But the Belgians were taking no chances.  If by any mishap that electric connection should fail them, it would devolve upon the artillery lined upon the bank to rake the bridge with shrapnel.  A roofed-over trench ran along the river like a levee and bristled with machine guns whose muzzles were also trained upon the bridge.  Full caissons of ammunition were standing alongside, ready to feed the guns their death-dealing provender, and in the rear, all harnessed, were the horses, ready to bring up more caissons.

Though in the full blaze of day, the gunners were standing or crouching by their guns.  The watchers of the night lay stretched out upon the ground, sleeping in the warm sun after their long, anxious vigil.  Stumbling in among them, I was pulled back by one of the photographers.

“For heaven’s sake,” he cried, “don’t wake up those men!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because this picture I’m taking here is to be labeled ’Dead Men in the Termonde Trenches,’ and you would have them starting up as though the day of resurrection had arrived.”

After taking these pictures we were ready to cross the bridge; but the two sentries posted at this end were not ready to let us.  They were very small men, but very determined, and informed us that their instructions were to allow no one to pass over without a permit signed by the General.  We produced scores of passes and passports decorated with stamps and seals and covered with myriad signatures.  They looked these over and said that our papers were very nice and undoubtedly very numerous, but ungraciously insisted on that pass signed by the General.

So back we flew to the General at Grembergen.  I waited outside until my companions emerged from the office waving passes.  They were in a gleeful, bantering mood.  That evening they apprised me of the fact that all day I had been traveling as a rich American with my private photographers securing pictures for the Belgian Relief Fund.

Leaving our automobile in charge of the chauffeur, we cautiously made our way over the bridge into the city of Termonde, or what was once Termonde, for it is difficult to dignify with the name of city a heap of battered buildings and crumbling brick—­an ugly scar upon the landscape.

I was glad to enter the ruins with my companions instead of alone.  It was not so much fear of stray bullets from a lurking enemy as the suggestion of the spirits of the slain lingering round these tombs.  For Termonde appeared like one vast tomb.  As we first entered its sepulchral silences we were greatly relieved that the three specter-like beings who sat huddled up over a distant ruin turned out not to be ghosts, but natives hopelessly and pathetically surveying this wreck that was once called home, trying to rake out of the embers some sort of relic of the past.