it all.  We passed a little girl of nine or ten and I stopped the car to ask the way.  Instantly she held both hands above her head and began to scream for mercy.  When we had given her some chocolate and money, and had assured her that we were not Germans, but Americans and friends, she ran like a frightened deer.  That little child, with her fright-wide eyes and her hands raised in supplication, was in herself a terrible indictment of the Germans.

There are, as might be expected, two versions of the happenings which precipitated that night of horrors in Aerschot.  The German version—­I had it from the German commander himself—­is to the effect that after the German troops had entered Aerschot, the Chief of Staff and some of the officers were asked to dinner by the burgomaster.  While they were seated at the table the son of the burgomaster, a boy of fifteen, entered the room with a revolver and killed the Chief of Staff, whereupon, as though at a prearranged signal, the townspeople opened fire from their windows upon the troops.  What followed—­the execution of the burgomaster, his son, and several score of the leading townsmen, the giving over of the women to a lust-mad soldiery, the sacking of the houses, and the final burning of the town—­was the punishment which would always be meted out to towns whose inhabitants attacked German soldiers.

Now, up to a certain point the Belgian version agrees with the German.  It is admitted that the Germans entered the town peaceably enough, that the German Chief of Staff and other officers accepted the hospitality of the burgomaster, and that, while they were at dinner, the burgomaster’s son entered the room and shot the Chief of Staff dead with a revolver.  But—­and this is the point to which the German story makes no allusion—­the boy killed the Chief of Staff in defence of his sister’s honour.  It is claimed that toward the end of the meal the German officer, inflamed with wine, informed the burgomaster that he intended to pass the night with his young and beautiful daughter, whereupon the girl’s brother quietly slipped from the room and, returning a moment later, put a sudden end to the German’s career with an automatic.  What the real truth is I do not know.  Perhaps no one knows.  The Germans did not leave many eye-witnesses to tell the story of what happened.  Piecing together the stories told by those who did survive that night of horror, we know that scores of the townspeople were shot down in cold blood and that, when the firing squads could not do the work of slaughter fast enough, the victims were lined up and a machine-gun was turned upon them.  We know that young girls were dragged from their homes and stripped naked and violated by soldiers—­many soldiers—­in the public square in the presence of officers.  We know that both men and women were unspeakably mutilated, that children were bayoneted, that dwellings were ransacked and looted, and that finally, as though to destroy the evidences of their horrid work, soldiers went from house to house with torches, methodically setting fire to them.