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