square with no one about to guard them; and across the way
was a small tavern.

All together we discovered we were hungry. We had had bread and cheese
and coffee, and were lighting some very bad native cigars, when the
landlord burst in on us, saying in a quavering voice that some one
passing had told him a squad of seven German troopers had been seen in
the next street but one. He made a gesture as though to invoke the
mercy of Heaven on us all, and ran out again, casting a carpet slipper
in his flight and leaving it behind him on the floor.

So we followed, not in the least believing that any Germans had really
been sighted; but in the street we saw a group of perhaps fifty Belgian
soldiers running up a narrow sideway, trailing their gun butts behind
them on the stones. We figured they were hurrying forward to the other
side of town to help hold back the enemy.

A minute later seven or eight more soldiers crossed the road ahead of us
and darted up an alley with the air and haste of men desirous of being
speedily out of sight. We had gone perhaps fifty feet beyond the mouth
of this alley when two men, one on horseback and one on a bicycle, rode
slowly and sedately out of another alley, parallel to the first one, and
swung about with their backs to us.

I imagine we had watched the newcomers for probably fifty seconds before
it dawned on any of us that they wore gray helmets and gray coats, and
carried arms--and were Germans. Precisely at that moment they both
turned so that they faced us; and the man on horseback lifted a carbine
from a holster and half swung it in our direction.

Realization came to us that here we were, pocketed. There were armed
Belgians in an alley behind us and armed Germans in the street before
us; and we were nicely in between. If shooting started the enemies
might miss each other, but they could not very well miss us. Two of our
party found a courtyard and ran through it. The third pressed close up
against a house front and I made for the half-open door of a shop.

Just as I reached it a woman on the inside slammed it in my face and
locked it. I never expect to see her again; but that does not mean that
I ever expect to forgive her. The next door stood open, and from within
its shelter I faced about to watch for what might befall. Nothing
befell except that the Germans rode slowly past me, both vigilantly keen
in poise and look, both with weapons unshipped.

I got an especial