Chapter 6

Heaven above! how are there men enough left after all these weeks of killing to continue a battle? At times the reports come as thick and fast as hail, making one long roar of awfulness, and our hearts sink like lead at the vision it conjures up.

And again, how readily and eagerly hope springs up when the shots become interrupted and the noise fades away a little.

In this wooded spot where we so often go to find out the real truth of things with our own ears, one meets nearly all one's friends from the neighboring villas who have come for the same purpose, morbidly attracted as we all, no doubt, are by these dreadful signs of a world of torture.

We huddle together like sheep lost in the storm, we confide our personal misfortunes and we recount the barbarous tales we have recently heard, the story ever interrupted by fresh evidence of the reviving fury of the never-ending struggle.

When we arrived home we heard that a company of soldiers had arrested, as espions, four or five men who, like ourselves, were taking a little promenade in the wood across the valley. Our liberties are being curtailed more and more. Thank goodness there is a large garden and a private wood to wander in. A month ago the order was that every inhabitant must be in the house and lights out at eight P. M. Now it is seven o'clock and as the days grow shorter it will soon be six or five--and perhaps three. The soldiers are in such a blue fear of being shot that recently in Aerschot all the villagers were put into the church on bread and water. Some of the men were shot before their wives and most of the houses burned. And they say, "the heart of the Imperial Empire bleeds." It is not surprising that it does when one considers what is happening right here at Liége, where houses are burned and innocent men shot for murder. Afterward one finds German bullets in German soldiers, which proves what you will.

What a story we heard to-day--such a pitiful little story of somebody's blue-eyed boy who ran out with his toy gun and aimed it at the passing troops.

They shot him dead, the little fellow, but he will sleep in a hero's grave as truly as another, for his loyal wee might.

_September 18th, Friday._

A memorable day! We went in the auto to Spa. As we drove out of the court yard we were obliged to let some horsemen pass, who were out for their morning exercise. I think it is somebody's body guard, for we see them often at a distance. There are about thirty of them and at close range they are rather beautiful, that is, their uniforms of spotless white broadcloth with gold trimmings. _En route_ we passed by Fort d'Embourg, which still has some of its cupolas, and Fort Chaudefontaine, which our burned soldiers defended and which is demolished. For miles around the country has been flattened, one may say, from the operation of the cannon and looks as if a cyclone had hurried across it. Every bit of shrubbery has been swept off the soil as if by a blast of magic and the singed earth has a very shorn-lamb aspect.

Our route was a veritable _via dolorosa_--destruction on both sides, in front and behind. Many houses and trees had eight inch shells half sticking in them which have not exploded and nobody knows when they may. The churches were without fail demolished more or less and the most astonishing thing was to see, again and again, the marble statue of the Christ standing intact on the crumbling remains of an altar. It fills one with awe and reverence to see this figure repeatedly spared by a supernatural power from an otherwise pitiless devastation. We passed through the now famous Louvigné which was entirely burned by the Prussians on their way to Liége. It was the same old story of the "civilians firing on the troops," or rather the excuse of the delinquents to martyr innocent villagers who instinctively took up a rifle to defend their homes, as any one of us would. And revenge came quickly.

As we neared this spot which scarred the face of Nature, we were seized with silent horror. If, in the smiling sunshine and in the quiet of the beautiful country, we shivered at the sight of such destruction and the thought of that dastardly work which marked the destiny of hundreds of human beings, what must the awful realization have been to the inhabitants themselves? Fancy the helplessness of them and their consternation at the approach of a great army bearing down, of men maddened with the love of conquest, of the wild beast seeking what it may devour! Imagine the distant rumbling of wheels, drawing nearer and nearer, the thud of horses' hoofs, the rhythmic tramp of feet, first wafted on the wind, and finally the frightful dread confirmed by a sudden explosion from the forts. Then the arrival--the dark--the noise--the confusion--the terror of the women--the screams of little children clinging to their mothers--the despair of the old ones, ill and bedridden--fire everywhere and men torn from the arms of their loved ones and stood up in a row and shot. What ghastly scenes, illumined still more by those rockets of flame from the forts which cut across the plain to stay the brutal invaders!

I saw a little girl come out from the débris to draw water from a pump--for what? For whom? There did not seem to be a living creature in the vicinity, though perhaps some of the poor things who fled out into the night across the fields for safety, have come back to dig out a little home under the crumbled stone. One or two houses remained standing, which seems a miracle, as pétrole-soaked fire-brands were thrown systematically into every habitation. As we passed, rather quickly, I counted ninety houses in ruins and about half a mile from the road, a magnificent château, a victim as well as the meanest hovel. The façade only was standing, though on approaching directly, the building seemed intact, except for a curious impression of daylight shining through the windows.

