rcy. When we had given her some chocolate and
money, and had assured her that we were not Germans, but
Americans and friends, she ran like a frightened deer. That little
child, with her fright-wide eyes and her hands raised in supplication,
was in herself a terrible indictment of the Germans.

There are, as might be expected, two versions of the happenings
which precipitated that night of horrors in Aerschot. The German
version--I had it from the German commander himself--is to the
effect that after the German troops had entered Aerschot, the Chief
of Staff and some of the officers were asked to dinner by the
burgomaster. While they were seated at the table the son of the
burgomaster, a boy of fifteen, entered the room with a revolver and
killed the Chief of Staff, whereupon, as though at a prearranged
signal, the townspeople opened fire from their windows upon the
troops. What followed--the execution of the burgomaster, his son,
and several score of the leading townsmen, the giving over of the
women to a lust-mad soldiery, the sacking of the houses, and the
final burning of the town--was the punishment which would always
be meted out to towns whose inhabitants attacked German soldiers.

Now, up to a certain point the Belgian version agrees with the
German. It is admitted that the Germans entered the town
peaceably enough, that the German Chief of Staff and other officers
accepted the hospitality of the burgomaster, and that, while they
were at dinner, the burgomaster's son entered the room and shot
the Chief of Staff dead with a revolver. But--and this is the point to
which the German story makes no allusion--the boy killed the Chief
of Staff in defence of his sister's honour. It is claimed that toward the
end of the meal the German officer, inflamed with wine, informed
the burgomaster that he intended to pass the night with his young
and beautiful daughter, whereupon the girl's brother quietly slipped
from the room and, returning a moment later, put a sudden end to
the German's career with an automatic. What the real truth is I do
not know. Perhaps no one knows. The Germans did not leave many
eye-witnesses to tell the story of what happened. Piecing together
the stories told by those who did survive that night of horror, we
know that scores of the townspeople were shot down in cold blood
and that, when the firing squads could not do the work of slaughter
fast enough, the victims were lined up and a machine-gun was