undeterred by the fear of the police and willing to chance the shells, had broken in the doors and were looting to their hearts’ content.  As a man staggered past under a load of wine bottles, tinned goods and cheeses, our boatman, who by this time had become reconciled to sticking by us, inquired wistfully if he might do a little looting too.  “We’ve no food left down the river,” he urged, “and I might just as well get some of those provisions for my family as to let the Germans take them.”  Upon my assenting he disappeared into the darkness of the warehouse with a hand-truck.  He was not the sort who did his looting by retail, was that boatman.

By midnight Roos and I were shivering as though with ague, for the night had turned cold, we had no coats, and we had been without food since leaving Ghent that morning.  “I’m going to do a little looting on my own account.”  I finally announced.  “I’m half frozen and almost starved and I’m not going to stand around here while there’s plenty to eat and drink over in that warehouse.”  I groped my way through the blackness to the doorway and entering, struck a match.  By its flickering light I saw a case filled with bottles in straw casings.  From their shape they looked to be bottles of champagne.  I reached for one eagerly, but just as my fingers closed about it a shell burst overhead.  At least the crash was so terrific that it seemed as though it had burst overhead, though I learned afterward that it had exploded nearly a hundred yards away.  I ran for my life, clinging, however, to the bottle.  “At any rate, I’ve found something to drink,” I said to Roos exultantly, when my heart had ceased its pounding.  Slipping off the straw cover I struck a match to see the result of my maiden attempt at looting.  I didn’t particularly care whether it was wine or brandy.  Either would have tasted good.  It was neither.  It was a bottle of pepsin bitters!

At daybreak we started at full speed down the river for Doel, where we had left the car, as it was imperative that I should get to the end of a telegraph wire, file my dispatches, and get back to the city.  They told me at Doel that the nearest telegraph office was at a little place called L’Ecluse, on the Dutch frontier, ten miles away.  We were assured that there was a good road all the way and that we could get there and back in an hour.  So we could have in ordinary times, but these were extraordinary times and the Belgians, in order to make things as unpleasant as possible for the Germans, had opened the dykes and had begun to inundate the country.  When we were about half-way to L’Ecluse, therefore, we found our way barred by a miniature river and no means of crossing it.  It was in such circumstances that Roos was invaluable.  Collecting a force of peasants, he set them to work chopping down trees and with these trees we built a bridge sufficiently strong to support the weight of the car.  Thus we came into L’Ecluse.