Who are these spies?  Are they Belgians and French, driven by the ruin of everything they possess to selling out to the enemy?  I think not.  It is much more probable that they are Germans who slip through the lines in some uncanny fashion, wading and swimming across the inundation, crawling flat where necessary, and working, an inch at a time, toward the openings between the trenches.  Frightful work, of course.  Impossible work, too, if the popular idea of the trenches were correct—­that is, that they form one long, communicating ditch from the North Sea to Switzerland!  They do not, of course.  There are blank spaces here and there, fully controlled by the trenches on either side, and reenforced by further trenches behind.  But with a knowledge of where these openings lie it is possible to work through.

Possible, not easy.  And there is no mercy for a captured spy.

The troops who had been relieved were moving out of the trenches.  Our progress became extremely slow.  The road was lined with men.  They pressed their faces close to the glass of the car and laughed and talked a little among themselves.  Some of them were bandaged.  Their white bandages gleamed in the moonlight.  Here and there, as they passed, one blew on his fingers, for the wind was bitterly cold.

“In a few moments we must get out and walk,” I was told.  “Is madame a good walker?”

I said I was a good walker.  I had a strong feeling that two or three people might walk along that road under those starlights much more safely and inconspicuously than an automobile could move.  For automobiles at the front mean generals as a rule, and are always subject to attack.

Suddenly the car stopped and a voice called to us sharply.  There were soldiers coming up a side road.  I was convinced that we had surprised an attack, and were in the midst of the German advance.  One of the officers flung the door open and looked out.

But we were only on the wrong road, and must get into reverse and turn the machine even closer to the front.  I know now that there was no chance of a German attack at that point, that my fears were absurd.  Nevertheless, so keen was the tension that for quite ten minutes my heart raced madly.

On again.  The officers in the car consulted the map and, having decided on the route, fell into conversation.  The officer of the Third Division, whose mother had been English, had joined the party.  He had been on the staff of General Leman at the time of the capture of Liege, and he told me of the sensational attempt made by the Germans to capture the General.

“I was upstairs with him at headquarters,” he said, “when word came up that eight Englishmen had just entered the building with a request to see him.  I was suspicious and we started down the staircase together.  The ‘Englishmen’ were in the hallway below.  As we appeared on the stairs the man in advance put his hand in his pocket and drew a revolver.  They were dressed in civilians’ clothes, but I saw at once that they were German.