situation in Liege. To cover the sixteen miles back to the Dutch
border before dark was a big task to tackle with blistered feet. I
knew the sentries along the way returning, but I knew not the
pitfalls for me if I remained in Liege. This drove me to a prompt
decision and straightway I made for the bridge.

It was no prophetically favorable sight that greeted me at the
outset. A Belgian, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts, had
just been shot, and the soldiers, rolling him on a stretcher, were
carrying him off. I made so bold as to approach a sentry and ask:
"What has he been doing?" For an answer the sentry pointed to a
nearby notice. In four languages it announced that any one caught
near a telegraph pole or wire in any manner that looked suspicious
to the authorities would be summarily dealt with. They were
carrying him away, poor lad, and the crowd passed on in heedless
fashion, as though already grown accustomed to death.

When the troops at the front are taking lives by the thousands,
those guarding the lines at the rear catch the contagion of killing.
Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I
speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a
field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a
drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against
the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's
vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating
myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart
turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less
in my pocket.

There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself