't see why some of the stuff
+doesn't come through to us."
+
+"Simply because the Germans are not fools," replied the movie-
+man; "when they mutilate a victim, they go through with it to the
+finish. They take care not to let telltales go straggling out to damn
+them."
+
+Some one proposed that the only way to get a first-class atrocity
+picture was to fake it. It was a big temptation, and a fine field for
+the exercise of their inventive genius. But on this issue the chorus
+of dissent was most emphatic.
+
+The nearest that I came to an atrocity was when in a car with Van
+Hee, the American vice-consul at Ghent. Van Hee was a man of
+laconic speech and direct action. I told him what Lethbridge, the
+British consul, had told me; viz., that the citizens of Ghent must
+forthwith erect a statue of Van Hee in gold to commemorate his
+priceless services. "The gold idea appeals to me, all right," said
+Van Hee, "but why put it in a statue!" He routed me out at five one
+morning to tell me that I could go through the German lines with
+Mr. Fletcher into Brussels. We left the Belgian Army cheering the
+Stars and Stripes, and came to the outpost of sharpshooters.
+Crouching behind a barricade, they were looking down the road.
+They didn't know whether the Germans were half a mile, two miles,
+or five miles down that road.
+
+Into that uncertain No-Man's-Land we drove with only our honking
+to disturb the silence, while our minds kept growing specters of
+Uhlans the size of Goliath. Fletcher and I kept up a hectic
+conversation upon the flora and fauna of the country. But Van
+Hee, being of strong nerves, always gleefully brought the talk back
+to Uhlans.
+
+"How can you tell an Uhlan?" I faltered.
+
+"If you see a big gray man on horseback, with a long lance,
+spearing children," said Van Hee, "why, that's an Uhlan."
+
+Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight ahead into a Belgian
+bicycle division--scouting in this uncertain zone. In a flash they
+were off their wheels, rifles at their shoulders and fingers on
+triggers.
+
+Two boys, gasping with fear, thrust their guns up into our very
+faces. In our gray coats we had been taken for a party of German
+officers. They were positive that a peasant was hanging in a barn
+not far away. But we insisted that our nerves had had enough for
+the day. Even Van Hee was willing to let the conversation drift
+back to flowers and birds. We drove along in chastened spirit until
+hailed by the German outpost, about five miles from where we had
+left the Belgians. No-Man's-Land was wide in those days.
+
+But what is it that really constitutes an atrocity? In a refugee shed,
+sleeping on the straw, we found an old woman of 88. All that was
+left to her was her shawl, her dress, and the faint hope of seeing
+two sons for whom she wept. Extreme old age is pitiful in itself.
+With homelessness it is tragic. But such homeless old age as this,
+with scarce one flickering ray of hope, is double-distilled tragedy. If
+some marauder had bayoneted her, and she had died therefrom, it
+would have been a kindly release from all the anguish that the
+future now held in store for her. Of course that merciful act would
+have constituted an atrocity, because it would have been a breach
+in the rules of the war game.
+
+But in focusing our attention upon the violations of the code, we
+are apt to forget the greater atrocity of the violation of Belgium, and
+the whole hideous atrocity of the great war. That is getting things
+out of proportion, for the sufferings entailed by these technical
+atrocities are infinitesimal alongside of those resulting from the war
+itself.
+
+Another point has been quite overlooked. In recounting the
+atrocities wrought by Prussian Imperialism, no mention is made of
+those that it has committed upon its own people. And yet at any
+rate a few Germans suffered in the claws of the German eagle
+quite as cruelly as any Belgians did. One fine morning in
+September three Germans came careening into Ghent in a great
+motor car. They were dazed to find no evidence of their army
+which they supposed was in possession. Before the men became
+aware of their mistake, a Belgian mitrailleuse poured a stream of
+lead into their midst, killing two of them outright. The third German,
+with a ball in his neck, was rescued by Van Hee and placed under
+the protection of the American flag.
+
+Incidentally that summary action, followed by a quick visit to the
+German general in his camp on the outskirts, saved the city. That
+is a long story. It is told in Alexander Powell's "Fighting in
+Flanders," but it suffices here to state that by a pact between the
+Belgian burgomaster of Ghent and the German commandant it
+was understood that the wounded man was not to be considered a
+prisoner, but under the jurisdiction of the American Consulate.
+
+A week after this incident Van Hee paid his first visit to this
+wounded man in the Belgian hospital. He was an honest fellow of
+about forty--the type of working-man who had aspired to nothing
+beyond a chance to toil and raise a family for the Fatherland.
+Weltpolitik, with its vaunting boast of "World-power or Downfall,"
+was meaningless to him and his comrades gathered in the beer-
+gardens on a Sunday.
+
+Suddenly out of this quiet, uneventful life he was called to the
+colors and sent killing and burning through the Belgian villages.
+His officers had told him that it would be a sorry thing for any
+German soldier to be captured, for these Belgians, maddened by
+the pillage of their country, would take a terrible revenge upon any
+luckless wretches that fell into their hands. Now, more suddenly
+than anything else had ever happened in his life, a bullet had
+stabbed him in the throat and he found himself a prisoner at the
+mercy of these dreaded Belgians.
+
+"Why are they tending me so carefully during these last seven
+days?" "Are they getting me ready for the torturing?" "Are they
+making me well in order that I may suffer all the more?" Grim
+speculation of that kind must have been running through his
+simple mind. For when we opened the door of his room, he slunk
+cowering over to his bed, staring at us as if we were inquisitors
+about to lead him away to the torture chamber, there to suffer
+vicariously for all the crimes of the German army.
+
+His body, already shrunken by overwork, visibly quivered before
+us, the perspiration beading on his ashen face.
+
+We had come to apprise him of his present status as a citizen
+under the protectorate of America.
+
+Van Hee approached the subject casually with the remark: "You
+see, you are not a Frenchman!"
+
+"No, I am not a Frenchman," the quailing fellow mechanically
+repeated.
+
+"And you are not a Belgian," resumed Van Hee.
+
+He was not quite sure about disclaiming that, but he saw what was
+expected of him. So he faltered: "No, I am not a Belgian." "And
+you are not an Englishman, eh?" According to formula he
+answered: "No, I am not an Englishman!" but I sensed a bit more
+of emphasis in the disavowal of any English taint to his blood.
+
+Van Hee was taking this process of elimination in order to clear the
+field so that his man could grasp the fact that he was to all intents
+an American, and at last he said:
+
+"No longer are you a German either."
+
+The poor fellow was in deep seas, and breathing hard. Everything
+about him proclaimed the fact that he was a German, even to his
+field-gray uniform, and he knew it. But he did not venture to
+contradict Van Hee, and he whispered hoarsely: "No, I am not a
+German either."
+
+He was completely demoralized, a picture of utter desolation.
+
+"If you are not German, or Belgian, or French, or English, what are
+you then?"
+
+The poor fellow whimpered: "0 Gott! I don't know what I am."
+
+"I'll tell you what you are. You're an American!" exclaimed Van Hee
+with great gusto. "That's what you are--an American! Get that? An
+American!"
+
+"Ja, ja ich bin ein Amerikaner!" he eagerly cried ("Yes, yes, I am an
+American!"), relieved to find himself no longer a man without a
+country. Had he been told that he was a Hindoo, or an Eskimo, he
+would have acquiesced as obediently.
+
+But when he was shown an American flag and it began to dawn on
+him that he had nothing more to fear from his captors, his
+tenseness relaxed. And when Van Hee said: "As the American
+consul I shall do what I can for you. What is it you want the most?"
+a light shone in the German's eyes and he replied:
+
+"I want to go home. I want to see my wife and children."
+
+"I thought you came down here because you wanted to see the
+war," said Van Hee.
+
+"War!" he gasped, and putting hands up to his eyes as if to shut
+out some awful sights, he began muttering incoherently about
+"Louvain," "children screaming," "blood all over his breast,"
+repeating constantly "schrecklich, schrecklich." "I don't want to see
+any more war. I want to see my wife and my three children!"
+
+"The big guns! Do you hear them?" he said.
+
+"I don't want to hear them," he answered, shaking his head.
+
+"They're killing you Germans by the thousands down there,"
+announced Van Hee. "I should think you would want to get out and
+kill the French and the English."
+
+"I don't want to kill anybody," he repeated. "I never did want to kill
+anybody. I only want to go home." As we left him he was repeating
+a refrain: "I want to go home"--"Schrecklich, schrecklich." "I never
+did want to kill anybody."
+
+Every instinct in that man's soul was against the murder he had
+been set to do. His conscience had been crucified. A ruthless
+power had invaded his domain, dragged him from his hearthside,
+placed a gun in his hands and said to him: "Kill!"
+
+Perhaps before the war, as he had drilled along the German
+roads, he had made some feeble protest. But then war seemed so
+unreal and so far away; now the horror of it was in his soul.
+
+A few days later Van Hee was obliged to return him to the German
+lines. Again he was marched out to the shambles to take up the
+killings against which his whole nature was in rebellion. No slave
+ever went whipped to his task with greater loathing.
+
+Once I saw slowly plodding back into Brussels a long gray line of
+soldiers; the sky, too, was gray and a gray weariness had settled
+down upon the spirits of these troops returning from the
+destruction of a village. I was standing by the roadside holding in
+my arms a refugee baby.
+
+Its attention was caught by an officer on horseback and in baby
+fashion it began waving its hand at him. Arrested by this sudden
+gleam of human sunshine the stern features of the officer relaxed
+into a smile. Forgetting for the moment his dignity he waved his
+hand at the baby in a return salute, turning his face away from his
+men that they might not see the tears in his eyes. But we could
+see them.
+
+Perhaps through those tears he saw the mirage of his own
+fireside. Perhaps for the moment his homing spirit rested there,
+and it was only the body from which the soul had fled that was in
+the saddle here before us riding through a hostile land. Perhaps
+more powerfully than the fulminations of any orator had this
+greeting of a little child operated to smite him with the senseless
+folly of this war. Who knows but that right then there came flashing
+into his mind the thought: "Why not be done with this cruel
+orphaning of Belgian babies, this burning down of their homes and
+turning them adrift upon the world?"
+
+Brutalizing as may be the effect of militarism in action, fortified as
+its devotees may be by all the iron ethics of its code, I cannot help
+but believe that here again the ever-recurring miracle of
+repentance and regeneration had been wrought by the grace of a
+baby's smile; that again this stern-visaged officer had become just
+a human being longing for peace and home, revolting against
+laying waste the peace and homes of his fellowmen. But to what
+avail? All things would conspire to make him conform and stifle the
+revolt within. How could he escape from the toils in which he was
+held? Next morrow or next week he would again be in the saddle
+riding out to destruction.
+
+The irony of history again! It was this German folk who said,
+centuries ago: "No religious authority shall invade the sacred
+precincts of the soul and compel men to act counter to their
+deepest convictions." In a costly struggle the fetters of the church
+were broken. But now a new iron despotism is riveted upon them.
+The great state has become the keeper of men's consciences.
+The dragooning of the soul goes on just the same. Only the power
+to do it has been transferred from the priests to the officers of the
+state. To compel men to kill when their whole beings cry out
+against it, is an atrocity upon the souls of men as real as any
+committed upon the bodies of the Belgians.
+
+Amidst the wild exploits and wilder rumors of those crucial days
+when Belgium was the central figure in the world-war, the
+calmness of the natives was a source of constant wonder. In the
+regions where the Germans had not yet come they went on with
+their accustomed round of eating, drinking and trading with a sang
+froid that was distressing to the fevered outsider.
+
+Yet beneath this surface calmness and gayety ran a smoldering
+hate, of whose presence one never dreamed, unless he saw it
+shoot out in an ugly flare.
+
+I saw this at Antwerp when about 300 of us had been herded into
+one of the great halls. As one by one the suspects came up to the
+exit gate to be overhauled by the examiners, I thought that there
+never could be such a complacent, dead-souled crowd as this.
+They had dully waited for two hours with scarce a murmur.
+
+The most pathetic weather-worn old man--a farm drudge, I
+surmise--came up to the exit. All I heard were the words of the
+officer: "You speak German, eh?"
+
+At a flash this dead throng became an infuriated blood-thirsting
+mob. "Allemand! Espion!" it shouted, swinging forward until the
+gates sagged. "Kill him! Kill the damned German!"
+
+The mob would have put its own demand into execution but for the
+soldiers, who flung the poor quivering fellow into one corner and
+pushed back the Belgians, eager to trample him to the station
+floor.
+
+There was the girl Yvonne, who, while the color was mounting to
+her pretty face, informed us that she "wanted the soldiers to keel
+every German in the world. No," she added, her dark eyes
+snapping fire, "I want them to leave just one. The last one I shall
+keel myself!"
+
+Yet, every example of Belgian ferocity towards the spoilers one
+could match with ten of Belgian magnanimity. We obtained a
+picture of Max Crepin, carbinier voluntaire, in which he looks
+seventy years of age--he was really seventeen. At the battle of
+Melle he had fallen into the hands of the Germans after a bullet
+had passed clean through both cheeks. In their retreat the
+Germans had left Max in the bushes, and he was now safe with
+his friends.
+
+He could not speak, but the first thing he wrote in the little book the
+nurse handed him was, "The Germans were very kind to me."
+There was a line about his father and mother; then "We had to lie
+flat in the bushes for two days. One German took off his coat and
+wrapped it around me, though he was cold himself. Another
+German gave me all the water in his canteen." Then came a line
+about a friend, and finally: "The Germans were very kind to me." I
+fear that Max would not rank high among the haters.
+
+Whenever passion swept and tempted to join their ranks, the
+figure of Gremberg comes looming up to rebuke me. He was a
+common soldier whose camaraderie I enjoyed for ten days during
+the skirmishing before Antwerp. In him the whole tragedy of
+Belgium was incarnated. He had lost his two brothers; they had
+gone down before the German bullets. He had lost his home; it
+had gone up in flames from the German torch. He had lost his
+country; it had been submerged beneath the gray horde out of the
+north.
+
+"Why is it, Gremberg," I asked, "you never rage against the
+Boches? I should think you would delight to lay your hands on
+every German and tear him into bits. Yet you don't seem to feel
+that way."
+
+"No, I don't," he answered. "For if I had been born a Boche, I know
+that I would act just like any Boche. I would do just as I was
+ordered to do."
+
+"But the men who do the ordering, the officers and the military
+caste, the whole Prussian outfit?"
+
+"Well, I have it in for that crowd," Gremberg replied, "but, you see,
+I'm a Socialist, and I know they can't help it. They get their orders
+from the capitalists."
+
+The capitalists, he explained, were likewise caught in the vicious
+toils of the system and could act no differently. Bayonet in hand,
+he expounded the whole Marxian philosophy as he had learned it
+at the Voorhuit in Ghent. The capitalists of Germany were racing
+with the capitalists of England for the markets of the world, so they
+couldn't help being pitted against each other. The war was simply
+the transference of the conflict from the industrial to the military
+plane, and Belgium, the ancient cockpit of Europe, was again the
+battlefield.
+
+He emphasized each point by poking me with his bayonet. As an
+instrument of argument it is most persuasive. When I was a bit
+dense, he would press harder until I saw the light. Then he would
+pass on to the next point.
+
+I told him that I had been to Humanite's office in Paris after Jaures
+was shot, and the editors, pointing to a great pile of anti-war
+posters, explained that so quickly had the mobilization been
+accomplished, that there had been no time to affix these to the
+walls.
+
+"The French Socialists had some excuse for their going out to
+murder their fellow workers," I said, "and the Germans had to go or
+get shot, but you are a volunteer. You went to war of your own
+free-will, and you call yourself a Socialist."
+
+"I am, but so am I a Belgian!" he answered hotly. "We talked
+against war, but when war came and my land was trampled,
+something rose up within me and made me fight. That's all. It's all
+right to stand apart, but you don't know."
+
+I did know what it was to be passion swept, but, however, I went
+on baiting him.
+
+"Well, I suppose that you are pretty well cured of your Socialism,
+because it failed, like everything else."
+
+"Yes, it did," he answered regretfully, "but at any rate people are
+surprised at Socialists killing one another--not at the Christians.
+And anyhow if there had been twice as many priests and churches
+and lawyers and high officials, that would not have delayed the
+war. It would have come sooner; but if there had been twice as
+many Socialists there would have been no war."
+
+The free-lance interrupted to call him out for a picture before it was
+too dark. Gremberg took his position on the trench, his hand
+shading his eyes. It is the famous iron trench at Melle from which
+the Germans had withdrawn.
+
+He is not looking for the enemy. If they were near, ten bullets
+would have brought him down in as many seconds. He is looking
+into the West.
+
+And to me he is a symbol of all the soldiers of Europe, and all the
+women of Europe who huddle to their breasts their white-faced,
+sobbing children. They are all looking into the West, for there lies
+Hope. There lies America. And their prayer is that the young
+republic of the West shall not follow the blood-rusted paths of
+militarism, but somehow may blaze the way out of chaos into a
+new world-order.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+Love Among The Ruins
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Beating Op "The General,"
+
+
+
+"The saddest sound in all the world," says A Sardou, "is the beating
+of the General." On that fateful Saturday afternoon in August,
+after nearly fifty years of silence through the length and breadth of
+France, there sounded again the ominous throbbing of the drums
+calling for the general mobilization of the nation. At its sound the
+French industrial army melted into a military one. Ploughshares
+and pruning-hooks were beaten into machine-guns and Lebel
+rifles. The civilian straightway became a soldier.
+
+We were returning from Malmaison, the home where Napoleon
+spent with Josephine the happiest moments of his life. Our
+Parisian guide and chauffeur were in chatting, cheerful mood
+though fully alive to all the rumors of war. They were sons of
+France, from their infancy drilled in the idea that some day with
+their comrades they were to hear this very drum calling them to
+march from their homes; they had even been taught to cherish the
+coming of this day when they should redeem the tarnished glory of
+France by helping to plant the tricolor over the lost provinces of
+Alsace and Lorraine.
+
+But that the dreaded, yet hoped-for day had really arrived, seemed
+preposterous and incredible--incredible until we drove into the
+village of Reuilly where an eager crowd, gathering around a soldier
+with a drum, caused our chauffeur to draw sharply up beside the
+curb and we came to a stop twenty feet from the drummer. He was
+a man gray enough to have been, if not a soldier, at least a
+drummer boy in 1870. The pride that was his now in being the
+official herald of portentous news was overcast by an evident
+sorrow.
+
+As if conscious of the fact that he was to pound not on the dead
+dry skin of his drum, but on living human hearts, he hesitated a
+moment before he let the sticks falls. Then sharp and loud
+throbbed the drum through the still-hushed street. Clear and
+resolute was the voice in which he read the order for mobilization.
+The whole affair took little more than a minute. Those who know
+how heavily the disgrace and disaster of 1870 lie upon the French
+heart will admit that it is fair to say that all their life this crowd had
+lived for this moment. Now that it had come, they took it with tense
+white looks upon their faces. But not a cheer, not a cry, not a
+shaking of the fist.
+
+The only outwardly tragic touch came from our chauffeur. When
+he heard the words "la mobilization" he flung down his cap, threw
+up his hands, bowed his head a second, then gripped his steering
+wheel and, for fifteen miles, drove desperately, accurately, as
+though his car were a winged bullet shooting straight into the face
+of the enemy. That fifteen-mile run from Reuilly to Paris was
+through a long lane of sorrow: for not to one section or class, but
+to all France had come the call to mobilize. Every home had been
+summoned to the sacrifice of its sons.
+
+We witnessed nowhere any wailings or wringing of hands or
+frantic, foolish pleading to stay at home. Long ago the question of
+their dear ones going had been settled. Through the years they
+had made ready their hearts for this offering and now they gave
+with a glad exaltation. How bravely the French woman met the
+demand upon her, only those of us who moved in and out among
+the homes during those days of mobilization can testify. The
+"General" was indeed to these mothers, wives and sweethearts
+left behind the saddest sound in all the world.
+
+But if it were so sad as Sardou said in 1870, when 500,000
+answered to its call, how infinitely sadder was it in 1914 when ten
+times that number responded to its wild alarum, a million never
+returning to the women that had loved them. But such statistics
+are just the unemotional symbols of misery. We can look at this
+colossal sum of human tragedy without being gripped one whit. If
+we look into the soul of one woman these figures become invested
+with a new and terrible meaning.
+
+Such an opportunity was strangely given me as we stood in a long
+queue outside the American embassy waiting for the passports
+that would make our personages sacrosanct when the German
+raiders took the city. A perspiring line, we shuffled slowly forward,
+thanking God that we were not as the Europeans, but had had the
+good sense to be born Americans. While in the next breath we
+tiraded against the self-same Government for not hurrying the
+American fleet to the rescue.
+
+The alien-looking gentleman behind me mopped his brow and
+muttered something about wishing that he had not thirsted for
+other "joys than those of old St. Louis."
+
+"Pennsylvania has her good points, too," I responded.
+
+That random shot opened wide to me the gates of Romance and
+High Adventure. It broke the long silence of the girl just ahead.
+
+"It's comforting just to hear the name of one's own home state,"
+she said. "I lived in a little village in the western part of
+Pennsylvania," and, incidentally, she named the village where my
+father had once been minister of the church. I explained as much
+to her and marveled at the coincidence.
+
+"More marvel still," she said, "for we come not only from the same
+state and the same village, but from the same house. My father
+was minister in that same church."
+
+Nickleville is the prosaic name of that little hamlet in western
+Pennsylvania. Any gentle reader with a cynic strain there may
+verify this chronicle and find fresh confirmation for the ancient
+adage that "Fact is stranger far than Fiction."
+
+That selfsame evening we held reunion in a cafe off the Boulevard
+Clichy. There I first discerned the slightness of her frame and
+marveled at the spirit that filled it. She was exuberant in the joy of
+meeting a countryman and, with the device of laughter, she kept in
+check the sadness which never quite came welling up in tears.
+
+She was typical American but let her bear here the name by which
+her new friends in France called her--Marie. One might linger upon
+her large eyes and golden hair, but this is not the epic of a fair face
+but of a fair soul--vigorous and determined, too. To the power
+therein even the stolid waiter paid his homage.
+
+"Pardon," he interjected once, "we must close now. The orders are
+for all lights out by nine. It is the government. They fear the
+Zeppelins."
+
+"But that's just what I'm afraid of, too," Marie answered. "How can
+you turn us out into that darkness filled with Zeppelins?" He
+succumbed to this radiant banter and, covering every crevice that
+might emit a ray of light, he let us linger on long after closing time.
+
+Marie's was one of those classic souls which by some anomaly,
+passing by the older lineages and cultures of the East, find
+birthplace in a bleak untutored village of the West. To this bareness
+some succumb, and the divine afflatus dies. Still others roam
+restlessly up and down, searching until they find their milieu and
+then for the first time their spirit glows.
+
+Music had breathed upon this girl's spirit, touched with a vagabond
+desire. To satisfy it she must have money. So she gave lessons to
+children. Then a publisher bought some little melodies that she
+had set to words. And lastly, grave and reverend committeemen,
+after hesitating over her youth, made her head of music in a
+university of western Montana.
+
+Early in 1914, with her gold reserves grown large enough for the
+venture, she set sail for the siege of Paris. To her charm and
+sterling worth it had soon capitulated--a quicker victory than she
+had dared to hope for. Around her studio in a street off the
+Champs Elysees she gathered a coterie of kindred souls. She told
+of the idealism and camaraderie of the little circle, while its foibles
+she touched upon with much merriment. Behind this outward
+jesting I gained a glimpse of the fight she had made for her
+advance.
+
+"It's been hard," I said, "but what a lot you have found along the
+way."
+
+"Yes, far more than you can imagine," she replied; "I have found
+Robert le Marchand."
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"Well, he is an artist and an athlete, and he is just back from
+Albania--where he had most wonderful adventures. He has written
+them up for 'Gaulois.' His home is in Normandy. And he is heir to a
+large estate in Italy in the South--in what looks like the heel on the
+map. And he has a degree from the Sorbonne and he is the real
+prince of our little court. And, best of all, he loves me."
+
+Then she told the story of her becoming the princess of the little
+court.
+
+"From his ancestral place in Italy," she said, "Robert sent me
+baskets of fruit gathered in his groves by his own hands. In one he
+placed a sprig of orange-blossoms. We laughed about it when we
+met again and------"
+
+I saw that after this affairs had ripened to a quick conclusion. In
+drives along the boulevards, in walks through the moonlit woods,
+at dinners, concerts, dances--these two mingled their dreams for
+their home in Normandy. The only discord in this summer
+symphony was a frowning father.
+
+Marie was the epitome of all charms and graces. Yes. But she
+came undowered--that was all. And firm he stood against any
+breach in the long established code of his class. But they did not
+suffer this to disturb their plans and reveries, and through those
+soft July days they roamed together in their lotus-land. Then
+suddenly thundered that dream-shattering cannon out of the north.
+
+"I was out of town for the week end," Marie continued; "I heard the
+beating of the 'General' and at call for mobilization I flew back here
+as quickly as I could. It was too late. There was only a note saying
+that he had gone, and how hard it was to go without one farewell."
+
+"Now what are you going to do?"
+
+"What can I do with Robert gone and all his friends in the army
+too?"
+
+"Let me do what I can. Let me play substitute," I volunteered.
+
+"Do you really mean what you just said?" she queried.
+
+"I really do," I answered.
+
+"Well, then, do you paddle a canoe?"
+
+"Yes, but what has that to do with the question?" I replied
+perplexedly.
+
+"Everything," she responded. "Robert is stationed at Corbeille,
+fifteen miles below here on the Seine. I have the canoe and
+tomorrow I want you to go with me down the river to Robert.".
+
+My mind made a swift diagnosis of the situation. All exits from
+Paris carefully watched; suspicion rife everywhere--strangers off in
+a canoe; a sentinel challenge and a shot from the bank.
+
+"Let us first consider------" I began.
+
+"We can do that in the canoe to-morrow," she interrupted.
+
+And I capitulated, quite as Paris had.
+
+We stepped out into the darkness that cloaked the silent city from
+its aerial ravagers. As we walked I mused upon this modern
+maiden's Iliad. While a thousand hug the quiet haven, what was it
+that impelled the one to cut moorings and range the deep? A
+chorus of croaking frogs greeted our turn into a park.
+
+"Funny," said Marie, "but frogs drove me out of Nickleville! There
+was nothing to do at home but to listen to their eternal noise; to
+save my nerves I simply had to break away."
+
+The prospect of that canoe trip was not conducive to easy
+slumber. The frog chorus in that Pennsylvania swamp, why had it
+not been less demonstrative? Still lots could happen before
+morning. One might develop appendicitis or the Germans might
+get the city. With these two comforting hopes I fell asleep. Morning
+realizing neither of them, I walked over to Marie's studio.
+
+"Well, then, all ready for the expedition?" I said, masking my
+pessimism with a smile.
+
+For reply she handed this note which read:
+
+"Dear Marie: I have been transferred from Corbeille to Melun. It
+makes me ill to be getting ever farther and farther away.--Robert."
+
+With the river trip cancelled, life looked more roseate to me. "And
+now we can't go after all," I said, mustering this time the
+appearance of sadness.
+
+"Oh, don't look so relieved," she laughed, "because we're going
+anyhow."
+
+"But what's the use? He has gone."
+
+"Well, we are going where he has gone, that's all," she retorted.
+
+I pointed out the facts that only military trains were running to
+Melun; that we weren't soldiers; that the river was out of the
+question; that we had no aeroplane and that we couldn't go
+overland in a canoe.
+
+"But we can with our wits," Marie added.
+
+I explained how lame my wits were in French, and that two
+consecutive sentences would bring on trial for high treason to the
+language.
+
+"Oh, but you don't furnish the wits," Marie retorted. "You just
+furnish the body."
+
+In her plan of campaign I gathered that I was to act as a kind of
+convoy, from which she was to dart forth, torpedoing all obstacles.
+I was quite confident of her torpedoing ability but not of my fitness
+to play a star part as a dour and fear-inspiring background. She
+packed her bag and presently we were making our way to the
+station through a blighted city.
+
+At the Gare du Nord a cordon of soldiers had been thrown about
+the station; crowds surged up against the gates, a few frantically
+pleading and even crying to get through. The guards, to every plea
+and threat returned a harsh "C'est impossible." Undaunted by the
+despair of others, she looked straight into the eyes of the somber
+gate-keeper and, with every art, told the story of Robert le
+Marchand, brave young officer of France; of his American girl and
+his deep longing for her. When she had stirred this lethargic
+functionary into a show of interest in this girl, with a revealing
+gesture she said: "And here she is; please, Monsieur, let me go."
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, I would like to," he replied, "but are not all the
+soldiers of France longing for wives and sweethearts! Mon Dieu! if
+they all rode there would be no room for the militaire. The Boches
+would take us in the midst of our farewells. There is never any end
+to leave-takings."
+
+"But, Monsieur, I did not have one good-by."
+
+"No, Mademoiselle. C'est impossible."
+
+The guardian of the second gate took her plea in a way that did
+more credit to his heart than to his knowledge of geography. He
+thought (and we made no effort to disillusionize him) that she had
+come all the way from America since the outbreak of war. It nearly
+moved him to tears. Was he surrendering? Almost. But recovering
+his official negative head-shake and trusting not to words, he fell
+back upon the formula: "No, Madame, c'est impossible."
+
+The truth had failed and so had the half-truth. To the next
+forbidding guard Marie came as a Red Cross nurse, hurrying to
+her station.
+
+"Your uniform, Madame," he interposed.
+
+"No time to get a uniform; no time to get a permission," she
+explained.
+
+"Take time, Madame," was his brusque dismissal.
+
+Each time rebuffed, she tried again, but against the full battery of
+her blandishments the line was adamant.
+
+"It's no use," I said. "We may as well go home."
+
+"No retreat until we've tried our last reserves," she responded,
+clinking some coins together in her hand. "We'll try a change of
+tactics."
+
+We reconnoitered and decided that an opening might be made
+through guardian number two. He had almost surrendered in the
+first engagement. This time, along with the smile, she flashed a
+coin. Perchance he had already repented of his first refusal.
+Anyhow, if an officer of France could be made happy with his
+sweetheart and at the same time a brave gendarme could be
+made richer by a five-franc piece, would not La Belle France fight
+so much the better? The logic was incontestable. "This way,
+Mademoiselle, Monsieur, and be quick, please."
+
+We had passed through the lines into a riot of red and blue
+uniforms. Soldiers were everywhere sprawled over the platforms,
+knotted up in sleep, yawning, stretching their limbs, eating,
+smoking and swearing. No one knew anything about tickets, trains
+or aught else.
+
+Swirled about in an eddying tide of entraining troops, we were
+flung up against a stationary being garbed as a railway dispatcher.
+He bluffed and blustered a bit. Our story, however, supplemented
+by some hard cash, procured calm and presently we found
+ourselves in a compartment with two tickets marked Melun, a few
+rations and sundry admonitions not to converse with fellow-
+passengers until the train started.
+
+It is hard to explain why any one should want to communicate in
+German to an American girl in a French railway compartment in
+wartime. But explain why some people want to play with trip-
+hammers and loaded guns. We know they do. And so, though
+aware that there were spy-hunting listeners all around, a mad
+desire to utter the forbidden tongue obsessed me. Wry faces from
+Marie, emphasized by repeated pinches at each threatened
+outbreak, brought me back to my senses and to Anglo-Saxon.
+
+Not only one who spoke, but even one who understood the hated
+tongue was a suspect. For the least knowledge of the enemy's
+language was to some the hall-mark of a spy. The game played
+throughout France and Belgium was to fling a sudden command at
+the suspect, catching the unwary fellow off-guard, and thus trap
+him into self-betrayal.
+
+An official would say sharply: "Nehmen Sie ihre Hutte ab" (Take off
+your hat). Or there would come a sudden challenge on the street,
+"Wohin gehen Sie?" (Where are you going?) If instinctively one
+obeyed or replied in German, he was there caught with the goods.
+
+Our major domo under the influence of the coin, or what he had
+procured at the vintner's in exchange therefor, grew a bit playful.
+He suddenly flung open the door and cried, "Steigen Sie auf." If I
+had comprehended his meaning involuntarily I would have
+obeyed, but luckily my brain has a slow shifting language gear. By
+the time it began dawning upon me that we had been told to
+vacate the car Marie had fixed me with her eyes and gripped me
+like a vise with her hand so that I knew that I was to stay put. One
+man involuntarily started and then checked himself. He was so
+patently a Frenchman though that everybody laughed. The major
+domo chuckled and marched away, much pleased with his playful
+humor.
+
+At last, with much jolting, we started on our crawling journey.
+Sometimes the snail-pace would be accelerated; our hopes would
+then expand, only to collapse again with a bang. Again we would
+be sidetracked to let coal-cars, cattle cars and flat cars with guns
+go by. Civilians were ciphers in the new order, and if it served any
+military purpose to dump us into the river, in we would have gone
+with no questions asked. We sat about, a wilted and dispirited lot.
+Occasionally some one would thrust his head out the window to
+observe progress. He was generally rewarded by a view of the
+Eiffel Tower from a new angle, for it seemed that we were simply
+being shunted in and about and all around the city.
+
+The most icy reserve must find itself cracked and thawing in the
+intimacies which a jerking railway car precipitates. There is no
+dignity which is proof against a sound bump upon the head. Thus
+our irritations and suspicions gave way to laughter, and laughter
+brings all the barriers down. The compartment became a confessional.
+The anxious looking man opposite was hoping to get to his estate
+and to bury a few of his most treasured things before the Germans
+came. The two young fellows with scraggly beards were brothers,
+given five days' leave to see a dying father; three days had been
+spent in a vain effort to get started there. Another man had a half
+telegram which read, "Accident at home you------" Not another word
+had he been able to get through. The silent young man in the corner
+smiled pleasantly when his turn came but volunteered no information.
+I likewise passed.
+
+Marie, wishing to fortify herself with all possible help in her venture,
+told her tale in full. An immediate proffer came from the hitherto
+taciturn young man in the corner. "Why, this is romance in earnest.
+I do wish that I might be of some help," he said with genuine
+interest.
+
+Our new friend we found had for a grandfather no less a dignitary
+than Alexander Dumas. His name he told us was Louis Dumas, an
+artist, not yet called to the colors, and bound now for Villeneuve,
+"and before we can really get acquainted, here we are," he said as
+the train came to a stop.
+
+As he stepped to the door it was flung open by an officer who
+shouted, "Everybody out! This car is for the military." We
+protested. We displayed our tickets. The officer laughed and,
+seizing one reluctant passenger, dragged him out. A quickly
+ejected and much dejected band, we found ourselves upon the
+street of a little outlying village nine miles from Paris. It had taken
+half as many hours to get there.
+
+We fell upon the one village gendarme with a volley of questions.
+By pitching her voice above the hubbub, Marie got in her inquiry
+about the distance to Melun.
+
+"Thirty kilometers by the main road," he answered.
