roup of men whose plain clothes stood out in contrast to the
colored uniforms of officers and soldiers crowded into the cafe.
Wearied of my efforts at conversing in a foreign tongue, I went
over and said: "Do you really speak English!" "Well, rather!"
answered the one who seemed to act as leader of the group. "We
are the only ones now and it will be scarcer still around here in a
few days." "Why!" I asked.

"Because Ghent will be in German hands." This brought an
emphatic denial from one of his confreres who insisted that the
Germans had already reached the end of their rope. A certain
correspondent, joining in the argument, came in for a deal of
banter for taking the war de luxe in a good hotel far from the front.

"What do you know about the war?" they twitted him. "You've
pumped all your best stories out of the refugees ten miles from the
front, after priming them with a glass of beer."

They were a group of young war-photographers to whom danger
was a magnet. Though none of them had yet reached the age of
thirty, they had seen service in all the stirring events of Europe and
even around the globe. Where the clouds lowered and the seas
tossed, there they flocked. Like stormy petrels they rushed to the
center of the swirling world. That was their element. A free-lance, a
representative of the Northcliffe press, and two movie-men
comprised this little group and made an island of English amidst
the general babel.

Like most men who have seen much of the world, they had
ceased to be cynics. When I came to them out of the rain, carrying
no other introduction than a dripping overcoat, they welcomed me
into their company and whiled away the evening with tales of the
Balkan wars.

They were in high spirits over their exploits of the previous day,
when the Germans, withdrawing from Melle on the outskirts of the
city, had left a long row of cottages still burning. As the enemy
troops pulled out the further end of the street, the movie men
came in at the other and caught the pictures of the still blazing
houses. We went down to view them on the screen. To the gentle
throbbing of drums and piano, the citizens of Ghent viewed the
unique spectacle of their own suburbs going up in smoke.

At the end of the show they invited me to fill out their automobile
on the morrow. Nearly every other motor had been commandeered
by the authorities for the "Service Militaire" and bore on the front
the letters "S. M." Our car was by no m