For example:  In Brussels on September 27, 1914, I fell in with a lieutenant of the British army.  With an American passport he had made his way into the city through the German lines.  We both desired to see Louvain, but all passage thereto was for the moment forbidden.  Starting out on the main road, however, sentry after sentry passed us along until we were halted near staff headquarters, a few miles out of the city, and taken before the commandant.  We informed him of our overweening desire to view the ruins of Louvain.  He explained, as sarcastically as he could, that war was not a social diversion, and bade us make a quick return to Brussels, swerving neither to the right nor left as we went.

As we were plodding wearily back, temptation suddenly loomed up on our right in the shape of a great gas-bag which we at first took to be a Zeppelin.  It proved to be a stationary balloon which was acting as the eye of the artillery.  It was signaling the range to the German gunners beneath, who were pounding away at the Belgians.  In our excitement over the spectacle, we went plunging across fields until we gained a good view of the great swaying thing, tugging away at the slender filament of rope which bound it to the earth.

Sinking down into the grass, we were so intent upon the sharp electric signaling as to be oblivious to aught else, until a voice rang a harsh challenge from behind.  Jumping to our feet, we faced a squad of German soldiers and an officer who said: 

“What are you doing here?”

“Came out to see the big balloon,” we somewhat naively informed him.

“Very good!” he said.  And then, quite as if he were rewarding our manifest zeal for exploration, he added, “Come along with me and you can see the big commandant, too.”

Three soldiers ahead and three behind, we were escorted down the railroad track in silence until we began to pass some cars filled with the recently wounded in a fearfully shot-to-pieces state.  Some one mumbled “Englishmen!” and the whole crowd, bandaged and bleeding as they were, rose to the occasion and greeted us with derisive shouts.

“Put the blackguards to work,” growled one.

“No!  Kill the damn spies!” shouted another, as he pulled himself out of the straw, “kill them!”

A huge fellow almost wild from his wounds bellowed out:  “Why don’t you stick your bayonet into the cursed Englishmen?” No doubt it would have eased his pain a bit to see us getting a taste of the same thing he was suffering.

Our officer, as if to make concessions to this hue and cry, growled harshly:  “Don’t look around!  Damn you! and take your hands out of your pockets!”

We heaved sighs of relief as we left this place of pain and hate behind.  But a new terror took hold of us as a turn in the track brought our destination into view.  It was the staff headquarters in which, two hours before, the commandant had ordered us to make direct return to Brussels.