. Smoke from the
engine drifted back to choke us. It hit the consumptive worst. The
poor fellow began blowing and coughing, then rolled feebly on his
back and gasped. During the worst of the smoke one of the soldiers
in the next car set up a rollicking song, and others followed his
example. We could hear the clank of beer bottles as they finished, the
echoes of the song reverberating loudly, then faintly, then louder
again up and down the length of that interminable vault. A draught of
air cleared the smoke away and it didn't bother us again. At four in
the morning we steamed out of the tunnel into the open. A little after
that I must have dozed off, for I woke with a start when the
consumptive stumbled over me.

"There you are," he said, throwing a bundle beside me; "I thought
you'd need it."

Noticing, when he lit his pipe at dawn, that we had no army blankets
and were pretty nearly frozen, this "barbarian" had jumped out of the
car in the Liege freight yards, had run a quarter of a mile to the
nearest army kitchen depot, and had stolen for us a couple of
heaping blankets' full of warm, dry straw.

It was impossible to believe that these men had committed the
atrocities reported at Termonde and Roosbeek, at Malines and
Louvain. At close range it was easy to see that the prevalent
conception of the "barbarians" was the purest kind of rot--the
picture created and fostered by the Allied press, of a vicious and
besotted beast with natural brutality accentuated by alcoholic rage.
With such men as individuals it seemed to us that neutral observers
could have no quarrel. To the Kaiser's privates who have been
fighting for a cause they do not thoroughly understand, was due, we
thought, the greatest respect; to the officers, too, who understand
what they are doing and are game in the face of odds; and most of all
to the suffering German people. But to the German war machine, we
reflected, was due a terrible punishment--the lesson it must learn
not only for Germany's enlightenment, but for the sake of civilization
and humanity.

Chapter IV

A Clog Dance On The Scheldt

When the German major at Aix-la-Cha-pelle stamped on our passports:--
"Gesehen. Gut Zum Austritt Kommandant 2 Kompagnie, Landsturm Batl.
Aachen," we were free, so we thought, to shake the dust of Germany from
our feet. Hoisting our rucksacks, we gave up box cars in favor of a
civilized passenger train, northward bound, and at noon