every obstacle just to get into this
horrible mess. If I get disfigured--no, I'd much rather be killed--will
it--"

"Crash!! Bang!!" went a monster shell as I turned the corner.

Two doors from the corner of a narrow street covered with bricks and
mortar fluttered a United States flag, and beneath it the door of 74
Rue de Peage. This place was later spoken of as "Thompson's fort,"
because Donald C. Thompson, a Kansas photographer, took
possession of it after the Belgian family fled, and plundered the
neighborhood for coffee, rolls, and meat, with which he stocked his
little cellar. The house next door had already been struck, and
shattered glass littered the pavement. The doorstep of 74 was
covered by a couple of mattresses and sand-bags. Beneath this, in a
dingy sort of coal-bin, heaped with straw, I found crouching the
tenants of "Thompson's fort."

Next to Berchem, the southern quarter of the city, where the
Germans were approaching, the Rue de Peage was the worst spot in
Antwerp. We sat for a time listening to the shells. There were here, in
addition to Thompson, Edwin Weigel, a Chicago photographer;
Edward Eyre Hunt, of "Collier's Weekly"; and the Dutch Vice-Consul.

We heard the distant resounding Boom ... Boom ... Boom ... ed ...
Boom ... Boom ... Boom.

An interval of perhaps a second's silence, then a faint moaning, a
crescendo wail, the whirr and rush of a snarling, shrieking skyrocket
overhead, and a crash, like all the thunders of the universe rolled into
one, when the shell struck, followed by the roar of falling brick as a
neighboring house came pouring into the street.

"Whee.....wheee.....Hi.....HIOU UIOUW," we heard. "Whee ...
whEEE ... whEEE ... UIOUW ... OUWW ... SSH ... SSHSHHH ...
BANG ... BANG!!!!!!"

"Whee.....wheee.....Hi.....HIOUUIOUW," we heard. "Whee ...
whEEE ... whEEE ... UIOUW... OUWW... SSH ... SSHSHHH... BANG...
BANG!!!!!!"

I tried to persuade the other fellows to come up to the Queen's Hotel
along the Scheldt waterfront on the northern side of the city, where I
was then encamped. It was a safer locality because the Germans
had not yet got the range of the northern end of the city. Weigel and
Thompson, having to look out for their kodaks and moving-picture
paraphernalia, decided to wait a while, as did Hunt. Hare, who came
in later, had two big kodaks which he wanted to get back to his room
in the Queen's. I offered to carry one of them for him.

We shook ha