e few forlorn walls grouped about
the village church made a pathetic picture as they glowed
luminously in the setting sun. A flock of doves were cooing in the
blackened ruins. Now I was on the home-stretch; and, that there
might be no mistake with my early morning comrades, I cried out
in German, "Here comes a friend!" With broad smiles on their
faces, they were waiting there to receive me.

They made a not unpicturesque group gathered around their
camp-fire. One was plucking a chicken, another making the straw
beds for the night. A third was laboriously at work writing a post-
card. I ventured the information that I had made over fifty
kilometers that day. They punctured my pride somewhat by stating
that that was often the regular stint for German soldiers. But,
pointing to their own well-made hobnailed boots, they added,
"Never in thin rubber soles like yours." After emptying my pockets
of eatables and promising to deliver the post-card, I passed once
more under the great Dutch banner into neutral territory.

My three Holland friends were there with an automobile, and,
greeting me with a hearty "Gute Knabe!" whisked me off to
Maastricht. For the next three days I did all my writing in bed,
nursing a, couple of bandaged feet. I wouldn't have missed that
trip for ten thousand dollars. I wouldn't go through it again for a
hundred thousand.

Part 3
With the War Photographers in Belgium

Chapter IX

How I Was Shot As A German Spy

IN the last days of September, the Belgians moving in and through
Ghent in their rainbow-colored costumes, gave to the city a
distinctively holiday touch. The clatter of cavalry hoofs and the
throb of racing motors rose above the voices of the mobs that
surged along the streets.

Service was normal in the cafes. To the accompaniment of music
and clinking glasses the dress-suited waiter served me a five-
course lunch for two francs. It was uncanny to see this blaze of life
while the city sat under the shadow of a grave disaster. At any
moment the gray German tide might break out of Brussels and
pour its turbid flood of soldiers through these very streets. Even
now a Taube hovered in the sky, and from the skirmish-line an
occasional ambulance rumbled in with its crimsoned load.

I chanced into Gambrinus' cafe and was lost in the babbling sea of
French and Flemish. Above the melee of sounds, however, I
caught a gladdening bit of English. Turning about, I espied a little
g