e up those men!"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because this picture I'm taking here is to be labeled 'Dead Men in
the Termonde Trenches,' and you would have them starting up as
though the day of resurrection had arrived."
After taking these pictures we were ready to cross the bridge; but
the two sentries posted at this end were not ready to let us. They
were very small men, but very determined, and informed us that
their instructions were to allow no one to pass over without a
permit signed by the General. We produced scores of passes and
passports decorated with stamps and seals and covered with
myriad signatures. They looked these over and said that our
papers were very nice and undoubtedly very numerous, but
ungraciously insisted on that pass signed by the General.
So back we flew to the General at Grembergen. I waited outside
until my companions emerged from the office waving passes.
They were in a gleeful, bantering mood. That evening they
apprised me of the fact that all day I had been traveling as a rich
American with my private photographers securing pictures for the
Belgian Relief Fund.
Leaving our automobile in charge of the chauffeur, we cautiously
made our way over the bridge into the city of Termonde, or what
was once Termonde, for it is difficult to dignify with the name of city
a heap of battered buildings and crumbling brick--an ugly scar
upon the landscape.
I was glad to enter the ruins with my companions instead of alone.
It was not so much fear of stray bullets from a lurking enemy as
the suggestion of the spirits of the slain lingering round these
tombs. For Termonde appeared like one vast tomb. As we first
entered its sepulchral silences we were greatly relieved that the
three specter-like beings who sat huddled up over a distant ruin
turned out not to be ghosts, but natives hopelessly and pathetically
surveying this wreck that was once called home, trying to rake out
of the embers some sort of relic of the past.
A regiment of hungry dogs came prowling up the street, and,
remembering the antics of the past week, they looked at us as if
speculating what new species of crazy human being we were. To
them the world of men must suddenly have gone quite insane, and
if there had been an agitator among them he might well have
asked his fellow-dogs why they had acknowledged a race of
madmen as their masters. Indeed, one could almost detect a
sense of surprise that we didn't use the photographic apparatu
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