+
+This, then, was the issue of that tense day of strategy and daring:
+to be stranded in this suburb from which it was impossible to go
+forward to Melun and almost as difficult to return to Paris. Marie
+crumpled under the blow and then I realized how much it had cost
+her to maintain that calm outward demeanor.
+
+By sheer will-power she had kept the tears from her eyes and the
+tremor from her limbs. Long held in leash, they now leaped out to
+possess her.
+
+Dumas ran hither and thither, hunting conveyance but in vain.
+Three of his friends had automobiles. He called them by
+telephone. All cars had been commandeered. He stood with head
+drooping in real dejection.
+
+"Ah, I have it!" he exclaimed, "my friend Veilleau, he has an
+aeroplane and he will do it."
+
+This was quite too much even for Marie's soaring spirit; but she
+scarcely had time to picture herself ranging the sky when Dumas
+was back again, sorrowfully confessing failure. Aeroplanes likewise
+had heard the tocsin; they had sterner business than wafting
+lovers through the sky; they were carrying explosives and
+messages in the service of France. Dumas looked almost as
+disappointed as the wilted little figure he was trying to help.
+
+When the villagers understood her plight, they were full of
+sympathy, full of condolences, but also full of tales of arrest for
+those traveling on the main road.
+
+"Where was this road, anyhow?"
+
+"Out there," they replied.
+
+Turning a corner, we looked down the long row of poplars that
+lined the main road to Melun.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+America In The Arms Op France
+
+
+
+Any poplar-fringed road in France holds its strange lure. Dignity
+and grace lie in these tall swaying trees sentinelling the way on
+either side. To the poet, it is at all times the way to Arcady. But at
+eventide when the mystic light comes streaming from the west,
+touching the billowing green into gold, then even to the prosaic
+there is a call from the whispering, wind-stirred leaves to go a-
+grailing and to find at the end the palace or the princess. This time
+it was the prince who was calling. This little sad-featured girl was a-
+tune to hear his call. Perhaps in the purple mist she could even
+see her prince and feel the pleading of those outstretched arms.
+Wistfully she looked down her road to Arcady; but how far away
+the end and so bestrewn with terrors.
+
+Are psychic forces subject to ordinary physical laws, and do they
+act most powerfully along unobstructed ways? At any rate the
+voltage was high in the psychic currents that swept the straight
+road to Melun that afternoon, for when this saddened girl turned
+from her long gaze down the road to Melun it was with a
+transfigured face. Her tear-dimmed eyes shone with a calm
+resolve and the uplifted chin foreboded, I perceived, no good to
+my dreams of rest and resignation.
+
+To know the worst I ventured: "Well, how are we going to get to
+Paris?"
+
+"You mean Melun?" she gently smiled.
+
+"Sheer madness," I replied. "A carriage is out of the question, and
+if we had one there would be a hundred guards to turn us back."
+
+We stepped aside while two military trucks in their gray war-paint
+went lurching by. She followed them with her eyes until they disappeared
+ into the distant haze where poplar and purple sky melted into one.
+
+"Going straight to Robert," she cried, clasping her hands, "and if
+they only knew how much I want to go, I don't believe they would
+refuse me."
+
+Preposterous as it was, if they could indeed have seen the longing
+in her eyes I felt certain they wouldn't either. Discreetly I refrained
+from saying so.
+
+We walked slowly back to the partial barricade which compelled
+the motors to slow down. A siren heralded the approach of a car. I
+drew her aside into the ditch. Wrenching her hand loose she cried:
+
+"I don't care what happens. I'm going to stop this car!" Planting
+herself squarely in the path of the great gray thing, she signaled
+wildly for it to stop. The goggled driver bore straight down upon the
+little figure, then swerving sharply to one side jammed on the
+brakes and came to a sudden halt.
+
+"What's the trouble?" said the other occupant of the car, a thick-
+set swarthy fellow in a captain's uniform. "Washout, bombs or
+Uhlans?"
+
+"No, it's Robert!" Marie exclaimed.
+
+"Robert?" he cried, angered at this delay.
+
+His aroused curiosity took the sting out of his words as he
+exclaimed, "Who the devil is Robert?"
+
+She told him who Robert was, told it with her soul naming in her
+face. Her voice implored. Her eyes entreated. The black cloud that
+had overcast the captain's countenance at the impertinence of her
+action melted slowly away into a genial smile. And yet had fortune
+been unkind she might have brought us some calculating routinist
+with pride in strict obedience to the letter of the military law.
+
+"It's a plain infraction of all the regulations," he said, "but if you can
+risk all this for him, I can risk this much for you. Step up," he
+added, lifting her into a seat, and giving me a place behind with the
+baggage. It had happened all too swiftly for comprehension. We
+were on the road to Arcady again--and this time in high estate.
+With fifty horses racing away under the hood of our royal car, we
+were speeding forward like a bullet.
+
+Adown this road in the days of chivalry traveled oft the noble
+chevaliers and knights. In shining cavalcades they rode forth for
+glory in their lady's name. But never was there truer tribute to the
+spirit of High Romance than when down this same road, athrone
+upon a war-gray car, came this little Pennsylvania music-teacher.
+
+All the way we rode exalted, with hearts too full for speech. And
+our benefactor gave us no occasion for it. His eyes were fixed
+straight ahead upon the speeding road, alert for obstacles or rapt
+in visions of his own dear ones; or, more probable still, deep in
+reconsideration of his rashness in harboring two strangers who
+might turn out to be traitors.
+
+"Ten spies were shot here in the last two days," was his one
+laconic communication. As the Romanesque towers of Melun's
+Notre Dame came into view, he drew up by a post which marked a
+mile from the city, saying,
+
+"The rest of the way I believe you had better go on foot." With a
+polite bow and a smile he bade us adieu and was off, leaving us
+quite non-plussed. But the swift ride had driven refreshment and
+resolution into us. After some spirited passages with a few
+astounded sentries, we found ourselves in the city of our quest.
+
+It was a small garrison center. Into it now from every side had
+poured rivulets of soldiers until the street shimmered with its red
+and blue. Melun had changed roles with Paris. A desert quiet
+brooded over the gay capital, while this drab provincial place was
+now athrum with activity--not the activity of parade but of the
+workshop. The air was vibrant with the clangor of industry.
+Everywhere soldiers were cleaning guns, grooming horses, piling
+sacks. The only touch to lighten this depressing dead-in-
+earnestness came from a group of soldiers engaged in filling a
+huge bolster. They playfully tried to push one of their number in
+with the straw. In one doorway two men were seeking to render
+their uniforms less of a target by inking their brass-buttons black,
+while two rollicking fellows perched high upon a bread-wagon were
+making the welkin ring with vociferous demands for passage way.
+That was what everybody wanted. We, too, pressed forward into
+the throng.
+
+Enough other civilians were scattered amidst the masses of
+soldiery to render us not too conspicuous. And such a weltering
+anarchy it was: men, horses, and guns jammed together in one
+grand promiscuous jumble. Who was to organize discipline and
+victory out of such a turmoil? But that there was a directing mind
+moving through this democratic chaos, the Germans later learned
+to know full well. Likewise, the two strangers congratulating
+themselves on being lost in the vast confusion.
+
+To get our bearings we seated ourselves in a small cafe, and were
+intently poring over a map when a shuffling noise made us look up.
+A detachment of soldiers was entering the cafe. Much to our
+astonishment, they came to attention in front of us. They
+constituted the spy-hunting squad. All day they walked the city on
+the trail of suspects. To trap a prospective victim, and just as they
+were relishing the shooting of him to be compelled to release him,
+and then to drag on to the next prospect, and to repeat the
+process was not inspiriting. Apparently luck had gone against
+them, but at sight of us a new hope lit their eyes.
+
+Two officers, bowing politely, said: "Pardon, Monsieur; pardon,
+Madame! Your papers."
+
+Being held up as a spy, however nerve-racking, contributes
+considerably to one's sense of self-importance. It's a rare thrill for a
+civilian to be waited on by a reception committee in full dress
+uniform.
+
+But this was by all odds the most imposing array of military yet. I
+remember being distinctly impressed by the comic opera setting;
+the gay costumed soldiers in a crowded French cafe, the big
+American and the little heroine. In a moment the soldier chorus
+would go rollicking off singing some ditty like:
+
+"Let high respect come to their station, For they are members of a
+mighty nation."
+
+I deliberated for a few seconds, for presently our papers like
+talismen would exorcise all dangers. With a gesture suitably
+sweeping for the close of this act, I smiled assuringly, reached into
+that inner right-hand pocket, and felt a terrific thump of the heart as
+I clutched an empty void and forthwith drew out an empty hand.
+The smile turned a little sickly. I repeated. Likewise a third time.
+The smile died and a cold sweat gathered on my brow. It was now
+more like a Turkish bath than a comic opera. The rollicking soldier
+chorus began to look curiously like a band of assassins.
+
+I was positive that I had tucked these papers in that pocket. Had
+some evil spirit whisked them away? I conducted a frantic and
+furious search through every pocket. As one after another they
+turned out empty an increasing gloom settled down upon my face,
+and upon the faces of the assassins was registered a corresponding
+increment of joy.
+
+Reader, have you ever been warden of the theater tickets? As
+your party thronged up to the entrance, do you remember the
+stand-still of your heart when you found that the tickets weren't in
+the pocket that you put them, followed by the discovery that they
+weren't in any other pocket? Do you remember spasmodically
+ramming your hands into all your pockets until your arms took on
+the motions of a sailor at the pump, trying to save the old ship at
+sea? Remember the black looks insinuating you were an idiot and
+the growing conviction on your part that they were not far wrong?
+Multiply and intensify all these sensations a thousandfold and you
+will get a faint idea of how one feels when he is trying to locate his
+passports and the officials are hoping that he can't.
+
+Several months elapsed in as many seconds. To break the
+appalling silence, I began gibbering away in a jargon compound of
+gesticulation, English and remnants of High School French. Why,
+oh, why wouldn't somebody say something? At last the commissionaire,
+hitherto impassive, said:
+
+"Vielleicht Sie konnen Deutsch sprechen." ("Perhaps you can
+speak German.") It was so kind of him that I plunged headlong into
+the net. "Ja ich kann Deutsch sprechen," I fairly shouted.
+
+("Yes, I can speak German.") I would have confessed to Chinese
+or Russian, so anxious was I to get on speaking terms with some
+one.
+
+"So you speak German," said the commissionaire significantly; "I
+thought as much." The soldiers looked at their Lebel rifles as
+though the not unpleasant duty of making them speak for France
+would soon be theirs. In their eyes now I was a German spy and
+Marie was my accomplice. I began to be almost convinced of it
+myself.
+
+Now if this were fiction and not just a straight setting down of facts
+the papers might here be produced by a breathless courier or
+dropped from an aeroplane. But they weren't.
+
+At this crisis when all seemed lost, Marie rallied. She said: "Look in
+the lining of your coat."
+
+I was unaware of any hole in the lining but, duly obedient, I
+reached inside and found an opening. Some papers rustled in my
+hand. I clutched them like a madman, violently drew them forth
+and, perceiving that they were the precious documents, waved
+them about like a dancing dervish. The soldiers were distinctly
+disappointed and cast an evil eye on Marie, as though holding her
+personally responsible for cheating them out of a little target-
+practice.
+
+The commissionaires examined the papers, smiled as graciously
+as before they had frowned and, with the crestfallen soldiers
+resuming their old look of boredom, they disappeared as
+mysteriously as they had come.
+
+Out into the gathering gloom we followed too, and trudged to the
+barracks upon the hill.
+
+At the entrance the familiar "Qui va la?" (Who goes there?) rang a
+challenge to our approach. We informed the subaltern that it was
+Sergeant le Marchand that we sought.
+
+A confusion of calls echoed through the court. An orderly then
+announced that Robert le Marchand was sick; this was followed by
+the report that he was out; then some more conflicting reports,
+followed by Robert le Marchand himself. A new-lit lantern in the
+archway diffused a wan light around his pale face while he peered
+forward into the dusk. He could not see at first, but as by a dream-
+voice out of the mist came his name, twice repeated: "Robert,
+Robert."
+
+Was this some torturing hallucination? Before he had time to
+consider that, the reality flung herself into his arms. Again and
+again he clasped the nestling figure, as if to assure himself that it
+was not an apparition that he held but his very own sweetheart.
+
+They stood there in the archway, quite oblivious to the passing
+soldiers. The soldiers seemed to understand and, smiling approval
+of this new entente--America in the arms of France--they silently
+passed along.
+
+The first transports of surprise and joy being over, he begged for
+an explanation of this miracle. Briefly I sketched the doings of the
+day, and as he saw this wisp of a girl braving all dangers for love's
+sake, he was in one moment terror-stricken at the risks she had
+run, and in the next aglow with admiration for her splendid daring.
+Dangers had haloed her and he sat silent like a worshiper.
+
+"Instead of a tragedy," he exclaimed, "it's like a story with a happy
+ending. But let me tell how narrowly we escaped a tragic ending,"
+he added, drawing Marie closer to him.
+
+On the fifth of August it seems that his squad had been stationed
+upon the bridge over the Seine at Corbeille. The orders were to
+prevent any passage over the bridge and under the bridge--
+particularly the latter, as the authorities suspected an attempt upon
+the part of enemy plotters to use the waterways in and out of Paris.
+Traffic had been suspended and orders had been explicit: "Shoot
+any water-craft, without challenge, as it turns the bend at the
+Corbeille bridge."
+
+Corbeille had been the objective of our proposed canoe journey.
+There had been abundant warrant then in the very constitution of
+things for my psychic shivers at the first broaching of that canoe-
+trip.
+
+Our escape had been by a narrow margin. If that telegram, "Left
+Corbeille and gone to Melun," had missed us, Robert le Marchand's
+first shot might have meant death, not to his enemy but to his own
+life and soul. On the eve of the great war he might have embraced
+his dearest one cold and lifeless. But instead of that somber ending,
+here she was, warm, radiant and laughing--doubly precious by the
+trials through which she had passed and the death from which
+she had been delivered.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+No-Man's-Land
+
+
+
+The movements of the 231ier Regiment d'Infanterie were publicly
+announced. It was scheduled to entrain on the morrow for the front
+between Metz and Nancy. Robert le Marchand needed not to go.
+Pronounced unfit by the regimental doctor, his name had been
+placed upon the hospital list. Amidst the bustle of preparation for
+departure he spent the day in quietude, and Marie played nurse to
+the invalid.
+
+Her little tale about being a Red Cross worker told at the Gare du
+Nord turned out to be the truth and not the fable that she had
+fancied. Robert's recovery was so rapid that the doctor was
+astonished. He was understanding, however; also he was a very
+kindly doctor. He came and smiled and nodded his approval.
+
+Then he went away, still leaving Robert on the sick list.
+
+A long season of such delightful convalescence was now his for
+the taking. Golden days they promised to be to him and to Marie,
+but to France those early August days held portents of defeat and
+disaster. So one gathered from the ugly rumors from the frontier.
+The great battle raging in the north had its miniature in their souls.
+Theirs to choose days of ease and dalliance or the call to duty.
+
+When the 231st regiment formed into line the afternoon of August
+7th, the sergeant, radiant and happy, was with them again. But the
+tears in his eyes? That perplexed his comrades. Those who knew
+the secret let the romance lose none of its glamour in the telling
+until Marie became, forsooth, the heroine of the regiment.
+
+At four o'clock the regimental band struck up the Marseillaise and
+the regiment moved down the road. The sergeant's feet kept time
+with his marching men, while his eyes turned to the blue figure on
+a balcony, whose hand was fluttering a limp white handkerchief.
+She was striving her best to wave a cheerful farewell. The
+repeated strains: "Ye sons of France awake to glory," came each
+time more faintly as the regiment moved steadily away. There is
+always pain in such a growing distance. But it was not all pain to
+the tear-stained girl upon the balcony. She had her part in that
+glory. Had she not, too, made her sacrifice.
+
+It was quite as if the regiment had sailed away under sealed
+orders. Metz and Nancy had been broadcasted about as the
+objective of the 231st. But that had been just a blind for German
+informers. For the next communiqué mentioning the regiment
+came from far to the west, where it had been hurried to hold up the
+grave threat upon Paris. At Soissons the gray-green advance
+rolled itself up against the red and blue of the 231st.
+
+Back and forth the battle line surged through the old streets, now
+lurid with the light of blazing houses. A shell falling on the town-hall
+fired this ancient land-mark. A great flame-fountain burst up from
+the heart of the city. "Rescue the archives!" was the cry. For this,
+volunteers were called. The dash of a sergeant and his men into
+the burning hall and back again through the bullet-spattered
+streets is related in the Journal Officiel. It tells of the safe return of
+the archives, but of few survivors. For impetuous valor in this
+exploit, the name of Sergeant le Marchand was changed to
+Lieutenant le Marchand.
+
+That was my last tidings of Marie and Robert, until a year later a
+letter came to me in a shaky but familiar hand. It had the post-
+mark of Hornell Sanitarium, New York. It was from Marie, and one
+glance revealed the tragedy. Briefly it was this:
+
+In the attempted Champagne drive of 1915 the 231st regiment
+was ordered to rush the barbed wire barricade and drive a wedge
+into the enemy's line. At command Lieutenant le Marchand leaped
+from cover to lead the charge of his men. Scarcely had he uttered
+his cry, "En avant!" when he was dropped in his tracks, a bullet
+through his brain. Over his body, with revenge adding to their fury,
+the regiment swept like mad. The trenches, a quarry of prisoners,
+and the thrill of high praise from the general were theirs--a triumph
+with a bitter taste, for some, creeping back, had found their young
+lieutenant crumpled where he fell, the moonlight cold upon his
+blood-stained face. "In order that France might live he was willing
+to close his eyes upon her forever." Curiously his sword was
+sticking upright just as it had dropped from his hand. They buried
+him where he lay upon the edge of No-Man's-Land. Tears were
+showered on his grave, and on that fatal bullet many bitter curses.
+
+But this does not complete the tale of murder wrought by that slug
+of lead. Each plunging bullet blazes its black trail of the spirit-killed.
+
+A month later and three thousand miles away this German missile
+struck the heart of an American girl with a more cruel impact than it
+had struck the brain of this lieutenant of France. She, too,
+crumpled and fell upon the thorns. His had been a speedy,
+painless death; one sharp electric stroke and then the closing
+night. A like oblivion would have been sweet to her. But she had to
+face it out alone. Upon her torn heart were beaten a thousand
+hammer-strokes, and through the endless nights she bore the
+anguish of a thousand deaths.
+
+The death-lists of Europe hold 5,000,000 other names besides
+Lieutenant le Marchand's. Behind each name there marches with
+springless steps one or more figures shrouded in black.
+
+A year later one of these figures arose from her burial alive, a
+whitened shadow of her former self.
+
+"I know that I ought not to have collapsed, just as I know that I
+ought not to hate the Germans," Marie wrote. "I'm pulling myself
+together now, and I am trying to work and to forgive. But my
+thoughts are always wandering out to just one spot--that is where
+Robert lies. When peace comes I'm going straight over there and
+with my own hands I shall dig through every trench until I find him."
+
+Tragic futility indeed! One recompense for the colossal slaughter
+and the long war; few shall ever find their dead.
+
+On a recent Sunday morning I stepped into a church of a Lake
+City of the West. The organ was filling the large structure with its
+sounds; gradually out of the dim light came the face of the player.
+
+A hard road had she traveled since last I saw her, a trim little blue-
+clad figure waving good-by from that balcony in Melun. It was not
+strange that her face was white. There was nothing strange either
+in the passion of that music.
+
+These experiences of Gethsemane and Calvary had been first
+enacted in her own soul. The organ was but giving voice to them.
+There was a plaintive touch in the minor chords, as if pleading for
+days that were gone. It climbed to a closing rapture, as if two who
+had parted here had, for the moment, hailed each other in the
+world of Souls.
+
+
+
+
+Afterword
+
+
+
+It seems sometimes as if the torch of civilization had been almost
+extinguished in this deluge of blood. This darkening of the face of
+the earth has cost more than the blood and treasure of the race--it
+has involved a terrific strain on the mind and soul of man.
+
+The blasting of hundreds of villages, the sinking of thousands of
+ships, and the killing of millions of men is no small monument to
+the power of the human will. Deplore as we may the sanguinary
+ends to which this will has been bent, it has at any rate shown itself
+to be no weakling. We must marvel at the grim tenacity with which
+it has held to its goal through the long red years.
+
+But now it is challenged by an infinitely bigger task.
+
+The great nations sundered apart by this hideous anarchy have
+become hissings and by-words to each other. One group has
+been cast outside the Pale to become the Ishmaels of the
+universe. The purpose is to keep them there.
+
+Yet try as we may we cannot live upon a totally disrupted planet
+without bringing a common disaster upon us all. It may be a matter
+of decades and generations but eventually the reconciliation must
+come.
+
+To start civilization on the upward path again, to make the world
+into a neighborhood anew, to achieve the moral unity of humanity,
+is that infinitely bigger task with which the human will is challenged.
+As in the last years it has relentlessly concentrated its energies
+upon the Great War, now through the next decades and generations
+it must as steadfastly hold them to the Great Reconciliation. The
+tragedy of it all is that humanity must go at this crippled by a hatred
+like acid eating into the soul.
+
+Villages will arise again from their ruins, the plow shall turn anew
+the shell-pitted fields into green meadow-lands, a kindly nature will
+soon obliterate the scars upon the landscape, but not the deep
+searings on the soul. Europe must grapple with this work of
+reconstruction handicapped by this black devil poisoning the mind
+and vitiating every effort. The worst curse bequeathed to the
+coming generations is not the mountain of debt but this heritage of
+hate.
+
+It does not behoove Americans to stand on inviolate shores and
+prate of the wickedness of wrath. Moreover, this evil is not to be
+exorcised by a pious wish for it not to be. It is. And there is every
+excuse under the arch of heaven for its existence.
+
+If we had felt the eagles' claws tearing at our flesh; if, like Europe,
+our soil was crimsoned with the blood of our murdered; if millions
+of our women were breaking their hearts in anguish--we too would
+consider it a gratuitous bit of impertinence to be told not to cherish
+rancor towards those who had unleashed the hellhounds of lust
+and carnage upon us.
+
+As it is, we are not sacrosanct. Three thousand miles have not
+sufficed to keep the deadly virus out of our system. The violation of
+Belgium kindled a fire against the invaders which the successive
+cruelties served to fan into a flaming resentment.
+
+Then came our own losses--a mere grazing of the skin alongside
+of the bleeding white of Europe. But it has touched us deep
+enough to rouse even a sense of vindictiveness. This kept to
+ourselves will do injury to ourselves alone. But when we shout or
+whisper across the seas that we too despise the barbarians we
+help no one. We simply help to render the heartbreaking task of
+reconciliation well-nigh impossible by lashing to a wilder fury the
+people already blinded, embittered and frenzied by their own hate.
+Those who, above the luxury of giving full rein to their own
+passions, put the welfare of the French, English, Belgians and
+other broken peoples of earth, will do everything in their power to
+eradicate this gangrene from their souls.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, In the Claws of the German Eagle, by Albert
+Rhys Williams
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: In the Claws of the German Eagle
+
+Author: Albert Rhys Williams
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2004  [eBook #11414]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by A. Langley
+
+
+
+IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE
+
+ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+My thanks go to the Editors of The Outlook for permission to
+reproduce the articles which first appeared in that magazine.
+
+Also to many friends all the way from Maverick to Pasadena.
+Above all to Frank Purchase, my comrade in the first weeks of the
+war and always.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+Instead of a Preface
+
+Part I
+The Spy-Hunters Of Belgium
+
+Chapter
+     I. A Little German Surprise Party
+    II. Sweating Under The German Third Degree
+   III. A Night On A Prison Floor
+    IV. Roulette And Liberty
+
+Part II
+On Foot With The German Army
+
+     V. The Gray Hordes Out Of The North
+    VI. In The Black Wake Of The War
+   VII. A Duelist From Marburg
+  VIII. Thirty-Seven Miles In A Day
+
+Part III
+With The War Photographers In Belgium
+
+    IX. How I Was Shot As A German Spy
+     X. The Little Belgian Who Said, "You Betcha"
+    XI. Atrocities And The Socialist
+
+Part IV
+Love Among The Ruins
+
+Chapter
+
+   XII. The Beating Of "The General"
+  XIII. America In The Arms Of France
+   XIV. No-Man's-Land
+
+Afterword
+
+
+
+
+
+Instead Of A Preface
+
+The horrible and incomprehensible hates and brutalities of the
+European War! Unspeakable atrocities! Men blood-lusting like a lot
+of tigers!
+
+Horrible they are indeed. But my experiences in the war zone
+render them no longer incomprehensible. For, while over there, in
+my own blood I felt the same raging beasts. Over there, in my own
+soul I knew the shattering of my most cherished principles.
+
+It is not an unique experience. Whoever has been drawn into the
+center of the conflict has found himself swept by passions of
+whose presence and power he had never dreamed.
+
+For example: I was a pacifist bred in the bone. Yet, caught in Paris
+at the outbreak of the war, my convictions underwent a rapid
+crumbling before the rising tide of French national feeling. The
+American Legion exercised a growing fascination over me. A little
+longer, and I might have been marching out to the music of the
+Marseillaise, dedicated to the killing of the Germans. Two weeks
+later I fell under the spell of the self-same Germans. That long gray
+column swinging on through Liege so mesmerized me that my
+natural revulsion against slaughter was changed to actual
+admiration.
+
+Had an officer right then thrust a musket into my hand, I could
+have mechanically fallen into step and fared forth to the killing of
+the French. Such an experience makes one chary about dispensing
+counsels of perfection to those fighting in the vortex of the world-storm.
+Whenever I begin to get shocked at the black crimes of the belligerents,
+my own collapse lies there to accuse me.
+
+It is in the spirit of a non-partisan, then, that this chronicle of
+adventure in those crucial days of the early war is written. It is a
+welter of experiences and reactions which the future may use as
+another first-hand document in casting up its own conclusions.
+There is no careful culling out of just those episodes which support
+a particular theory, such as the total and complete depravity of the
+German race.
+
+Despite my British ancestry, the record tries to be impartial--
+without pro- or anti-German squint. If the reader had been in my
+skin, zigzagging his way through five different armies, the things
+which I saw are precisely the ones which he would have seen. So I
+am not to blame whether these episodes damn the Germans or
+bless them. Some do, and some don't. What one ran into was
+largely a matter of luck.
+
+For example: In Brussels on September 27, 1914, I fell in with a
+lieutenant of the British army. With an American passport he had
+made his way into the city through the German lines. We both
+desired to see Louvain, but all passage thereto was for the
+moment forbidden. Starting out on the main road, however, sentry
+after sentry passed us along until we were halted near staff
+headquarters, a few miles out of the city, and taken before the
+commandant. We informed him of our overweening desire to view
+the ruins of Louvain. He explained, as sarcastically as he could,
+that war was not a social diversion, and bade us make a quick
+return to Brussels, swerving neither to the right nor left as we went.
+
+As we were plodding wearily back, temptation suddenly loomed up
+on our right in the shape of a great gas-bag which we at first took
+to be a Zeppelin. It proved to be a stationary balloon which was
+acting as the eye of the artillery. It was signaling the range to the
+German gunners beneath, who were pounding away at the Belgians.
+In our excitement over the spectacle, we went plunging across fields
+until we gained a good view of the great swaying thing, tugging away
+at the slender filament of rope which bound it to the earth.
+
+Sinking down into the grass, we were so intent upon the sharp
+electric signaling as to be oblivious to aught else, until a voice rang
+a harsh challenge from behind. Jumping to our feet, we faced a
+squad of German soldiers and an officer who said:
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Came out to see the big balloon," we somewhat naively informed
+him.
+
+"Very good!" he said. And then, quite as if he were rewarding our
+manifest zeal for exploration, he added, "Come along with me and
+you can see the big commandant, too."
+
+Three soldiers ahead and three behind, we were escorted down
+the railroad track in silence until we began to pass some cars filled
+with the recently wounded in a fearfully shot-to-pieces state. Some
+one mumbled "Englishmen!" and the whole crowd, bandaged and
+bleeding as they were, rose to the occasion and greeted us with
+derisive shouts.
+
+"Put the blackguards to work," growled one.
+
+"No! Kill the damn spies!" shouted another, as he pulled himself
+out of the straw, "kill them!"
+
+A huge fellow almost wild from his wounds bellowed out: "Why
+don't you stick your bayonet into the cursed Englishmen?" No
+doubt it would have eased his pain a bit to see us getting a taste of
+the same thing he was suffering.
+
+Our officer, as if to make concessions to this hue and cry, growled
+harshly: "Don't look around! Damn you! and take your hands out of
+your pockets!"
+
+We heaved sighs of relief as we left this place of pain and hate
+behind. But a new terror took hold of us as a turn in the track
+brought our destination into view. It was the staff headquarters in
+which, two hours before, the commandant had ordered us to make
+direct return to Brussels.
+
+"Wait here," said the officer as he walked inside.
+
+We stood there trying to appear unconcerned while we cursed the
+exploring bent in our constitutions, and mentally composed
+farewell letters to the folks at home.
+
+But luck does sometimes light upon the banners of the daring. It
+seems that in the two hours since we had left headquarters a
+complete change had been made in the staff. At any rate, an
+officer whom we had not seen before came out and addressed us
+in English. We told him that we were Americans.
+
+"Well, let's see what you know about New York," he said.
+
+We displayed an intensive knowledge of Coney Island and the
+Great White Way, which he deemed satisfactory.
+
+"Nothing like them in Europe!" he assured us. "I did enjoy those
+ten years in America. I would do anything I could for one of you
+fellows."
+
+He backed this up by straightway ordering our release, and
+authenticated his claim to American residence by his last shot:
+
+"Now boys, beat it back to Brussels."
+
+We stood not on the order of our beating, but beat at once.
+
+One may pick out of such an experience precisely what one
+wishes to pick out: the imbecile hatred in the Teuton--the perfidy of
+the British--the efficiency or the blundering of the German--or
+perchance the foolhardiness of the American, just as his
+nationalistic bias leads him.
+
+So, from the narratives in this book, one may select just the
+material which supports his theory as to the merits or demerits of
+any nation. To myself, out of these insights into the Great
+Calamity, there has come re-enforcement to my belief in the
+essential greatness of the human stuff in all nations. Along with
+this goes a faith that in the New Internationalism mankind will lay
+low the military Frankenstein that he has created, and realize the
+triumphant brotherhood of all human souls.
+
+
+
+
+
+Part I
+The Spy-Hunters Of Belgium
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+A Little German Surprise Party
+
+
+
+"Two days and the French will be here! Three days at the outside,
+and not an ugly Boche left. Just mark my word!"
+
+This the patriarchal gentleman in the Hotel Metropole whispered to
+me about a month after the Germans had captured Brussels. They
+had taken away his responsibilities as President of the Belgian
+Red Cross, so that now he had naught to do but to sit upon the
+lobby divan, of which he covered much, being of extensive girth.
+But no more extensive than his heart, from which radiated a genial
+glow of benevolence to all--all except the invaders, the sight or
+mention of whom put harshness in his face and anger in his voice.
+
+"Scabbard-rattler!" he mumbled derisively, as an officer
+approached. "Clicks his spurs to get attention! Wants you to look
+at him. Don't you do it. I never do." He closed his eyes tightly, as if
+in sleep.
+
+Oftentimes he did not need to feign his slumber. But sinking slowly
+down into unconsciousness his native gentleness would return
+and a smile would rest upon his lips; I doubt not that in his dreams
+the Green-Gray troops of Despotism were ridden down by the Blue
+and Red Republicans of France.
+
+Once even he hummed a snatch of the Marseillaise. An extra loud
+blast from the distant cannonading stirred him from his reverie. "Ah
+ha!" he exclaimed, clasping my arm, the artillery--"it's getting nearer
+all the time. They are driving back the Boches, eh? We'll be free
+to-morrow, certain. Then we'll celebrate together in my country-
+home."
+
+Walking over to the door, he peered down the street as if he
+already expected to catch a glint of the vanguard of the Blue and
+Red. Twice he did this and returned with confidence unshaken.
+"Mark my word," he reiterated; "three days at the outside and we
+shall see the French!"
+
+That was in September, 1914. Those three days passed away into
+as many weeks, into as many months, and into almost as many
+years. I cannot help wondering whether the same hopes stirred
+within him at each fresh outburst of cannonading on the Somme.
+And whether through those soul-sickening months that white-
+haired man peered daily down those Brussels streets, yearning for
+the advent of the Red and Blue Army of Deliverance. Red and
+Blue it was ever in his mind. If once it had come in its new uniform
+of somber hue, it would have been a disappointing shock I fear.
+He was an old man then; he is now perhaps beyond all such
+human hurts. His pain was as real as anything I saw in all the war.
+I had little time to dwell upon it, however, for presently I was put
+into a situation that called for all my wits. I was introduced to it by
+the announcement of the porter:
+
+"An American gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+That was joyful news to one held within the confines of a captive
+city, from which all exit was, for the time being, closely barred.
+
+It was September 28th, my birthday, too. The necessity of
+celebrating this in utter boredom was a dismal prospect. Now this
+came upon me like a little surprise-party.
+
+Picking up a bit of paper on which I had been scribbling down a
+few memoranda that I feared might escape my mind, I hastened
+into the hallway to meet a somewhat spare, tall, and extremely
+erect-appearing man. He greeted me with a smile and a bow--a
+rather dry smile and a rather stiff bow for an American.
+
+So I queried, "You're an American, are you?"
+
+"Not exactly," he responded; "but I would like to talk with you."
+
+Without the shadow of a suspicion, I told him it would be a great
+relief from the tedium of the day to talk to any one.
+
+"But I would prefer to talk to you in your room," he added.
+
+"Certainly," I responded, stepping toward the elevator.
+
+The hotel was practically deserted, so I was somewhat surprised
+when two men, one a huge fellow built on a superdreadnaught
+plan, followed us in and got out with us on the fifth floor. The
+superdreadnaught sailed on into my room, which seemed a
+breach of propriety for an un-introduced stranger. He closed the
+door rudely behind him. I was prepared to resent this altogether
+high-handed intrusion, when my tall guest said, very simply, "I am
+representing the Imperial German Government."
+
+I rallied under the shock sufficiently to say, "Will you take a chair?"
+
+"No," came the laconic reply, "I will take you--and this," he said,
+reaching for the piece of scribble-paper I had in my hands, "and
+any baggage you have in your room."
+
+I assured him that I had none, as I really expected to stay in
+Brussels but a day. He pretended not to hear my reply, and said,
+
+"We better take it with us, for we will probably need it."
+
+He looked under the bed and unlocked the closet door. Finding
+nothing, he asked for the key to my room. I handed it over, Room
+Number 502.
+
+"You will be so good as to follow me now."
+
+Now every one knows that the Spy-Season in Europe opened with
+the beginning of the war. Spy hunting became at once a veritable
+mania.
+
+Consequently no self-respecting person returns from the war-zone
+without at least one hair-raising story of being taken as a spy.
+Being just an average species of American, I exhale no particular
+air of mystery or villainy; yet I suffered a score of times the laying
+on of hands by German, French, Belgian, and even Dutch authorities.
