We gathered in a deal of stone ornaments that had been shot down and struggled with a load of them to our car.  Later they became a weight upon our conscience.  When Cardinal Mercier starts the rebuilding of his cathedral, we might surprise him with the return of a considerable portion thereof.  To fetch these souvenirs through to England, we were compelled to resort to all the tricks of a gang of smugglers.

I made also a first rate collection of German posters.  By day I observed the location of these placards, announcing certain death to those who “sniped on German troops,” “harbored courier-pigeons,” or “destroyed” these self-same posters.

At night with trembling hands I laid cold compresses on them until the adhering paste gave way; then, tucking the wet sheets beneath my coat, I stole back to safety.  At last in England I feasted my eyes on the precious documents, dreaming of the time when posterity should rejoice in the possession of these posters relating to the German overlordship of Belgium, and give thanks to the courage of their collector.  Unfortunately, their stained and torn appearance grated on the aesthetic sensibilities of the maid.

“Where are they?” I demanded on my return to my room one time, as I missed them.

“Those nasty papers?” she inquired naively.

“Those priceless souvenirs,” I returned severely.  She did not comprehend, but with a most aggravatingly sweet expression said: 

“They were so dirty, sir, I burned them all up.”

She couldn’t understand why I rewarded her with something akin to a fit of apoplexy, instead of a liberal tip.  That day was a red-letter one for our photographers.  They paid the price in the risks which constantly strained their nerves.  But in it they garnered vastly more than in the fortnight they had hugged safety.

But, despite all our efforts, there was one object that we were after that we never did attain.  That was a first-class atrocity picture.  There were atrocity stories in endless variety, but not one that the camera could authenticate.  People were growing chary of verbal assurances of these horrors; they yearned for some photographic proof, and we yearned to furnish it.

“What features are you looking for?” was the question invariably put to us on discovering our cameras.

“Children with their hands cut off,” we replied.  “Are there any around here?”

“Oh, yes!  Hundreds of them,” was the invariable assurance.

“Yes, but all we want is one—­just one in flesh and bone.  Where can we find that?”

The answer was ever the same.  “In the hospital at the rear, or at the front.”  “Back in such-and-such a village,” etc.  Always somewhere else; never where we were.

Let no one attempt to gloss the cruelties perpetrated in Belgium.  My individual wish is to see them pictured as crimson as possible, that men may the fiercer revolt against the shame and horror of this red butchery called war.  But this is a record of just one observer’s reactions and experiences in the war zone.  After weeks in this contested ground, the word “atrocity” now calls up to my mind hardly anything I saw in Belgium, but always the savageries I have witnessed at home in America.