I reached Rotterdam the word "refugee" had assumed a
new and altogether nearer meaning. I had been in a besieged and
captured city; I had mixed with homeless and starving people; I had
seen houses crumble and burn; and ghastly human figures with their
insides oozing away and the eyes staring vacantly.

As I lay in bed that night I could hear, and I still can hear, the scruff,
scruff, and shuffle of feet as the compact body of this army--the
army without guns or leaders--dragged slowly past my window at
the Queen's, the tinkle of ox-cart bells, the talk and babble of guttural
tongues; the curses of the team drivers, the frantic cries of mothers
who had lost their children in the scramble, the cries of young children
who didn't know what was wrong, but realized in their vague, childish
way that something terrible was happening.

I could see, and I still can see, those big Belgian hounds sniffing
along the outskirts of the crowd and plainly advertising for an owner; I
can see other hounds with their heads thrown back wailing at the
door of their deserted and abandoned homes. And I can see the
Dutch border where Holland opened out her arms, and the Dutch
peasants gave us rye bread and sandwiches and good long drinks of
welcome milk.

Sometimes I can sit with my legs dangling over the stern of that old
towboat barge on which I finally made my escape, and can visualize
the blue-gray spire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, standing, it
seemed to me, a quiet sentinel over the ruins of the tortured city; and,
then, as the old barge sweeps around the river's bend, I can look
back upon the last of Antwerp's story written in flaming letters of red
against the early morning sky.

Chapter VII

Spying On Spies

Less than forty-eight hours after the fall of Antwerp the wave of
helpless humanity whose crest broke on the Belgian border had
rolled over the entire length and breadth of Holland. Thousands of
Belgian refugees wandered as far north as The Hague, where
various Dutch relief committees and the American Legation at The
Hague did their best to house the homeless and relieve the suffering.
Dr. van Dyke rolled up his sleeves still farther and strained to solve
the problem of the unemployed, sometimes, when a case interested
him, turning his own pocket inside out.

Eight days after the Antwerp bombardment, I left The Hague for my
second trip into Germany.

Just before my start Captain Sunderland, U.S.A., at th