Coming back in the twilight the effect of all this misery was accentuated, the sentinels every few hundred yards were more suspicious than ever and when we came upon a few isolated "_Hussars de la Mort_" with the death's head leering out from those elegant fur turbans, I thought all was finished. Happily the men were more peaceable than their aspect.

Spa, the lovely, indolent _ville d'eaux_, which we visited, was filled with the "military" and bristling like a porcupine with saw-edged bayonets and pointed helmets.

_September 22nd, Tuesday._

The doctor has gone to Neufchateau in the Ardennes to bring back the French and Belgian wounded. I wish I could have gone with him, for we seem so useless here now that our soldiers are well, and the days are long, since the wild excitement of a giant army on the wing has cooled down. "On the wing" is not an idle expression when we remember those forced marches and how they lashed the poor artillery horses which galloped and strained in the traces without making much impression on the wheels. It was rather like that famous chariot race in the play, "Ben Hur," when the landscape rolled around too fast for the horses. Certain Imperial Esprits have doubtless already arrived, but without the baggage--an item somewhat important.

May the Fates preserve beautiful Paris! There is a dear little French sister at the Convent (this Sisterhood was transferred from Metz after the War of 1870) who says that we must pray the Blessed Virgin every day to "_écraser_ (smash) _les Allemands_," and she says it so fervently that one does not observe the lack of Christian spirit.

Very little is passing through the city at present except perhaps this eternal line of trains, and oh, how we are thirsting for news! Can you imagine, dear people at home, you who have hundreds of newspapers, how we are straining every nerve to know the real truth of things as they are, to pierce through this thick wall, with which an arrogant despotism has cut us off from the whole world? But we cannot. It is wadded on both sides with deceptions and our only privilege is to surmise. What poor things we are, in truth, though born and reared in the common independence of the age. Everywhere (else) the poorest farmer has his one old horse to take him to and fro, where he will, and he has his acre of God's country, where he may muse in the sun or dream with the stars, while we, conquered by numbers, must walk in a straight line without loitering and we must go into our houses at seven P. M. and close the door. Do you think that is amusing?

_September 24th, Thursday._

We heard five booms of cannon in an hour this morning and bad and inhuman as it sounds, we were quite pleased--any little sign from an outside world that one lives, one breathes, to drag us out of this inertia, this eternal silence!

_September 28th, Monday._

There was quite a demonstration in Liége yesterday when they brought back from Neufchateau some Belgian and French wounded. The people all shouted, "_Vive la France._" Today we have a new military governor, who has given the order to shoot, without hesitation, any person attempting such an indiscretion again.

The scene of operations is gradually swinging back into Belgium and the stories of atrocities are increasing. The sacking and burning of Louvain, with its art treasures and its world-famous library of rare books and old manuscripts, is only another blot on a shield already stained. In fact, it is said that the general who permitted it is most discontented with himself for having been so stupid and that he has been relieved from active service on account of ill health.

Monsieur Max, the burgomaster of Brussels, has been taken prisoner and is in confinement at Namur, because he was not able nor willing to meet the demands of the Prussians, who want gold. We hear that the women of Germany have been required to give up all their jewelry, except wedding rings, for fighting money.

_September 30th, Wednesday._

We went again to Spa in the auto. Passing again through the pitiful village of Louvigné, we saw, in a meadow, the graves, covered with wayside flowers, of the farmers who were shot. The soldiers picked out forty of the villagers, stood them up in a line, then shouted, "Save yourselves." Thirteen were shot in the back and the rest escaped. What words to find for this barbarism? But is it barbarism and not rather the refined cruelty of civilization? Is it not better then to remain a primitive, with a beautiful faith in the Sun-god?

_October 1st, Thursday._

The siege of Antwerp has begun. Here is a dialogue between the Kaiser and his _belle armée_.

K. "I need Antwerp."

A. "Your Majesty shall have Antwerp, but we need five hundred thousand men."

K. "You shall have them."

Does this explain the fantastic array of soldiers, sailors, the old, the young, grandfathers and infants, the simple rank and file and the elegant regiments of H. M. that are continually trailing on to the battlefield?

_September 29th, Tuesday._

The servants are dismantling the house today, putting all the art treasures in safety--tapestries, silver, portraits, paintings, rugs, fine china, furniture, dresses, furs, books, linen--in fact everything of value. All this is to be taken off for safekeeping and sealed up,--maybe, in the crystal caves of the river nymph, Aréthusa. Madame X. does not like to imagine the _Haus Fraus_ parading in her sables.

A man in the city saw some circulars ready for distribution that were printed by the German War Office, saying that in case of retreat of the army, the inhabitants of Liége would have six hours to evacuate the city.

