ea of its
existence up to the time of the bombardment. Try to imagine, for
example, going about your business in New York or Boston or Los
Angeles (of course Antwerp is smaller than these) when your country,
a territory perhaps the size of the New England States, was already
two thirds overrun, burnt, smashed, and conquered by a hostile
nation, whose forces were now within nineteen miles of the gates of
the capital. Imagine that nation's warriors in the act of crushing your
tiny army, whose remnants were already exhausted and on the verge
of despair. Then picture a quaint, sleepy city, with shadowy alleys and
twisting, gabled streets, in which every other store and house was
decorated with King Albert's picture or draped in the red, black, and
yellow banner of the country-a city whose atmosphere was charged
with fear and suspicion and excitement. Sometimes a crowd of a
thousand or two drew one toward the Central Station where
bedraggled refugee families, just arrived from Liege, Termonde,
Aerschot, and Malines, stood on street corner or wagon top and
thrilled the crowd with tales of atrocities and the story of their flight
from their burning homes to the south. Now and then the crowd
parted before the clanging bell of a Red Cross ambulance rushing its
load of bleeding bodies to the hospitals along the Place de Meir.
Nurses, male or female, clung to the ambulance steps. The first one I
saw made a vivid impression on me. She was an English-looking girl
in a new khaki skirt, supporting with one hand what was left of a
blood-dripping head,--the eyes and nose were shot away,--while
out of the other hand she ate with apparent relish a thick rye-bread
sandwich. Occasionally she waved remnants of the sandwich at the
gaping crowd. It struck me as a peculiarly unnecessary exhibition of
her callous fitness for the job of nurse.

During the daytime the ordinary things of life went on, for the good
burghers and shopkeepers went about their business as usual, and,
generally speaking, fought against fear as bravely as the soldiers in
the trenches stood up against the German howitzers. It was only after
dark (when martial law permitted no lights of any kind) that the city
seemed to shiver and suck in its breath; doors were barricaded, iron
shutters came down, and behind them the people talked in whispers.
Military autos, fresh from the firing line, groaned and sputtered at the
doorstep of the St. Antoine; soldiers with pocke