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