in Ghent the proprietor, after a couple of
days, believing me to be one more neutral American, told me he was a
German. He went on to say what a mistake the Belgians made to oppose the
Germans, who were irresistible. That was his return to the city and
country that had given him his livelihood. A few hours later a gendarme
friend of mine told me to move out quickly, as we were in the house of a
spy.

Three members of our corps in Pervyse had evidence many nights of a spy
within our lines. It was part of the routine for a convoy of motor
trucks to bring ammunition forward to the trenches. The enemy during the
day would get the range of the road over which this train had to pass.
Of course, each night the time of ammunition moving was changed in an
attempt to foil the German fire. But this was of no avail, for when the
train of trucks moved along the road to the trenches a bright flash of
light would go up somewhere within our lines, telling the enemy that it
was time to fire upon the convoy.

Such evidences kept reaching us of German gold at work on the very
country we were occupying. Sometimes the money itself.

My wife, when stationed by the Belgian trenches at Pervyse, asked the
orderly to purchase potatoes, giving him a five-franc piece. He brought
back the potatoes and a handful of change that included a French franc,
a French copper, a Dutch small coin, a Belgian ten-centime bit, and a
German two-mark piece with its imperial eagle. This meant that some one
in the ranks or among the refugees was peddling information to the
enemy.

In early October my wife and I were captured by the Uhlans at Zele. Our
Flemish driver, a Ghent man, began expressing his friendliness for them
in fluent German. After weeks of that sort of thing we became suspicious
of almost every one, so thorough and widespread had been the bribery of
certain of the poorer element. The Germans had sowed their seed for
years against the day when they would release their troops and have
need of traitors scattered through the invaded country.

The thoroughness of this bribery differed at different villages. In one
burned town of 1500 houses we found approximately 100 houses standing
intact, with German script in chalk on their doors; the order of the
officer not to burn. This meant the dwellers had been friendly to the
enemy in certain instances, and in other instances that they were spies
for the Germans. We have the photographs of those chalked hou