along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier. I
was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed
after me stalking so fiercely past them. But the great automobiles
plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being
continually covered by this gray powder. What I most feared was
lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent
answers.

Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place.
Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper
of the inn. I pointed to my throat. She understood at once my signs
of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank
until I was ashamed.

"How much!" I asked.

She shook her head negatively. I pushed a franc or two across the
table.

"No," she said smilingly but with resolution.

"I can't take it. You need it on your journey. We are all just friends
together now."

So my dust and distress had their compensations. They had
brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow.

It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich
region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of
supply. There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle