It was no prophetically favorable sight that greeted me at the outset.  A Belgian, a mere stripling of twenty or thereabouts, had just been shot, and the soldiers, rolling him on a stretcher, were carrying him off.  I made so bold as to approach a sentry and ask:  “What has he been doing?” For an answer the sentry pointed to a nearby notice.  In four languages it announced that any one caught near a telegraph pole or wire in any manner that looked suspicious to the authorities would be summarily dealt with.  They were carrying him away, poor lad, and the crowd passed on in heedless fashion, as though already grown accustomed to death.

When the troops at the front are taking lives by the thousands, those guarding the lines at the rear catch the contagion of killing.  Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge.  Stopping to get a drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against the strain to which I was putting them.  Luckily, a peasant’s vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less in my pocket.

There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier.  I was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed after me stalking so fiercely past them.  But the great automobiles plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being continually covered by this gray powder.  What I most feared was lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent answers.

Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place.  Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper of the inn.  I pointed to my throat.  She understood at once my signs of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank until I was ashamed.

“How much!” I asked.

She shook her head negatively.  I pushed a franc or two across the table.

“No,” she said smilingly but with resolution.

“I can’t take it.  You need it on your journey.  We are all just friends together now.”

So my dust and distress had their compensations.  They had brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow.

It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of supply.  There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle on the opposite bank of the river; they were raising a great noise as the soldiers drove their wagons among them, throwing down the hay and grain.  Otherwise, the army had settled down from the hustling activities of the morning, and the guards had been posted for the oncoming evening.  I knew now that I was progressing at a good pace because near Wandre I noticed a peasant’s wagon ahead, and soon overtook it.  It was carrying eight or nine Belgian farm-hands, and the horse was making fair time under constant pressure from the driver.