All that horror over again? Oh! this is a more terrifying thought, even, than the advance of an army.

Madame de H. managed to get through to us a letter from Brussels by messenger. What dreadful things are happening, what curious things! Three kilometres from her château on the other side of Brussels is an old feudal castle which has been occupied for the last two years by an Austrian family. These people were never very neighborly, preferring their own society evidently and spending all their time and interest in repairing the dilapidated walls of an unused wing of the château. This had turned out an endless task, as it appears, continued for weeks and then suddenly and unaccountably stopped for days, only to be feverishly recommenced. But of course, people round about, accustomed to the varying energy of workmen in general were not puzzled at this. At least this was the explanation given and, in truth, it began to look as if the old place would live its given quota of days and crumble away still unfinished.

Twenty-four hours after Germany declared war on France and had already crossed the frontier into Belgium, the Austrian family disappeared in the night, taking with them their household goods. The next day Belgian authorities seized the property and found a complete arsenal under the walls with a net-work of tunnels burrowing far into the earth in all directions.

_October 3rd, Saturday._

During the last forty-eight hours, hundreds of cattle cars have been going back to Germany and we were very curious as to their contents. Unhappily, we have been enlightened.

Some of the villagers at the station, this morning, looked into one car and saw that it was full of dead human bodies, tied together in threes and packed tightly side by side in rows. Is that not too horrible for words? It is better not to be too inquisitive these days, for there is horror enough on the surface of things.

The Germans have already taken some of the forts of Antwerp, although the country surrounding the outer belt line of forts has been purposely inundated, which does not, however, prevent the operation of big field cannon.

About fourteen of our wounded at the Convent Ambulance were sent to Germany today as prisoners. We went to see them off and found the poor things absolutely overwhelmed. Against the fear of cold and imprisonment, they put on as many clothes as possible--two suits of underwear, two pairs of socks, two pairs of trousers, coats, shirts, sweaters and waistcoats--until they looked like stuffed partridges. Poor, feathered brood, with pinioned wings! At three P. M. our (usually) gay boys were led out of the court, two by two, like convicts, a Prussian at the head of the column and a Prussian at the foot.

Oh, these Belgians are brave and they know how to obey, which may be the very secret of their greatness. It is glorious to see the respect with which even grown men accept the advice of their aged parents, for at the moment of peril to their honor and their country when the old father had said to his son, "My boy, it is time to lay down the hoe and take up the sword," he had answered, simply, "_Oui, mon père_," while the women brought out the sword and buckled it on with a tearless Godspeed.

That is the way the Belgians went to war and that is the way they will sustain themselves to the glorious end.

_October 5th, Monday._

To-day, two months after that horrible battle of Sartilmont, we found a Belgian soldier's cap lying in the middle of the path in the woods. It seemed like a human thing and stirred me to the profoundest depths. I never thought that clothes could take on life and a personality all alone, but they do. Has its owner been in hiding all these weeks or is he lying yet unburied among the friendly trees? In these places where Death has walked so boldly one feels his accompanying presence at every step.

_October 8th, Thursday._

Monsieur B., a man of seventy years (Madame X.'s brother-in-law), was taken as hostage yesterday at Spa. Fortunately for him, he was allowed to sleep in the hotel, but can you imagine what the anxiety of those twenty-four hours was? Every voice in the street, every foot-step in the corridor--!

From the top of the mountain all day a continual booming was heard, distantly transmitted through the air. It was so incessant and with such vivacity, one could easily imagine two armies all mixed up into one. The Red Cross trains bear witness to tremendous battles somewhere--but where? We hardly know how to contain ourselves in this absolute ignorance of what is happening in the world. We rush upon and tear to bits, like beasts of prey, the least little piece of news that comes straggling within reach and if, by chance, someone comes into the court, it is enough for all the family, including the servants, to rush to the windows in excitement.

The soldiers who are in the garage had the delicate idea of killing a cow therein, which they did, and dismantled the animal then and there. The next day they dressed themselves in Belgian uniforms, stripped from the dead, and had themselves photographed before the château. We noticed their laughing and pointing to the attic windows of the house, and we finally discovered that they had festooned strings of sausages, of their own recent make, from the window sills, to ripen.

A Baron de S. spent the night here, and told us of the ravages made by the passing troops at his château down in the country. They had buried a Frenchman in one corner of the garden and two Germans in another and nothing was left but the house. All engravings and paintings were cut with a sword; silver platters were melted in a lump in the court yard; meat was cut up on a beautiful salon table; shoe polish was rubbed on another; pipes in the kitchen and bathroom were cut to flood the rooms; every glass in the house was broken and all the linen carried off except the handkerchiefs.

