The mitrailleuses pointed down the road we were headed on, and the Belgian gun-captain told us they were going to clean things up as soon as their own scouts drew fire and the first Teuton helmet appeared above the crest.  Naturally we were ordered back.  Had we continued on this road we should have been between the Belgian fire behind and the German fire in front, for the Germans would undoubtedly have mistaken us for a scouting party in an armored car.  As it was, Luther jumped to the wheel and insisted on seeing the thing through.  We went ahead for about half a mile.  I told him that if the shrapnel began to burst too close he would find me tucked safely underneath the car examining the gasoline tanks or in the nearest farmhouse cellar, and I believe he would have.  But nothing came close to us on that occasion.  My real “baptism” was reserved for another day, because Van Hee suddenly wrenched the wheel from Luther and turned our machine down a side road.  It was a case of out of the firing line into the frying-pan, for the side road led us into a trap from which there was no turning back—­the territory patrolled by the burly pickets of the Ninth German Army Corps, forming part of the Kaiser’s army of occupation in Brussels.

Out of earshot, and certainly out of sight of that skirmish, we were speeding at a great rate along a level, lonely road flanked by beet-fields and long lines of graceful elms that shook hands overhead, when: 

“Halt!  WOHIN?  WO GEHEN sie?” rang suddenly out of the darkness as two figures jumped from behind a farmhouse and leveled their rifles at us.  I shall always remember that sharp command as the cold, gray muzzles followed us like a sportsman covering a bevy of quail.  Our fat Belgian chauffeur, violinist in times of peace, and posing that day as an American,—­one of those men who look as if they would bleed water if you pricked them with a bayonet,—­needed no second warning.  Running the German gauntlet was not precisely his hobby.  Down went the emergency brake and the car jolted to a sudden halt.

A bristle-whiskered German giant under a canvas-covered helmet stuck his head through the flaps, and for more than ten minutes he and another sentinel searched our knapsacks and credentials and inspected the Government mail pouches which we carried.  The sentries were far from satisfied.  We said little at first, realizing, nevertheless, that we had run between the opposing trenches and up to the German outposts without actually drawing fire.  That, at least, was something of a comfort.

Then, as if the answer was the price of admission, the big one asked us if we had seen many British soldiers around Antwerp and Ghent.  We had previously decided that the answer to such talk was, “None of your business.”  But the fellow’s bayonet was infernally bright and sharp and his countenance like ice.  It wasn’t only the equinoctial rain that made us shiver.