ng by Landsturm sentries
on the run to Brussels as darkness fell. There was no relaxation of
watchfulness at night.
All the twenty-four hours the systematic conquerors held the net tight.
Once when my companion repeated his "Again!" and held out the
pass in the lantern's rays, I broke into a laugh, which excited his
curiosity, for you soon get out of the habit of laughing in Belgium.
"It has just occurred to me that my guidebook states that passports
are not required in Belgium!" I explained.
The editor of that guidebook will have a busy time before he issues
the next edition. For example, he will have a lot of new information
about Malines, whose ruins were revealed by the motor-lamps in
shadowy broken walls on either side of the main street. Other places
where less damage had been done were equally silent. In the smaller
towns and villages the population must keep indoors at night; for
egress and ingress are more difficult to control there than in large
cities, where guards at every corner suffice--watching, watching,
these disciplined pawns of remorselessly efficient militarism; watching
every human being in Belgium.
"The last time I saw that statue of Liege," I remarked, peering into the
darkness as we rode into the city, "the Legion of Honour conferred by
France on Liege for its brave defence was hung on its breast. I
suppose it is gone now."
"I guess yes," said Harvard, 1914.
We went to the hotel at Brussels which I had left the day before the
city's fall. English railway signs on the walls of the corridor had not
been disturbed. More ancient relic still seemed a bulletin board with
its announcement of seven passages a day to England, traversing
the Channel in "fifty-five minutes via Calais" and "three hours via
Ostend," with the space blank where the state of the weather for the
despair or the delight of intending voyagers had been chalked up in
happier days. The same men were in attendance at the office as
before; but they seemed older and their politeness that of cheerless
automatons. For five months they had been serving German officers
as guests with hate in their hearts and, in turn, trying to protect their
property.
A story is told of how that hotel had filled with officers after the
arrival of the Germanic flood and how one day, when it was learned
that the proprietor was a Frenchman, guards were suddenly placed
at the doors and the hall was filled with luggage as every officer,
acting wit
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