_October 9th, Friday._

Baron T., another friend of the family, came to lunch. He told us of his cousin, who was one of the unfortunate victims of the sack of Louvain. This aged man (seventy years) with a thousand others, was obliged to walk for twenty-four hours with nothing to eat or drink and arms stretched up straight over their heads. The poor man, fainting with fatigue, asked permission of the soldiers to put his hands behind his neck, but this grace was denied, and after some hours more all the company was pushed into a cattle train and for eight days taken over the country, as far as Cologne, and at last released in Brussels, almost demented.

When this Monsieur--of whom I speak, found himself free again he made his way, laboriously enough, to his brother's house in Brussels.

The _maitre d'hotel_ opened the door and, seeing this haggard, bootless individual, who was weakened with fatigue and dazed from his recent horrible experience, did not recognize him, naturally enough, and refused him admission until the old gentleman got his poor scattered brains together enough to prove his identity. This is the story as we have it first-hand. Can it then be possible that the others we heard are true, too?

_October 10th, Saturday._

I have been advertised! like a stray dog, and what a feeling of importance it gives one. A peculiar looking document with the Embassy seals of Paris and Brussels on it, arrived from the American Consul in Liége enquiring if such a person as "Me" still exists.

Well, rather, I should say. Fancy one's coming all the way on foot from Brussels to find out that!

Masses of soldiers and cannon passing today and news from Brussels is bad. The worst must have happened! "Antwerp, the untakable." How is it possible in a few days, with fifty-two forts in triple line? We were so depressed we could scarcely eat dinner, when about nine P. M. came the news, from a man of affairs who is just back from Brussels, that the rumor is false. We shall sleep tonight after this hope and the end of the world is not today, anyway.

_October 11th, Sunday._

We have heard the raging of a distant battle for days and we tremble for the result. It seems that Antwerp is really taken, that is, "they say" so, but it is such a mystery to everybody.

A Dutch army nurse--but in the German Red Cross service--is here for a few days' furlough, and related to Madame X. some horrible details of the battlefield in France, whence she has recently come. It is just one scene of mud and blood--pieces of limbs strewn everywhere and the dead standing straight against masses of bodies, both living and dead. In some towns she saw women and children pinioned with a sword through the breast to the walls of their houses, and in Belgium the women and children were often obliged to hold the hands of the men whom the soldiers shot at random, according to their fancy. Here again are tales that one hears that I cannot assert as facts, though this woman told them as her own experiences.

Madame X. received a card from Charles, the young gardener, who is now safe in France training with the Belgian army near Dunkirque. You are doubtless wondering how a card arrived here, as we have had no mail since August 2nd. It was sent to a certain bank in Holland which is not far from the Belgian frontier and a messenger brought it on foot.

And I have sent you back a letter, dear people, scribbled at top speed (without capitals, t's crossed nor i's dotted, probably) by the same messenger who takes his life in his hands when he passes the guard at the Dutch frontier again. If letters are found on this person he will certainly be shot, so whether you ever receive my communication will be a matter of history.

_October 13th, Tuesday._

The old concierge of the hunting box at Viel Salm (near Malmédy, Germany), who has been dying of tuberculosis for twenty years, arrived here tonight, having walked the whole distance of seventy five kilometres. This shows the faithfulness of the old servant who thought he must come to report the sacking of the villa by the German troops which occurred in the early days of August.

The poor man could not have hobbled another step, for he was at the end of his strength and his feet were just two great blisters. He told a shocking tale of the troops, who entirely pillaged the villa. While he went to complain of them at the _Kommandantur_ of the place, others came and what they did not break up, they took off. Pictures, engravings and mirrors were broken, the leather chairs slit up with a sabre--artistically done in the shape of a cross--and porcelain smashed in the middle of the courtyard. You can see by this that pillaging and atrocities began when the troops were hardly over the frontier.

In one of the numerous pillaged châteaux around about, an extraordinary bit of literature, in fact a masterpiece, has been found by the châtelaine. A tiny scrap of paper sticking out from a book had these words scribbled on it in German: "I am only a common soldier but I ask pardon for these atrocities, committed by my superior officers."

_October 14th, Wednesday._

It is unbelievable the trainloads of soldiers that are passing about every ten minutes, and the fighting--judging from the wounded--must be beyond words. The army nurse told of men who have fought five days in the trenches without relief. They were tumbling over with fatigue, rifle in hand, and the officers were obliged to go from one to the other, shaking them into consciousness.

_October 16th, Friday._

We went to Viel Salm in the automobile. The destruction at the villa, which I saw with my own eyes, has not been exaggerated. There was practically nothing left but the structure itself and that was far from intact, for nearly all the great plate glass windows were broken by some _dévot_ of vandalism who had taken the trouble and an ax to split up the jambs of the doors so that they never could shut again.