When I had gone about a quarter of a mile I got my nerve again. I put
my hands in my pockets, lighted a cigarette, and was just saying to
myself, "This is pretty good fun, after all," when CRASH!! CRASH!! two,
or possibly three, shells, bursting in rapid succession, tore down
houses a hundred yards ahead of me. Then one struck in the street, and
jagged fragments of angry shrapnel skidded along the pavement like a
thrown stone skipping along the surface of the water. I was again
trembling all over.

Was the game worth the candle, I asked myself. "I've come three
thousand miles and overcome every obstacle just to get into this
horrible mess. If I get disfigured--no, I'd much rather be killed--will
it--"

"Crash!! Bang!!" went a monster shell as I turned the corner.

Two doors from the corner of a narrow street covered with bricks and
mortar fluttered a United States flag, and beneath it the door of 74
Rue de Peage. This place was later spoken of as "Thompson's fort,"
because Donald C. Thompson, a Kansas photographer, took
possession of it after the Belgian family fled, and plundered the
neighborhood for coffee, rolls, and meat, with which he stocked his
little cellar. The house next door had already been struck, and
shattered glass littered the pavement. The doorstep of 74 was
covered by a couple of mattresses and sand-bags. Beneath this, in a
dingy sort of coal-bin, heaped with straw, I found crouching the
tenants of "Thompson's fort."

Next to Berchem, the southern quarter of the city, where the
Germans were approaching, the Rue de Peage was the worst spot in