cupation, Brussels, with its six hundred thousand inhabitants, was
as completely cut off from communication with the outside world as
though it were on an island in the South Pacific. The postal,
telegraph and telephone services were suspended; the railways
were blocked with troop trains moving westward; the roads were
filled from ditch to ditch with troops and transport wagons; and so
tightly were the lines drawn between that portion of Belgium
occupied by the Germans and that still held by the Belgians, that
those daring souls who attempted to slip through the cordons of
sentries did so at peril of their lives. It sounds almost incredible
that a great city could be so effectually isolated, yet so it was.
Even the Cabinet Ministers and other officials who had accompanied the
Government in its flight to Antwerp were unable to learn what had
befallen the families which they had in many cases left behind them.

After nearly three weeks had passed without word from the American
Legation, the Department of State cabled the American Consul-General
at Antwerp that some means of communicating with Mr. Whitlock must be
found. Happening to be in the Consulate when the message was received,
I placed my services and my car at the disposal of the Consul-General,
who promptly accepted them. Upon learning of my proposed jaunt into
the enemy's lines, a friend, Mr. M. Manly Whedbee, the director of the
Belgian branch of the British-American Tobacco Company, offered to
accompany me, and as he is as cool-headed and courageous and
companionable as anyone I know, and as he knew as much about driving
the car as I did--for it was obviously impossible to take my Belgian
driver--I was only too glad to have him with me. It was, indeed, due
to Mr. Whedbee's foresight in taking along a huge quantity of
cigarettes for distribution among the soldiers, that we were able to
escape from Brussels. But more of that episode hereafter.

When the Consul-General asked General Dufour, the military
governor of Antwerp, to issue us a safe conduct through the Belgian
lines, that gruff old soldier at first refused flatly, asserting that as
the German outposts had been firing on cars bearing the Red
Cross flag, there was no assurance that they would respect one
bearing the Stars and Stripes. The urgency of the matter being
explained to him, however, he reluctantly issued the necessary
laisser-passer, though intimating quite plainly that our mission
would probab