+
+But this experience is marked off from all my other ordeals in four
+ways. In the first place, instead of casually falling into the hands of
+my captors, they came after me in full force. In the second place, a
+specific charge of using money for bribing information was laid
+against me, and witnesses were at hand. In the third place, the
+leader of the party arrested me in civilian dress, but before
+examination and trial he changed to military uniform. In the fourth
+place, the officials were in such a surly mood that my message to
+the American Ambassador was undelivered, and at the last trial
+before the American representatives there was no apology, but
+rather the sullen attitude of those who had been balked in bagging
+their game.
+
+When my captor bade me follow him I asked:
+
+"Can I leave word with my friends?" For an answer he smiled
+satirically. By accident or design, the time chosen for my taking off
+was one when both of my two casual acquaintances were out of
+the hotel.
+
+"Not now, but a little later perhaps, when this is fixed up," my
+captor answered me.
+
+We stepped into a carriage. The two assistants at the little surprise
+party walked away, and my rising sense of fear was allayed by the
+friendly offer of a cigarette. It was a brand-new experience to ride
+away to prison in royal state like this. The almost pleasant attitude
+of my companion reassured me. "After all," I mused, "this is a
+lucky stroke; a little uncertain perhaps, but on the whole an
+interesting way to while away the tedium of an otherwise eventless
+birthday."
+
+We stopped before the Belgian Government building, on the Rue
+de la Loi, the headquarters of the German staff. At a word the
+sentries dropped back and my companion bade me walk down a
+long, dark corridor. I opened a door at the end, and found myself in
+a room with a few officers in chairs, and a large array of
+documents upon a table.
+
+The moment I came within the safe confines of that room the
+whole attitude of my captor changed. His mask of friendliness
+dropped away. Perhaps his spirit responded and adapted itself to
+the official atmosphere of the headquarters. Anyhow, at once he
+froze up into the most rigid formality. Sitting down, he wrote out
+what I deemed was the report of the morning's proceedings. I
+watched him writing with all the semblance and precision of a
+machine, except for a half-smile that sometimes flickered upon his
+close-pressed lips.
+
+He was a machine, or, more precisely, a cog in the great fighting
+machine that was producing death and destruction to Belgium.
+Just as the Germans have put men through a certain mold and
+turned out the typical German soldier, in like manner through other
+molds they have turned out according to pattern the German
+secret service man. He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his
+sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in
+its domain. This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the
+police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean
+Valjean. In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to "get"
+me, and in that flickering smile I saw an inhuman delight in putting
+the worst construction upon my case as he wrote it down.
+Hereafter he shall be known as Javert.
+
+Towards Javert I sustain a very distinct aversion. This is not the
+result of any evil twist put into my constitution by original sin. Quite
+the contrary. Hitherto I have always felt that I, like the man in
+Oscar Wilde's play, could forgive anybody anything, any time,
+anywhere. One can forgive even a hangman for doing his duty,
+however it may thwart one's plans. Some men must play the part
+of prosecutor and devil's advocate.
+
+But such was the cold, cynical delight in this fellow's doing his duty,
+such was his arrogant, overbearing attitude toward the helpless
+peasant prisoners, that I know my prayers for the end of the war
+were not motivated entirely by selfless considerations. I am
+hankering to get into the neighborhood of this fellow when he
+doesn't hold all the trump cards. In justice to Javert, I must say that
+he reciprocated my feeling magnificently, and, inasmuch as he
+was the cat and I the mouse, and a very small one at that, he
+probably found much more spiritual satisfaction in the exercise of
+his feelings than I did in mine. That is why I was anxious to have
+the war end and embrace the first opportunity to change our roles.
+I yearned to give him his proper place in the sun.
+
+Having completed my case, he demanded my papers, and then
+bade me open the door. There was a soldier waiting, and with him
+ahead and Javert behind, I was escorted into the courtyard. Here
+a double-door was opened, and I was thrust into a room filled with
+a motley collection of persons guarded by a dozen soldiers with
+rifles ready.
+
+The sight was anything but reassuring. I turned toward Javert and
+asked, somewhat frantically, I fear: "What is all this for? Aren't you
+going to do anything about my case?"
+
+My hitherto cool, smiling manner must have been an irritation to
+him. A German official, especially a petty one, takes everything
+with such deadly seriousness that he can't understand us taking
+things so debonairly, especially when it is his own magisterial self.
+
+So I think he thoroughly enjoyed my first signs of perturbation, and
+said: "Your case will be settled in a little while--perhaps directly."
+He turned to a soldier, bade him watch me, and disappeared.
+
+About five minutes later I heard outside the command "Halt!" to a
+squad of soldiers. The doors opened and Javert reappeared, this
+time in the full uniform of an officer. For the moment I thought he
+had come with a firing squad and they were going to make short
+shrift of me. The grim humor of disposing of my case thus
+"directly" came home to me. But merely flicking the ashes from his
+cigarette, he glanced round the room without offering the slightest
+recognition, and then disappeared. How he made his change from
+civilian clothes so quickly I can't understand. It seemed like a
+vainglorious display of his uniform in order to let us take full
+cognizance of his eminence.
+
+I began now a survey of my surroundings. Our room was in fact a
+hallway crammed with soldiers and prisoners. The soldiers, with
+fixed bayonets in their rifles, stood guard at the door. The
+prisoners, some thirty-five in number, were ranged on benches,
+overturned boxes, and on the floor. We were of every description,
+from well-groomed men of the city to artisans and peasants from
+the fields. The most interesting of the peasants was a young fellow
+charged with carrying dispatches through the lines to Antwerp. The
+most interesting of the well-dressed urban group was a theater
+manager charged with making his playhouse the center of
+distribution for the forbidden newspapers smuggled into Brussels.
+There was a Belgian soldier in uniform, woefully battered and
+beaten; and for the first time I saw a German soldier without his
+rifle. He, too, was a prisoner waiting trial, having been sent up to
+the headquarters accused of muttering against an under officer.
+
+All these facts I learned later. Then I sat paralyzed in an
+atmosphere charged with smoke and silence. The smoke came
+not from the prisoners, for to them it was forbidden, but from the
+soldiers, who rolled it up in great clouds. The silence came from
+the suspicion that one's next neighbor might be a spy planted
+there to catch him in some unwary statement. Each man would
+have sought relief from the strain by unbosoming his hopes and
+fears to his neighbor, but he dared not. That is one fearful curse of
+any cause that is buttressed by a system of espionage. It scatters
+everywhere the seeds of suspicion. All society is shot through with
+cynical distrust. It poisons the springs at the very source--one's
+faith in his fellows. Ordinarily one regards the next man as a
+neighbor until he proves himself a spy. In Europe he is a scoundrel
+and a spy until he proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is
+a neighbor.
+
+And then one is never certain. People were everywhere aghast to
+find even their life-long friends in the pay of the enemy. A large
+military establishment draws spies as certainly as a carcass draws
+vermin; the one is the inevitable concomitant of the other. It is the
+Nemesis of all human brotherhood.
+
+Now to be taken as a prisoner of war was to most men more of a
+Godsend than a tragedy. The prisoner knew that he was to be
+corralled in a camp. But he was alive at any rate and he had but to
+await the end of the war--then it was home again. The pictures
+show phalanxes of these men smiling as if they were glad to be
+captives. On the other hand there are no smiles in the pictures of
+the spies and francs-tireurs. They know that they are fated for a
+hasty trial, a drumhead decision, and to be shot at dawn. The
+prospect of that walk through the early morning dews to the
+execution-ground made their shoulders droop along with their
+spirits.
+
+With these thoughts on our mind we held our tongues and kept
+our eyes on the door, wondering who would be the next guest to
+arrive, and mentally conjecturing what might be the cause of his
+incarceration.
+
+The last arrival wore a small American flag wound round his arm,
+and around his waist he wore a belt which contained 100 pounds
+in gold. He spotted me, and, coming over to my corner, opened up
+a conversation in English. I thought at first that this was merely a
+clumsy German ruse to trap me into some indiscreet talking. To
+his kindly advances I curtly returned "Yeses" and "Noes."
+
+His name was Obels, a Belgian by birth but speaking English as
+well as German, French, and Flemish. He was an invaluable
+reporter for a great Chicago paper, and in his zeal for news had
+run smack into the Germans at Malines, and had been at once
+whisked off by automobile to Brussels for trial as a spy. He had a
+passionate devotion to his calling. No mystic could have been
+more consecrated to his Holy Church. I fully believe that he would
+have consented to be shot as a spy with a smile on his face if he
+could have got the story of the shooting to his paper. He was one
+of the most straightforth fellows I have ever met, and yet I
+regarded him there as I would a low-browed scoundrel. For a long
+time I would not speak to him. I dared not. He might have been a
+spy set to worm out any confidences, and then carry them to
+Javert.
+
+Left to himself, each man let his most pessimistic thoughts drag
+his spirits down. Gloom is contagious, and it soon became as
+heavy in the room as the gray clouds of smoke. The one bright,
+hopeful spot was the lone woman prisoner. She alone refused to
+succumb to the depressing atmosphere, and sought to play
+woman's ancient role of comforter. She tried to smile, and
+succeeded admirably, for she was very pretty. A wretched-looking
+lad huddled up on a bag in the corner tried to reciprocate, but with
+the tears glistening in his eyes he made a sorry failure of it. We
+were a hard crowd to smile to, and growing tired of her attempts to
+appear light-hearted, she at last gave herself up to her own
+grievances, and soon was looking quite as doleful as the rest of
+us. Our gloom was thrown into sharp relief by a number of soldiers
+grouped around a table in the corner laughing and shouting over a
+game of cards which they were playing for small stakes. We
+dragged out the long afternoon staring doggedly at the bayonets of
+our guards.
+
+Only once did the guards show any awareness of our existence.
+That was when suddenly the arrival of "Herr Major" was announced.
+As the door was opened to let him pass through our hall to the stairway,
+with a hoarse shout we were ordered to our feet. As his exalted
+personage paraded by we stood, hats in hand, with bared heads,
+with such humble and respectful expression as may be outwardly
+assumed towards a fellow-being whom all secretly despised or
+desired to kill. Was there really a murderous gleam in the averted
+eyes of those Belgians arrayed in salute before the Herr Major, or
+was it my imagination that put it there? Perhaps you can tell.
+
+Picture your country devastated, your towns burned, your flag
+prohibited, your farmers shot, your women and children terrified,
+your papers and public meetings suppressed, your streets
+patrolled by aliens with drawn swords as your enemies' bands
+triumphantly play their national airs. Picture, then, yourself lied
+about by hireling spies, thrown into prison, compelled to breathe
+foul air and sleep upon a floor, fed on black bread, and held day
+after day for sentence in nerve-racking suspense. Picture to
+yourself now the abject humiliation of being compelled to stand
+bare-headed in salute before these wreckers and spoilers of your
+land. Do you think you might keep back from your eyes sparks
+from that blazing rebellion in your soul? Then it was not
+imagination that made me see the murderous gleam in the eyes of
+those high-spirited Belgians. "Salute the Major!" the Germans
+shouted. What seeds of hate those words planted in those Belgian
+souls the future will show, when they who sow the wind shall reap
+the whirlwind.
+
+That is the unseen horror of war; pictures can reveal the damage
+wrought by shot and shell, fire and flood in the blasted cities and in
+the fields of the dead. But nothing can ever show the irreparable
+spiritual damage wrought to the human soul by hates, humiliations,
+fears and undying animosities.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+Sweating Under The German Third Degree
+
+
+
+By this time my lark-like spirit of the morning had folded its wings.
+My musings took on a decidedly somber tinge. "Were the Germans
+going to make a summary example of me to warn outsiders to cease
+prowling around the war zone?" "Was I going to be railroaded off
+to jail, or even worse?" It was no time to be wool gathering! It was
+high time for doing. "But what pretexts could they find for such action?"
+At any rate I resolved to furnish as few pretexts as possible.
+
+I set to work hunting carefully through my pockets for everything
+that might furnish the slightest basis for any charge against me.
+Before coming to Brussels I had been warned not to carry
+anything that might be the least incriminating, and there was not
+much on me; but I did have a pass from the Belgian commander
+giving me access to the Antwerp fortifications. I had figured on
+framing it as a souvenir of my adventures, but my molars now
+reduced it to an unrecognizable pulp. Cards of introduction from
+French and English friends fared a similar fate. Their remains were
+disposed of in the shuffling that accompanied the arrival of new
+prisoners. This had to be done most craftily, for we never knew
+where were the spying eyes.
+
+About six o'clock I was resting from my masticatory labors when
+Javert presented himself, accompanied by two soldiers. I was led
+away into the council room where first I had been taken in the
+morning. It was now turned into a trial chamber. Javert, as
+prosecutor, was seated on one side of the table, while around the
+farther end were ranged some officers and a few men in civilian
+clothes who proved to be secret service agents. I stood until the
+judge bade me take my seat at the vacant end of the table.
+
+One by one my documents were disposed of--an American
+passport issued in London; a permit from the German Consul at
+Maastricht, Holland, to enter "the territory of Belgium-Germany,"
+finally, this letter of introduction from the American Consulate at
+Ghent:
+
+Consulat Americain.
+
+Gand le 22 Septembre, 1914.
+Le Consul des Etats Unis d'Amerique a Gand, prie Messieurs les
+autorites de bien vouloir laisser passer le porteur de la presente
+Monsieur Albert Williams, citoyen Americain.
+
+JULIUS VAN HEE,
+Consul Americain.
+
+I pointed to the recent date on it, the 22nd of September, and to
+the signer of it, Julius van Hee.
+
+Van Hee was a man who met the Germans on their own ground.
+He informed the German officer at his hotel: "If you send any spy
+prowling into my room, I'll take off my coat and proceed to throw
+him out of the window." Shirt-sleeves diplomat indeed! Another
+time he requested permission to take three Belgian women
+through the lines to their family in Bruges. The German
+commandant said "No." "All right," said Van Hee, taking out a
+package of letters from captured German officers who were now in
+the hands of the Belgians, and dangling the packet before the
+commandant, "If I don't get that permit, you don't get these letters."
+He got the permit.
+
+After a few such clashes the invaders learned that when it came to
+this Schrecklichkeit business they had no monopoly on the article.
+Van Hee's name was not to be trifled with. But on the other hand
+there must necessarily have existed a certain resentment against
+him for his ruthless and effective diplomacy. It would no doubt
+afford Javert a pleasant sensation to take it out on any one
+appearing in any way as a protege of Van Hee.
+
+"Yes, it's Van Hee's signature all right," muttered Javert with a
+shrug of his shoulders, "only he is not the consul, but the vice-
+consul at Ghent and let us remember that he is of Belgian
+ancestry--that wouldn't incline him to deep friendship with us."
+
+On a card of introduction from Ambassador Van Dyke there were
+the words "Writer for The Outlook." It's hard to understand how
+that escaped my very scrutinous search, but there it was.
+
+"Another anti-German magazine," commented, sardonically. I was
+marveling at the uncanny display of knowledge of this man at the
+center of the European maelstrom, aware of the editorial policy of
+an American magazine.
+
+"But that doesn't mean that I am anti-German," I protested; "we
+can retain our own private opinions."
+
+"Tommyrot," exclaimed Javert, "tommy-rot!" Strange language in a
+military court! Where had he laid hold of that choice bit of our
+vernacular?
+
+"You know perchance," he continued, "what the penalty is for
+newspaper men caught on the German side." I thought that surely
+I was going to reap the result of the adverse reports that the
+American correspondents had made already about the Germans,
+when he added, "But you are here on a different charge."
+
+The judge started to cross-examine me as to all my antecedents.
+My replies were in German--or purported to be--but in my
+eagerness to clear myself I must have wrought awful havoc with
+that classic language. I was forthwith ordered to talk English and
+direct my remarks to Javert, acting now as interpreter. In the midst
+of this procedure Javert, with a quick sudden stroke, produced the
+scribble-paper which he had seized in the morning, held it fairly in
+my face, and cried, "Whose writing is that?" The others all riveted
+their gaze upon me.
+
+I replied calmly, "It is mine."
+
+"I want you to put it into full, complete writing," cried Javert. "As it
+now stands it is a telegraphic code."
+
+That is the most complimentary remark that has ever been made
+upon my hieroglyphics. However, I shall be eternally grateful to
+Providence for my Horace Greeley style. For, while that document
+contained by no means any military secrets, there were, on the
+other hand, uncomplimentary observations about the Germans. It
+would not be good strategy to let these fall into their hands in their
+present mood. At Javert's behest, I set to work on my paper, and
+delivered to him in ten minutes a free, full, rapid translation of the
+abbreviated contents. On inspecting it Javert said, irritably, "I want
+an exact, precise transcript of everything here."
+
+"I thought you wanted it in a hurry," I rejoined.
+
+"No hurry at all. We have ample time to fix your case."
+
+These words do not sound a bit threatening, but it was the general
+setting in which they were said that made them so ominous, and
+which set the cold waves rippling up and down my spinal column.
+
+I set to work again, numbering every phrase in my scribble-paper,
+and then in the same number on the other paper giving a full,
+readable translation of it. I wrote out the things complimentary to
+the Germans in the fullest manner. But how was I going to take the
+sting out of the adverse comments?
+
+Phrase No. 1 meant "Musical nature of the German automobile
+horns." Their silver and flute-like notes had been a pleasing sound,
+rolling along the roads. That was good.
+
+Phrase No. 2 meant "The moderation of the Germans in not
+billeting more troops upon the hotels." I wondered why they had
+not commandeered quarters in more of the big empty hotels
+instead of compelling men to sleep in railway stations and in the
+open air. That was good.
+
+Phrase No. 3 meant "German officers never refused to contribute
+to the Belgian Relief Funds." These boxes were constantly shaken
+before them in every cafe, and not once was a box passed to an
+officer in vain. For all this I was very grateful and everything went
+on very merrily until I came to phrase Number 4.
+
+"If Bel I wld join posse Ger myself"; which, being interpreted,
+reads, "If I were a Belgian, I would join a posse against the
+Germans myself." That looked ugly, but I wanted to record for
+myself the ugly mood of resentment I had felt when I saw Belgians
+compelled to submit to certain humiliations and indignities from
+their invading conquerors.
+
+German or non-German--it makes no difference; any one who had
+seen those swaggering officers riding it rough-shod over those
+poor peasants would have felt the same tide of indignation
+mounting up in him. In that mood it would have given me genuine
+pleasure to have joined a little killing-party and wiped out those
+officers. Now these self-same officers were gathered round me
+trying to decide whether they were to have a little killing-party on
+their own account.
+
+There was sufficient justification for inciting their wrath in that one
+sentence as it stood, and they were all combining to entrap me by
+every possible means. Furthermore, they were hankering for a
+victim. I had only my wits to match against their desires. I cudgeled
+my brains as I never did before, but to no avail. Almost panic-
+stricken I was ready to give up in despair and throw myself upon
+the mercy of the court when, like a flash of inspiration, the right
+reading came. I transcribed that ugly phrase now to read: "If I were
+among the Belgians, I would join possibly the Germans myself."
+What more could the most ardent German patriot ask for? That
+met every abbreviation and made a beautifully exact reversal of
+the intended meaning. Not as an example in ethics, but as a
+"safety first" exhibit I must confess to a real pride in that piece of
+work. I handed it over with the cherubic expression of the prize-
+scholar in the Sunday School.
+
+Javert had figured on finding incriminating data in it. It was to be
+his chief evidence. He read it over with increasing disappointment
+and gave it the minutest analysis, comparing it closely with the
+original scribble-paper. For example, he called the attention of the
+judge to the fact that "guarded" in one paper was spelled
+"gaurded" in the other--some slip I had inadvertently made. He
+thought it might now be made a clew to some secret code, but,
+though he puzzled long and searchingly over the document, he
+extracted from it nothing more than an increased vexation of spirit.
+
+"Nothing on the surface here," Javert said to the judge; "but that
+only makes it look the more suspicious. Wait till we hear from the
+search of his room."
+
+At this juncture a man in civilian dress arrived, and, handing over
+the key of Room Number 502, reported that there was nothing to
+bring back. This nettled Javert, and he made and X-ray examination
+of my person, even tearing out the lining of my hat. Alas for him too late;
+his search disclosed nothing more damnatory than a French
+dictionary, which, because I was not an ostrich, I had been unable
+to get away with in the afternoon. A few addresses had been
+scribbled therein. He demanded a full account of each name.
+Some I had really forgotten.
+
+"That's strange," he sneered; "perhaps you don't find it convenient
+to remember who they are."
+
+Up till now I hadn't the slightest conception of the charge laid
+against me. Suddenly the judge crashed into the affair and took
+the initiative.
+
+"Why did you offer money to find out the movement of German
+troops!" he let go at me across the table in a loud voice.
+
+At the same time his aides converged on me a full, searching
+gaze. Going all day without food, for eight hours confined in a fetid
+atmosphere, and for two hours grilled by a dozen inquisitors, is an
+ordeal calculated to put the nerves of the strongest on edge.
+
+I simply replied, "I didn't do any such thing."
+
+"Don't lie!" "Tell the whole truth!" "Make a clean breast of it!" "No
+use holding anything back!" "We have the witnesses who will
+swear you did!" "Best thing for you is to tell all you know!"
+
+This fusillade of command and accusation they roared and
+bellowed at me, aiming to break down my defense with the
+suddenness of the onslaught. They succeeded for a moment. I
+couldn't rally my scattered and worn-out wits to think what the
+basis of this preposterous charge might be.
+
+Then I remembered a Dutchman who had accosted me the day
+before on a street-car. He had volunteered the information that he
+was taking people by automobile out through Liege into Holland,
+giving one thus the opportunity to see a great many troops and
+ruins along the way. I told him I had some money and would be
+glad to invest in such a trip, at the same time giving him my
+address at the Hotel Metropole. Guileless as he appeared, he
+turned out to be an agent of the German Government. He naturally
+wanted to make himself solid with his masters by delivering the goods,
+so he had twisted all my words into the most damning evidence,
+and had fixed up two or three witnesses ready to swear anything.
+
+"No use wasting time or effort to save this man," they told de Leval
+at the American Embassy, later. "We've got a cast-iron case
+against him, with witnesses to back it up."
+
+Javert no doubt proved himself an invaluable ally of the Dutchman
+in fixing up the charges. I don't believe he would manufacture a
+story out of whole cloth, but once his mind was set in a certain
+direction he could build up a good one on very shaky foundations.
+Perhaps he had an animus against these bumptious, undeferential,
+overcritical Americans, and thought it was time to give one of them
+a lesson. Perhaps he was tired of trapping ordinary garden variety
+spies of the Belgian brand. It would be a pleasing variation in the
+monotony of convicting defenseless, helpless Belgians if he
+could show that one of these fellows masquerading as Americans
+was a sham. Especially one of that journalistic tribe that had been
+sending out reports of German atrocities. Furthermore, it would
+redound greatly to his professional glory to hand me over to the
+General with a case proved to the hilt.
+
+There was no trick in the repertory of a prosecutor that was
+unknown to Javert. He now shifted to the confidential and dropping
+His voice very low, he said to me:
+
+"You know that if you make a full, complete confession, I'll promise
+to do my very best for you. And as a matter of fact you have been
+under the eyes of our Secret Service ever since you came to
+Belgium. We are aware of everything that you have done."
+
+Was that a bluff or the truth? If it was true then they knew about
+my capture near Louvain on the day before in suspicious
+observation of the signaling-balloon. If this was a bluff, then my
+confession would be simply a case of gratuitously damning myself
+and likewise endangering my companion of yesterday's adventure--the
+British lieutenant with the American passport. Yet again if Javert
+knew all he pretended to, silence about that episode would make
+it appear doubly heinous. So while with my tongue I retailed a simple,
+harmless version of my doings in Belgium in my brain I carried on a
+debate whether to make an avowal of the Louvain escapade or not.
+
+I came to the decision that Javert was just bluffing. Later
+developments proved me right. He knew nothing about it. Even
+the German Secret Service is not omniscient. Getting no results
+then from these wheedling tactics Javert shifted back to his
+bullying and essayed once more to browbeat me into a confession.
+Calling to his aid two officers who had been but casual onlookers
+they began volleying charges at me with machine-gun rapidity.
+
+"You know that you are a spy." "We know that you are a spy."
+"Why do you deny it?" "You know that you have been lying."
+"Better own up to all that you have done." "Out with it now!"
+
+When one officer grew tired, he rested. Then the next one took up
+the attack, and then he rested. But not one moment's respite for
+me. I don't know what they call it in German, but it was the third
+degree with a vengeance. Under this sweating process my nerves
+were being torn to tatters. I felt like screaming and it seemed that if
+this continued I would smash an officer with a chair and put an end
+to it all. But the fact that I am writing these lines shows that I didn't.
+Human nature is so constituted that it can always endure a little
+more, and though they kept the tension high for many minutes I
+did not buckle under the strain. However, I couldn't call up any
+arguments to show the utter absurdity of the charge against me.
+And my defense was very feeble.
+
+The onslaught now ceased as suddenly as it had begun. There
+was a coming and going of officers and some consultation in an
+undertone. The judge left the room and the impassive-faced
+Javert began that machine-like writing. After a while he stopped.
+
+"Will you give me some idea of what you expect to do with me?" I
+queried.
+
+"A full report of your case goes up to the General for decision and
+sentence," was his response.
+
+My spirits took a downward plunge. Then a fierce resentment
+amounting almost to rage came surging up within me. Masking it
+as well as I could, I asked permission to send word to the
+American authorities. Javert's reply was evasive.
+
+"I have had nothing to eat all day," I announced. "Can't you do
+something for me?"
+
+"Go to that door there and open it," said Javert.
+
+I did so and there stood four soldiers of the Kaiser, who ranged
+themselves two in front and two behind, and marched me away.
+Javert had a well-developed sense of the dramatic.
+
+While I am excoriating Javert as representing the genius of
+German officialdom, it is only fair that I should present his
+antithesis. By continually referring to the German army as a
+machine one gets the idea that it is an impersonal collection of
+inhuman beings remorselessly and mechanically devoted to duty.
+For a broad general impression that is perhaps a fair enough
+statement to start with; but when I am tempted to let it go at that,
+there is one striking exception that always rises up to point the
+finger of denial at this easy and common generalization. It is that of
+a young German officer, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts,
+with the most frank, open, ingenuous expression. One would
+expect to find him presiding at a Christian Endeavor social, rather
+than right here at the very pivot of the most terrible military
+organization of the world.
+
+I had caught his look riveted upon me in my trial, and recognized
+him when he came into the detention-room, to which the four
+soldiers had led me. Hurriedly, he said to me: "Really, you know, I
+ought not to come in here, but I heard your story, and it looks
+rather bad; but somehow I almost believe in you. Tell me the whole
+truth about your affair."
+
+I proceeded vehemently to point out my innocence, when he
+interrupted my story by asking, "But why did you make that
+Schreibfehler on your paper?" He followed my recital anxiously
+and sympathetically, and, looking me full in the face, asked, "Can
+you tell me on your Ehrenwort (word of honor) that you are not a
+spy? Remember," he added, solemnly, "on your Ehrenwort."
+
+Grasping both of his hands and looking him in the eye, I said, most
+fervently, "On my Ehrenwort, I am not a spy."
+
+There was an earnestness in my heart that must have
+communicated itself to my hands, because he winced as he drew
+his hands away; but he said, "I shall try to put in a word for you; I
+can't do much, but I shall do what I can. I must go now. Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+A Night On A Prison Floor
+
+
+
+"Prisoners are to be taken over into the left wing for the night," said
+an orderly to the guards.
+
+We had scarcely turned the corner, when an officer cried: "Not that
+way, Dummkopf!"
+
+"Our orders are for the left wing, sir," said the orderly.
+
+"Never saw such a set of damned blockheads!" yelled the officer
+in exasperation. "Can't you tell the difference between right and
+left? Right wing, right wing, and hurry up!"
+
+A little emery had gotten into the perfect-running machine. The
+corridors fairly clanged with orders and counter orders. After much
+confusion the general mix-up of prisoners was straightened out
+and we were served black bread and coffee.
+
+The strain of the day, along with the fever I had from exposure on
+the battlefields, made the rough food still more uninviting,
+especially as our only implements of attack were the greasy
+pocketknives of the peasants and canteen covers from the
+soldiers. The revolt of my stomach must have communicated itself
+to my soul. I determined for aggressive action on my own behalf. I
+resolved to stand unprotesting no longer while a solid case against
+me was being constructed. Not without a struggle was I to be
+railroaded off to prison or to Purgatory. Pushing up to the next
+officer appearing in the room, in firm but courteous tones I
+requested, as an American citizen, the right to communicate with
+the American authorities.
+
+He replied very decently that that was quite within my privileges,
+and forthwith the opportunity would be accorded me. I was looking
+for paper, when there came the order for all of us to move out into
+the courtyard. With a line of soldiers on either side, we were
+marched through labyrinthine passages and up three flights of
+stairs. Here we were divided into two gangs, my gang being led off
+into a room already nearly filled. We were told that it was our
+temporary abode, and we were to make the best of it. It was an
+administrative office of the Belgian Government now turned into a
+prison. There were the usual fixtures, including a rug on the floor
+and shelves of books. Ours was only one of many cells for
+prisoners scattered through the building. The spy-hunters had
+swooped down upon every suspect in Belgium and all who had
+been caught in the dragnet were being dumped into these rooms.
+
+We were thus informed by the officer whose wards we were. He
+was a fussy, quick-tempered, withal kind-hearted little fellow, and
+kept dashing in and out of the room, really perplexed over housing
+accommodations for the night. The spy-hunters had been successful
+in their work of rounding up their victims from all over the country and
+corralling them here until the place was filled to overflowing. Our
+official in charge was puffed up with pride in the prosperity of his
+institution, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, petulantly belectured
+us on adding ourselves to his already numerous burdens. This
+was highly humorous, yet we all feared to commit lese-majeste
+by expressing to him our collective and personal sorrow for
+so inconveniencing him, and our willingness to make amends
+for our thoughtlessness in getting arrested.
+
+After more hesitation than I had hitherto observed, arrangements
+for the night were completed and we were ordered to draw out
+blankets from the pile in the corner. The new arrivals and the old
+inmates maneuvered for the softest spots on the floor, which was
+soon covered over with bodies and their sprawling limbs, while a
+host of guards, fully armed, were posted at the door and along the
+hall.
+
+"I would give my right arm or my leg if I could get a flashlight of
+this," said Obels, the reporter, enthusiastically. This elation made
+him reckless as he went about, probing the experiences of each
+victim.
+
+"Great stuff!" "Great stuff!" he kept exclaiming. "Won't this open up
+some eyes in Chicago, eh!"
+
+He couldn't believe that the Providence which had led him to this
+Bonanza would now deny him the opportunity of getting out some
+of this wealth.
+
+In the midst of these activities he was haled before the tribunal. He
+returned, the spring out of his step and his zest for stories quite
+gone. Javert had successively branded him an "Idiot" a "Liar" and
+a "Spy."
+
+The information that several of the inmates had been imprisoned
+for a month or more spurred my drooping spirits and put me into
+action. I uncovered a pile of the office writing-paper and, with the
+aid of the Belgian who could speak English, I set to work preparing
+a letter to Ambassador Whitlock. Whether Javert was apprised of
+the doings of his charges or not I do not know, but in the midst of
+my writing he glided into the room, and, pouncing upon my
+manuscript, gathered it to himself, saying, "I'll take these." My
+Belgian friend protested that a superior officer had given me
+permission to do this. Javert handed back the paper, smiled, and
+disappeared. Knowing that every word would be closely scrutinized
+at the Staff Office, and that the least hint of anything derogatory to
+the German authorities would keep the letter in the building, I couched
+it in as pointed and telling terms as possible, having in mind the
+eyes of the Germans, quite as much as the Ambassador.
+
+
+Brand Whitlock,
+United States Ambassador,
+Brussels.
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+As a native American citizen, born in Ohio, and now imprisoned by
+the German authorities, I claim your intervention in my behalf. I am
+thirty years of age, resident of East Boston, Massachusetts, for six
+years. I am a graduate of Marietta College, Hartford Seminary, and
+studied in Cambridge University in England, and Marburg
+University in Germany.
+
+Saturday Mr. Van Hee, the American consul at Ghent, brought me
+here by automobile with Mr. Fletcher. Obliged to take back in his
+car three ladies for whom he obtained permission from the
+German Government, I was necessarily left behind; Mr. Van Hee
+promising to return for me when diplomatic business brought him
+to Brussels in a few days. Meantime I took a room at the Hotel
+Metropole. From it I was taken by the German authorities this
+morning. I do not know exactly what the charge against me is. I am
+accused of offering money for information relative to the
+movement of the German troops. I think that the man who worked
+up the case against me is a Dutchman with whom I spoke upon a
+car. He volunteered the information that he had been everywhere
+by automobile; and I asked him if he was the one who carried
+passengers out of Brussels by way of Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle.
+Won't you look into my case at once? Mr. Fletcher, who called on
+you Saturday, lent me some fifty dollars, so I am all right that way;
+but this is not a comfortable situation to be in, though the officers
+are very decent. If you want proof of my identity, you can
+communicate with the following people in America; they are my
+personal friends, and will confirm my absence from home on an
+extended vacation.
+
+His Excellency Governor Walsh, of the Commonwealth of
+Massachusetts; Dr. Charles Fleischer, Chief Rabbi in the
+Rabbinate of New England.
+
+(If there was any Jewish blood on the German Staff I was going to
+try to get the benefit of it.)
+
+The Honorable George W. Coleman, of the Ford Hall Convocation
+Meetings and President of the Pilgrim Amalgamated Associated
+Advertising Clubs of America.
+
+(Coleman being a cross between a Baptist deacon and an
+anarchist, I knew that he would not object to this bit of sabotage.)
+
+The Right Honorable William W. Mills, Esquire, President of the
+First National Bank of Marietta, Ohio, Treasurer of the University of
+Marietta, and Member of the National Council of Congregational
+Churches of America, etc., etc.
+
+If you will cablegram any of these, you will get an immediate reply.
+While I have no money for this now, I feel certain Mr. Fletcher, who
+is associated with Mr. Lane, of the United States Cabinet, will back
+you up, and there will be unlimited funds in America.
+
+Sincerely yours, ALBERT R. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+My attention has been called to the omission of the Angel Gabriel,
+Mary Pickford and Ty Cobb from the list of my intimate friends in
+the above document. That was not meant as a slight--purely an
+oversight. At any rate, I felt that the long list of men whose names
+were written here would make the right response to any cablegram.
+To atone for dragging them into the affray I call attention to the highly
+deferential and decorative manner in which I referred to them.
+Be it remembered that this document was prepared quite as
+much for German eyes as for the Ambassador's, and nothing
+gives a man standing and respect in the Teutonic mind as much
+as a name fearfully and wonderfully adorned. I resolved that my
+importance was not to suffer from lack of glory in my friends.
