tives drew the floating corpses
to the shore. Now its gentle lapping on the stones mingled with the
subdued murmur of our talk. In such surroundings my new friends
regaled me with stories of pillage and murder which the refugees
had been bringing in from across the border. All this produced a
distinct depreciation in the value that I had hitherto attached to my
permit to go visiting across that border. Souten's declarations of
friendship for America had been most voluble. It began dawning
on me that his apparently generous and impulsive action might
bear a different interpretation than unadulterated kindness.

At this juncture, I remember, a great light flared suddenly up. It
was one of the fans of a wind-mill fired by the Germans. In the
foreground we could see the soldiers standing like so many gray
wolves silhouetted against the red flames. In that light it did seem
that motives other than pure affection might have prompted the
Police Commissioner's action. The hectic sleep of the night was
broken by the endless clatter of the hoofs of the German cavalry
pushing south.

My courage rose, however, with the rising sun. In the morning I
climbed to the lookout on the hill. The hosts had vanished. A
trampled, smoldering fire-blackened land lay before me. But there
was the lure of the unknown. I walked down to where the great
Netherlands flag proclaimed neutral soil. The worried Dutch
pickets honored the signature of Souten and with one step I was
over the border into Belgium, now under German jurisdiction. The
helmeted soldiers across the way were a distinct disappointment.
They looked neither fierce nor fiery. In fact, they greeted me with a
smile. They were a bit puzzled by my paper, but the seal seemed
echt-Deutsch and they pronounced it "gut, sehr gut." I explained
that I wished to go forwards to Liege.

"Was it possible?"

For answer they shrugged their shoulders.

"Was it dangerous?"

"Not in the least," they assured me.

The Germans were right. It was not dangerous--that is, for the
Germans. By repeatedly proclaiming the everlasting friendship of
Germany and America, and passing out some chocolate, I made
good friends on the home base. They charged me only not to
return after sundown, giving point to their advice by relating how,
on the previous night, they had shot down a peasant woman and
her two children who, under the cloak of darkness, sought to
scurry past the sentinels. They told this with a genuin