Good form among invading armies, I found, precluded the guest making inquiry into anyone’s antecedents.  I made a second resolution to keep my own counsel, as I hurried down the road.

There was no release from his searching eyes until a turn in the highway put an intervening obstacle between myself and him.  But this relief was short-lived, for no sooner had I rounded the bend than a cry of “Halt!” shot fear into me.  I turned to see a man on a wheel waving wildly at me.  I thought it was a summons back to my inquisitor, and the end of my journey.  Instead, it was my officer from Marburg, who dismounted, took two letters from his pocket, and asked me if I would have the kindness to deliver them to the Feld Post if I got through to Liege.  He said that seemed like a God-given opportunity to lift the load off the hearts of his mother and his sweetheart back home.  Gladly I took them, with his caution not to drop them into an ordinary letter-box in Liege, but to take them to the Feld Post or give them to an officer.  I went on my way rejoicing that I could add these letters to my credentials.  I now passed down the long street of Jupilles, which was plastered with notices from the German authorities guaranteeing observance of the rights of the citizens of Jupilles, but threatening to visit any overt acts against the soldiers “with the most terrible reprisals.”

I arrived on the outskirts of Liege with the expectation of seeing a sorry-looking battered city, as the reports which had drifted to the outer world had made it; but considering that it had been the center around which the storm of battle had raged for over two weeks, it showed outwardly but little damage.  The chief marks of war were in the shattered windows; the great pontoon bridge of barges, which replaced the dynamited structure by the Rue Leopold, and hundreds of stores and public buildings, flying the white flag with the Red Cross on it.  The walls, too, were fairly white with placards posted by order of the German burgomaster Klyper.  It was an anachronism to find along the trail of the forty-two centimeter guns warnings of death to persons harboring courier pigeons.

Another bill which was just being posted was the announcement of the war-tax of 50,000,000 francs imposed on the city to pay for the “administration of civil affairs.”  That was the first of those war-levies which leeched the life blood out of Belgium.

The American consul, Heingartner, threw up his hands in astonishment as I presented myself.  No one else had come through since the beginning of hostilities.  He begged for newspapers but, unfortunately, I had thrown my lot away, not realizing how completely Liege had been cut off from the outer world.  He related the incidents of that first night entry of German troops into Liege.  The clatter of machine gun bullets sweeping by the consulate had scarcely ceased when the sounds of gun-butts battering on the doors accompanied by hoarse shouts of “Auf Steigen” (get up) reverberated through the street.  As the doors unbolted and swung back, officers peremptorily demanded quarters for their troops, receiving with contempt the protests of Heingartner that they were violating precincts under protection of the American flag.