w a whistle and the whole column
would halt.

"Just wait a few minutes until the dust settles," Thompson would
remark, lighting a cigar, and the Ninth Imperial Army, whose
columns stretched over the country-side as far as the eye could
see, would stand in its tracks until the air was sufficiently clear to get
a good picture.

A field battery of the Imperial Guard rumbled past and Thompson
made some remark about the accuracy of the American gunners at
Vera Cruz.

"Let us show you what our gunners can do," said the officer, and he
gave an order. There were more orders--a perfect volley of them. A
bugle shrilled, eight horses strained against their collars, the drivers
cracked their whips, the cannoneers put their shoulders to the
wheels, and a gun left the road and swung into position in an
adjacent field. On a knoll three miles away an ancient windmill was
beating the air with its huge wings. A shell hit the windmill and tore it
into splinters.

"Good work," Thompson observed critically. "If those fellows of
yours keep on they'll be able to get a job in the American navy when
the war is over."

In all the annals of modern war I do not believe that there is a
parallel to this little Kansas photographer halting, with peremptory
hand, an advancing army and leisurely photographing it, regiment
by regiment, and then having a field-gun of the Imperial Guard go
into action solely to gratify his curiosity.

They were very courteous and hospitable to me, those German
officers, and I was immensely interested with all that I saw. But,
when all is said and done, they impressed me not as human beings,
who have weaknesses and virtues, likes and dislikes of their own,
but rather as parts, more or less important, of a mighty and highly
efficient machine which is directed and controlled by a cold and
calculating intelligence in far-away Berlin. That machine has about
as much of the human element as a meat-chopper, as a steam-
roller, as the death-chair at Sing Sing. Its mission is to crush,
obliterate, destroy, and no considerations of civilization or chivalry or
humanity will affect it. I think that the Germans, with their grim, set
faces, their monotonous uniforms, and the ceaseless shuffle,
shuffle, shuffle of their boots must have gotten on my nerves, for it
was with a distinct feeling of relief that I turned the bonnet of my car
once more towards Antwerp and my friends the Belgians.

VI. On The Belgian Battle-Line