+I bestowed more honorary degrees on them than the average
+small college does in ten commencements. So lavish was I that
+my friends hardly recognize their own titular selves. An officer
+designated the guard who would deliver the letter. I gave it to
+him along with a franc, which he protestingly accepted. He reported
+that it was delivered to Javert. That was the last I ever heard from
+that message. I imagine that it was by no means the last that the
+German authorities heard from it, for when I related the story to
+the Ambassador some time later I saw a characteristic Brand
+Whitlock letter a-brewing. My message to Vice-Consul Naesmith
+and to the Hotel Metropole shared a like fate--they were undelivered.
+
+I simply offer the facts as they are. It may be that the courtesies of
+polite intercourse are not easy to observe in war. Certainly they
+were not obtrusive in Belgium. In extenuation it may be said that
+the Brussels postmen had struck about this time; but, on the other
+hand, through the forbidden shutters I saw fully fifty German Boy
+Scouts marshaled in the courtyard below.
+
+I had noticed them before as messengers going down the most
+unguarded by-ways of the slums, quite as if they were agents of a
+welcomed instead of hated army. They rode along serenely as if
+totally unconscious of the shining targets that they made. I felt
+certain that no American gang would let slip this opportunity for the
+heaving of a brick. Were Brussels boys made of flabbier stuff? Not
+if Belgian sons were of the same stripe as Belgian fathers. The fact
+then that none of these German Scouts were massacred, as was
+to be expected by all the rules of the game, showed how the threat
+of reprisals operated to curb the strongest natural impulses of the
+spirit. I presumed that one of these Scouts was speeding
+posthaste to the Ambassador with my note, but he never did.
+
+I am not berating the Germans. They were running their own war
+according to their own code. In this code reporters, onlookers, and
+uplifters of any brand were anathema.
+
+We had no rights. Our only right was to the convictions within our
+minds, provided we kept them there. I believe that were it not for
+the surmises of the English lieutenant who took them to the
+Ambassador I would be in prison yet. On second thought, I
+wouldn't, either. I couldn't have endured the strain much longer. If I
+had been caged in there a few hours more than I was, in my
+nervous tension I probably would have vented my sense of
+outraged justice by assaulting one of the officers myself. I wouldn't
+have had a long time then to speculate upon the immortality of the
+soul. I would have possessed first-hand information. One can
+understand why, for their own protection, the Germans imposed
+their iron laws upon the Belgians with their terrible penalties. What
+is hard to understand is the long-suffering patience and self-
+restraint of the Belgians. Occasionally some high-spirited or high-
+strung fellow was no longer able to keep the lid on the volcano of
+hatred and rage seething within him. This blowup brought down,
+not only upon his own head, but upon the whole community, the
+most hideous reprisals.
+
+By the time my writing was completed the men were pretty well
+settled down for the night. On the outside the roaring of the
+Austrian guns, which for days had been bombarding their way into
+Antwerp, now became less constant; less and less frequently the
+hoarse commands of the officers, mingled with the rumbling of the
+automobiles, came up from the courtyard below. At midnight the
+only sounds were the groans and moans of the twisting sleepers
+and the measured tread of the sentry as he paced up and down
+the hall, his silhouette darkening at regular intervals the glass door
+at the end of our little room.
+
+I was placed in a. sort of adjoining closet with six others. A motley
+mixture indeed; a Russian, an American, four Belgians, and a
+German--all prisoners awaiting our sentences. As a last move, the
+German soldier guards sandwiched themselves into the open
+spaces on the floor, their long bayonets glistening in the electric
+light that blazed down upon us. The peasants had characteristically
+closed the windows to keep out the baneful night air. In the main
+room a drop-light with shade flung its radiance on a table and lit up
+the anxious faces of the few men gathered round it. It showed one
+poor fellow bolt upright, unspeaking, unmoving, his fixed white
+eyeballs staring into space, as though he would go stark mad.
+Those eyes have forever burned themselves into my brain, a pitiful
+protest against a mad, wild world at war.
+
+Sleep was entirely out of the question with me. It wasn't the bad air
+or the hard floor or the snores of my comrades, but just plain cold
+fear. Now I possess an average amount of courage. Quite alone I
+walked in and out of Liege when the Germans were painting the
+skies red with the burning towns. My ribs were massaged all the
+way by ends of revolvers, whose owners demanded me to give
+forthwith my reasons for being there, they being sole arbiters of
+whether my reasons were good or bad. I got so used to a bayonet
+pointing into the pit of my stomach that it hardly looks natural in a
+vertical position.
+
+But this was a thrust from a different quarter. In the open a man
+feels a sporting chance, at any rate, even if a bullet can beat him
+on the run; but cooped up within four walls he is paralyzed by his
+horrible helplessness. He feels that a military court reverses
+ordinary procedure, holding that it is better for nine innocent to
+suffer than for one guilty one to escape. He knows that his fate is
+in the hands of a tribunal from whose arbitrary decision there is no
+appeal, and that decision he knows may depend upon the whim of
+the commandant, to whom a poor breakfast or a bad night's sleep
+may give the wrong twist. The terrible uncertainty of it preys upon
+one's mind.
+
+I certainly prayed that the commandant was getting a better night
+than mine, as I lay there staring up at the electric light with a
+hundred hates and fears pounding through my brain. "I'm a
+prisoner," was one thought. "Supposing the silence of the guns
+means that the Germans, beaten, are being pressed back into
+Brussels by the Allies. They may let us go. No, the Germans,
+maddened by defeat, might order us all to be shot," was one idea.
+"How does it feel to be blindfolded and stood up against a wall by a
+firing squad?" was another pleasant companion idea that kept vigil
+with me through the midnight hours. Then my fancies took a
+frenzied turn, "Suppose these be brutes of soldiers and they run
+us through, saying we were trying to escape."
+
+"Escape!" The word no sooner leaped into my mind than an
+almost uncontrollable impulse to escape seized me, or at least I
+thought one had. I got upon my feet, observing that the two
+soldiers lying beside me on the floor were fast asleep and the
+guards at the outer door were nodding. I stepped over their
+sleeping forms arid made a reconnoiter of the hallway. There in the
+semi-darkness stood seven soldiers of the Kaiser with their seven
+guns and their seven glistening bayonets.
+
+Cold steel is not supposed to act as a soothing syrup; but one
+glance at those bayonets and my uncontrollable impulse utterly
+vanished. You will observe that the bayonet is continually cropping
+up in my story. It does, indeed. A bayonet looks far different from
+what it did on dress parade. Meet one in war, and its true
+significance first dawns upon you. It is not simply a decoration at
+the end of a rifle, but it is made to stick in a man's stomach and
+then be turned round; and when you realize that this particular one
+is made to stick in your particular stomach, it takes on a still
+different aspect.
+
+I crawled back into my lair, resolved to seek for deliverance by
+mental means, rather than by physical; and as the first rays of light
+stole through the window I composed the following document to
+His Excellency:
+
+
+The Officer who has the case of the American, Albert B. Williams,
+under supervision: SIR:
+
+As you seem willing to be fair in hearing my case, may I take the
+liberty this morning of addressing you upon my charge? I fear that
+I made but a feeble defense of myself yesterday; but when I was
+accused of offering much money for information relative to the
+movements of German troops, the accusation came so suddenly
+that I could only deny it. May I now offer a few observations upon
+this charge, the nature of which just begins to become clear to
+me?
+
+In the first place, it was a sheer impossibility for me to offer "much
+money," because all I had was that which, as Mr. Van Hee knows,
+Mr. Fletcher gave me when I was left behind.
+
+In the second place, were I a spy, I certainly would not be offering
+money in a voice loud enough to be heard by the several
+witnesses that you have ready to testify.
+
+In the third place, while not attempting to impeach the character of
+my accuser, may I submit the fact that my own standing will be
+vouched for by His Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts, the
+President of the Pilgrim Amalgamated Associated Advertising
+Clubs of America, the chief Rabbi in the Rabbinate of New
+England, etc., etc.
+
+These men will attest the utter absurdity of any such charge being
+made against me.
+
+In the last place, may I suggest that the theory of an unintentional
+mistake throws the best light upon the case? For any conversation
+with my accuser was either in German or English. You know my
+German linguistic ability and the error that might be made there;
+and as for English, I challenge my accuser to understand three
+consecutive sentences in English.
+
+I trust you will take these facts into account before sentence is
+passed upon me.
+
+Respectfully yours,
+
+ALBERT R. WILLIAMS.
+
+
+By the time this was finished a stir in the courtyard below heralded
+the beginning of the day's activities. And what did this day hold in
+store for me?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Roulette And Liberty
+
+
+
+Our morning toilet was completed with the aid of one small, flimsy
+towel for thirty of us. Hot water tinctured with coffee and milk was
+served from a bucket with two or three cups. Bread which had
+been saved from the previous day was brought forth from pockets
+and hiding-places, and for some unaccountable reason a piece of
+good butter was brought in. Apparently the Germans were trying to
+escape the stigma of mistreating or underfeeding their prisoners.
+
+Orders were given to get ready to move out. After an hour, they
+were changed to "Clean up the room." When we had accomplished
+this, an inspecting officer entered and began to sniff and snort
+until his eyes fairly blazed with wrath, and then in a torrent of words
+he expressed his private and official opinion of us. So fast and
+freely did his language flow that I couldn't catch all the compliments
+he showered upon us; but "Verdammte!" "Donnerwetter!" and
+"Schwein!" were stressed frequently enough for me to retain
+a distinct memory of the same. One did not have to be a German
+linguist to get the drift of his remarks.
+
+They had an electric effect upon the prisoners, who with one
+accord got busy picking up microscopic and invisible bits from the
+floor. To see these men crawling around upon their stomachs
+must have been highly gratifying to His Self-inflated Highness. The
+highly gratifying thing to myself now is the fact that I did not do any
+crawling, but sat stolidly in my chair and stared back at him, letting
+my indignation get enough the better of my discretion even to
+sneer--at least I persuade myself now that I did. Outside of this
+little act of gallantry I am heartily ashamed of my conduct at the
+German Staff Headquarters. It was too acquiescent and obsequious
+for some of those bureaucrats rough riding it over those helpless,
+long-suffering, beaten Belgians.
+
+Having called us "Schwein," at high noon they brought in the swill.
+It was a gray, putrid-looking mess in a big, battered bucket. They
+told us that it came dried in bags and all that was necessary was to
+mix the contents with hot water. The mixture was put up in 1911
+and guaranteed to keep for 20 years. It looked as though it might
+have already forfeited on its guarantee. There was nothing to
+serve it with, and search of the room uncovered no implements of
+attack. Our discomfiture furnished a young soldier with much
+entertainment.
+
+"Nothing to eat your stew with? Well, just stand on that table there
+and dive right into the bucket."
+
+He was quite carried away with his own witticism, so that in sheer
+good nature he went and returned with six soup plates which were
+covered over with a thick grease quite impervious to cold water. I
+had my misgivings about the mess and dreaded its steaming
+odors. At last I summoned up courage and approached the
+bucket, using my fingers in lieu of a clothes-pin as a defense for
+my olfactory nerves. A surprise was in store for me; its palatability
+and quality were quite the opposite of its appearance. While I
+wouldn't enjoy that stew outside of captivity, and while the Brussels
+men refused in any way to succumb to its charm, it was at least
+very nutritious and furnished the strength to keep fighting.
+
+But it is hard to battle against the blues, especially when all one's
+comrades capitulate to them. Each man vied with the other in
+radiating a blue funk, until the air was as thick as a London fog.
+
+Picture, if you will, the scene. By a fine irony, the books on the
+shelves were on international law, and by a finer irony the book in
+green binding that caught my eye as it stood out from the black
+array of volumes was R. Dimmont's "The Origins of Belgian
+Neutrality." The Belgians who were enjoying the peculiar blessings
+of that neutrality were sprawled over the floor or pacing restlessly
+up and down the room, or, in utter despair, buried their heads in
+their arms flung out across the table.
+
+About three o'clock the name "Herr Peters" was called. He had
+been found guilty of mumbling to his comrades that their captain
+was pushing them too hard in an advance. One could believe the
+charge, for, as his name was called, he was sullen and unconcerned.
+"You are sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in a fortress.
+You must go at once."
+
+He muttered in an undertone something about "being luckier in
+prison in winter than out there on the cold, freezing ground," and,
+flinging his knapsack upon his shoulder, lumbered off. In how
+many such hearts is there this sullen revolt against the military
+system, and how much of a factor will it be to reckon with in the
+future?
+
+There were four prisoners quite separated from the rest of us. It
+was said that they were sentenced to be shot. I am not sure that
+they were; but we were strictly forbidden any intercourse with
+them. They were the most crestfallen, terror-stricken lot of men
+that ever I had laid eyes upon, and at four o'clock they were led
+away by a cordon of soldiers. There was enough mental suggestion
+about it to plunge the room into a deep silence. It was oppressive.
+
+At last Obels, the reporter, walked over and asked me if there
+were proofs of the immortality of the soul, excusing himself by
+saying that up to this time he had never had any particular time nor
+reason for reflection on this subject. That was the only
+psychological blunder that he made. However, it at last broke the
+heavy, painful silence, and we speculated together, instead of
+singly, how it might feel to have immortal bliss thrust upon us from
+the end of a German musket.
+
+I related to him my experience of the previous week. Some war
+photographers wanted a picture of a spy shot. I had volunteered to
+play the part of a spy, and, after being blindfolded, was led over
+against a wall, where a Belgian squad leveled their rifles at me. I
+assured him that the sensation was by no means terrible; but he
+would not be comforted. Death itself he wouldn't mind so much, if
+he could have found it in the open fighting gladly for his country;
+but it seemed a blot on his good name to be shot for just snooping
+around the German lines.
+
+On the whole, after weighing all the pros and cons, we decided
+that our pronounced aversion to being shot had purely an altruistic
+origin. It was a wicked, shameful loss to the human race. That
+point was very clear to us. But there was the arrant stupidity of the
+Germans to be reckoned with. They have such a distorted sense
+of real values. Rummaging through my pockets during these
+reflections, I fished up an advertising folder out of a corner where I
+had tucked it when it was presented to me by Dr. Morse. The
+outside read, "How We Lost Our Best Customer." Mechanically I
+opened it, and there, staring back at me from big black borders on
+the inside, were the two words, "HE DIED."
+
+These ruminations upon matters spiritual were interrupted by the
+strains from a brass band which went crashing by, while ten
+thousand hobnailed boots of the regiment striking the pavements
+in unison beat out time like a trip-hammer.
+
+"Perhaps the Germans are leaving Brussels," whispered a
+companion; "and wouldn't we grow wild or faint or crazy to see
+those guards drop away and we should find ourselves free men
+again!"
+
+The passing music had a jubilating effect upon our guards, who
+paraded gayly up and down the room. One simple, good-hearted
+fellow harangued us in a bantering way, pointing out our present
+sorry plight as evidence of the sad mistake we had made in not
+being born in Germany. He felt so happy that he took a little
+collection from us, and in due time returned with some bread and
+chocolate and soda water. But even the soda water, as if adjusting
+itself to the spiritlessness of the prisoners, refused to effervesce.
+The music had by contrast seemed only to increase the general
+depression.
+
+Only one free spirit soared above his surroundings. He was a
+young Belgian--Ernest de Burgher by name--a kindly light amidst
+the encircling gloom. He took everything in life with a smile. I am
+sure that if death as a spy had been ordered for him at the door,
+he would have met that with the same happy, imperturbable
+expression. He had quite as much reason as I, if not more, for
+joining our gloom-party. He, too, was waiting sentence. For six
+days his wild, untamed spirit had been cabined in these walls; but
+he had been born a humorist, and even in bonds he sought to play
+the clown. He went through contortions, pitched coins against
+himself, and staggered around the room with a soda-water bottle
+at his lips, imitating a drunkard. But ours was a tough house even
+for his irrepressible spirit to play to. Despite all his efforts, we sat
+around like a convention of corpses, and only once did his comic
+spirit succeed.
+
+One prisoner sunk down in a comatose condition in his chair, as
+though his last drop of strength and life had oozed away. Now de
+Burgher was one of those who can resist anything but temptation.
+He stole over and tied the man's legs to his chair. Then he got a
+German soldier to tap the hapless victim on the shoulder. Roused
+from his stupor to see the soldier standing over him like a
+messenger of doom, the poor fellow turned ashen pale. He sprang
+to his feet, but the chair bound to his legs tripped him up and he
+fell sprawling on the floor. He apparently regarded the chair as
+some sort of German infernal machine clutching him, and he lay
+there wrestling with his inanimate antagonist as though it were a
+demon. As soon as the victim understood the joke he joined in the
+burst of merriment that ran round the room; but it was of short
+duration. The gloom got us again, despite all that de Burgher could
+do, and finally he succumbed to the prevailing atmosphere and
+gave us up as a bad job.
+
+He was a diminutive fellow, battered and rather the worse for wear.
+Ever shall I think of him not only as the happy-souled, but as the
+great-souled. My introduction into the room was at the point of a
+steel bayonet. With him, that served me far better than any gilt-
+edged introduction of high estate. He didn't know what crime was
+charged against, me, but he felt that it must have been a sacrifice
+for Belgium's sake. The fact that I was persona non grata to the
+Germans was a lien upon his sympathy, and gave me high rank
+with him at once. He instinctively divined my feelings of fear and
+loneliness, and straightway set out to make me his ward, his
+comrade, and his master.
+
+Never shall I forget how, during that long night in prison, he
+crawled over and around the recumbent forms to where I lay upon
+the floor courting sleep in vain. I was frightened by this maneuver,
+but he smiled and motioned me to silence. Reaching up beneath
+my blanket, he unlaced one shoe and then the other. At first I
+really thought that he was going to steal them, but the reaction
+from the day had set in and I was too tired and paralyzed to make
+any protest. Laying the shoes one side, he remarked, "That will
+ease your feet." Then stripping off his coat and rolling it into a
+bundle, he placed it as a pillow beneath my head.
+
+A great, big hulking American, treated tenderly by this little Belgian,
+how could I keep the tears from my eyes? And as they came
+welling up--tears of appreciation for the generous fineness of his
+spirit--he took them to be tears of grief, brought on by thoughts of
+home and friends and all those haunting memories. But he was
+equal to the occasion.
+
+In a little vacant space he made a circle of cigarettes and small
+Belgian coins. In the center he placed a small box, and on it laid a
+ruler. "This is the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo, and you are the
+rich American," he whispered, and with a snap of the finger he
+spun the ruler round. Whenever it stopped, he presented me my
+prize with sundry winkings and chucklings, interrupted by furtive
+glances towards the door.
+
+Rouge-et-noir upon a prison floor! To him existence was such a
+game--red life or black death, as the fates ordained. His spirit was
+contagious, and I found myself smiling through my tears. When he
+saw his task accomplished, gathering in his coins, he crawled
+away.
+
+His was a restless spirit. Only once did I see him steadfastly quiet.
+That was the next morning, when he sat with his eyes fixed upon
+an opening in the shutter. He insisted upon my taking his seat, and
+adjusting my angle of vision properly. There, framed in a window
+across the forbidden courtyard, was a pretty girl watering flowers.
+She was indeed a distracting creature, and de Burgher danced
+around me with unfeigned glee. His previous experience with
+Americans had evidently led him to believe that we were all
+connoisseurs in pretty girls. I tried valiantly to uphold our national
+reputation, but my thoughts at the time were much more heavenly
+than even that fair apparition framed in the window, and I fear I
+disappointed de Burgher by my lack of enthusiasm.
+
+My other comrade, Constance Staes, must not be forgotten. For
+some infraction of the new military regulations he had been hustled
+off to prison, but he, too, was born for liberty, a free-ranging spirit
+that fetters could never bind. He made me see the Belgian soul
+that would never be subservient to German rule. The Germans
+can be overlords in Belgium only when such spirits have either
+emigrated or have been totally exterminated.
+
+To Constance Staes every rule was a challenge. That's the reason
+he had been put in jail. He had trespassed on forbidden way in
+front of the East Station. Here in prison smoking was forbidden. So
+Staes, with one eye upon the listless guard, would slip beneath a
+blanket, take a pull at his cigarette, and come up again as innocent
+as though he had been saying his prayers. I refused the offer of a
+pull at his cigarette, but not the morsel of white bread which he
+drew from behind a picture and shared with me. That bread,
+broken and shared between us in that upper room, is to me an
+eternal sacrament. It fed my body hunger then; never shall it
+cease to feed the hunger of my soul.
+
+Whenever temptation to play the cynic or think meanly of my
+fellow-man shall come, my mind will hark back to those two
+unpretending fellows and bow in reverence before the selflessness
+and immensity of the human soul. Needing bread, they gave it
+freely away; needing strength, they poured themselves out
+unsparingly; needing encouragement, they became the ministers
+thereof. For not to me alone, but to all, they played this role of
+servant, priest, and comforter.
+
+As I write these lines I wonder where their spirits are now.
+Speeded thence, they may have already made the next world
+richer by their coming. I do not know that; but I do know that they
+have made my soul infinitely richer by their sojourn here; I do not
+know whether they were Catholic or Atheist, but I do know how
+truly the Master of all souls could say to these two brave little
+Belgians: "When I was an hungered, ye gave me food; when I was
+thirsty, ye gave me drink; when I was a stranger, ye took me in;
+when I was sick and in prison, ye visited me."
+
+The prison is the real maker of democracy. I saw that clearly when,
+at five o'clock, joy came marching into the room. It was an officer
+who was its herald with the simple words, "The theater manager is
+free." That was a trumpet blast annihilating all rank and caste. The
+manager, forgetting his office and his dignity, and embracing with
+his right arm a peasant and with his left an artisan, danced round
+the room in a delirium of delight. Twenty men were at one time
+besieging him to grasp his hand, and tears, not rhetorically, but
+actually, were streaming down their faces--Russian, German,
+Belgian, and American, high and low, countrymen and citymen,
+smocked and frocked. We were fused altogether in the common
+emotion of joy and hope. For hope was now rampant. "If one man
+can be liberated," we argued, "why not another? Perhaps the
+General was thus giving vent to a temporary vein of good humor."
+Each man figured that he might be the fortunate one upon whom
+this good luck would alight.
+
+At five-thirty there was much murmuring in the corridor, and
+presently my Ehrenwort lad of the previous night came bursting
+into the room, crying, "The American! The American!" I do not
+have to describe the thrill of joy that those words shot through me;
+but I wish that I might do justice to the beaming face of my young
+officer friend. I am sure that I could not have looked more radiant
+than he did when, almost like a mother, he led me forth to greet de
+Leval and two other assistants from the American Ambassador.
+Now de Leval is not built on any sylph-like plan, but he looked to
+me then like an ethereal being from another world--the angel who
+opened the prison door.
+
+I presumed that I was to walk away without further ado; but not so
+easy. We proceeded into another office, where the whole
+assemblage was standing. I have no idea who the high superior
+officer was; but he held in his hand a blue book which contained a
+long report of my case, with all the documents except the defense
+I had written. Again I was cross-examined, and my papers were
+carefully passed upon one by one.
+
+One they could not or would not overlook, and to it throughout all
+this last examination they kept perpetually referring. When I had
+made my thirty-seven-mile journey into Liege on August 20,1 had
+secured this paper at Maastricht signed by the Dutch and German
+authorities. Over the Dutch seal were the words, "To the passing
+over the boundary into Belgian-Germany of Mr. Albert Williams
+there exists on the part of the undersigned no objection. Signed,
+The Commissioner of Police Souten." Over the German seal were
+the words, "At the Imperial German Vice-Consulate the foregoing
+signature is hereby attested to be that of Souten, the Police
+Commissioner of Maastricht." For this beautifully non-committal
+affair I had delivered up six marks. I would have cheerfully paid six
+hundred to disown it now.
+
+"What explanation is there for his possession of that paper?"
+asked the General sternly.
+
+De Leval pleaded cleverly, dilating upon the natural inquisitiveness
+and roaming disposition of the American race.
+
+"I know what the Wanderlust is," said the General, "but I fail to
+understand the peculiar desire of this man to travel only in
+dangerous and forbidden war zones."
+
+"In the second place," the General continued, "there is no doubt
+that he has made some remark to the effect that in the long run
+Germany cannot win. That was overheard by an officer in a cafe
+and is undeniable. The other charges we will for the time waive,"
+said the General, drawing himself up with a fine hauteur. "But his
+identifying evidence is very flimsy. Can you produce any better?"
+
+Suddenly I bethought me of the gold watch in my pocket. It was a
+presentation from some two hundred people of small means in an
+industrial district in Boston. Three of the aides successively and
+successfully damaged their thumbnails in their eagerness to pry
+open the back cover. That is a source of considerable satisfaction
+to me now; but it was embarrassing in that delicate situation when
+my fate hung almost by a thread, and a trifle could delay my
+release for days. If the General damaged his own thumb on it, I
+feel sure that I would have been remanded back to prison. But,
+luckily, the cover sprang open and revealed to the eyes the words:
+"From friends at Maverick."
+
+De Leval adroitly turned this to the best advantage. It was the last
+straw. The General capitulated. Walking over into the adjoining
+room, he wrote on the blue folder: "Er ist frei gelassen." I would
+give lots for those folders; but, though safety was by no means
+certain, I found I yet had nerve enough to take a venture. When I
+was bidden to pick up my papers strewn across the desk, I tried
+my best to gather in some of the other documents. Besides the
+copies of the letter I wrote to the Ambassador the only thing I got
+on my case was this letter, written by Mr. Whitlock to Baron von de
+Lancken, the official German representative in charge of the
+dealings with the American Embassy. It has the well-known
+Whitlock straight-from-the-shoulder point and brevity to it.
+
+
+BRUXELLES, le 29 Septembre, 1914, EXCELLENCE:
+
+J'apprends a l'instant que Mr. Williams, citoyen Americain
+residente a l'Hotel Metropole, aurait ete arrete lundi par les
+Autorites allemande.
+
+Pour le cas ou il n'aurait pas encore ete mis en liberte, je vous
+saurais gre de me faire connaitre les raisons de cette arrestation,
+et de me donner le moyen de communiquer aussitot avec lui, pour
+pourvoir eventuellement lui fournir toute protection dont il pourrait
+avoir besoin.
+
+Veuillez agreer, Excellence, la nouvelle assurance de ma haute
+consideration.
+
+(S) BRAND WHITLOCK. A Son Excellence Monsieur le Baron von
+der Lancken, Bruxelles.
+
+
+Before my final liberation I was escorted into the biggest and
+busiest office of all.
+
+Here I was given an Erlaubnis to travel by military train through
+Liege into Germany, and from there on out by way of Holland. The
+destination that I had in mind was Ghent, but passing through the
+lines thereto was forbidden. Instead of going directly the thirty
+miles in three hours, I must go around almost a complete circle,
+about three hundred miles in three days. But nothing could take
+the edge off my joy. A strange exhilaration and a wild desire to
+celebrate possessed me. With such a mood I had not hitherto
+been sympathetic; on the contrary, I had been much grieved by
+the sundry manifestations of what I deemed a base spirit in certain
+Belgians. One of them had said, "Just wait until the Allies' army
+comes marching into Brussels! Oh, then I am going out on one
+glorious drunk!" In the light of the splendid sacrifices of his fellow-
+Belgians, this struck me as a shocking degradation of the human
+spirit.
+
+I could not then understand such a view-point. But I could now. In
+the removal of the long abnormal tension one's pent-up spirits
+seek out an equally abnormal channel for expression. I, too, felt
+like an uncaged spirit suddenly let loose. I didn't get drunk, but I
+very nearly got arrested again. In my headlong ecstasy I was deaf
+to the warnings of a German guard saying, "Passage into this
+street is forbidden." I checked myself just in time, and in chastened
+spirit made my way back to the Metropole.
+
+Three times I was offered the prohibited Antwerp papers that had
+been smuggled into the city and once the London Times for
+twenty-five cents. The war price for this is said often to have run up
+to as many dollars.
+
+An English, woman, or at any rate a woman with a beautiful
+English accent, opened a conversation with the remark that she
+was going directly through to Ghent on the following day and that
+she knew how to go right through the German lines. That was
+precisely the way that the Germans had just forbidden me to go.
+But this accomplice (if such she was) got no rise out of me. To all
+intents I was stone-deaf. Compared to me, she would have found
+the Sphinx garrulous indeed. She may have been as harmless as
+a dove but, after my escapade, I wouldn't have talked to my own
+mother without a written permit from the military governor. The
+Kaiser himself would have found it hard work breaking through my
+cast-iron spy-proof armor of formality. I had good reason, too, not
+to let down the bars, for I was trailed by the spy-hunters. Not until
+ten days later when I passed over the Holland border did I feel
+release from their vigilant eyes. My key at the Metropole was never
+returned to me and I know that my room was searched once, if not
+twice, after my return to the hotel.
+
+It would be interesting to see how all this tallies with the official
+report of my case in the archives at Berlin. Perhaps some of these
+surmises have shot far wide of the mark. Javert, for instance, may
+not be a direct descendant of the ancient Inquisitor who had
+charge of the rack and the thumb screws, as I believed. In his own
+home town he may be a sort of mild-mannered schoolmaster and
+probably is highly astounded as well as gratified to find himself
+cast as the villain in this piece. Perhaps I may have been at other
+times in far greater danger. I do not know these things. All I know
+is that this is a true and faithful transcript of the feelings and sights
+that came crowding in upon me in that most eventful day and
+night.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+On Foot With The German Army
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Gray Hordes Out Of The North
+
+
+
+The outbreak of the Great War found me in Europe as a general
+tourist, and not in the capacity of war-correspondent. Hitherto I had
+essayed a much less romantic role in life, belonging rather to the
+crowd of uplifters who conduct the drab and dreary battle with the
+slums. The futility of most of these schemes for badgering the poor
+makes one feel at times that these battles are shams and
+unavailing. This is depressing. It is thrilling, then, suddenly to
+acquire the glamorous title of war-correspondent, and to have
+before one the prospect of real and actual battles.
+
+Commissioned thus and desiring to live up to the code and
+requirement of the office, I naturally opined that war-
+correspondents rushed immediately into the thick of the fight. Later
+I discovered what a mistake that was. Only very young and green
+ones do so. The seasoned correspondent is inclined to view the
+whole affair more dispassionately and with a larger perspective.
+But being of the verdant variety, I naturally figured that if the
+Germans were smashing down through Belgium onto Liege that
+that was where I should be. By entering gingerly through the back
+door of Holland, I planned to join them in their march down the
+Meuse River.
+
+To The Hague came descriptions of the hordes pressing down out
+of the north through the fire-swept, blood-drenched plain of
+northern Belgium. This could be seen from the Dutch frontier at
+Maastricht. But passage thereto was interdicted by the military
+authorities. Ambassador Van Dyke's efforts were unavailing.
+Possessing a red-card, I enlisted the help of Troelstra, the socialist
+leader of the Netherlands.
+
+He had just returned from an audience with the Queen. The
+government, seeking to rally all classes to face a grave crisis, was
+paying court to the labor leaders. Accordingly, the war department,
+at Troelstra's behest, received me with a handsome show of
+deference. I was escorted from one gold-laced officer to another.
+Each one smiled kindly, listened attentively and regretted
+exceedingly that the granting of the desired permission lay outside
+his own particular jurisdiction. They were polite, ingratiating,
+obsequious even, but quite unanimous. At the end I came out by
+the same door wherein I went--minus a permission.
+
+Up till now my progress through the fringes of the war zone had
+been in defiance of all orders and advice. Having failed here
+officially, I took the matter in my own hands. Finding a seat in a
+military train, I stuck steadfastly by it so long as our general
+direction was south. At Eindhoven hunger compelled me to alight.
+As I was stepping up to the hotel-bar, I felt a tap on my shoulder
+and some one in excellent English said:
+
+"You are under suspicion, sir. Follow me. Don't look around. Don't
+get excited. If you are all right you don't need to get excited; if you
+aren't it won't do you any good to get excited."
+
+With this running fire of comment he led me into a side-room
+where a half-hour's examination satisfied him of my good intent.
+Without further untoward incident I came to Maastricht in
+Limbourg. Limbourg is the name of the narrow strip of Dutch
+territory which runs down between Germany and Belgium. At one
+place this tongue of land is but a few miles wide. If the Germans
+could have marched their troops directly across this they might
+have been spared the two weeks' slaughter at the forts of Liege
+and Paris, in all probability, would have fallen before them. It was a
+great temptation to the Germans. That's the reason the Dutch
+troops had been massed here by the tens of thousands--to
+prevent Germany succumbing to that temptation.
+
+At our approach to the great Meuse bridge an officer shouted into
+each compartment:
+
+"Every window closed. All cigars and pipes extinguished."
+
+"Why?" we asked.
+
+"The bridge is mined with explosives and a stray spark might set
+them off," a soldier informed us.
+
+The first German attempt to set foot on the bridge would be the
+signal for sending the great structure crashing skywards.
+
+The end of the run was Maastricht, now become a town of crucial
+interest. It was like a city besieged. Barricades of barbed wire and
+paving stones ripped from street ran everywhere. Iron rails and
+ties blocked the exits and the small cannon disconcertingly thrust
+their nozzles down upon one out of the windows.
+
+I lingered here long enough to secure a carriage and with it made
+quick time across the harvest fields. We were soon up on the little
+hill back of Meuse. The sun was sinking and for the first time war,
+in all its terrible spectacular splendor, smote me hard. From the hill
+at my feet there stretched away a great plain filled with a dense
+mass of German soldiery. One could scarcely believe that there
+were men there so well did their gray-green coats blend with the
+landscape. One would think that they were indeed a part of it,
+could he not feel the atmosphere vibrant with the mass personality
+of the myriad warriors tramping down the crops of the peasants. In
+the rear the commissariat vans and artillery still came lumbering
+up, while in the very front pranced the horses of the dreaded
+Uhlans, who looked with contempt, I imagined, on the Dutch
+soldiers as they stood there with the warning that here was
+Netherlands soil.
+
+In the fighting German and Belgian troops had already been
+pushed up against this line. Here they were greeted with the
+challenge: "Lay down your arms. This is the neutral soil of
+Holland." Thus many were interned until the end of the war.
+
+As even darkened into night, the endless plain became stippled
+over with points of flame from countless campfires. There were
+beauty and mystery in this vast menace sweeping the soul of the
+onlooker now with horror, and now with admiration. There was a
+terrible background to the spectacle--glowing red and luminous. It
+was made of the still blazing towns of Mouland and Vise, burned to
+the ground by order of the invaders. The fire had been set as a
+warning to the inhabitants round about. They were taking the
+warning and hastening by the thousands across the border into
+Holland, their only haven of safety.
+
+When we drove down from the hill into Eysden, we were in the
+midst of these peasants, fleeing before the red wrath rolling up into
+the sky. They came shambling in with a few possessions on which
+they had hurriedly laid their hands, singly or in families, a pitiful
+procession of the disinherited.
+
+Some of the men were moaning as they marched along, but most
+of them were taking it with the tragic oxlike resignation of the
+peasant, stupefied more than terrified, puzzled why these soldiers
+were coming down into their quiet little villages to fight out their
+quarrels. The women were crying out to Mary and all the saints.
