In the meantime a stretcher had been sent for, and Boxer was brought back to the dressing station, where he had his wound dressed, which luckily turned out to be slight.

That night I was filled full of the spirit of adventure and I wanted to visit the windmill again.  I got a pal to go with me and endeavored to make it, but the flares were steadily burning and the snipers were so busy we had to lie low.  Again I went to the French battery and told the officer commanding of my suspicions about the windmill.  A smile of intelligence and gratefulness lighted up his fine face.  “Monsieur, we shall see what we shall see,” and he ordered a shell into the heart of the structure, bringing it down in splinters.  Then we made for the ruins and found the body of a man dressed in an Algerian uniform; I looked him over carefully; he was the artist I had met in the farmhouse at our former station.

There remained still the case of the old man in whose house we had discovered the heliograph and the pigeons.  And the gendarmes were again sent for and the Belgian farmer was haled before the officer.  With white face and streaming eyes he told the French Captain of the gendarmes that this man had come to him and told him that if he didn’t permit him to go into his home, he would instantly signal for the shells and he and his family and buildings would be blown to eternity.  The old man was permitted to go, as the French officer was satisfied he was sincere, but that he was utterly powerless to prevent the spy carrying out his plans.

In conversation with us later, the farmer told us that the Algerian had brought pigeons with him; that he had written notes, put them in the little cup fastened to the bird’s foot and sent some of them off, the others remaining in the box when the Algerian went upstairs.  “I could hear the bricks falling, but he called to us not to come upstairs,” went on the old man.  “Shortly afterwards a man dressed in the uniform of a British soldier came, and he too went upstairs; he was carrying a bag.  When he came in he asked if I wanted coffee and I answered ‘No.’  When he came in the Algerian called down to send him up, and he too went up.  Presently the British soldier left and a few minutes afterwards your battery started firing.  Then out ran the Algerian, saying he was going to the windmill and warned all of us on pain of losing our lives, not to come near the mill.  That is the last I saw of him, Messieurs, until this evening when I see his dead body.

“I am heart and soul with you, Messieurs; I know what you are doing for us and for Belgium; but you can see that I had no chance whatever to communicate with you; my life would have been the price, and what would have become of my family?  If there had been anything I could have done, Messieurs, I would most gladly have done it, but I couldn’t do anything, and the spy would have accomplished his purpose just the same had I made an attempt.”