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