at we were not involved, they
asked wistfully if we didn't think we should be forced to come in later.
A little boy of about eight, in a group that stopped us, asked me
whether we were English, and when I told him what we were, he began
jumping up and down, clapping his hands, and shouting:

_Les Americains sont arrives! Les Americains sont arrives!_

His father told him to be quiet, but he was perfectly happy and clung to
the side of the car as long as we stayed, his eyes shining with joy,
convinced that things were going to be all right somehow.

About half way around the ring of boulevards we came to burning houses.
The outer side of the boulevard was a hundred feet or so from the
houses, so the motor was safe, but it was pretty hot and the cinders
were so thick that we had to put on our goggles. A lot of the houses
were still burning, but most of them were nothing but blackened walls
with smouldering timbers inside. Many of the front doors had been
battered open in order to start the fires or to rout out the people who
were in hiding.

We came to a German ammunition wagon, half upset against a tree, where
it had been hurled when the horses had turned to run away. The tongue
was broken and wrenched out. Near by were the two horses, dead and
swollen until their legs stood out straight. Then we began to see more
ghastly sights--poor civilians lying where they had been shot down as
they ran--men and women--one old patriarch lying on his back in the sun,
his great white beard nearly hiding his swollen face. All sorts of
wreckage scattered over the street, hats and wooden shoes, German
helmets, swords and saddles, bottles and all sorts of bundles which had
been dropped and abandoned when the trouble began. For three-quarters of
a mile the boulevard looked as though it had been swept by a cyclone.
The Porte de Tirlemont had evidently been the scene of particularly
bloody business. The telegraph and trolley wires were down; dead men and
horses all over the square; the houses still burning. The broad road we
had traveled when we went to Tirlemont was covered with wreckage and
dead bodies.

Some bedraggled German soldiers came out from under the gate and
examined our passes. They were nervous and unhappy and shook their heads
gloomily over the horrors through which they were passing. They said
they had had hardly a minute's sleep for the past three nights. Their
eyes were bloodshot and they were almost too tired to talk.