. They were
picked up without loss of time and transported to the nearest Red Cross
hospital.

Cursing our luck we started off to Haelen for a look at the
battlefields. Prussian cavalry made an attack there the same day they
attacked Diest, and their losses were pretty bad.

At one of the barricades we found people with Prussian lances, caps,
haversacks, etc., which they were perfectly willing to sell. Palmer was
equally keen to buy, and he looked over the junk offered, while some two
hundred soldiers gathered around to help and criticise. I urged Palmer
to refrain, in the hope of finding some things ourselves on the
battlefield. He scoffed at the idea, however. He is, of course, an old
veteran among the war correspondents, and knew what he was about. He
said he had let slip any number of opportunities to get good things, in
the hope of finding something himself, but there was nothing doing when
he got to the field. We bowed to his superior knowledge and experience,
and let him hand over an English sovereign for a long Prussian lance. I
decided to do my buying on the way home if I could find nothing myself.

The forward movement of troops seemed to be headed toward Diest, for our
road was much more free from traffic. We got into Haelen in short order
and spent a most interesting half hour, talking to the officer in
command of the village. As we came through the village we saw the effect
of rifle fire and the work of machine guns on the walls of the houses.
Some of them had been hit in the upper story with shrapnel and were
pretty badly battered up. The village must have been quite unpleasant as
a place of residence while the row was on. The commanding officer, a
major, seemed glad to find some one to talk to, and we stretched our
legs for half an hour or so in front of his headquarters and let him
tell us all about what had happened. He was tense with rage against the
Germans, whom he accused of all sorts of barbarous practices, and whom
he announced the allies must sweep from the earth. He told us that only
a few hours before a couple of Uhlans had appeared in a field a few
hundred yards from where we were standing, had fired on two peasant
women working there, and then galloped off. Everywhere we went we heard
stories of peaceful peasants being fired on. It seems hard to believe,
but the stories are terribly persistent. There may be some sniping by
the non-combatant population, but the authorities are doing everythi