On the following day, however, a wholehearted apology was tendered along with an invitation to witness the first firing of the big guns.

“Put your fingers in your ears, stand on your toes, and open your mouth,” the officer said.  There was a terrific concussion, a black speck up in the heavens, and a ton of metal dropped down out of the blue, smashing one of the cupolas of the forts to pieces.  That one shot annihilated 260 men.  I shuddered as we all do.  But it should not be for the sufferings of the killed.  For they did not suffer at all.  They were wiped out as by the snapping of a finger.

The taking of those 260 bodies out of the world, then, was a painless process.  But not so the bringing of these bodies into the world.  That cost an infinite sum of pain and anguish.  To bring these bodies into being 260 mothers went down into the very Valley of the Shadow of Death.  And now in a flash all this life had been sent crashing into eternity.  “Women may not bear arms, but they bear men, and so furnish the first munitions of war.”  Thus are they deeply and directly concerned in the affairs of the state.

The consul with his wife and daughter gave me dinner along with a cordial welcome.  At first he was most appreciative of my exploits.  Then it seemed to dawn on him that possibly other motives than sheer love of adventure might have spurred me on.  The harboring of a possible spy was too large a risk to run in the uncertain temper of the Germans.  In that light I took on the aspects of a liability.

The clerks of the two hotels to whom I applied assumed a like attitude.  In fact every one with whom I attempted to hold converse became coldly aloof.  Holding the best of intents, I was treated like a pariah.  The only one whom I could get a raise from was a bookseller who spoke English.  His wrath against the spoilers overcame his discretion, and he launched out into a bitter tirade against them.  I reminded him that, as civilians, his fellow-countrymen had undoubtedly been sniping on the German troops.  That was too much.

“What would you do if a thief or a murderer entered your house?” he exploded.  “No matter if he had announced his coming, you would shoot him, wouldn’t you?”

Realizing that he had confided altogether too much to a casual passerby, he suddenly subsided.  The only other comment I could drag out of him was that of a German officer who had told him that “one Belgian could fight as good as four Germans.”  My request for a lodging-place met with the same evasion from him as from the others.

Chapter VIII

Thirty-Seven Miles In A Day

“Death if you try to cross the line after nightfall.”  Thus my soldier friends picketing the Holland-Belgium frontier had warned me in the morning.  That rendezvous with death was not a roseate prospect; but there was something just as omnious about the situation in Liege.  To cover the sixteen miles back to the Dutch border before dark was a big task to tackle with blistered feet.  I knew the sentries along the way returning, but I knew not the pitfalls for me if I remained in Liege.  This drove me to a prompt decision and straightway I made for the bridge.