+Indeed all the little crosses along the waysides or in the walls were
+decked with flowers in gratitude for what had been spared them. In
+most cases it was little more than their lives, their brood of
+children, and their dogs that followed on.
+
+My driver finally landed me in a shack on the outskirts of Eysden,
+which boasted the name of a hotel. It had the worst bed I ever
+slept in, and the only window was a hole in the roof.
+
+I wandered out among the unfortunates, now herded in halls and
+schools and packed in the homes of the friendly villagers. They
+were full of the weirdest tales of loot and murder. And while there
+were no tears in their eyes there was tragedy in their voices.
+
+"It would be worth while getting over to the sources and verifying
+the truth of these stories," I remarked.
+
+"A sheer impossibility, and only a fool would want to go," was one
+laconic commentary.
+
+I kept up my plaint and was overheard by Souten, head of the
+Limbourg police.
+
+"American, aren't you?" he interjected. "Well, I have done more
+work here in the last five days than I did in the five years that I lived
+in New York. Had the best time in my life there. If you want to go
+sight-seeing in Belgium, take this paper and get it countersigned at
+the German consulate. It's the only one I've given out to-day."
+
+I hurried off to the consul who, in return for six marks, duly
+impressed it with the German seal. Later on I would gladly have
+given six hundred marks to disown it.
+
+"Of course you understand that this is simply a paper issued by
+the civil authorities," said the consul, as he passed it out. "Use it at
+your own risk. If you go ahead and get shot by the military
+authorities, don't come back and blame us."
+
+I promised that I wouldn't and was off again to my hotel.
+
+As darkness deepened, with two Hollanders come to view the
+havoc of war, I sat on the stoop of our little inn. A great rumbling of
+cannon came from the direction of Tongres. A sentry shot rang out
+on the frontier just across the river which flowed not ten rods away.
+This was the Meuse, which ran red with the blood of the
+combatants, and from which the natives drew the floating corpses
+to the shore. Now its gentle lapping on the stones mingled with the
+subdued murmur of our talk. In such surroundings my new friends
+regaled me with stories of pillage and murder which the refugees
+had been bringing in from across the border. All this produced a
+distinct depreciation in the value that I had hitherto attached to my
+permit to go visiting across that border. Souten's declarations of
+friendship for America had been most voluble. It began dawning
+on me that his apparently generous and impulsive action might
+bear a different interpretation than unadulterated kindness.
+
+At this juncture, I remember, a great light flared suddenly up. It
+was one of the fans of a wind-mill fired by the Germans. In the
+foreground we could see the soldiers standing like so many gray
+wolves silhouetted against the red flames. In that light it did seem
+that motives other than pure affection might have prompted the
+Police Commissioner's action. The hectic sleep of the night was
+broken by the endless clatter of the hoofs of the German cavalry
+pushing south.
+
+My courage rose, however, with the rising sun. In the morning I
+climbed to the lookout on the hill. The hosts had vanished. A
+trampled, smoldering fire-blackened land lay before me. But there
+was the lure of the unknown. I walked down to where the great
+Netherlands flag proclaimed neutral soil. The worried Dutch
+pickets honored the signature of Souten and with one step I was
+over the border into Belgium, now under German jurisdiction. The
+helmeted soldiers across the way were a distinct disappointment.
+They looked neither fierce nor fiery. In fact, they greeted me with a
+smile. They were a bit puzzled by my paper, but the seal seemed
+echt-Deutsch and they pronounced it "gut, sehr gut." I explained
+that I wished to go forwards to Liege.
+
+"Was it possible?"
+
+For answer they shrugged their shoulders.
+
+"Was it dangerous?"
+
+"Not in the least," they assured me.
+
+The Germans were right. It was not dangerous--that is, for the
+Germans. By repeatedly proclaiming the everlasting friendship of
+Germany and America, and passing out some chocolate, I made
+good friends on the home base. They charged me only not to
+return after sundown, giving point to their advice by relating how,
+on the previous night, they had shot down a peasant woman and
+her two children who, under the cloak of darkness, sought to
+scurry past the sentinels. They told this with a genuine note of grief
+in their voices. So, with a hearty hand-shake and wishes for the
+best of luck, they waved adieu to me as I went swinging out on the
+highroad to Liege.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+In The Black Wake Of The War
+
+
+
+A half mile and I came for the first time actually face to face with
+the wastage of war. There was what once was Mouland, the little
+village I had seen burning the night before. The houses stood
+roofless and open to the sky, like so many tombstones over a
+departed people. The whitewashed outer walls were all shining in
+the morning sun. Inside they were charred black, or blazing yet
+with coals from the fire still slowly burning its way through wood
+and plaster. Here and there a house had escaped the torch.
+
+By some miracle in the smashed window of one of these houses a
+bright red geranium blossomed. It seemed to cry for water, but I
+dared not turn aside, for fear of a bullet from a lurking sentry. In
+another a sewing-machine of American make testified to the thrift
+and progressiveness of one household. In the last house as I left
+the village a rocking-horse with its head stuck through the open
+door smiled its wooden smile, as if at any rate it could keep good
+cheer even though the roofs might fall.
+
+My road now wound into the open country; and I was heartily glad
+of it, for the hedges and the houses at Mouland provided fine
+coverts for prowling German foragers or for Belgians looking for
+revenge. Dead cows and horses and dogs with their sides ripped
+open by bullets lay along the wayside. The roads were deep
+printed with the hoofs of the cavalry. The grain-fields were
+flattened out. Nine little crosses marked the place where nine
+soldiers of the Kaiser fell.
+
+This smiling countryside, teeming with one of the densest
+populations in the world, had been stripped clean of every
+inhabitant. Along the wasted way not the sign of a civilian, or for
+that matter even a soldier, was to be seen. I was glad even of the
+presence of a pig which, with her litter, was enjoying the unwonted
+pleasure of rooting out her morning meal in a rich flower-garden.
+She did not reciprocate, however, with any such fellow feeling.
+Perhaps of late she had seen enough of the doings of the genus
+homo. Surveying me as though I had been the author of all this
+destruction, she gave a frightened snort and plunged into a nearby
+thicket.
+
+I craved companionship of any living creature to break the spell of
+death and silence. I was destined to have the wish gratified in
+abundance. Fifteen minutes brought me to the outskirts of Vise,
+and there, coming over the hills and wending their way down to the
+river, were two long lines of German soldiers escorting wagons of
+the artillery and the commissariat. They came slowly and
+noiselessly trudging on and I was upon them as they crossed the
+main road before I realized it. The men were covered with dust; so
+were the horses. The wagons were in their somber paint of gray.
+There was something ominous and threatening in the long sullen
+line which wound down over the hill. The soldiers were evidently
+tired with the tedious uneventful march, and the drivers were
+goaded to irritability by the difficulty of the descent. Could I have
+retreated I would have done so with joy and would never have
+stopped until my feet were set on Holland soil.
+
+But I dared not do it. As the train came to a stop, I started bravely
+across the road. A soldier, dropping his gun from his shoulder,
+cried:
+
+"Halt!"
+
+"Is this the way to Vise?" I asked.
+
+"Perhaps it is," he replied, "but what do you want in Vise?"
+
+As he spoke, he kept edging up, pointing his bayonet directly at
+me. A bayonet will never look quite the same to me again. Total
+retreat, as I remarked, was out of the question. My inward
+anatomy, however, did the next best thing. As the bayonet point
+came pressing forward, my stomach retired backward. I could feel
+it distinctly making efforts to crawl behind my spine. At my first
+word of German his face relaxed. Ditto my stomach.
+
+"You are an American," he said. "Well, good for that. I don't know
+what we would have done were you a Belgian. Our orders are to
+suffer no Belgian in this whole district."
+
+Then he began an apologia which I heard repeated identically
+again and again, as if it were learned by rote: "The Germans had
+peacefully entered the land; boiling hot water was showered on
+them from upper stories; they were shot at from houses and
+hedges; many soldiers had thus been killed; the wells had been
+poisoned. Such acts of treachery had necessarily brought
+reprisals, etc., etc." It was the defense so regularly served up to
+neutrals that we learned in time to reproduce it almost word for
+word ourselves.
+
+We all rise to the glorification of suffering little Belgium. Whatever
+brief we may hold for her though, we ought not to picture even her
+peasant people as a mild, meek and inoffensive lot. That isn't the
+sort of stuff out of which her dogged and continuing resistance was
+wrought. That isn't the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the
+German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to
+mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three
+days of grace. But before the German avalanche hurled itself on
+Liege it was this peasant population which bore the first brunt of
+the battle.
+
+A mistake in the branching roads brought this home to me. I
+turned off in the direction of Verviers and was puzzled to see the
+road on either side strewn with tree-trunks, their sprawling limbs
+still green with leaves. It was along this highway that the invaders
+first entered Belgium. The peasants, turning their axes loose on
+the poplars and the royal elms that lined the road, had filled it with
+a tangle of interlocking limbs.
+
+The Imperial army arrived with cannon which could smash a fort to
+pieces as though it were made of blue china, but of what avail
+were these against such yielding obstructions? Maddened that
+these shambling creatures of the soil should delay the military
+promenade through this little land, officers rushed out and held
+their pistols at the heads of the offenders, threatening to blow their
+brains out if they did not speedily clear the way. Many a peasant
+did not live to see his house go up in flames--his dwelling dyed by
+his own blood was now turned into a funeral pyre. These were the
+first sacrificial offerings of Belgium on the altar of her
+independence.
+
+I now entered Vise, or rather what once had been the little city of
+Vise. It was almost completely annihilated and its three thousand
+inhabitants scattered. Through the mass of smoking ruins I
+pushed, with the paving-stones still hot beneath my feet. Quite
+unawares I ran full tilt into a group of soldiers, looking as ugly and
+dirty as the ruins amongst which they were prowling.
+
+The green-gray field-uniform is a remarkable piece of obliterative
+coloration. I had seen it blend with grass and trees, but in this
+instance it fitted in so well with the stones and debris they were
+poking over that I was right amongst them without warning. They
+straightened up with a sudden start and scowled at me. Hollanders
+and Belgians had faithfully assured me that such marauding bands
+would shoot at sight. Here was an excellent test-case. Three
+hundred marks, a gold watch and a lot of food which crammed my
+pockets would be their booty.
+
+I took the initiative with the bland inquiry, "What are you hunting
+for, corpses?"
+
+"No," they responded, pointing to their mouths and stomachs,
+"awful hungry. Hunting something to eat."
+
+I bade a mental farewell to my food-supplies as I emptied out my
+pockets before these ravagers. I expected everything to be
+grabbed with a summary demand for more. From these despoilers
+of a countryside I was ready for any sort of a manifestation--any,
+except the one that I received. With one accord they refused to
+take any of my provisions. I recovered from my surprise sufficiently
+to understand that they were thanking me for my good will while
+they were constantly reiterating:
+
+"It is your food and you will need every bit of it."
+
+In the name of camaraderie I persuaded each to take a piece of
+bread and chocolate. They received this offering with profound
+gratitude. With much cautioning and many solemn Auf Wiedersehens
+bestowed upon me, I was off again.
+
+Below Vise an entirely new vista opened to me. Tens of thousands
+of soldiers were marching over the pontoon bridges already flung
+across the river. Perhaps five hundred more were engaged in
+building a steel bridge which seemed to be a hurried but
+remarkable piece of engineering. It was replacing the old structure
+which had been dynamited by the Belgians, and which now lay a
+tangled mass of wreckage in the river.
+
+For the next eight miles to Jupilles the country was quite as much
+alive as the first four miles were dead. It was swarming with the
+military. Through all the gaps in the hills above the River Meuse
+the German army came pouring down like an enormous tidal
+wave--a tidal wave with a purpose, viz: to fling itself against the
+Allies arranged in battle line at Namur, and with the overwhelming
+mass of numbers to smash that line to bits and sweep on
+resistlessly into Paris. I thought of the Blue and Red wall of French
+and English down there awaiting this Gray-Green tide of Teutons.
+
+By the hundreds of thousands they were coming; patrols of cavalry
+clattering along, the hoof-beats of the chargers coming with
+regular cadence on the hard roads; silent moving riders mounted
+on bicycles, their guns strapped on their backs; armored
+automobiles rumbling slowly on, but taking the occasional spaces
+which opened in the road with a hollow roaring sound and at a
+terrific pace; individual horsemen galloping up and down the road
+with their messages, and the massed regiments of dust-begrimed
+men marching endlessly by.
+
+I was glad to have the spell which had been woven on me broken
+by strains of music from a wayside cafe, or rather the remains of a
+cafe, for the windows had been demolished and wreckage was
+strewn about the door, but the piano within had survived the
+ravages. Though it was sadly out of tune, the officer, seated on a
+beer keg, was evoking a noise from its battered keys, and to its
+accompaniment some soldiers were bawling lustily:
+
+"Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles!"
+
+The only other music that echoed up along those river cliffs came
+from a full-throated Saxon regiment.
+
+Evidently the Belgians from Vise to Liege had not roused the ire of
+the invaders as furiously as had the natives on the other side of
+Vise. They had as a whole established more or less friendly
+relations with the alien hosts.
+
+On the other side of Vise nothing had availed to stay the wrath of
+the Germans. Flags of truce made of sheets and pillow-cases and
+white petticoats were hung out on poles and broom handles; but
+many of these houses before which they hung had been burned to
+the ground as had the others.
+
+One Belgian had sought for his own benefit to conciliate the
+Germans, and as the Kaiser's troops at the turn of the road came
+upon his house, there was the Kaiser's emblem with the double-
+headed eagle raised to greet them. The man had nailed it high up
+in an apple tree, that they might not mistake his attitude of truckling
+disloyalty to his own country, hoping so to save his home. But let it
+be said to the credit of the Germans, that they had shown their
+contempt for this treachery by razing this house to the ground, and
+the poor fellow has lost his earthly treasures along with his soul.
+
+I now came upon some houses that were undamaged and
+showed signs of life therein. Below Argenteau there was a vine-
+covered cottage before which stood a peasant woman guarding
+her little domain. Her weapon was not a rifle but several buckets of
+water and a pleasant smile. I ventured to ask how she used the
+water. She had no time to explain, for at that very moment a
+column of soldiers came slowly plodding down the dusty road. She
+motioned me away as though she would free herself from whatever
+stigma my presence might incur. A worried look clouded her face,
+as though she were saying to herself: "I know that we have been
+spared so far by all the brigands which have gone by, but perhaps
+here at last is the band that has been appointed to wipe us out."
+
+This water, then, was a peace-offering, a plea for mercy.
+
+As soon as the soldiers looked her way she put a smile on her
+face, but it ill concealed her anxiety. She pointed invitingly to her
+pails. At the sight of the water a thirsty soldier here and there
+would break from the ranks, rush to the pails, take the proffered
+cup, and hastily swallow down the cooling draught. Then returning
+the cup to the woman, he would rush back again to his place in the
+ranks. Perhaps a dozen men removed their helmets, and, extracting
+a sponge from the inside, made signs to the woman to pour water
+on it; then, replacing the sponge in the helmet, marched on refreshed
+and rejoicing.
+
+A mounted officer, spying this little oasis, drew rein and gave the
+order to halt. The troopers, very wearied by the long forced march,
+flung themselves down upon the grass while the officer's horse
+thrust his nose deep into the pail and greedily sucked the water
+up. More buckets were being continually brought out. Some of
+them must surely have been confiscated from her neighbors who
+had fled. The officer, dismounting, sought to hold converse with his
+hostess, but even with many signs it proved a failure. They both
+laughed heartily together, though her mirth I thought a bit forced.
+
+I do not remember witnessing any finer episode in all the war than
+that enacted in this region where the sky was red with flames from
+the neighbors' houses, and the lintels red with blood from their
+veins. A frail little soul with only spiritual weapons, she fought for
+her hearth against a venging host in arms; facing these rough war-
+stained men, she forced her trembling body to outward calm and
+graciousness. Her nerve was not unappreciated. Not one soldier
+returned his cup without a word of thanks and a look of admiration.
+
+Nor did this pluck go unrewarded. Three months later, passing
+again through this region as a prisoner, I glimpsed the little cottage
+still standing in its plot by the flowing river. I want to visit it again
+after the war. It will always be to me a shrine of the spirit's splendid
+daring.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+A Duelist From Marburg
+
+
+
+A squad of soldiers stretched out on a bank beckoned me to join
+them; I did so and at once they begged for news. They were not of
+an order of super-intelligence, and informed me that it was the
+French they were to fight at Liege. Unaware that England had
+entered the lists against Germany, "Belgium" was only a word to
+them. I took it upon myself to clear up their minds on these points.
+An officer overheard and plainly showed his disapproval of such
+missionary activity, yet he could not conceal his own curiosity. I
+sought to appease him by volunteering some information.
+
+"Japan," I blandly announced, "is about to join the foes of
+Germany." As the truth, that was unassailable; but as diplomacy it
+was a wretched fluke.
+
+"You're a fool!" he exploded. "What are you talking about? Japan
+is one of our best friends, almost as good as America. Those two
+nations will fight for us--not against us. You're verruckt."
+
+That was a severe stricture but in the circumstances I thought best
+to overlook the reflection upon my mentality. One of the soldiers
+passed some witticism, evidently at my expense; taking advantage
+of the outburst of laughter, I made off down the road. They did not
+offer to detain me. The officer probably reasoned that my being
+there was guarantee enough of my right to be there, taking it for
+granted that the regular sentries on the road had passed upon my
+credentials. However, I made a very strong resolution hereafter to
+be less zealous in my proclamation of the truth, to hold my tongue
+and keep walking.
+
+In the midst of my reflections I was startled by a whistle, and,
+looking back, saw in the distance a puff of steam on what I
+supposed was the wholly abandoned railway, but there, sure
+enough, was a train rattling along at a good rate. I could make out
+soldiers with guns sitting upon the tender, and presumed that they
+were with these instruments directing the operations of some
+Belgian engineer and fireman. In a moment more I saw I was
+mistaken, for at the throttle was a uniformed soldier, and another
+comrade in his gray-green costume was shoveling coal into the
+furnace. One of the guards, seeing me plodding on, smilingly
+beckoned to me to jump aboard. When I took the cue and made a
+move in that direction he winked his eye and significantly tapped
+upon the barrel of his gun. The train was loaded with iron rails and
+timbers, and I speculated as to their use, but farther down the line I
+saw hundreds of men unloading these, making a great noise as
+they flung them down the river bank to the water's edge. They
+were destined for a big pontoon bridge which these men were, with
+thousands of soldiers, throwing across the stream. Ceaselessly
+the din and clangor of hammerings rang out over the river. My way
+now wound through what was, to all purposes, one German camp,
+strung for miles along the Meuse. The soldiers were busy with
+domestic duties. Everywhere there was the cheer and rhythm of
+well-ordered industry in the open air. In one place thousands of
+loaves of black bread were being shifted from wagon to wagon. In
+another they were piling a yard high with mountains of grain. The
+air was full of the drone of a great mill, humming away at full
+speed, while the Belgian fields were yielding up their golden
+harvests to the invaders. Apples in great clusters hung down
+around the necks of horses tethered in the orchards. With their
+keepers they were enjoying a respite from their hard fatiguing
+exertions.
+
+Here and there among the groves, or along the wayside, was a
+contrivance that looked like a tiny engine; smoke curled out of its
+chimney and coals blazed brightly in the grate. They were the
+kitchen-wagons, each making in itself a complete, compact
+cooking apparatus. Some had immense caldrons with a spoon as
+large as a spade. In these the stews, put up in dry form and
+guaranteed to keep for twenty years, were being heated. A savory
+smell permeated the air and at the sound of the bugle the men
+clustered about, each looking happy as he received his dish filled
+with steaming rations.
+
+Through this scene the native Belgians moved freely in and out.
+Tables had been dragged out into the yard, and around them
+officers were sitting eating, drinking, and chatting with the peasant
+women who were serving them and with whom they had set up an
+entente cordiale. Indeed, these Belgians seemed to be rather
+enjoying this interruption in the monotony of their lives, and a few
+were making the most of the great adventure. In one case I could
+not help believing that a certain strikingly-pretty, self-possessed girl
+was not altogether averse to a war which could thus bring to her
+side the attentions of such a handsome and gallant set of officers
+as were gathered round her. At any rate, she was equal to the
+occasion, and over her little court, which rang with laughter, she
+presided with a certain rustic dignity and ease.
+
+The ordinary soldier could make himself understood only with
+motions and sundry gruntings, and consequently had to content
+himself with smoking in the sun or sleeping in the shade.
+Everywhere was the atmosphere of physical relaxation after the
+long journey. So far did my tension wear off, that I even forgot the
+resolution to hold my tongue. Two officers leaning back in their
+chairs at a table by the wayside surveyed me intently as I came
+along. Rather than wait to be challenged, I thought it best to turn
+aside and ask them my usual question, "How does one get to
+Liege?"
+
+One of them answered somewhat stiffly, adding, "And where did
+you learn your German?" "I was in a German university a few
+months," I replied. "Which one?" the officer asked. "Marburg," I
+replied.
+
+"Ah!" he said, this time with a smile; "that was mine. I studied
+philology there."
+
+We talked together of the fine, rich life there, and I spoke of the
+students' duels I had witnessed a few miles out.
+
+"Ah!" he said, uncovering his head and pointing to the scars
+across his scalp; "that's where I got these. Perhaps I will get some
+deeper ones down in this country," he added with a smile.
+
+Ofttimes in the early morning hours I had trudged out to a
+students' inn on the outskirts of Marburg. As many times I had
+heard the solemn announcement of the umpire warning all
+assembled to disperse as the place might be raided by the police
+and all imprisoned. That was a mere formality. No one left. The
+umpire forthwith cried "Los," there was a flash of swords in the air
+as each duelist sought, and sometimes succeeded, in cutting his
+opponent's face into a Hamburg steak. It was a sanguinary affair
+and undoubtedly connived at by the officials. When I had asked
+what was the point of it all, I was told that it developed Mut and
+Enschlossenheit--a fine contempt of pain and blood. That dueling
+was not without its contribution to the general program of German
+preparedness. Only now the bloodletting was gone at on a
+colossal scale.
+
+"Yes, that's where I received these cuts," this young officer said,
+"and if I do not get some too deep down here I'll write to you after
+the war," he added with another smile. As I gave him my address,
+I asked for his.
+
+"It's against all the rules," he answered. "It can't be done. But you
+shall hear from me, I assure you," he said with a hearty
+handshake.
+
+Only once all the way into Liege did I feel any suspicion directed
+towards me. That was when I presented my paper to the next
+guard, a morose-looking individual. He looked at it very puzzled,
+and put several questions to me. His last one was,
+
+"Where is your home?"
+
+"I come from Boston, Massachusetts," I replied.
+
+Encouraged with my success with the last officers, I ventured to
+ask him where he came from.
+
+Looking me straight in the eyes, he replied very pointedly, "Ich
+komme aus Deutschland."
+
+Good form among invading armies, I found, precluded the guest
+making inquiry into anyone's antecedents. I made a second
+resolution to keep my own counsel, as I hurried down the road.
+
+There was no release from his searching eyes until a turn in the
+highway put an intervening obstacle between myself and him. But
+this relief was short-lived, for no sooner had I rounded the bend
+than a cry of "Halt!" shot fear into me. I turned to see a man on a
+wheel waving wildly at me. I thought it was a summons back to my
+inquisitor, and the end of my journey. Instead, it was my officer
+from Marburg, who dismounted, took two letters from his pocket,
+and asked me if I would have the kindness to deliver them to the
+Feld Post if I got through to Liege. He said that seemed like a God-
+given opportunity to lift the load off the hearts of his mother and his
+sweetheart back home. Gladly I took them, with his caution not to
+drop them into an ordinary letter-box in Liege, but to take them to
+the Feld Post or give them to an officer. I went on my way rejoicing
+that I could add these letters to my credentials. I now passed down
+the long street of Jupilles, which was plastered with notices from
+the German authorities guaranteeing observance of the rights of
+the citizens of Jupilles, but threatening to visit any overt acts
+against the soldiers "with the most terrible reprisals."
+
+I arrived on the outskirts of Liege with the expectation of seeing a
+sorry-looking battered city, as the reports which had drifted to the
+outer world had made it; but considering that it had been the
+center around which the storm of battle had raged for over two
+weeks, it showed outwardly but little damage. The chief marks of
+war were in the shattered windows; the great pontoon bridge of
+barges, which replaced the dynamited structure by the Rue
+Leopold, and hundreds of stores and public buildings, flying the
+white flag with the Red Cross on it. The walls, too, were fairly white
+with placards posted by order of the German burgomaster Klyper.
+It was an anachronism to find along the trail of the forty-two
+centimeter guns warnings of death to persons harboring courier
+pigeons.
+
+Another bill which was just being posted was the announcement of
+the war-tax of 50,000,000 francs imposed on the city to pay for the
+"administration of civil affairs." That was the first of those war-
+levies which leeched the life blood out of Belgium.
+
+The American consul, Heingartner, threw up his hands in
+astonishment as I presented myself. No one else had come
+through since the beginning of hostilities. He begged for
+newspapers but, unfortunately, I had thrown my lot away, not
+realizing how completely Liege had been cut off from the outer
+world. He related the incidents of that first night entry of German
+troops into Liege. The clatter of machine gun bullets sweeping by
+the consulate had scarcely ceased when the sounds of gun-butts
+battering on the doors accompanied by hoarse shouts of "Auf
+Steigen" (get up) reverberated through the street. As the doors
+unbolted and swung back, officers peremptorily demanded
+quarters for their troops, receiving with contempt the protests of
+Heingartner that they were violating precincts under protection of
+the American flag.
+
+On the following day, however, a wholehearted apology was
+tendered along with an invitation to witness the first firing of the big
+guns.
+
+"Put your fingers in your ears, stand on your toes, and open your
+mouth," the officer said. There was a terrific concussion, a black
+speck up in the heavens, and a ton of metal dropped down out of
+the blue, smashing one of the cupolas of the forts to pieces. That
+one shot annihilated 260 men. I shuddered as we all do. But it
+should not be for the sufferings of the killed. For they did not suffer
+at all. They were wiped out as by the snapping of a finger.
+
+The taking of those 260 bodies out of the world, then, was a
+painless process. But not so the bringing of these bodies into the
+world. That cost an infinite sum of pain and anguish. To bring
+these bodies into being 260 mothers went down into the very
+Valley of the Shadow of Death. And now in a flash all this life had
+been sent crashing into eternity. "Women may not bear arms, but
+they bear men, and so furnish the first munitions of war." Thus are
+they deeply and directly concerned in the affairs of the state.
+
+The consul with his wife and daughter gave me dinner along with a
+cordial welcome. At first he was most appreciative of my exploits.
+Then it seemed to dawn on him that possibly other motives than
+sheer love of adventure might have spurred me on. The harboring
+of a possible spy was too large a risk to run in the uncertain
+temper of the Germans. In that light I took on the aspects of a
+liability.
+
+The clerks of the two hotels to whom I applied assumed a like
+attitude. In fact every one with whom I attempted to hold converse
+became coldly aloof. Holding the best of intents, I was treated like
+a pariah. The only one whom I could get a raise from was a
+bookseller who spoke English. His wrath against the spoilers
+overcame his discretion, and he launched out into a bitter tirade
+against them. I reminded him that, as civilians, his fellow-
+countrymen had undoubtedly been sniping on the German troops.
+That was too much.
+
+"What would you do if a thief or a murderer entered your house?"
+he exploded. "No matter if he had announced his coming, you
+would shoot him, wouldn't you?"
+
+Realizing that he had confided altogether too much to a casual
+passerby, he suddenly subsided. The only other comment I could
+drag out of him was that of a German officer who had told him that
+"one Belgian could fight as good as four Germans." My request for
+a lodging-place met with the same evasion from him as from the
+others.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+Thirty-Seven Miles In A Day
+
+
+
+"Death if you try to cross the line after nightfall." Thus my soldier
+friends picketing the Holland-Belgium frontier had warned me in
+the morning. That rendezvous with death was not a roseate
+prospect; but there was something just as omnious about the
+situation in Liege. To cover the sixteen miles back to the Dutch
+border before dark was a big task to tackle with blistered feet. I
+knew the sentries along the way returning, but I knew not the
+pitfalls for me if I remained in Liege. This drove me to a prompt
+decision and straightway I made for the bridge.
+
+It was no prophetically favorable sight that greeted me at the
+outset. A Belgian, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts, had
+just been shot, and the soldiers, rolling him on a stretcher, were
+carrying him off. I made so bold as to approach a sentry and ask:
+"What has he been doing?" For an answer the sentry pointed to a
+nearby notice. In four languages it announced that any one caught
+near a telegraph pole or wire in any manner that looked suspicious
+to the authorities would be summarily dealt with. They were
+carrying him away, poor lad, and the crowd passed on in heedless
+fashion, as though already grown accustomed to death.
+
+When the troops at the front are taking lives by the thousands,
+those guarding the lines at the rear catch the contagion of killing.
+Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I
+speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a
+field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a
+drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against
+the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's
+vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating
+myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart
+turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less
+in my pocket.
+
+There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself
+along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier. I
+was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed
+after me stalking so fiercely past them. But the great automobiles
+plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being
+continually covered by this gray powder. What I most feared was
+lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent
+answers.
+
+Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place.
+Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper
+of the inn. I pointed to my throat. She understood at once my signs
+of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank
+until I was ashamed.
+
+"How much!" I asked.
+
+She shook her head negatively. I pushed a franc or two across the
+table.
+
+"No," she said smilingly but with resolution.
+
+"I can't take it. You need it on your journey. We are all just friends
+together now."
+
+So my dust and distress had their compensations. They had
+brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow.
+
+It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich
+region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of
+supply. There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle
+on the opposite bank of the river; they were raising a great noise
+as the soldiers drove their wagons among them, throwing down
+the hay and grain. Otherwise, the army had settled down from the
+hustling activities of the morning, and the guards had been posted
+for the oncoming evening. I knew now that I was progressing at a
+good pace because near Wandre I noticed a peasant's wagon
+ahead, and soon overtook it. It was carrying eight or nine Belgian
+farm-hands, and the horse was making fair time under constant
+pressure from the driver.
+
+I did not wish to add an extra burden to the overloaded animal, but
+it was no time for the exercise of sentiment. So I held up a two-
+franc piece to the driver. He looked at the coin, then he looked at
+the horse, and then, picking out the meekest and the most
+inoffensive of his free passengers, he bade him get off and
+motioned me to take the vacated seat at my right as a first-class
+paying passenger. Two francs was the fare, and he seemed highly
+gratified with the sum, little realizing that he could just as well have
+had two hundred francs for that seat. We stopped once more to
+hitch on a small wood-cart, and with that bumping behind us, we
+trailed along fearfully slowly. Gladly would I have offered a
+generous bounty to have him urge his horse along, but I feared to
+excite suspicion by too lavish an outlay of money. So I sat tight
+and let my feet dangle off the side, glad of the relief, but feeling
+them slowly swelling beneath me.
+
+I was saving my head as well as my feet, for the perpetual
+matching of one's wits in encounters with the guards was
+continually nerve-frazzling. But now as the cart joggled past, the
+guard made a casual survey of us all, taking it for granted that I
+was one of the local inhabitants. For this respite from constant
+inquisition I was indebted to the dust, grime and sweat that
+covered me. It blurred out all distinction between myself and the
+peasants, forming a perfect protective coloration.
+
+To slide past so many guards so easily was a net gain indeed.
+However, the end of such easy passing came at the edge of
+Charrate, where the driver turned into his yard, and I was dumped
+down into an encampment of soldiers. Acting on the militarists'
+dictum that the best defensive is a strong offensive I pushed my
+way boldly into the midst of a group gathered round a pump and
+made signs that I desired a drink. At first they did not understand,
+or, thinking that I was a native Belgian, they were rather taken
+aback by such impertinence; but one soldier handed me his cup
+and another pumped it full. I drank it, and, thanking them, started
+off. This calm assurance gained me passage past the guard, who
+had stood by watching the procedure. In the next six hundred
+yards I was brought to a standstill by a sudden "Halt!" At one of the
+posts some soldiers were ringed around a prisoner garbed in the
+long black regulation cassock of a priest. Though he wore a white
+handkerchief around his arm as a badge of a peaceful attitude, he
+was held as a spy. His hands and his eyes were twitching
+nervously. He seemed to be glad to welcome the addition of my
+company into the ranks of the suspects, but he was doomed to
+disappointment, for I was passed along. The next guard took me
+to his superior officer directly. But the superior officer was the
+incarnation of good humor and he was more interested in a little
+repast that was being made ready for him than in entering into the
+questions involved in my case.
+
+"Search him for weapons," he said casually, while he himself
+made a few perfunctory passes over my pockets. No weapons
+being found, he said, "Let him go. We've done damage here
+enough."
+
+These interruptions were getting to be distressingly frequent. I had
+journeyed but a few hundred yards farther when a surly fellow
+sprang out from behind a wagon and in a raucous voice bade me
+"Stand by." He had an evil glint in his eye, and was ready to go out
+of his way hunting trouble. Totally dissatisfied with any answer I
+could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no
+doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and
+humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me
+cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a
+self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still
+more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me to your superior officer."
+
+He softened down like a child, and, standing aside, motioned me
+along.
+
+I would put nothing past a bully of that stripe. He was capable of
+committing any kind of an atrocity. And his sort undoubtedly did.
+But what else can one expect from a conscript army, which, as it
+puts every man on its roster, must necessarily contain the worst as
+well as the best? Draft 1,000 men out of any community in any
+country and along with the decent citizens there will be a certain
+number of cowards, braggarts and brutes. When occasion offers
+they will rob, rape and murder. To such a vicious strain this fellow
+belonged.
+
+The soldier whom next I encountered is really typical of the
+Gemutlichheit of the men who, on the 20th of August, were
+encamped along the Meuse River. I was moving along fast now
+under the cover of a hedge which paralleled the road when a voice
+called out "Halt!" In a step or two I came to a stop. A large fellow
+climbed over the hedge, and, coming on the road, fell, or rather
+stumbled over himself, into the ditch. I was afraid he was drunk,
+and that this tumble would add vexation to his spirits; but he was
+only tired and over-weighted, carrying a big knapsack and a gun, a
+number of articles girdled around his waist, along with too much
+avoirdupois. It seems that even in this conquered territory the
+Germans never relaxed their vigilance. Fully a thousand men
+stood guarding the pontoon bridge, and this man, who had gone
+out foraging and was returning with a bottle of milk, carried his full
+fighting equipment with him, as did all the others. I gave him a
+hand and pulled him to his feet, offering to help carry something,
+as he was breathing heavily; but he refused my aid. As we walked
+along together I gave him my last stick of chocolate, and, being
+assured by my demeanor that I was a friend, he showed a real
+kindly, fatherly interest in me.
+
+"A bunch of robbers, that's what these Belgians are," he asserted
+stoutly. "They charged me a mark for a quart of milk."
