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