ed several westbound loads go by until about two o'clock,
when they made up a combination train consisting of Red Cross
coaches and empty freight trucks going back to Aix for fresh loads of
men and ammunition. Aix is the great distributing center for the line of
communication into northern Belgium. Most of the open cars were
empty, barring occasional gun carriages on the way home for repairs;
in the closed freight cars lay a few wounded first line men, a half a
dozen male nurses, and some privates on furlough. Speaking of
nurses, I haven't--so far at least-seen a woman nurse nearer the
scene of action than a base hospital, i.e., one of the big hospitals in
Antwerp, Brussels, or Ghent. Luther and I, closely followed by the
two guards that had trailed us from the time we had got inside the
station, climbed into a freight car, apparently used as a box stall on
the out trip, and bare except for a pile of damp straw in one corner.
Interminable journey. Most of the time we stood on sidings waiting for
the outbound traffic. Made fair time to Louvain,--i.e., an hour and a
half,--and stayed there two hours, for which I was thankful, as it
gave me a chance to look around. Interviewed soldiers, citizens, and
a Jesuit priest, of which more later. One hour more to Tirlemont. Then
seven hours to Liege, where we arrived at 2 A.M., were smothered for
two hours in that tunnel, and took six and three quarters hours more
from Liege to Verviers--a distance of less than fifteen miles! It was
another five hours to Aix.

"Saw tremendous troop movements along Brussels-Louvain-Verviers
line of communication. During the first day thirty-five troop and
transport trains went past us, moving towards the western frontier,
the larger part to strengthen the German attack on Antwerp, which we
had not long left behind us, others to discharge their loads as near as
possible to Lille, Tournai, and Mons. The average train was twenty
cars long, making about seven hundred carloads, with two hundred
or more in each car, giving a total of more than 140,000 fighting men.
We stopped counting at the end of the first day.

"After we left Louvain I got out occasionally and stretched my legs
along the tracks, but Luther, not being able to talk German, stuck
pretty close to his diggings. Had a great time at a little town called
Neerwinden, where we stayed about half an hour. A crowd of soldiers
from our train joined a group cooking supper in the moonlig