+
+I put my question of the morning to him: "Is it dangerous traveling
+along here so late?" His answer was anything but reassuring.
+"Yes, it is very dangerous."
+
+Then he explained that one of his comrades had been shot by a
+Belgian from the bluffs above that very afternoon and that the men
+were all very angry. All the Belgians had taken to cover, for the
+road was totally cleared of pedestrians from this place on to
+Mouland.
+
+"Well, what am I to do?" I asked.
+
+"Go straight ahead. Swerve neither to the right nor left. Be sure
+you have no weapons, and stop at once when the guard cries
+'Halt!' and you will get through all right. But, above all, be sure to
+stand stock still immediately at the challenge. Above all--that," he
+insisted.
+
+"But did I not stop still when you cried 'Halt!' a minute ago?" I
+asked.
+
+"No," he said; "you took two or three steps before you came to a
+perfect stop. See, this is the way to do it." He started off briskly,
+and as I cried "Halt!" came to a standstill with marvelous and
+sudden precision for a man of his weight.
+
+"Do it that way and cry out, 'Ready, here!' and it will be all right."
+
+I would give a great deal for a vignette of that ponderous fellow
+acting as drillmaster to this stray American. The intensity of the
+situation rapidly ripened his interest into an affection. I was fretting
+to get away, but the amenities demanded a more formal leave-
+taking. At last, however, I broke away, bearing with me his paternal
+benediction. Far ahead a company of soldiers was forming into
+line. Just as I reached the place they came to attention, and at a
+gesture from the captain I walked like a royal personage down
+past the whole line, feeling hundreds of eyes critically playing upon
+me. I suspect that the captain had a sense of humor and was
+enjoying the discomfiture he knew I must feel.
+
+Estimating my advance by the signboards, where distances were
+marked in kilometers, it appeared that I was getting on with
+wretched slowness, considering the efforts I was making. At this
+rate, I knew I should never reach the Holland frontier by nightfall,
+and from the warnings I had received I dreaded to attempt
+crossing after sundown. Sleeping in the fields when the whole
+country was infested by soldiers was out of the question, so I
+turned to the first open cottage of a peasant and asked him to take
+me in for the night. He shook his head emphatically, and gave me
+to understand it would be all his life were worth if he did so. So I
+rallied my energies for one last effort, and plunged wildly ahead.
+
+The breeze was blowing refreshingly up the river, the road was
+clear, and soon I was rewarded by seeing the smoke still curling
+up from the ruins of Vise. I looked at my watch, which pointed to
+the time for sunset, and yet there was the sun, curiously enough,
+some distance up from the horizon. The fact of the matter is that I
+had reset my watch at Liege, and clocks there had all been
+changed to German time. With a tremendous sense of relief I
+discovered that I had a full hour more than I had figured on.
+
+There was ample time now to cover the remaining distance, and
+so I rested a moment before what appeared to be a deserted
+house. Slowly the shutters were pushed back and a sweet-faced
+old lady timorously thrust her head out of an upper window. She
+apparently had been hiding away terror-stricken, and there was
+something pathetic in the half-trusting way she risked her fate
+even now. In a low voice she put some question in the local patois
+to me. I could not understand what she was asking, but concluded
+that she was seeking comfort and assurance. So I sought to
+convey by much gesturing and benevolent smiling that all was
+quiet and safe along the Meuse. She may have concluded that I
+was some harmless, roaming idiot who could not answer a plain
+question; but it was the best I could do, and I walked on to Vise
+with the fine feeling of having played the role of comforter.
+
+At Vise I was heartened by two dogs who jumped wildly and
+joyously around me. I gathered courage enough here to swerve to
+the right, and from the window of a still burning roadside cafe
+extracted three wine-glasses as souvenirs of the trip.
+
+Presently I was in Mouland, whose few forlorn walls grouped about
+the village church made a pathetic picture as they glowed
+luminously in the setting sun. A flock of doves were cooing in the
+blackened ruins. Now I was on the home-stretch; and, that there
+might be no mistake with my early morning comrades, I cried out
+in German, "Here comes a friend!" With broad smiles on their
+faces, they were waiting there to receive me.
+
+They made a not unpicturesque group gathered around their
+camp-fire. One was plucking a chicken, another making the straw
+beds for the night. A third was laboriously at work writing a post-
+card. I ventured the information that I had made over fifty
+kilometers that day. They punctured my pride somewhat by stating
+that that was often the regular stint for German soldiers. But,
+pointing to their own well-made hobnailed boots, they added,
+"Never in thin rubber soles like yours." After emptying my pockets
+of eatables and promising to deliver the post-card, I passed once
+more under the great Dutch banner into neutral territory.
+
+My three Holland friends were there with an automobile, and,
+greeting me with a hearty "Gute Knabe!" whisked me off to
+Maastricht. For the next three days I did all my writing in bed,
+nursing a, couple of bandaged feet. I wouldn't have missed that
+trip for ten thousand dollars. I wouldn't go through it again for a
+hundred thousand.
+
+
+Part 3
+With the War Photographers in Belgium
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+How I Was Shot As A German Spy
+
+
+
+IN the last days of September, the Belgians moving in and through
+Ghent in their rainbow-colored costumes, gave to the city a
+distinctively holiday touch. The clatter of cavalry hoofs and the
+throb of racing motors rose above the voices of the mobs that
+surged along the streets.
+
+Service was normal in the cafes. To the accompaniment of music
+and clinking glasses the dress-suited waiter served me a five-
+course lunch for two francs. It was uncanny to see this blaze of life
+while the city sat under the shadow of a grave disaster. At any
+moment the gray German tide might break out of Brussels and
+pour its turbid flood of soldiers through these very streets. Even
+now a Taube hovered in the sky, and from the skirmish-line an
+occasional ambulance rumbled in with its crimsoned load.
+
+I chanced into Gambrinus' cafe and was lost in the babbling sea of
+French and Flemish. Above the melee of sounds, however, I
+caught a gladdening bit of English. Turning about, I espied a little
+group of men whose plain clothes stood out in contrast to the
+colored uniforms of officers and soldiers crowded into the cafe.
+Wearied of my efforts at conversing in a foreign tongue, I went
+over and said: "Do you really speak English!" "Well, rather!"
+answered the one who seemed to act as leader of the group. "We
+are the only ones now and it will be scarcer still around here in a
+few days." "Why!" I asked.
+
+"Because Ghent will be in German hands." This brought an
+emphatic denial from one of his confreres who insisted that the
+Germans had already reached the end of their rope. A certain
+correspondent, joining in the argument, came in for a deal of
+banter for taking the war de luxe in a good hotel far from the front.
+
+"What do you know about the war?" they twitted him. "You've
+pumped all your best stories out of the refugees ten miles from the
+front, after priming them with a glass of beer."
+
+They were a group of young war-photographers to whom danger
+was a magnet. Though none of them had yet reached the age of
+thirty, they had seen service in all the stirring events of Europe and
+even around the globe. Where the clouds lowered and the seas
+tossed, there they flocked. Like stormy petrels they rushed to the
+center of the swirling world. That was their element. A free-lance, a
+representative of the Northcliffe press, and two movie-men
+comprised this little group and made an island of English amidst
+the general babel.
+
+Like most men who have seen much of the world, they had
+ceased to be cynics. When I came to them out of the rain, carrying
+no other introduction than a dripping overcoat, they welcomed me
+into their company and whiled away the evening with tales of the
+Balkan wars.
+
+They were in high spirits over their exploits of the previous day,
+when the Germans, withdrawing from Melle on the outskirts of the
+city, had left a long row of cottages still burning. As the enemy
+troops pulled out the further end of the street, the movie men
+came in at the other and caught the pictures of the still blazing
+houses. We went down to view them on the screen. To the gentle
+throbbing of drums and piano, the citizens of Ghent viewed the
+unique spectacle of their own suburbs going up in smoke.
+
+At the end of the show they invited me to fill out their automobile
+on the morrow. Nearly every other motor had been commandeered
+by the authorities for the "Service Militaire" and bore on the front
+the letters "S. M." Our car was by no means in the blue-ribbon
+class. It had a hesitating disposition and the authorities, regarding
+it as more of a liability than an asset, had passed it over.
+
+But the correspondents counted it a great stroke of fortune to have
+any car at all; and, that they might continue to have it, they kept it
+at night carefully locked in a room in the hotel.
+
+They had their chauffeur under like supervision. He was one of
+their kind, and with the cunning of a diplomat obtained the permit
+to buy petrol, most precious of all treasures in the field of war.
+Indeed, gasoline, along with courage and discipline, completed the
+trinity of success in the military mind.
+
+With the British flag flying at the front, we sped away next morning
+on the road to Termonde. At Melle we came upon the blazing
+cottages we had seen pictured the night before. Here we
+encountered a roving band of Belgian soldiers who were in a free
+and careless mood and evinced a ready willingness to put
+themselves at our disposal. Under the command of the photographers,
+they charged across the fields with fixed bayonets, wriggled up
+through the grass, or, standing behind the trenches, blazed away
+with their guns at an imaginary enemy. They did some good acting,
+grim and serious as death. All except one.
+
+This youth couldn't suppress his sense of humor. He could not, or
+would not, keep from laughing, even when he was supposed to be
+blowing the head off a Boche. He was properly disciplined and put
+out of the game, and we went on with our maneuvers to the
+accompaniment of the clicking cameras until the photographers
+had gathered in a fine lot of realistic fighting-line pictures.
+
+One of the photographers sat stolidly in the automobile smoking
+his cigarette while the others were reaping their harvest.
+
+"Why don't you take these too?" I asked.
+
+"Oh," he replied, "I've been sending in so much of that stuff that I
+just got a telegram from my paper saying, 'Pension off that Belgian
+regiment which is doing stunts in the trenches.'"
+
+While his little army rested from their maneuvers the Director-in-
+Chief turned to me and said:
+
+"Wouldn't you like to have a photograph of yourself in these war-
+surroundings, just to take home as a souvenir?"
+
+That appealed to me. After rejecting some commonplace
+suggestions, he exclaimed: "I have it. Shot as a German Spy.
+There's the wall to stand up against; and we'll pick a crack firing-
+squad out of these Belgians. A little bit of all right, eh?"
+
+I acquiesced in the plan and was led over to the wall while a
+movie-man whipped out a handkerchief and tied it over my eyes.
+The director then took the firing squad in hand. He had but
+recently witnessed the execution of a spy where he had almost
+burst with a desire to photograph the scene. It had been
+excruciating torture to restrain himself. But the experience had
+made him feel conversant with the etiquette of shooting a spy, as it
+was being done amongst the very best firing-squads. He made it
+now stand him in good stead.
+
+"Aim right across the bandage," the director coached them. I could
+hear one of the soldiers laughing excitedly as he was warming up
+to the rehearsal. It occurred to me that I was reposing a lot of
+confidence in a stray band of soldiers. Some one of those
+Belgians, gifted with a lively imagination, might get carried away
+with the suggestion and act as if I really were a German spy.
+
+"Shoot the blooming blighter in the eye," said one movie man
+playfully.
+
+"Bally good idea!" exclaimed the other one approvingly, while one
+eager actor realistically clicked his rifle-hammer. That was
+altogether too much. I tore the bandage from my eyes, exclaiming:
+
+"It would be a bally good idea to take those cartridges out first."
+Some fellow might think his cartridge was blank or try to fire wild,
+just as a joke in order to see me jump. I wasn't going to take any
+risk and flatly refused to play my part until the cartridges were
+ejected. Even when the bandage was readjusted "Didn't-know-it-
+was-loaded" stories still were haunting me. In a moment,
+however, it was over and I was promised my picture within a
+fortnight.
+
+A week later I picked up the London Daily Mirror from a
+newsstand. It had the caption:
+
+
+Belgian Soldiers Shoot a German Spy Caught at Termonde
+
+
+I opened up the paper and what was my surprise to see a big
+spread picture of myself, lined up against that row of Melle
+cottages and being shot for the delectation of the British public.
+There is the same long raincoat that runs as a motif through all the
+other pictures. Underneath it were the words:
+
+"The Belgians have a short, sharp method of dealing with the
+Kaiser's rat-hole spies. This one was caught near Termonde and,
+after being blindfolded, the firing-squad soon put an end to his
+inglorious career."
+
+One would not call it fame exactly, even though I played the star-
+role. But it is a source of some satisfaction to have helped a royal
+lot of fellows to a first-class scoop. As the "authentic spy-picture of
+the war," it has had a broadcast circulation. I have seen it in
+publications ranging all the way from The Police Gazette to
+"Collier's Photographic History of the European War." In a
+university club I once chanced upon a group gathered around this
+identical picture. They were discussing the psychology of this "poor
+devil" in the moments before he was shot. It was a further source
+of satisfaction to step in and arbitrarily contradict all their
+conclusions and, having shown them how totally mistaken they
+were, proceed to tell them exactly how the victim felt. This high-
+handed manner nettled one fellow terribly:
+
+"Not so arbitrary, my friend!" he said. "You haven't any right to be
+so devilish cocksure."
+
+"Haven't I?" I replied. "Who has any better right? I happen to be
+that identical man!" But that little episode has been of real value to
+me. It is said that if one goes through the motions he gets the
+emotions. I believe that I have an inkling of how a man feels when
+he momentarily expects a volley of cold lead to turn his skull into a
+sieve.
+
+That was a very timely picture. It filled a real demand. For spies
+were at that time looming distressingly large in the public mind.
+The deeds they had done, or were about to do, cast a cold fear
+over men by day and haunted them by night. They were in the
+Allies' councils, infesting the army, planning destruction to the
+navy. Any wild tale got credence, adding its bit to the general
+paralysis, and producing a vociferous demand that "something be
+done." The people were assured that all culprits were being duly
+sentenced and shot. But there was no proof of it. There were no
+pictures thereof extant. And that is what the public wanted.
+
+"Give the public what it wants," was the motto of this enterprising
+newspaper man. Herewith he supplied tangible evidence on which
+they could feast their eyes and soothe their nerves.
+
+As to the ethics of these pictures, they are "true" in that they are
+faithful to reality. In this case the photographer acted up to his
+professional knowledge and staged the pictures as he had actually
+seen the spy shot. They must find their justification on the same
+basis as fiction, which is "the art of falsifying facts for the sake of
+truth." And who would begrudge them the securing of a few
+pictures with comparative ease?
+
+Most of the pictures which the public casually gazes on have been
+secured at a price--and a large one, too. The names of these men
+who go to the front with cameras, rather than with rifles or pens,
+are generally unknown. They are rarely found beneath the
+pictures, yet where would be our vivid impression of courage in
+daring and of skill in doing, of cunning strategy upon the field of
+battle, of wounded soldiers sacrificing for their comrades, if we had
+no pictures? A few pictures are faked, but behind most pictures
+there is another tale of daring and of strategy, and that is the tale
+concerning the man who took it. That very day thrice these same
+men risked their lives.
+
+The apparatus loaded in the car, we were off again. Past a few
+barricades of paving-stones and wagons, past the burned houses
+which marked the place where the Germans had come within five
+miles of Ghent, we encountered some uniformed Belgians who
+looked quite as dismal and dispirited as the fog which hung above
+the fields. They were the famous Guarde Civique of Belgium. Our
+Union Jack, flapping in the wind, was very likely quite the most
+thrilling spectacle they had seen in a week, and they hailed it with a
+cheer and a cry of "Vive l'Angleterre!" (Long live England!) The
+Guarde Civique had a rather inglorious time of it. Wearisomely in
+their wearisome-looking uniform, they stood for hours on their
+guns or marched and counter-marched in dreary patrolling, often
+doomed not even to scent the battle from afar off.
+
+Whenever we were called to a halt for the examination of our
+passports, these men crowded around and begged for newspapers.
+We held up our stock, and they would clamor for the ones with
+pictures. The English text was unintelligible to most of them, but
+the pictures they could understand, and they bore them away to
+enjoy the sight of other soldiers fighting, even if they themselves
+were denied that excitement. Our question to them was always
+the same, "Where are the Germans?"
+
+Out of the conflicting reports it was hard to tell whether the
+Germans were heading this way or not. That they were expected
+was shown by the sign-posts whose directions had just been
+obliterated by fresh paint--a rather futile operation, because the
+Germans had better maps and plans of the region than the
+Belgians themselves, maps which showed every by-path, well and
+barn. The chauffeur's brother had been shot in his car by the
+Germans but a week before, and he didn't relish the idea of thus
+flaunting the enemy's flag along a road where some German
+scouting party might appear at any moment. The Union Jack had
+done good service in getting us easy passage so far, but the driver
+was not keen for going further with it.
+
+It was proposed to turn the car around and back it down the road,
+as had been done the previous day. Thus the car would be
+headed in the home direction, and at sight of the dreaded uniform
+we could make a quick leap for safety. At this juncture, however, I
+produced a small Stars and Stripes, which the chauffeur hailed
+with delight, and we continued our journey now under the aegis of
+a neutral flag.
+
+It might have secured temporary safety, but only temporary; for if
+the Englishmen with only British passports had fallen into the
+hands of the Germans, like their unfortunate kinsmen who did
+venture too far into the war zone, they, too, would have had a
+chance to cool their ardor in some detention-camp of Germany.
+This cheerful prospect was in the mind of these men, for, when we
+espied coming around a distant corner two gray-looking men on
+horseback, they turned white as the chauffeur cried, "Uhlans!"
+
+It is a question whether the car or our hearts came to a dead
+standstill first. Our shock was unnecessary. They proved to be
+Belgians, and assured us that the road was clear all the way to
+Termonde; and, except for an occasional peasant tilling his fields,
+the country-side was quite deserted until at Grembergen we came
+upon an unending procession of refugees streaming down the
+road. They were all coming out of Termonde. Termonde, after
+being taken and retaken, bombarded and burned, was for the
+moment neutral territory. A Belgian commandant had allowed the
+refugees that morning to return and gather what they might from
+among the ruins.
+
+In the early morning, then, they had gone into the city, and now at
+high noon they were pouring out, a great procession of the
+dispossessed. They came tracking their way to where--God only
+knows. All they knew was that in their hearts was set the fear of
+Uhlans, and in the sky the smoke and flames of their burning
+homesteads. They came laden with their lares and penates,--
+mainly dogs, feather beds, and crayon portraits of their ancestors.
+
+Women came carrying on their heads packs which looked like
+their entire household paraphernalia. The men were more
+unassuming, and, as a rule, carried a package considerably lighter
+and comporting more with their superior masculine dignity. I recall
+one little woman in particular. She was bearing a burden heavy
+enough to send a strong American athlete staggering down to the
+ground, while at her side majestically marched her faithful knight,
+bearing a bird-cage, and there wasn't any bird in it, either.
+
+Nothing could be more mirth-provoking than that sight; yet,
+strangely enough, the most tear-compelling memory of the war is
+connected with another bird-cage. Two children rummaging
+through their ruined home dug it out of the debris. In it was their
+little pet canary. While fire and smoke rolled through the house it
+had beat its wings against the bars in vain. Its prison had become
+its tomb. Its feathers were but slightly singed, yet it was dead with
+that pathetic finality which attaches itself to only a dead bird--its
+silver songs and flutterings, once the delight of the children, now
+stilled forever.
+
+The photographers had long looked for what they termed a first-
+class sob-picture. Here it was par excellent. The larger child stood
+stroking the feathers of her pet and murmuring over and over
+"Poor Annette," "Poor Annette!" Then the smaller one snuggling
+the limp little thing against her neck wept inconsolably.
+
+Instead of seizing their opportunity, the movie man was clearing
+his throat while the free lance was busy on what he said was a
+cinder in his eye. Yet this very man had brought back from the
+Balkan War of 1907 a prime collection of horrors; corpses thrown
+into the death-cart with arms and legs sticking out like so much
+stubble; the death-cart creeping away with its ghastly load; and the
+dumping together of bodies of men and beasts into a pit to be
+eaten by the lime. This man who had gone through all this with
+good nerve was now touched to tears by two children crying over
+their pet canary. There are some things that are too much for the
+heart of even a war-photographer.
+
+To give the whole exodus the right tragic setting, one is tempted to
+write that tears were streaming down all the faces of the refugees,
+but on the contrary, indeed, most of them carried a smile and a
+pipe, and trudged stolidly along, much as though bound for a fair.
+Some of our pictures show laughing refugees. That may not be
+fair, for man is so constituted that the muscles of his face
+automatically relax to the click of the camera. But as I recall that
+pitiful procession, there was in it very little outward expression of
+sorrow.
+
+Undoubtedly there was sadness enough in all their hearts, but
+people in Europe have learned to live on short rations; they rarely
+indulge in luxuries like weeping, but bear the most unwonted
+afflictions as though they were the ordinary fortunes of life. War
+has set a new standard for grief. So these victims passed along
+the road, but not before the record of their passing was etched for
+ever on our moving-picture films. The coming generation will not
+have to reconstruct the scene from the colored accounts of the
+journalist, but with their own eyes they can see the hegira of the
+homeless as it really was.
+
+The resignation of the peasant in the face of the great calamity
+was a continual source of amazement to us. Zola in "Le Debacle"
+puts into his picture of the battle of Sedan an old peasant plowing
+on his farm in the valley. While shells go screaming overhead he
+placidly drives his old white horse through the accustomed
+furrows. One naturally presumed that this was a dramatic touch of
+the great novelist. But similar incidents we saw in this Great War
+over and over again.
+
+We were with Consul van Hee one morning early before the
+clinging veil of sleep had lifted from our spirits or the mists from the
+low-lying meadows. Without warning our car shot through a bank
+of fog into a spectacle of medieval splendor--a veritable Field of
+the Cloth of Gold, spread out on the green plains of Flanders.
+
+A thousand horses strained at their bridles while their thousand
+riders in great fur busbies loomed up almost like giants. A
+thousand pennons stirred in the morning air while the sun burning
+through the mists glinted on the tips of as many lances. The crack
+Belgian cavalry divisions had been gathered here just behind the
+firing-lines in readiness for a sortie; the Lancers in their cherry and
+green and the Guides in their blue and gold making a blaze of
+color.
+
+It was as if in a trance we had been carried back to a tourney of
+ancient chivalry--this was before privations and the new drab
+uniforms had taken all glamour out of the war. As we gazed upon
+the glittering spectacle the order from the commander came to us:
+
+"Back, back out of danger!"
+
+"Forward!" was the charge to the Lancers.
+
+The field-guns rumbled into line and each rider unslung his
+carbine. Putting spurs to the horses, the whole line rode past
+saluting our Stars and Stripes with a "Vive L'Amerique." Bringing
+up the rear two cassocked priests served to give this pageantry a
+touch of prophetic grimness.
+
+And yet as the cavalcade swept across the fields thrilling us with its
+color and its action, the nearby peasants went on spreading
+fertilizer quite as calm and unconcerned as we were exhilarated.
+
+"Stupid," "Clods," "Souls of oxen," we commented, yet a
+protagonist of the peasant might point out that it was perhaps as
+noble and certainly quite as useful to be held by a passion for the
+soil as to be caught by the glamour of men riding out to slaughter.
+And Zola puts this in the mind of his peasants.
+
+"Why should I lose a day? Soldiers must fight, but folks must live.
+It is for me to keep the corn growing."
+
+Deep down into the soil the peasant strikes his roots. Urban
+people can never comprehend when these roots are cut away how
+hopelessly-lost and adrift this European peasant in particular
+becomes. Wicked as the Great War has seemed to us in its
+bearing down upon these innocent folks, yet we can never
+understand the cruelty that they have suffered in being uprooted
+from the land and sent forth to become beggars and wanderers
+upon the highroads of the world.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The Little Belgian Who Said, "You Betcha"
+
+
+
+In the fighting around Termonde the bridge over the Scheldt had
+been three times blown up and three times reconstructed. Wires
+now led to explosives under the bridge on the Termonde side, and
+on the side held by the Belgians they led to a table in the room of
+the commanding officer. In this table was an electric button. By the
+button stood an officer. The entrance of the Germans on that
+bridge was the signal for the officer to push that button, and thus to
+blow both bridge and Germans into bits.
+
+But the Belgians were taking no chances. If by any mishap that
+electric connection should fail them, it would devolve upon the
+artillery lined upon the bank to rake the bridge with shrapnel. A
+roofed-over trench ran along the river like a levee and bristled with
+machine guns whose muzzles were also trained upon the bridge.
+Full caissons of ammunition were standing alongside, ready to
+feed the guns their death-dealing provender, and in the rear, all
+harnessed, were the horses, ready to bring up more caissons.
+
+Though in the full blaze of day, the gunners were standing or
+crouching by their guns. The watchers of the night lay stretched
+out upon the ground, sleeping in the warm sun after their long,
+anxious vigil. Stumbling in among them, I was pulled back by one
+of the photographers.
+
+"For heaven's sake," he cried, "don't wake up those men!"
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because this picture I'm taking here is to be labeled 'Dead Men in
+the Termonde Trenches,' and you would have them starting up as
+though the day of resurrection had arrived."
+
+After taking these pictures we were ready to cross the bridge; but
+the two sentries posted at this end were not ready to let us. They
+were very small men, but very determined, and informed us that
+their instructions were to allow no one to pass over without a
+permit signed by the General. We produced scores of passes and
+passports decorated with stamps and seals and covered with
+myriad signatures. They looked these over and said that our
+papers were very nice and undoubtedly very numerous, but
+ungraciously insisted on that pass signed by the General.
+
+So back we flew to the General at Grembergen. I waited outside
+until my companions emerged from the office waving passes.
+They were in a gleeful, bantering mood. That evening they
+apprised me of the fact that all day I had been traveling as a rich
+American with my private photographers securing pictures for the
+Belgian Relief Fund.
+
+Leaving our automobile in charge of the chauffeur, we cautiously
+made our way over the bridge into the city of Termonde, or what
+was once Termonde, for it is difficult to dignify with the name of city
+a heap of battered buildings and crumbling brick--an ugly scar
+upon the landscape.
+
+I was glad to enter the ruins with my companions instead of alone.
+It was not so much fear of stray bullets from a lurking enemy as
+the suggestion of the spirits of the slain lingering round these
+tombs. For Termonde appeared like one vast tomb. As we first
+entered its sepulchral silences we were greatly relieved that the
+three specter-like beings who sat huddled up over a distant ruin
+turned out not to be ghosts, but natives hopelessly and pathetically
+surveying this wreck that was once called home, trying to rake out
+of the embers some sort of relic of the past.
+
+A regiment of hungry dogs came prowling up the street, and,
+remembering the antics of the past week, they looked at us as if
+speculating what new species of crazy human being we were. To
+them the world of men must suddenly have gone quite insane, and
+if there had been an agitator among them he might well have
+asked his fellow-dogs why they had acknowledged a race of
+madmen as their masters. Indeed, one could almost detect a
+sense of surprise that we didn't use the photographic apparatus to
+commit some new outrage. They stayed with us for a while, but at
+the sight of our cinema man turning the crank like a machine gun,
+they turned and ran wildly down the street.
+
+Emptied bottles looted from winecellars were strung along the
+curbs. To some Germans they had been more fatal than the
+Belgian bullets, for while one detachment of the German soldiers
+had been setting the city blazing with petrol from the petrol flasks,
+others had set their insides on fire with liquors from the wine flasks,
+and, rolling through the town in drunken orgy, they had fallen
+headlong into the canal.
+
+There is a relevant item for those who seek further confirmation as
+to the reality of the atrocities in Belgium. If men could get so
+drunken and uncontrolled as to commit atrocities on themselves (i.e.,
+self-destruction), it is reasonable to infer that they could commit
+atrocities on others--and they undoubtedly did. The surprise lies
+not in the number of such crimes, but the fewness of them.
+
+Three boys who had somehow managed to crawl across the
+bridge were prodding about in the canals with bamboo poles.
+
+"What are you doing?" we inquired.
+
+"Fishing," they responded.
+
+"What for?" we asked.
+
+"Dead Germans," they replied.
+
+"What do you do with them--bury them?"
+
+"No!" they shouted derisively. "We just strip them of what they've
+got and shove 'em back in."
+
+Their search for these hapless victims was not motivated by any
+sentimental reasons, but simply by their business interest as local
+dealers in helmets, buttons and other German mementos.
+
+We took pictures of these young water-ghouls; a picture of the
+Hotel de Ville, the calcined walls standing like a shell, the inside a
+smoking mass of debris; then a picture of a Belgian mitrailleuse
+car, manned by a crowd of young and jaunty dare-devils. It came
+swinging into the square, bringing a lot of bicycles from a German
+patrol which had just been mowed down outside the city. After
+taking a shot at an aeroplane buzzing away at a tremendous
+distance overhead, they were off again on another scouting trip.
+
+I got separated from my party and was making my way alone
+when a sharp "Hello!" ringing up the street, startled me. I turned to
+see, not one of the photographers, but a fully-armed, though
+somewhat diminutive, soldier in Belgian uniform waving his hand
+at me.
+
+"Hello!" he shouted; "are you an American?"
+
+I could hardly believe my eyes or my ears, but managed to shout
+back, "Yes, yes, I'm an American. Are you?" I asked dubiously.
+
+"You betcha I'm a 'Merican," he replied, coming quickly up to me. It
+was my turn again.
+
+"What are you doing down here--fighting?" I put in fatuously.
+
+"What the hell you think I'm doing?" he rejoined.
+
+I now felt quite sure that he was an American. Further offerings of
+similar "language of small variety but great strength" testified to his
+sojourn in the States.
+
+"You betcha I'm a 'Merican," he reiterated, "though I was over
+there but two years. My name is August Bidden. I worked in a
+lumber-mill in Wagner, Wisconsin. Came back here to visit my
+family. The war broke out. I was a Reservist and joined my
+regiment. I'm here on scout-duty. Got to find out when the
+Germans come back into the city."
+
+"Been in any battles?"
+
+"You betcha," he replied.
+
+"Kill any Germans?"
+
+"You betcha."
+
+"Did you enjoy it?"
+
+"You betcha."
+
+"Any around here now?"
+
+"You betcha. A lot of them down in the bushes over the brook."
+Then his eyes flashed a sudden fire as though an inspired idea
+had struck him. "There's no superior officer around," he exclaimed
+confidentially. "Come right down with me and you can take a pot-
+shot at the damned Boches with my rifle." He said it with the air of
+a man offering a rare treat to his best friend. I felt that it devolved
+on me to exhibit a proper zest for this little shooting-party and save
+my reputation without risking my skin. So I said eagerly:
+
+"Now are you dead sure that the Germans are down there!"
+implying that I couldn't afford any time unless the shooting was
+good.
+
+"You betcha they're down there," was his disconcerting reply. "You
+can see their green-gray uniforms. I counted sixteen or seventeen
+of them."
+
+The thought of that sixteen-to-one shot made my cheeks take on
+the color of the German uniforms. The naked truth was my last
+resort. It was the only thing that could prevent my zealous friend
+from dragging me forcibly down to the brookside. He may have
+heard the chattering of my teeth. At any rate he looked up and
+exclaimed, "What's the matter? You 'fraid?"
+
+I replied without any hesitation, "You betcha."
+
+The happy arrival of the photographer at this juncture, however,
+redeemed my fallen reputation; for a soldier is always peculiarly
+amenable to the charms of the camera and is even willing to quit
+fighting to get his picture taken.
+
+This photograph happens to hit off our little episode exactly. It
+shows Ridden serene, smiling, confident, and my sort of evasive
+hangdog look as though, in popular parlance, I had just "got one
+put over me."
+
+Then, while seated on a battered wall, Ridden poured out his story
+of the last two months of hardships and horrors. It was the single
+individual's share in the terrific gruelling that the Belgian army had
+received while it was beaten back from the eastern frontier to its
+stand on the river Scheldt. Always being promised aid by the Allies
+if they would hold out just a little longer, they were led again and
+again frantically to pit their puny strength against the overwhelming
+tide out of the North. For the moment they would stay it. Eagerly
+they would listen for sounds of approaching help, asking every
+stranger when it was coming. It never came. From position to
+position they fell back, stubbornly fighting, a flaming pillar of sparks
+and clouds of smoke marking the path of their retreat.
+
+Though smashed and broken that army was never crushed. Its
+spirit was incarnate in this cheerful and undaunted Ridden. He
+recounted his privations as nonchalantly as if it was just the way
+that he had planned to spend his holiday. As a farewell token he
+presented me with an epaulet from an officer he had killed, and a
+pin from a German woman spy he had captured.
+
+"Be sure to visit me when you get back to America," I cried out
+down the street to him.
+
+He stood waving his hand in farewell as in greeting, the same
+happy ingenuous look upon his face and sending after me in reply
+the same old confident standby, "You betcha." But I do not cherish
+a great hope of ever seeing Ridden again. The chances are that,
+like most of the Belgian army, he is no longer treading the gray
+streets of those demolished cities, but whatever golden streets
+there may be in the City Celestial. War is race suicide. It kills the
+best and leaves behind the undermuscled and the under-brained
+to propagate the species.
+
+Striking farther into the heart of the ruins, we beheld in a section all
+burned and shattered to the ground a building which stood straight
+up like a cliff intact and undamaged amidst the general wreckage.
+As we stumbled over the debris, imagine our surprise when an old
+lady of about seventy thrust her head out of a basement window.
+She was the owner of the house, and while the city had been the
+fighting ground for the armies she had, through it all, bravely stuck
+to her home.
+
+"I was born here, I have always lived here, and I am going to die
+here," she said, with a look of pride upon her kindly face.
+
+Madame Callebaut-Ringoot was her name. During the
+bombardment of the town she had retired to the cellar; but when
+the Germans entered to burn the city she stood there at the door
+watching the flames rolling up from the warehouses and factories
+in the distance. Nearer and nearer came the billowing tide of fire. A
+fountain of sparks shooting up from a house a few hundred yards
+away marked the advance of the firing squad into her street, but
+she never wavered. Down the street came the spoilers, relentless,
+ruthless, and remorseless, sparing nothing. They came like priests
+of the nether world, anointing each house with oil from the petrol
+flasks and with a firebrand dedicating it to the flames. Every one,
+panic-stricken, fled before them. Every one but this old lady, who
+stood there bidding defiance to all the Kaiser's horses and all the
+Kaiser's men.
+
+"I saw them smashing in the door of the house across the way,"
+said Madame Callebaut, "and when the flames burst forth they
+rushed over here, and I fell down on my knees before them, crying
+out, 'For the love of Heaven, spare an old woman's house!'"
+
+It must have been a dramatic, soul-curdling sight, with the wail of
+the woman rising above the crashing walls and the roaring flames.
+And it must have been effective pleading to stop men in their wild
+rush lusting to destroy. But Madame Callebaut was endowed with
+powerful emotions. Carried away in her recital of the events, she
+fell down on her knees before me, wringing her hands and
+pleading so piteously that I felt for a moment as if I were a fiendish
+Teuton with a firebrand about to set the old lady's house afire. I
+can understand how the wildest men capitulated to such pleadings,
+and how they came down the steps to write, in big, clear words,
+
+"NICHT ANBRENNEN"
+(Do not set fire)
+
+Only they unwittingly wrote it upon her neighbor's walls, thus
+saving both houses.
