past the barbed-wire barricades, but the nuns told us of a little lane
at the back of their convent which led to the high road to Brussels,
about fifteen miles distant. We went down this lane for about an hour,
and then came to a road where four roads met, just as the nuns had said.
I did not know which road to take, so asked a woman working outside the
farm. She spoke Flemish, of which I only know a few words, and either I
misunderstood her, or she thought we were German Sisters, for she
pointed to another lane at the left which we had not noticed, and we
thought it was another short cut to Brussels.

We had only gone a few yards down this lane when we met a German sentry
who said "Halt!" We were so accustomed to them that we did not take much
notice, and I just showed my Red Cross brassard as I had been accustomed
to do in Charleroi when stopped. This had the German eagle stamped on it
as well as the Belgian Red Cross stamp. The man saluted and let us pass.
_Now_ I realize that he too thought we were German Sisters.

We went on calmly down the lane and in two minutes we fell into a whole
German camp. There were tents and wagons and cannon and camp fires, and
thousands of soldiers. I saw some carts there which they must have
captured from the English bearing the familiar names of "Lyons' Tea" and
"Pickford" vans! An officer came up and asked in German what we wanted.
I replied in French that we were two Sisters on our way to Brussels.
Fortunately I could produce my Belgian Carte d'Identité, which had also
been stamped with the German stamp. The only hope was to let him think
we were Belgians. Had they known we were English I don't think anything
would have saved us from being shot as spies. The officer had us
searched, but found nothing contraband on us and let us go, though he
did not seem quite satisfied. He really thought he had found something
suspicious when he spied in my basket a small metal case. It contained