+
+How much a savior of other homes Madame Callebaut had been
+Termonde will never know. Certainly she made the firing squad
+first pause in the wild debauch of destruction. For frequently now
+an undamaged house stood with the words chalked on its front,
+"Only harmless old woman lives here; do not burn down."
+Underneath were the numbers and initials of the particular corps of
+the Kaiser's Imperial Army. Often the flames had committed Lese
+majeste by leaping onto the forbidden house, and there amidst the
+charred ruins stood a door or a wall bearing the mocking
+inscription, "Nicht Anbrennen."
+
+Another house, belonging to Madame Louise Bal, bore the words,
+"Protected; Gute alte Leute hier" (good old people here). A great
+shell from a distant battery had totally disregarded this sign and
+had torn through the parlor, exploding in the back yard, ripping the
+clothes from the line, but touching neither of the inmates. As the
+Chinese ambassador pertinently remarked when reassured by
+Whitlock that the Germans would not bombard the embassies,
+"Ah! but a cannon has no eyes."
+
+These houses stood up like lone survivors above the wreckage
+wrought by fire and shell, and by contrast served to emphasize the
+dismal havoc everywhere. "So this was once a city," one mused to
+himself; "and these streets, now sounding with the footfalls of
+some returning sentry, did they once echo with the roar of traffic?
+And those demolished shops, were they once filled with the babble
+of the traders? Over yonder in that structure, which looks so much
+like a church, did the faithful once come to pray and to worship
+God? Can it be that these courtyards, now held in the thrall of
+death-like silence, once rang to the laughter of the little children?"
+One said to himself, "Surely this is some wild dream. Wake up."
+
+But hardly a dream, for here were the ruins of a real city, and fresh
+ruins, too. Still curling up from the church was smoke from the
+burning rafters, and over there the hungry dogs, and the stragglers
+mournfully digging something out of the ruins. However preposterous
+it seemed, none the less it was a city that yesterday ran high with
+the tide of human life. And thousands of people, when they recall
+the lights and shadows, the pains and raptures, which make up the
+thing we call life, will think of Termonde. Thousands of people,
+when they think of home and all the tender memories that cluster
+round that word, say "Termonde."' And now where Termonde was
+there is a big black ragged spot--an ugly gaping wound in the
+landscape. There are a score of other wounds like that.
+
+There are thousands of them.
+
+There is one bleeding in every Belgian heart.
+
+The sight of their desolated cities cut the soldiers to the quick.
+
+They turned the names of those cities into battle cries. Shouting
+"Remember Termonde and Louvain," these Belgians sprang from
+the trenches and like wild men flung themselves upon the foe.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Atrocities And The Socialist
+
+
+
+"With these sentries holding us up at every cross-roads, there is no
+use trying to get to Antwerp," said the free-lance.
+
+"Yes, there is," retorted the chauffeur. "Watch me the next time."
+He beckoned to the first sentry barring the way, and, leaning over,
+whispered into the man's ear a single word. The sentry saluted,
+and, stepping to one side, motioned us on in a manner almost
+deferential. We had hardly been compelled to stop.
+
+After our tedious delays this was quite exhilarating. How our
+chauffeur obtained the password we did not know, nor did we
+challenge the inclusion of 8 francs extra in his memorandum of
+expenses. As indicated, he was a man of parts. The magic word of
+the day, "France," now opened every gate to us.
+
+Behind the Antwerp fortifications the Belgian sappers and miners
+were on an organized rampage of destruction. On a wide zone
+every house, windmill and church was either going up in flames or
+being hammered level to the ground.
+
+We came along as the oil was applied to an old house and saw
+the flames go crackling up through the rafters. The black smoke
+curled away across the wasted land and the fire glowed upon the
+stolid faces of the soldiers and the trembling woman who owned it.
+To her it was a funeral pyre. Her home endeared by lifetime
+memories was being offered up on the altar of Liberty and
+Independence. Starting with the invaders on the western frontier,
+clear through to Antwerp by the sea, a wild black swathe had been
+burnt.
+
+By such drastic methods space was cleared for the guns in the
+Belgian forts, and to the advancing besiegers no protection would
+be offered from the raking fire. The heart of a steel-stock owner
+would have rejoiced to see the maze of wire entanglement that ran
+everywhere. In one place a tomato-field had been wired; the green
+vines, laden with their rich red fruit, were intertwined with the steel
+vines bearing their vicious blood-drawing barbs whose intent was
+to make the red field redder still. We had just passed a gang
+digging man-holes and spitting them with stakes, when an officer
+cried:
+
+"Stop! No further passage here. You must turn back."
+
+"Why?" we asked protestingly.
+
+"The entire road is being mined," he replied.
+
+Even as he spoke we could see a liquid explosive being poured
+into a sort of cup, and electric wires connected. The officer
+pictured to us a regiment of soldiers advancing, with the full tide of
+life running in their veins, laughing and singing as they marched in
+the smiling sun. Suddenly the road rocks and hell heaves up
+beneath their feet; bodies are blown into the air and rained back to
+the earth in tiny fragments of human flesh; while brains are
+spattered over the ground, and every crevice runs a rivulet of
+blood. He sketched this in excellent English, adding:
+
+"A magnificent climax for Christian civilzation, eh! And that's my
+business. But what else can one do?"
+
+For the task of setting this colossal stage for death, the entire
+peasant population had been mobilized to assist the soldiers. In
+self-defense Belgium was thus obliged to drive the dagger deep
+into her own bosom. It seemed indeed as if she suffered as much
+at her own hands, as at the hands of the enemy. To arrest the
+advancing scourge she impressed into her service dynamite, fire
+and flood. I saw the sluice-gates lifted and meadows which had
+been waving with the golden grain of autumn now turned into silver
+lakes. So suddenly had the waters covered the land that hay-
+cocks bobbed upon the top of the flood, and peasants went out in
+boats to dredge for the beets and turnips which lay beneath the
+waters.
+
+The roads were inundated and so we ran along an embankment
+which, like a levee, lifted itself above the water wastes. The sun,
+sinking down behind the flaming poplars in the west, was touching
+the rippling surface into myriad colors. It was like a trip through
+Fairyland, or it would have been, were not men on all sides busy
+preparing for the bloody shambles.
+
+After these elaborate defensive works the Belgians laughed at any
+one taking Antwerp, the impregnable fortress of Western Europe.
+The Germans laughed, too. But it was the bass, hollow laugh of
+their great guns placed ten to twenty miles away, and pouring into
+the city such a hurricane of shell and shrapnel that they forced its
+evacuation by the British and the Belgians. Through this vast array
+of works which the reception committee had designed for their
+slaughter, the Germans came marching in as if on dress parade.
+
+A few shells were even now crashing through Malines and had
+played havoc with the carillon in the cathedral tower. During a lull
+in the bombardment we climbed a stairway of the belfry where,
+above us, balanced great stones which a slight jar would send
+tumbling down. On and up we passed vents and jagged holes
+which had been ripped through these massive walls as if they
+were made of paper. It was enough to carry the weight of one's
+somber reflections without the addition of cheerful queries of the
+movie-man as to "how would you feel if the German gunners
+suddenly turned loose again?"
+
+We gathered in a deal of stone ornaments that had been shot
+down and struggled with a load of them to our car. Later they
+became a weight upon our conscience. When Cardinal Mercier
+starts the rebuilding of his cathedral, we might surprise him with
+the return of a considerable portion thereof. To fetch these
+souvenirs through to England, we were compelled to resort to all
+the tricks of a gang of smugglers.
+
+I made also a first rate collection of German posters. By day I
+observed the location of these placards, announcing certain death
+to those who "sniped on German troops," "harbored courier-
+pigeons," or "destroyed" these self-same posters.
+
+At night with trembling hands I laid cold compresses on them until
+the adhering paste gave way; then, tucking the wet sheets
+beneath my coat, I stole back to safety. At last in England I feasted
+my eyes on the precious documents, dreaming of the time when
+posterity should rejoice in the possession of these posters relating
+to the German overlordship of Belgium, and give thanks to the
+courage of their collector. Unfortunately, their stained and torn
+appearance grated on the aesthetic sensibilities of the maid.
+
+"Where are they?" I demanded on my return to my room one time,
+as I missed them.
+
+"Those nasty papers?" she inquired naively.
+
+"Those priceless souvenirs," I returned severely. She did not
+comprehend, but with a most aggravatingly sweet expression said:
+
+"They were so dirty, sir, I burned them all up."
+
+She couldn't understand why I rewarded her with something akin
+to a fit of apoplexy, instead of a liberal tip. That day was a red-letter
+one for our photographers. They paid the price in the risks which
+constantly strained their nerves. But in it they garnered vastly more
+than in the fortnight they had hugged safety.
+
+But, despite all our efforts, there was one object that we were after
+that we never did attain. That was a first-class atrocity picture.
+There were atrocity stories in endless variety, but not one that the
+camera could authenticate. People were growing chary of verbal
+assurances of these horrors; they yearned for some photographic
+proof, and we yearned to furnish it.
+
+"What features are you looking for?" was the question invariably
+put to us on discovering our cameras.
+
+"Children with their hands cut off," we replied. "Are there any
+around here?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Hundreds of them," was the invariable assurance.
+
+"Yes, but all we want is one--just one in flesh and bone. Where
+can we find that?"
+
+The answer was ever the same. "In the hospital at the rear, or at
+the front." "Back in such-and-such a village," etc. Always
+somewhere else; never where we were.
+
+Let no one attempt to gloss the cruelties perpetrated in Belgium.
+My individual wish is to see them pictured as crimson as possible,
+that men may the fiercer revolt against the shame and horror of
+this red butchery called war. But this is a record of just one
+observer's reactions and experiences in the war zone. After weeks
+in this contested ground, the word "atrocity" now calls up to my
+mind hardly anything I saw in Belgium, but always the savageries I
+have witnessed at home in America.
+
+For example, the organized frightfulness that I once witnessed in
+Boston. Around the strikers picketing a factory were the police in
+full force and a gang of thugs. Suddenly at the signal of a shrill
+whistle, sticks were drawn from under coats and, right and left,
+men were felled to the cobblestones. After a running fight a score
+were stretched out unconscious, upon the square. As blood
+poured out of the gashes, like tigers intoxicated by the sight and
+smell thereof, the assailants became frenzied, kicking and beating
+their victims, already insensible. In a trice the beasts within had
+been unleashed.
+
+If in normal times men can lay aside every semblance of restraint
+and decency and turn into raging fiends, how much greater cause
+is there for such a transformation to be wrought under the stress of
+war when, by government decree, the sixth commandment is
+suspended and killing has become glorified. At any rate my
+experiences in America make credible the tales told in Belgium.
+
+But there are no pictures of these outrages such as the Germans
+secured after the Russian drive into their country early in the war.
+Here are windrows of mutilated Germans with gouged eyes and
+mangled limbs, attesting to that same senseless bestial ferocity
+which lies beneath the veneer.
+
+All the photographers were fired with desire to make a similar
+picture in Belgium, yet though we raced here and there, and
+everywhere that rumor led us, we found it but a futile chase.
+
+Through the Great Hall in Ghent there poured 100,000 refugees.
+Here we pleaded how absolutely imperative it was that we should
+obtain an atrocity picture. The daughter of the burgomaster, who
+was in charge, understood our plight and promised to do her best.
+But out of the vast concourse she was able to uncover but one
+case that could possibly do service as an atrocity.
+
+It was that of a blind peasant woman with her six children. The
+photographers told her to smile, but she didn't, nor did the older
+children; they had suffered too horribly to make smiling easy.
+When the Germans entered the village the mother was in bed with
+her day-old baby. Her husband was seized and, with the other
+men, marched away, as the practice was at that period of the
+invasion, for some unaccountable reason. With the roof blazing
+over her head, she was compelled to arise from her bed and drag
+herself for miles before she found a refuge. I related this to a
+German later and he said: "Oh, well, there are plenty of peasant
+women in the Fatherland who are hard at work in the fields three
+days after the birth of their child."
+
+The Hall filled with women wailing for children, furnished
+heartrending sights, but no victim bore such physical marks as the
+most vivid imagination could construe into an atrocity.
+
+"I can't explain why we don't get a picture," said the free lance.
+"Enough deviltry has been done. I can't see why some of the stuff
+doesn't come through to us."
+
+"Simply because the Germans are not fools," replied the movie-
+man; "when they mutilate a victim, they go through with it to the
+finish. They take care not to let telltales go straggling out to damn
+them."
+
+Some one proposed that the only way to get a first-class atrocity
+picture was to fake it. It was a big temptation, and a fine field for
+the exercise of their inventive genius. But on this issue the chorus
+of dissent was most emphatic.
+
+The nearest that I came to an atrocity was when in a car with Van
+Hee, the American vice-consul at Ghent. Van Hee was a man of
+laconic speech and direct action. I told him what Lethbridge, the
+British consul, had told me; viz., that the citizens of Ghent must
+forthwith erect a statue of Van Hee in gold to commemorate his
+priceless services. "The gold idea appeals to me, all right," said
+Van Hee, "but why put it in a statue!" He routed me out at five one
+morning to tell me that I could go through the German lines with
+Mr. Fletcher into Brussels. We left the Belgian Army cheering the
+Stars and Stripes, and came to the outpost of sharpshooters.
+Crouching behind a barricade, they were looking down the road.
+They didn't know whether the Germans were half a mile, two miles,
+or five miles down that road.
+
+Into that uncertain No-Man's-Land we drove with only our honking
+to disturb the silence, while our minds kept growing specters of
+Uhlans the size of Goliath. Fletcher and I kept up a hectic
+conversation upon the flora and fauna of the country. But Van
+Hee, being of strong nerves, always gleefully brought the talk back
+to Uhlans.
+
+"How can you tell an Uhlan?" I faltered.
+
+"If you see a big gray man on horseback, with a long lance,
+spearing children," said Van Hee, "why, that's an Uhlan."
+
+Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight ahead into a Belgian
+bicycle division--scouting in this uncertain zone. In a flash they
+were off their wheels, rifles at their shoulders and fingers on
+triggers.
+
+Two boys, gasping with fear, thrust their guns up into our very
+faces. In our gray coats we had been taken for a party of German
+officers. They were positive that a peasant was hanging in a barn
+not far away. But we insisted that our nerves had had enough for
+the day. Even Van Hee was willing to let the conversation drift
+back to flowers and birds. We drove along in chastened spirit until
+hailed by the German outpost, about five miles from where we had
+left the Belgians. No-Man's-Land was wide in those days.
+
+But what is it that really constitutes an atrocity? In a refugee shed,
+sleeping on the straw, we found an old woman of 88. All that was
+left to her was her shawl, her dress, and the faint hope of seeing
+two sons for whom she wept. Extreme old age is pitiful in itself.
+With homelessness it is tragic. But such homeless old age as this,
+with scarce one flickering ray of hope, is double-distilled tragedy. If
+some marauder had bayoneted her, and she had died therefrom, it
+would have been a kindly release from all the anguish that the
+future now held in store for her. Of course that merciful act would
+have constituted an atrocity, because it would have been a breach
+in the rules of the war game.
+
+But in focusing our attention upon the violations of the code, we
+are apt to forget the greater atrocity of the violation of Belgium, and
+the whole hideous atrocity of the great war. That is getting things
+out of proportion, for the sufferings entailed by these technical
+atrocities are infinitesimal alongside of those resulting from the war
+itself.
+
+Another point has been quite overlooked. In recounting the
+atrocities wrought by Prussian Imperialism, no mention is made of
+those that it has committed upon its own people. And yet at any
+rate a few Germans suffered in the claws of the German eagle
+quite as cruelly as any Belgians did. One fine morning in
+September three Germans came careening into Ghent in a great
+motor car. They were dazed to find no evidence of their army
+which they supposed was in possession. Before the men became
+aware of their mistake, a Belgian mitrailleuse poured a stream of
+lead into their midst, killing two of them outright. The third German,
+with a ball in his neck, was rescued by Van Hee and placed under
+the protection of the American flag.
+
+Incidentally that summary action, followed by a quick visit to the
+German general in his camp on the outskirts, saved the city. That
+is a long story. It is told in Alexander Powell's "Fighting in
+Flanders," but it suffices here to state that by a pact between the
+Belgian burgomaster of Ghent and the German commandant it
+was understood that the wounded man was not to be considered a
+prisoner, but under the jurisdiction of the American Consulate.
+
+A week after this incident Van Hee paid his first visit to this
+wounded man in the Belgian hospital. He was an honest fellow of
+about forty--the type of working-man who had aspired to nothing
+beyond a chance to toil and raise a family for the Fatherland.
+Weltpolitik, with its vaunting boast of "World-power or Downfall,"
+was meaningless to him and his comrades gathered in the beer-
+gardens on a Sunday.
+
+Suddenly out of this quiet, uneventful life he was called to the
+colors and sent killing and burning through the Belgian villages.
+His officers had told him that it would be a sorry thing for any
+German soldier to be captured, for these Belgians, maddened by
+the pillage of their country, would take a terrible revenge upon any
+luckless wretches that fell into their hands. Now, more suddenly
+than anything else had ever happened in his life, a bullet had
+stabbed him in the throat and he found himself a prisoner at the
+mercy of these dreaded Belgians.
+
+"Why are they tending me so carefully during these last seven
+days?" "Are they getting me ready for the torturing?" "Are they
+making me well in order that I may suffer all the more?" Grim
+speculation of that kind must have been running through his
+simple mind. For when we opened the door of his room, he slunk
+cowering over to his bed, staring at us as if we were inquisitors
+about to lead him away to the torture chamber, there to suffer
+vicariously for all the crimes of the German army.
+
+His body, already shrunken by overwork, visibly quivered before
+us, the perspiration beading on his ashen face.
+
+We had come to apprise him of his present status as a citizen
+under the protectorate of America.
+
+Van Hee approached the subject casually with the remark: "You
+see, you are not a Frenchman!"
+
+"No, I am not a Frenchman," the quailing fellow mechanically
+repeated.
+
+"And you are not a Belgian," resumed Van Hee.
+
+He was not quite sure about disclaiming that, but he saw what was
+expected of him. So he faltered: "No, I am not a Belgian." "And
+you are not an Englishman, eh?" According to formula he
+answered: "No, I am not an Englishman!" but I sensed a bit more
+of emphasis in the disavowal of any English taint to his blood.
+
+Van Hee was taking this process of elimination in order to clear the
+field so that his man could grasp the fact that he was to all intents
+an American, and at last he said:
+
+"No longer are you a German either."
+
+The poor fellow was in deep seas, and breathing hard. Everything
+about him proclaimed the fact that he was a German, even to his
+field-gray uniform, and he knew it. But he did not venture to
+contradict Van Hee, and he whispered hoarsely: "No, I am not a
+German either."
+
+He was completely demoralized, a picture of utter desolation.
+
+"If you are not German, or Belgian, or French, or English, what are
+you then?"
+
+The poor fellow whimpered: "0 Gott! I don't know what I am."
+
+"I'll tell you what you are. You're an American!" exclaimed Van Hee
+with great gusto. "That's what you are--an American! Get that? An
+American!"
+
+"Ja, ja ich bin ein Amerikaner!" he eagerly cried ("Yes, yes, I am an
+American!"), relieved to find himself no longer a man without a
+country. Had he been told that he was a Hindoo, or an Eskimo, he
+would have acquiesced as obediently.
+
+But when he was shown an American flag and it began to dawn on
+him that he had nothing more to fear from his captors, his
+tenseness relaxed. And when Van Hee said: "As the American
+consul I shall do what I can for you. What is it you want the most?"
+a light shone in the German's eyes and he replied:
+
+"I want to go home. I want to see my wife and children."
+
+"I thought you came down here because you wanted to see the
+war," said Van Hee.
+
+"War!" he gasped, and putting hands up to his eyes as if to shut
+out some awful sights, he began muttering incoherently about
+"Louvain," "children screaming," "blood all over his breast,"
+repeating constantly "schrecklich, schrecklich." "I don't want to see
+any more war. I want to see my wife and my three children!"
+
+"The big guns! Do you hear them?" he said.
+
+"I don't want to hear them," he answered, shaking his head.
+
+"They're killing you Germans by the thousands down there,"
+announced Van Hee. "I should think you would want to get out and
+kill the French and the English."
+
+"I don't want to kill anybody," he repeated. "I never did want to kill
+anybody. I only want to go home." As we left him he was repeating
+a refrain: "I want to go home"--"Schrecklich, schrecklich." "I never
+did want to kill anybody."
+
+Every instinct in that man's soul was against the murder he had
+been set to do. His conscience had been crucified. A ruthless
+power had invaded his domain, dragged him from his hearthside,
+placed a gun in his hands and said to him: "Kill!"
+
+Perhaps before the war, as he had drilled along the German
+roads, he had made some feeble protest. But then war seemed so
+unreal and so far away; now the horror of it was in his soul.
+
+A few days later Van Hee was obliged to return him to the German
+lines. Again he was marched out to the shambles to take up the
+killings against which his whole nature was in rebellion. No slave
+ever went whipped to his task with greater loathing.
+
+Once I saw slowly plodding back into Brussels a long gray line of
+soldiers; the sky, too, was gray and a gray weariness had settled
+down upon the spirits of these troops returning from the
+destruction of a village. I was standing by the roadside holding in
+my arms a refugee baby.
+
+Its attention was caught by an officer on horseback and in baby
+fashion it began waving its hand at him. Arrested by this sudden
+gleam of human sunshine the stern features of the officer relaxed
+into a smile. Forgetting for the moment his dignity he waved his
+hand at the baby in a return salute, turning his face away from his
+men that they might not see the tears in his eyes. But we could
+see them.
+
+Perhaps through those tears he saw the mirage of his own
+fireside. Perhaps for the moment his homing spirit rested there,
+and it was only the body from which the soul had fled that was in
+the saddle here before us riding through a hostile land. Perhaps
+more powerfully than the fulminations of any orator had this
+greeting of a little child operated to smite him with the senseless
+folly of this war. Who knows but that right then there came flashing
+into his mind the thought: "Why not be done with this cruel
+orphaning of Belgian babies, this burning down of their homes and
+turning them adrift upon the world?"
+
+Brutalizing as may be the effect of militarism in action, fortified as
+its devotees may be by all the iron ethics of its code, I cannot help
+but believe that here again the ever-recurring miracle of
+repentance and regeneration had been wrought by the grace of a
+baby's smile; that again this stern-visaged officer had become just
+a human being longing for peace and home, revolting against
+laying waste the peace and homes of his fellowmen. But to what
+avail? All things would conspire to make him conform and stifle the
+revolt within. How could he escape from the toils in which he was
+held? Next morrow or next week he would again be in the saddle
+riding out to destruction.
+
+The irony of history again! It was this German folk who said,
+centuries ago: "No religious authority shall invade the sacred
+precincts of the soul and compel men to act counter to their
+deepest convictions." In a costly struggle the fetters of the church
+were broken. But now a new iron despotism is riveted upon them.
+The great state has become the keeper of men's consciences.
+The dragooning of the soul goes on just the same. Only the power
+to do it has been transferred from the priests to the officers of the
+state. To compel men to kill when their whole beings cry out
+against it, is an atrocity upon the souls of men as real as any
+committed upon the bodies of the Belgians.
+
+Amidst the wild exploits and wilder rumors of those crucial days
+when Belgium was the central figure in the world-war, the
+calmness of the natives was a source of constant wonder. In the
+regions where the Germans had not yet come they went on with
+their accustomed round of eating, drinking and trading with a sang
+froid that was distressing to the fevered outsider.
+
+Yet beneath this surface calmness and gayety ran a smoldering
+hate, of whose presence one never dreamed, unless he saw it
+shoot out in an ugly flare.
+
+I saw this at Antwerp when about 300 of us had been herded into
+one of the great halls. As one by one the suspects came up to the
+exit gate to be overhauled by the examiners, I thought that there
+never could be such a complacent, dead-souled crowd as this.
+They had dully waited for two hours with scarce a murmur.
+
+The most pathetic weather-worn old man--a farm drudge, I
+surmise--came up to the exit. All I heard were the words of the
+officer: "You speak German, eh?"
+
+At a flash this dead throng became an infuriated blood-thirsting
+mob. "Allemand! Espion!" it shouted, swinging forward until the
+gates sagged. "Kill him! Kill the damned German!"
+
+The mob would have put its own demand into execution but for the
+soldiers, who flung the poor quivering fellow into one corner and
+pushed back the Belgians, eager to trample him to the station
+floor.
+
+There was the girl Yvonne, who, while the color was mounting to
+her pretty face, informed us that she "wanted the soldiers to keel
+every German in the world. No," she added, her dark eyes
+snapping fire, "I want them to leave just one. The last one I shall
+keel myself!"
+
+Yet, every example of Belgian ferocity towards the spoilers one
+could match with ten of Belgian magnanimity. We obtained a
+picture of Max Crepin, carbinier voluntaire, in which he looks
+seventy years of age--he was really seventeen. At the battle of
+Melle he had fallen into the hands of the Germans after a bullet
+had passed clean through both cheeks. In their retreat the
+Germans had left Max in the bushes, and he was now safe with
+his friends.
+
+He could not speak, but the first thing he wrote in the little book the
+nurse handed him was, "The Germans were very kind to me."
+There was a line about his father and mother; then "We had to lie
+flat in the bushes for two days. One German took off his coat and
+wrapped it around me, though he was cold himself. Another
+German gave me all the water in his canteen." Then came a line
+about a friend, and finally: "The Germans were very kind to me." I
+fear that Max would not rank high among the haters.
+
+Whenever passion swept and tempted to join their ranks, the
+figure of Gremberg comes looming up to rebuke me. He was a
+common soldier whose camaraderie I enjoyed for ten days during
+the skirmishing before Antwerp. In him the whole tragedy of
+Belgium was incarnated. He had lost his two brothers; they had
+gone down before the German bullets. He had lost his home; it
+had gone up in flames from the German torch. He had lost his
+country; it had been submerged beneath the gray horde out of the
+north.
+
+"Why is it, Gremberg," I asked, "you never rage against the
+Boches? I should think you would delight to lay your hands on
+every German and tear him into bits. Yet you don't seem to feel
+that way."
+
+"No, I don't," he answered. "For if I had been born a Boche, I know
+that I would act just like any Boche. I would do just as I was
+ordered to do."
+
+"But the men who do the ordering, the officers and the military
+caste, the whole Prussian outfit?"
+
+"Well, I have it in for that crowd," Gremberg replied, "but, you see,
+I'm a Socialist, and I know they can't help it. They get their orders
+from the capitalists."
+
+The capitalists, he explained, were likewise caught in the vicious
+toils of the system and could act no differently. Bayonet in hand,
+he expounded the whole Marxian philosophy as he had learned it
+at the Voorhuit in Ghent. The capitalists of Germany were racing
+with the capitalists of England for the markets of the world, so they
+couldn't help being pitted against each other. The war was simply
+the transference of the conflict from the industrial to the military
+plane, and Belgium, the ancient cockpit of Europe, was again the
+battlefield.
+
+He emphasized each point by poking me with his bayonet. As an
+instrument of argument it is most persuasive. When I was a bit
+dense, he would press harder until I saw the light. Then he would
+pass on to the next point.
+
+I told him that I had been to Humanite's office in Paris after Jaures
+was shot, and the editors, pointing to a great pile of anti-war
+posters, explained that so quickly had the mobilization been
+accomplished, that there had been no time to affix these to the
+walls.
+
+"The French Socialists had some excuse for their going out to
+murder their fellow workers," I said, "and the Germans had to go or
+get shot, but you are a volunteer. You went to war of your own
+free-will, and you call yourself a Socialist."
+
+"I am, but so am I a Belgian!" he answered hotly. "We talked
+against war, but when war came and my land was trampled,
+something rose up within me and made me fight. That's all. It's all
+right to stand apart, but you don't know."
+
+I did know what it was to be passion swept, but, however, I went
+on baiting him.
+
+"Well, I suppose that you are pretty well cured of your Socialism,
+because it failed, like everything else."
+
+"Yes, it did," he answered regretfully, "but at any rate people are
+surprised at Socialists killing one another--not at the Christians.
+And anyhow if there had been twice as many priests and churches
+and lawyers and high officials, that would not have delayed the
+war. It would have come sooner; but if there had been twice as
+many Socialists there would have been no war."
+
+The free-lance interrupted to call him out for a picture before it was
+too dark. Gremberg took his position on the trench, his hand
+shading his eyes. It is the famous iron trench at Melle from which
+the Germans had withdrawn.
+
+He is not looking for the enemy. If they were near, ten bullets
+would have brought him down in as many seconds. He is looking
+into the West.
+
+And to me he is a symbol of all the soldiers of Europe, and all the
+women of Europe who huddle to their breasts their white-faced,
+sobbing children. They are all looking into the West, for there lies
+Hope. There lies America. And their prayer is that the young
+republic of the West shall not follow the blood-rusted paths of
+militarism, but somehow may blaze the way out of chaos into a
+new world-order.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+Love Among The Ruins
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Beating Op "The General,"
+
+
+
+"The saddest sound in all the world," says A Sardou, "is the beating
+of the General." On that fateful Saturday afternoon in August,
+after nearly fifty years of silence through the length and breadth of
+France, there sounded again the ominous throbbing of the drums
+calling for the general mobilization of the nation. At its sound the
+French industrial army melted into a military one. Ploughshares
+and pruning-hooks were beaten into machine-guns and Lebel
+rifles. The civilian straightway became a soldier.
+
+We were returning from Malmaison, the home where Napoleon
+spent with Josephine the happiest moments of his life. Our
+Parisian guide and chauffeur were in chatting, cheerful mood
+though fully alive to all the rumors of war. They were sons of
+France, from their infancy drilled in the idea that some day with
+their comrades they were to hear this very drum calling them to
+march from their homes; they had even been taught to cherish the
+coming of this day when they should redeem the tarnished glory of
+France by helping to plant the tricolor over the lost provinces of
+Alsace and Lorraine.
+
+But that the dreaded, yet hoped-for day had really arrived, seemed
+preposterous and incredible--incredible until we drove into the
+village of Reuilly where an eager crowd, gathering around a soldier
+with a drum, caused our chauffeur to draw sharply up beside the
+curb and we came to a stop twenty feet from the drummer. He was
+a man gray enough to have been, if not a soldier, at least a
+drummer boy in 1870. The pride that was his now in being the
+official herald of portentous news was overcast by an evident
+sorrow.
+
+As if conscious of the fact that he was to pound not on the dead
+dry skin of his drum, but on living human hearts, he hesitated a
+moment before he let the sticks falls. Then sharp and loud
+throbbed the drum through the still-hushed street. Clear and
+resolute was the voice in which he read the order for mobilization.
+The whole affair took little more than a minute. Those who know
+how heavily the disgrace and disaster of 1870 lie upon the French
+heart will admit that it is fair to say that all their life this crowd had
+lived for this moment. Now that it had come, they took it with tense
+white looks upon their faces. But not a cheer, not a cry, not a
+shaking of the fist.
+
+The only outwardly tragic touch came from our chauffeur. When
+he heard the words "la mobilization" he flung down his cap, threw
+up his hands, bowed his head a second, then gripped his steering
+wheel and, for fifteen miles, drove desperately, accurately, as
+though his car were a winged bullet shooting straight into the face
+of the enemy. That fifteen-mile run from Reuilly to Paris was
+through a long lane of sorrow: for not to one section or class, but
+to all France had come the call to mobilize. Every home had been
+summoned to the sacrifice of its sons.
+
+We witnessed nowhere any wailings or wringing of hands or
+frantic, foolish pleading to stay at home. Long ago the question of
+their dear ones going had been settled. Through the years they
+had made ready their hearts for this offering and now they gave
+with a glad exaltation. How bravely the French woman met the
+demand upon her, only those of us who moved in and out among
+the homes during those days of mobilization can testify. The
+"General" was indeed to these mothers, wives and sweethearts
+left behind the saddest sound in all the world.
+
+But if it were so sad as Sardou said in 1870, when 500,000
+answered to its call, how infinitely sadder was it in 1914 when ten
+times that number responded to its wild alarum, a million never
+returning to the women that had loved them. But such statistics
+are just the unemotional symbols of misery. We can look at this
+colossal sum of human tragedy without being gripped one whit. If
+we look into the soul of one woman these figures become invested
+with a new and terrible meaning.
+
+Such an opportunity was strangely given me as we stood in a long
+queue outside the American embassy waiting for the passports
+that would make our personages sacrosanct when the German
+raiders took the city. A perspiring line, we shuffled slowly forward,
+thanking God that we were not as the Europeans, but had had the
+good sense to be born Americans. While in the next breath we
+tiraded against the self-same Government for not hurrying the
+American fleet to the rescue.
+
+The alien-looking gentleman behind me mopped his brow and
+muttered something about wishing that he had not thirsted for
+other "joys than those of old St. Louis."
+
+"Pennsylvania has her good points, too," I responded.
+
+That random shot opened wide to me the gates of Romance and
+High Adventure. It broke the long silence of the girl just ahead.
+
+"It's comforting just to hear the name of one's own home state,"
+she said. "I lived in a little village in the western part of
+Pennsylvania," and, incidentally, she named the village where my
+father had once been minister of the church. I explained as much
+to her and marveled at the coincidence.
+
+"More marvel still," she said, "for we come not only from the same
+state and the same village, but from the same house. My father
+was minister in that same church."
+
+Nickleville is the prosaic name of that little hamlet in western
+Pennsylvania. Any gentle reader with a cynic strain there may
+verify this chronicle and find fresh confirmation for the ancient
+adage that "Fact is stranger far than Fiction."
+
+That selfsame evening we held reunion in a cafe off the Boulevard
+Clichy. There I first discerned the slightness of her frame and
+marveled at the spirit that filled it. She was exuberant in the joy of
+meeting a countryman and, with the device of laughter, she kept in
+check the sadness which never quite came welling up in tears.
+
+She was typical American but let her bear here the name by which
+her new friends in France called her--Marie. One might linger upon
+her large eyes and golden hair, but this is not the epic of a fair face
+but of a fair soul--vigorous and determined, too. To the power
+therein even the stolid waiter paid his homage.
+
+"Pardon," he interjected once, "we must close now. The orders are
+for all lights out by nine. It is the government. They fear the
+Zeppelins."
+
+"But that's just what I'm afraid of, too," Marie answered. "How can
+you turn us out into that darkness filled with Zeppelins?" He
+succumbed to this radiant banter and, covering every crevice that
+might emit a ray of light, he let us linger on long after closing time.
+
+Marie's was one of those classic souls which by some anomaly,
+passing by the older lineages and cultures of the East, find
+birthplace in a bleak untutored village of the West. To this bareness
+some succumb, and the divine afflatus dies. Still others roam
+restlessly up and down, searching until they find their milieu and
+then for the first time their spirit glows.
+
+Music had breathed upon this girl's spirit, touched with a vagabond
+desire. To satisfy it she must have money. So she gave lessons to
+children. Then a publisher bought some little melodies that she
+had set to words. And lastly, grave and reverend committeemen,
+after hesitating over her youth, made her head of music in a
+university of western Montana.
+
+Early in 1914, with her gold reserves grown large enough for the
+venture, she set sail for the siege of Paris. To her charm and
+sterling worth it had soon capitulated--a quicker victory than she
+had dared to hope for. Around her studio in a street off the
+Champs Elysees she gathered a coterie of kindred souls. She told
+of the idealism and camaraderie of the little circle, while its foibles
+she touched upon with much merriment. Behind this outward
+jesting I gained a glimpse of the fight she had made for her
+advance.
+
+"It's been hard," I said, "but what a lot you have found along the
+way."
+
+"Yes, far more than you can imagine," she replied; "I have found
+Robert le Marchand."
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"Well, he is an artist and an athlete, and he is just back from
+Albania--where he had most wonderful adventures. He has written
+them up for 'Gaulois.' His home is in Normandy. And he is heir to a
+large estate in Italy in the South--in what looks like the heel on the
+map. And he has a degree from the Sorbonne and he is the real
+prince of our little court. And, best of all, he loves me."
+
+Then she told the story of her becoming the princess of the little
+court.
+
+"From his ancestral place in Italy," she said, "Robert sent me
+baskets of fruit gathered in his groves by his own hands. In one he
+placed a sprig of orange-blossoms. We laughed about it when we
+met again and------"
+
+I saw that after this affairs had ripened to a quick conclusion. In
+drives along the boulevards, in walks through the moonlit woods,
+at dinners, concerts, dances--these two mingled their dreams for
+their home in Normandy. The only discord in this summer
+symphony was a frowning father.
+
+Marie was the epitome of all charms and graces. Yes. But she
+came undowered--that was all. And firm he stood against any
+breach in the long established code of his class. But they did not
+suffer this to disturb their plans and reveries, and through those
+soft July days they roamed together in their lotus-land. Then
+suddenly thundered that dream-shattering cannon out of the north.
+
+"I was out of town for the week end," Marie continued; "I heard the
+beating of the 'General' and at call for mobilization I flew back here
+as quickly as I could. It was too late. There was only a note saying
+that he had gone, and how hard it was to go without one farewell."
+
+"Now what are you going to do?"
+
+"What can I do with Robert gone and all his friends in the army
+too?"
+
+"Let me do what I can. Let me play substitute," I volunteered.
+
+"Do you really mean what you just said?" she queried.
+
+"I really do," I answered.
+
+"Well, then, do you paddle a canoe?"
+
+"Yes, but what has that to do with the question?" I replied
+perplexedly.
+
+"Everything," she responded. "Robert is stationed at Corbeille,
+fifteen miles below here on the Seine. I have the canoe and
+tomorrow I want you to go with me down the river to Robert.".
+
+My mind made a swift diagnosis of the situation. All exits from
+Paris carefully watched; suspicion rife everywhere--strangers off in
+a canoe; a sentinel challenge and a shot from the bank.
+
+"Let us first consider------" I began.
+
+"We can do that in the canoe to-morrow," she interrupted.
+
+And I capitulated, quite as Paris had.
+
+We stepped out into the darkness that cloaked the silent city from
+its aerial ravagers. As we walked I mused upon this modern
+maiden's Iliad. While a thousand hug the quiet haven, what was it
+that impelled the one to cut moorings and range the deep? A
+chorus of croaking frogs greeted our turn into a park.
+
+"Funny," said Marie, "but frogs drove me out of Nickleville! There
+was nothing to do at home but to listen to their eternal noise; to
+save my nerves I simply had to break away."
+
+The prospect of that canoe trip was not conducive to easy
+slumber. The frog chorus in that Pennsylvania swamp, why had it
+not been less demonstrative? Still lots could happen before
+morning. One might develop appendicitis or the Germans might
+get the city. With these two comforting hopes I fell asleep. Morning
+realizing neither of them, I walked over to Marie's studio.
+
+"Well, then, all ready for the expedition?" I said, masking my
+pessimism with a smile.
+
+For reply she handed this note which read:
+
+"Dear Marie: I have been transferred from Corbeille to Melun. It
+makes me ill to be getting ever farther and farther away.--Robert."
+
+With the river trip cancelled, life looked more roseate to me. "And
+now we can't go after all," I said, mustering this time the
+appearance of sadness.
+
+"Oh, don't look so relieved," she laughed, "because we're going
+anyhow."
+
+"But what's the use? He has gone."
+
+"Well, we are going where he has gone, that's all," she retorted.
+
+I pointed out the facts that only military trains were running to
+Melun; that we weren't soldiers; that the river was out of the
+question; that we had no aeroplane and that we couldn't go
+overland in a canoe.
+
+"But we can with our wits," Marie added.
+
+I explained how lame my wits were in French, and that two
+consecutive sentences would bring on trial for high treason to the
+language.
+
+"Oh, but you don't furnish the wits," Marie retorted. "You just
+furnish the body."
+
+In her plan of campaign I gathered that I was to act as a kind of
+convoy, from which she was to dart forth, torpedoing all obstacles.
+I was quite confident of her torpedoing ability but not of my fitness
+to play a star part as a dour and fear-inspiring background. She
+packed her bag and presently we were making our way to the
+station through a blighted city.
+
+At the Gare du Nord a cordon of soldiers had been thrown about
+the station; crowds surged up against the gates, a few frantically
+pleading and even crying to get through. The guards, to every plea
+and threat returned a harsh "C'est impossible." Undaunted by the
+despair of others, she looked straight into the eyes of the somber
+gate-keeper and, with every art, told the story of Robert le
+Marchand, brave young officer of France; of his American girl and
+his deep longing for her. When she had stirred this lethargic
+functionary into a show of interest in this girl, with a revealing
+gesture she said: "And here she is; please, Monsieur, let me go."
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, I would like to," he replied, "but are not all the
+soldiers of France longing for wives and sweethearts! Mon Dieu! if
+they all rode there would be no room for the militaire. The Boches
+would take us in the midst of our farewells. There is never any end
+to leave-takings."
+
+"But, Monsieur, I did not have one good-by."
+
+"No, Mademoiselle. C'est impossible."
+
+The guardian of the second gate took her plea in a way that did
+more credit to his heart than to his knowledge of geography. He
+thought (and we made no effort to disillusionize him) that she had
+come all the way from America since the outbreak of war. It nearly
+moved him to tears. Was he surrendering? Almost. But recovering
+his official negative head-shake and trusting not to words, he fell
+back upon the formula: "No, Madame, c'est impossible."
+
+The truth had failed and so had the half-truth. To the next
+forbidding guard Marie came as a Red Cross nurse, hurrying to
+her station.
+
+"Your uniform, Madame," he interposed.
+
+"No time to get a uniform; no time to get a permission," she
+explained.
+
+"Take time, Madame," was his brusque dismissal.
+
+Each time rebuffed, she tried again, but against the full battery of
+her blandishments the line was adamant.
+
+"It's no use," I said. "We may as well go home."
+
+"No retreat until we've tried our last reserves," she responded,
+clinking some coins together in her hand. "We'll try a change of
+tactics."
+
+We reconnoitered and decided that an opening might be made
+through guardian number two. He had almost surrendered in the
+first engagement. This time, along with the smile, she flashed a
+coin. Perchance he had already repented of his first refusal.
+Anyhow, if an officer of France could be made happy with his
+sweetheart and at the same time a brave gendarme could be
+made richer by a five-franc piece, would not La Belle France fight
+so much the better? The logic was incontestable. "This way,
+Mademoiselle, Monsieur, and be quick, please."
+
+We had passed through the lines into a riot of red and blue
+uniforms. Soldiers were everywhere sprawled over the platforms,
+knotted up in sleep, yawning, stretching their limbs, eating,
+smoking and swearing. No one knew anything about tickets, trains
+or aught else.
+
+Swirled about in an eddying tide of entraining troops, we were
+flung up against a stationary being garbed as a railway dispatcher.
+He bluffed and blustered a bit. Our story, however, supplemented
+by some hard cash, procured calm and presently we found
+ourselves in a compartment with two tickets marked Melun, a few
+rations and sundry admonitions not to converse with fellow-
+passengers until the train started.
+
+It is hard to explain why any one should want to communicate in
+German to an American girl in a French railway compartment in
+wartime. But explain why some people want to play with trip-
+hammers and loaded guns. We know they do. And so, though
+aware that there were spy-hunting listeners all around, a mad
+desire to utter the forbidden tongue obsessed me. Wry faces from
+Marie, emphasized by repeated pinches at each threatened
+outbreak, brought me back to my senses and to Anglo-Saxon.
+
+Not only one who spoke, but even one who understood the hated
+tongue was a suspect. For the least knowledge of the enemy's
+language was to some the hall-mark of a spy. The game played
+throughout France and Belgium was to fling a sudden command at
+the suspect, catching the unwary fellow off-guard, and thus trap
+him into self-betrayal.
+
+An official would say sharply: "Nehmen Sie ihre Hutte ab" (Take off
+your hat). Or there would come a sudden challenge on the street,
+"Wohin gehen Sie?" (Where are you going?) If instinctively one
+obeyed or replied in German, he was there caught with the goods.
+
+Our major domo under the influence of the coin, or what he had
+procured at the vintner's in exchange therefor, grew a bit playful.
+He suddenly flung open the door and cried, "Steigen Sie auf." If I
+had comprehended his meaning involuntarily I would have
+obeyed, but luckily my brain has a slow shifting language gear. By
+the time it began dawning upon me that we had been told to
+vacate the car Marie had fixed me with her eyes and gripped me
+like a vise with her hand so that I knew that I was to stay put. One
+man involuntarily started and then checked himself. He was so
+patently a Frenchman though that everybody laughed. The major
+domo chuckled and marched away, much pleased with his playful
+humor.
+
+At last, with much jolting, we started on our crawling journey.
+Sometimes the snail-pace would be accelerated; our hopes would
+then expand, only to collapse again with a bang. Again we would
+be sidetracked to let coal-cars, cattle cars and flat cars with guns
+go by. Civilians were ciphers in the new order, and if it served any
+military purpose to dump us into the river, in we would have gone
+with no questions asked. We sat about, a wilted and dispirited lot.
+Occasionally some one would thrust his head out the window to
+observe progress. He was generally rewarded by a view of the
+Eiffel Tower from a new angle, for it seemed that we were simply
+being shunted in and about and all around the city.
+
+The most icy reserve must find itself cracked and thawing in the
+intimacies which a jerking railway car precipitates. There is no
+dignity which is proof against a sound bump upon the head. Thus
+our irritations and suspicions gave way to laughter, and laughter
+brings all the barriers down. The compartment became a confessional.
+The anxious looking man opposite was hoping to get to his estate
+and to bury a few of his most treasured things before the Germans
+came. The two young fellows with scraggly beards were brothers,
+given five days' leave to see a dying father; three days had been
+spent in a vain effort to get started there. Another man had a half
+telegram which read, "Accident at home you------" Not another word
+had he been able to get through. The silent young man in the corner
+smiled pleasantly when his turn came but volunteered no information.
+I likewise passed.
+
+Marie, wishing to fortify herself with all possible help in her venture,
+told her tale in full. An immediate proffer came from the hitherto
+taciturn young man in the corner. "Why, this is romance in earnest.
+I do wish that I might be of some help," he said with genuine
+interest.
+
+Our new friend we found had for a grandfather no less a dignitary
+than Alexander Dumas. His name he told us was Louis Dumas, an
+artist, not yet called to the colors, and bound now for Villeneuve,
+"and before we can really get acquainted, here we are," he said as
+the train came to a stop.
+
+As he stepped to the door it was flung open by an officer who
+shouted, "Everybody out! This car is for the military." We
+protested. We displayed our tickets. The officer laughed and,
+seizing one reluctant passenger, dragged him out. A quickly
+ejected and much dejected band, we found ourselves upon the
+street of a little outlying village nine miles from Paris. It had taken
+half as many hours to get there.
+
+We fell upon the one village gendarme with a volley of questions.
+By pitching her voice above the hubbub, Marie got in her inquiry
+about the distance to Melun.
+
+"Thirty kilometers by the main road," he answered.
+
+This, then, was the issue of that tense day of strategy and daring:
+to be stranded in this suburb from which it was impossible to go
+forward to Melun and almost as difficult to return to Paris. Marie
+crumpled under the blow and then I realized how much it had cost
+her to maintain that calm outward demeanor.
+
+By sheer will-power she had kept the tears from her eyes and the
+tremor from her limbs. Long held in leash, they now leaped out to
+possess her.
+
+Dumas ran hither and thither, hunting conveyance but in vain.
+Three of his friends had automobiles. He called them by
+telephone. All cars had been commandeered. He stood with head
+drooping in real dejection.
+
+"Ah, I have it!" he exclaimed, "my friend Veilleau, he has an
+aeroplane and he will do it."
+
+This was quite too much even for Marie's soaring spirit; but she
+scarcely had time to picture herself ranging the sky when Dumas
+was back again, sorrowfully confessing failure. Aeroplanes likewise
+had heard the tocsin; they had sterner business than wafting
+lovers through the sky; they were carrying explosives and
+messages in the service of France. Dumas looked almost as
+disappointed as the wilted little figure he was trying to help.
+
+When the villagers understood her plight, they were full of
+sympathy, full of condolences, but also full of tales of arrest for
+those traveling on the main road.
+
+"Where was this road, anyhow?"
+
+"Out there," they replied.
+
+Turning a corner, we looked down the long row of poplars that
+lined the main road to Melun.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+America In The Arms Op France
+
+
+
+Any poplar-fringed road in France holds its strange lure. Dignity
+and grace lie in these tall swaying trees sentinelling the way on
+either side. To the poet, it is at all times the way to Arcady. But at
+eventide when the mystic light comes streaming from the west,
+touching the billowing green into gold, then even to the prosaic
+there is a call from the whispering, wind-stirred leaves to go a-
+grailing and to find at the end the palace or the princess. This time
+it was the prince who was calling. This little sad-featured girl was a-
+tune to hear his call. Perhaps in the purple mist she could even
+see her prince and feel the pleading of those outstretched arms.
+Wistfully she looked down her road to Arcady; but how far away
+the end and so bestrewn with terrors.
+
+Are psychic forces subject to ordinary physical laws, and do they
+act most powerfully along unobstructed ways? At any rate the
+voltage was high in the psychic currents that swept the straight
+road to Melun that afternoon, for when this saddened girl turned
+from her long gaze down the road to Melun it was with a
+transfigured face. Her tear-dimmed eyes shone with a calm
+resolve and the uplifted chin foreboded, I perceived, no good to
+my dreams of rest and resignation.
+
+To know the worst I ventured: "Well, how are we going to get to
+Paris?"
+
+"You mean Melun?" she gently smiled.
+
+"Sheer madness," I replied. "A carriage is out of the question, and
+if we had one there would be a hundred guards to turn us back."
+
+We stepped aside while two military trucks in their gray war-paint
+went lurching by. She followed them with her eyes until they disappeared
+ into the distant haze where poplar and purple sky melted into one.
+
+"Going straight to Robert," she cried, clasping her hands, "and if
+they only knew how much I want to go, I don't believe they would
+refuse me."
+
+Preposterous as it was, if they could indeed have seen the longing
+in her eyes I felt certain they wouldn't either. Discreetly I refrained
+from saying so.
+
+We walked slowly back to the partial barricade which compelled
+the motors to slow down. A siren heralded the approach of a car. I
+drew her aside into the ditch. Wrenching her hand loose she cried:
+
+"I don't care what happens. I'm going to stop this car!" Planting
+herself squarely in the path of the great gray thing, she signaled
+wildly for it to stop. The goggled driver bore straight down upon the
+little figure, then swerving sharply to one side jammed on the
+brakes and came to a sudden halt.
+
+"What's the trouble?" said the other occupant of the car, a thick-
+set swarthy fellow in a captain's uniform. "Washout, bombs or
+Uhlans?"
+
+"No, it's Robert!" Marie exclaimed.
+
+"Robert?" he cried, angered at this delay.
+
+His aroused curiosity took the sting out of his words as he
+exclaimed, "Who the devil is Robert?"
+
+She told him who Robert was, told it with her soul naming in her
+face. Her voice implored. Her eyes entreated. The black cloud that
+had overcast the captain's countenance at the impertinence of her
+action melted slowly away into a genial smile. And yet had fortune
+been unkind she might have brought us some calculating routinist
+with pride in strict obedience to the letter of the military law.
+
+"It's a plain infraction of all the regulations," he said, "but if you can
+risk all this for him, I can risk this much for you. Step up," he
+added, lifting her into a seat, and giving me a place behind with the
+baggage. It had happened all too swiftly for comprehension. We
+were on the road to Arcady again--and this time in high estate.
+With fifty horses racing away under the hood of our royal car, we
+were speeding forward like a bullet.
+
+Adown this road in the days of chivalry traveled oft the noble
+chevaliers and knights. In shining cavalcades they rode forth for
+glory in their lady's name. But never was there truer tribute to the
+spirit of High Romance than when down this same road, athrone
+upon a war-gray car, came this little Pennsylvania music-teacher.
+
+All the way we rode exalted, with hearts too full for speech. And
+our benefactor gave us no occasion for it. His eyes were fixed
+straight ahead upon the speeding road, alert for obstacles or rapt
+in visions of his own dear ones; or, more probable still, deep in
+reconsideration of his rashness in harboring two strangers who
+might turn out to be traitors.
+
+"Ten spies were shot here in the last two days," was his one
+laconic communication. As the Romanesque towers of Melun's
+Notre Dame came into view, he drew up by a post which marked a
+mile from the city, saying,
+
+"The rest of the way I believe you had better go on foot." With a
+polite bow and a smile he bade us adieu and was off, leaving us
+quite non-plussed. But the swift ride had driven refreshment and
+resolution into us. After some spirited passages with a few
+astounded sentries, we found ourselves in the city of our quest.
+
+It was a small garrison center. Into it now from every side had
+poured rivulets of soldiers until the street shimmered with its red
+and blue. Melun had changed roles with Paris. A desert quiet
+brooded over the gay capital, while this drab provincial place was
+now athrum with activity--not the activity of parade but of the
+workshop. The air was vibrant with the clangor of industry.
+Everywhere soldiers were cleaning guns, grooming horses, piling
+sacks. The only touch to lighten this depressing dead-in-
+earnestness came from a group of soldiers engaged in filling a
+huge bolster. They playfully tried to push one of their number in
+with the straw. In one doorway two men were seeking to render
+their uniforms less of a target by inking their brass-buttons black,
+while two rollicking fellows perched high upon a bread-wagon were
+making the welkin ring with vociferous demands for passage way.
+That was what everybody wanted. We, too, pressed forward into
+the throng.
+
+Enough other civilians were scattered amidst the masses of
+soldiery to render us not too conspicuous. And such a weltering
+anarchy it was: men, horses, and guns jammed together in one
+grand promiscuous jumble. Who was to organize discipline and
+victory out of such a turmoil? But that there was a directing mind
+moving through this democratic chaos, the Germans later learned
+to know full well. Likewise, the two strangers congratulating
+themselves on being lost in the vast confusion.
+
+To get our bearings we seated ourselves in a small cafe, and were
+intently poring over a map when a shuffling noise made us look up.
+A detachment of soldiers was entering the cafe. Much to our
+astonishment, they came to attention in front of us. They
+constituted the spy-hunting squad. All day they walked the city on
+the trail of suspects. To trap a prospective victim, and just as they
+were relishing the shooting of him to be compelled to release him,
+and then to drag on to the next prospect, and to repeat the
+process was not inspiriting. Apparently luck had gone against
+them, but at sight of us a new hope lit their eyes.
+
+Two officers, bowing politely, said: "Pardon, Monsieur; pardon,
+Madame! Your papers."
+
+Being held up as a spy, however nerve-racking, contributes
+considerably to one's sense of self-importance. It's a rare thrill for a
+civilian to be waited on by a reception committee in full dress
+uniform.
+
+But this was by all odds the most imposing array of military yet. I
+remember being distinctly impressed by the comic opera setting;
+the gay costumed soldiers in a crowded French cafe, the big
+American and the little heroine. In a moment the soldier chorus
+would go rollicking off singing some ditty like:
+
+"Let high respect come to their station, For they are members of a
+mighty nation."
+
+I deliberated for a few seconds, for presently our papers like
+talismen would exorcise all dangers. With a gesture suitably
+sweeping for the close of this act, I smiled assuringly, reached into
+that inner right-hand pocket, and felt a terrific thump of the heart as
+I clutched an empty void and forthwith drew out an empty hand.
+The smile turned a little sickly. I repeated. Likewise a third time.
+The smile died and a cold sweat gathered on my brow. It was now
+more like a Turkish bath than a comic opera. The rollicking soldier
+chorus began to look curiously like a band of assassins.
+
+I was positive that I had tucked these papers in that pocket. Had
+some evil spirit whisked them away? I conducted a frantic and
+furious search through every pocket. As one after another they
+turned out empty an increasing gloom settled down upon my face,
+and upon the faces of the assassins was registered a corresponding
+increment of joy.
+
+Reader, have you ever been warden of the theater tickets? As
+your party thronged up to the entrance, do you remember the
+stand-still of your heart when you found that the tickets weren't in
+the pocket that you put them, followed by the discovery that they
+weren't in any other pocket? Do you remember spasmodically
+ramming your hands into all your pockets until your arms took on
+the motions of a sailor at the pump, trying to save the old ship at
+sea? Remember the black looks insinuating you were an idiot and
+the growing conviction on your part that they were not far wrong?
+Multiply and intensify all these sensations a thousandfold and you
+will get a faint idea of how one feels when he is trying to locate his
+passports and the officials are hoping that he can't.
+
+Several months elapsed in as many seconds. To break the
+appalling silence, I began gibbering away in a jargon compound of
+gesticulation, English and remnants of High School French. Why,
+oh, why wouldn't somebody say something? At last the commissionaire,
+hitherto impassive, said:
+
+"Vielleicht Sie konnen Deutsch sprechen." ("Perhaps you can
+speak German.") It was so kind of him that I plunged headlong into
+the net. "Ja ich kann Deutsch sprechen," I fairly shouted.
+
+("Yes, I can speak German.") I would have confessed to Chinese
+or Russian, so anxious was I to get on speaking terms with some
+one.
+
+"So you speak German," said the commissionaire significantly; "I
+thought as much." The soldiers looked at their Lebel rifles as
+though the not unpleasant duty of making them speak for France
+would soon be theirs. In their eyes now I was a German spy and
+Marie was my accomplice. I began to be almost convinced of it
+myself.
+
+Now if this were fiction and not just a straight setting down of facts
+the papers might here be produced by a breathless courier or
+dropped from an aeroplane. But they weren't.
+
+At this crisis when all seemed lost, Marie rallied. She said: "Look in
+the lining of your coat."
+
+I was unaware of any hole in the lining but, duly obedient, I
+reached inside and found an opening. Some papers rustled in my
+hand. I clutched them like a madman, violently drew them forth
+and, perceiving that they were the precious documents, waved
+them about like a dancing dervish. The soldiers were distinctly
+disappointed and cast an evil eye on Marie, as though holding her
+personally responsible for cheating them out of a little target-
+practice.
+
+The commissionaires examined the papers, smiled as graciously
+as before they had frowned and, with the crestfallen soldiers
+resuming their old look of boredom, they disappeared as
+mysteriously as they had come.
+
+Out into the gathering gloom we followed too, and trudged to the
+barracks upon the hill.
+
+At the entrance the familiar "Qui va la?" (Who goes there?) rang a
+challenge to our approach. We informed the subaltern that it was
+Sergeant le Marchand that we sought.
+
+A confusion of calls echoed through the court. An orderly then
+announced that Robert le Marchand was sick; this was followed by
+the report that he was out; then some more conflicting reports,
+followed by Robert le Marchand himself. A new-lit lantern in the
+archway diffused a wan light around his pale face while he peered
+forward into the dusk. He could not see at first, but as by a dream-
+voice out of the mist came his name, twice repeated: "Robert,
+Robert."
+
+Was this some torturing hallucination? Before he had time to
+consider that, the reality flung herself into his arms. Again and
+again he clasped the nestling figure, as if to assure himself that it
+was not an apparition that he held but his very own sweetheart.
+
+They stood there in the archway, quite oblivious to the passing
+soldiers. The soldiers seemed to understand and, smiling approval
+of this new entente--America in the arms of France--they silently
+passed along.
+
+The first transports of surprise and joy being over, he begged for
+an explanation of this miracle. Briefly I sketched the doings of the
+day, and as he saw this wisp of a girl braving all dangers for love's
+sake, he was in one moment terror-stricken at the risks she had
+run, and in the next aglow with admiration for her splendid daring.
+Dangers had haloed her and he sat silent like a worshiper.
+
+"Instead of a tragedy," he exclaimed, "it's like a story with a happy
+ending. But let me tell how narrowly we escaped a tragic ending,"
+he added, drawing Marie closer to him.
+
+On the fifth of August it seems that his squad had been stationed
+upon the bridge over the Seine at Corbeille. The orders were to
+prevent any passage over the bridge and under the bridge--
+particularly the latter, as the authorities suspected an attempt upon
+the part of enemy plotters to use the waterways in and out of Paris.
+Traffic had been suspended and orders had been explicit: "Shoot
+any water-craft, without challenge, as it turns the bend at the
+Corbeille bridge."
+
+Corbeille had been the objective of our proposed canoe journey.
+There had been abundant warrant then in the very constitution of
+things for my psychic shivers at the first broaching of that canoe-
+trip.
+
+Our escape had been by a narrow margin. If that telegram, "Left
+Corbeille and gone to Melun," had missed us, Robert le Marchand's
+first shot might have meant death, not to his enemy but to his own
+life and soul. On the eve of the great war he might have embraced
+his dearest one cold and lifeless. But instead of that somber ending,
+here she was, warm, radiant and laughing--doubly precious by the
+trials through which she had passed and the death from which
+she had been delivered.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+No-Man's-Land
+
+
+
+The movements of the 231ier Regiment d'Infanterie were publicly
+announced. It was scheduled to entrain on the morrow for the front
+between Metz and Nancy. Robert le Marchand needed not to go.
+Pronounced unfit by the regimental doctor, his name had been
+placed upon the hospital list. Amidst the bustle of preparation for
+departure he spent the day in quietude, and Marie played nurse to
+the invalid.
+
+Her little tale about being a Red Cross worker told at the Gare du
+Nord turned out to be the truth and not the fable that she had
+fancied. Robert's recovery was so rapid that the doctor was
+astonished. He was understanding, however; also he was a very
+kindly doctor. He came and smiled and nodded his approval.
+
+Then he went away, still leaving Robert on the sick list.
+
+A long season of such delightful convalescence was now his for
+the taking. Golden days they promised to be to him and to Marie,
+but to France those early August days held portents of defeat and
+disaster. So one gathered from the ugly rumors from the frontier.
+The great battle raging in the north had its miniature in their souls.
+Theirs to choose days of ease and dalliance or the call to duty.
+
+When the 231st regiment formed into line the afternoon of August
+7th, the sergeant, radiant and happy, was with them again. But the
+tears in his eyes? That perplexed his comrades. Those who knew
+the secret let the romance lose none of its glamour in the telling
+until Marie became, forsooth, the heroine of the regiment.
+
+At four o'clock the regimental band struck up the Marseillaise and
+the regiment moved down the road. The sergeant's feet kept time
+with his marching men, while his eyes turned to the blue figure on
+a balcony, whose hand was fluttering a limp white handkerchief.
+She was striving her best to wave a cheerful farewell. The
+repeated strains: "Ye sons of France awake to glory," came each
+time more faintly as the regiment moved steadily away. There is
+always pain in such a growing distance. But it was not all pain to
+the tear-stained girl upon the balcony. She had her part in that
+glory. Had she not, too, made her sacrifice.
+
+It was quite as if the regiment had sailed away under sealed
+orders. Metz and Nancy had been broadcasted about as the
+objective of the 231st. But that had been just a blind for German
+informers. For the next communique mentioning the regiment
+came from far to the west, where it had been hurried to hold up the
+grave threat upon Paris. At Soissons the gray-green advance
+rolled itself up against the red and blue of the 231st.
+
+Back and forth the battle line surged through the old streets, now
+lurid with the light of blazing houses. A shell falling on the town-hall
+fired this ancient land-mark. A great flame-fountain burst up from
+the heart of the city. "Rescue the archives!" was the cry. For this,
+volunteers were called. The dash of a sergeant and his men into
+the burning hall and back again through the bullet-spattered
+streets is related in the Journal Officiel. It tells of the safe return of
+the archives, but of few survivors. For impetuous valor in this
+exploit, the name of Sergeant le Marchand was changed to
+Lieutenant le Marchand.
+
+That was my last tidings of Marie and Robert, until a year later a
+letter came to me in a shaky but familiar hand. It had the post-
+mark of Hornell Sanitarium, New York. It was from Marie, and one
+glance revealed the tragedy. Briefly it was this:
+
+In the attempted Champagne drive of 1915 the 231st regiment
+was ordered to rush the barbed wire barricade and drive a wedge
+into the enemy's line. At command Lieutenant le Marchand leaped
+from cover to lead the charge of his men. Scarcely had he uttered
+his cry, "En avant!" when he was dropped in his tracks, a bullet
+through his brain. Over his body, with revenge adding to their fury,
+the regiment swept like mad. The trenches, a quarry of prisoners,
+and the thrill of high praise from the general were theirs--a triumph
+with a bitter taste, for some, creeping back, had found their young
+lieutenant crumpled where he fell, the moonlight cold upon his
+blood-stained face. "In order that France might live he was willing
+to close his eyes upon her forever." Curiously his sword was
+sticking upright just as it had dropped from his hand. They buried
+him where he lay upon the edge of No-Man's-Land. Tears were
+showered on his grave, and on that fatal bullet many bitter curses.
+
+But this does not complete the tale of murder wrought by that slug
+of lead. Each plunging bullet blazes its black trail of the spirit-killed.
+
+A month later and three thousand miles away this German missile
+struck the heart of an American girl with a more cruel impact than it
+had struck the brain of this lieutenant of France. She, too,
+crumpled and fell upon the thorns. His had been a speedy,
+painless death; one sharp electric stroke and then the closing
+night. A like oblivion would have been sweet to her. But she had to
+face it out alone. Upon her torn heart were beaten a thousand
+hammer-strokes, and through the endless nights she bore the
+anguish of a thousand deaths.
+
+The death-lists of Europe hold 5,000,000 other names besides
+Lieutenant le Marchand's. Behind each name there marches with
+springless steps one or more figures shrouded in black.
+
+A year later one of these figures arose from her burial alive, a
+whitened shadow of her former self.
+
+"I know that I ought not to have collapsed, just as I know that I
+ought not to hate the Germans," Marie wrote. "I'm pulling myself
+together now, and I am trying to work and to forgive. But my
+thoughts are always wandering out to just one spot--that is where
+Robert lies. When peace comes I'm going straight over there and
+with my own hands I shall dig through every trench until I find him."
+
+Tragic futility indeed! One recompense for the colossal slaughter
+and the long war; few shall ever find their dead.
+
+On a recent Sunday morning I stepped into a church of a Lake
+City of the West. The organ was filling the large structure with its
+sounds; gradually out of the dim light came the face of the player.
+
+A hard road had she traveled since last I saw her, a trim little blue-
+clad figure waving good-by from that balcony in Melun. It was not
+strange that her face was white. There was nothing strange either
+in the passion of that music.
+
+These experiences of Gethsemane and Calvary had been first
+enacted in her own soul. The organ was but giving voice to them.
+There was a plaintive touch in the minor chords, as if pleading for
+days that were gone. It climbed to a closing rapture, as if two who
+had parted here had, for the moment, hailed each other in the
+world of Souls.
+
+
+
+
+Afterword
+
+
+
+It seems sometimes as if the torch of civilization had been almost
+extinguished in this deluge of blood. This darkening of the face of
+the earth has cost more than the blood and treasure of the race--it
+has involved a terrific strain on the mind and soul of man.
+
+The blasting of hundreds of villages, the sinking of thousands of
+ships, and the killing of millions of men is no small monument to
+the power of the human will. Deplore as we may the sanguinary
+ends to which this will has been bent, it has at any rate shown itself
+to be no weakling. We must marvel at the grim tenacity with which
+it has held to its goal through the long red years.
+
+But now it is challenged by an infinitely bigger task.
+
+The great nations sundered apart by this hideous anarchy have
+become hissings and by-words to each other. One group has
+been cast outside the Pale to become the Ishmaels of the
+universe. The purpose is to keep them there.
+
+Yet try as we may we cannot live upon a totally disrupted planet
+without bringing a common disaster upon us all. It may be a matter
+of decades and generations but eventually the reconciliation must
+come.
+
+To start civilization on the upward path again, to make the world
+into a neighborhood anew, to achieve the moral unity of humanity,
+is that infinitely bigger task with which the human will is challenged.
+As in the last years it has relentlessly concentrated its energies
+upon the Great War, now through the next decades and generations
+it must as steadfastly hold them to the Great Reconciliation. The
+tragedy of it all is that humanity must go at this crippled by a hatred
+like acid eating into the soul.
+
+Villages will arise again from their ruins, the plow shall turn anew
+the shell-pitted fields into green meadow-lands, a kindly nature will
+soon obliterate the scars upon the landscape, but not the deep
+searings on the soul. Europe must grapple with this work of
+reconstruction handicapped by this black devil poisoning the mind
+and vitiating every effort. The worst curse bequeathed to the
+coming generations is not the mountain of debt but this heritage of
+hate.
+
+It does not behoove Americans to stand on inviolate shores and
+prate of the wickedness of wrath. Moreover, this evil is not to be
+exorcised by a pious wish for it not to be. It is. And there is every
+excuse under the arch of heaven for its existence.
+
+If we had felt the eagles' claws tearing at our flesh; if, like Europe,
+our soil was crimsoned with the blood of our murdered; if millions
+of our women were breaking their hearts in anguish--we too would
+consider it a gratuitous bit of impertinence to be told not to cherish
+rancor towards those who had unleashed the hellhounds of lust
+and carnage upon us.
+
+As it is, we are not sacrosanct. Three thousand miles have not
+sufficed to keep the deadly virus out of our system. The violation of
+Belgium kindled a fire against the invaders which the successive
+cruelties served to fan into a flaming resentment.
+
+Then came our own losses--a mere grazing of the skin alongside
+of the bleeding white of Europe. But it has touched us deep
+enough to rouse even a sense of vindictiveness. This kept to
+ourselves will do injury to ourselves alone. But when we shout or
+whisper across the seas that we too despise the barbarians we
+help no one. We simply help to render the heartbreaking task of
+reconciliation well-nigh impossible by lashing to a wilder fury the
+people already blinded, embittered and frenzied by their own hate.
+Those who, above the luxury of giving full rein to their own
+passions, put the welfare of the French, English, Belgians and
+other broken peoples of earth, will do everything in their power to
+eradicate this gangrene from their souls.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLAWS OF THE GERMAN EAGLE***
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