“See,” he said, “they dig their
own graves!”
It was almost morning. The automobile left the
pathetic ruin of the town and turned back toward the
“chateau.” There was no talking; a
sort of heaviness of spirit lay on us all. The
officers were seeing again the destruction of their
country through my shocked eyes. We were tired
and cold, and I was heartsick.
A long drive through the dawn, and then the “chateau.”
The officers were still up, waiting. They had
prepared, against our arrival, sandwiches and hot
drinks.
The American typewriters in the next room clicked
and rattled. At the telephone board messages
were coming in from the very places we had just left—from
the instrument at the major’s elbow as he lay
in his trench beside the House of the Barrier; from
the priest who had left his cell and become a soldier;
from that desecrated and ruined graveyard with its
gaping shell holes that waited, open-mouthed, for—what?
When we had eaten, Captain F—— rose
and made a little speech. It was simply done,
in the words of a soldier and a patriot speaking out
of a full heart.
“You have seen to-night a part of what is happening
to our country,” he said. “You have
seen what the invading hosts of Germany have made
us suffer. But you have seen more than that.
You have seen that the Belgian Army still exists;
that it is still fighting and will continue to fight.
The men in those trenches fought at Liege, at Louvain,
at Antwerp, at the Yser. They will fight as long
as there is a drop of Belgian blood to shed.
“Beyond the enemy’s trenches lies our
country, devastated; our national life destroyed;
our people under the iron heel of Germany. But
Belgium lives. Tell America, tell the world, that
destroyed, injured as she is, Belgium lives and will
rise again, greater than before!”
“WIPERS”
An aeroplane man at the next table starts to-night
on a dangerous scouting expedition over the German
lines. In case he does not return he has given
a letter for his mother to Captain T——.
It now appears quite certain that I am to be sent
along the French and English lines. I shall be
the first correspondent, I am told, to see the British
front, as “Eyewitness,” who writes for
the English papers, is supposed to be a British officer.
I have had word also that I am to see Mr. Winston
Churchill, the First Lord of the British Admiralty.
But to-day I am going to Ypres. The Tommies call
it “Wipers.”
* * * *
*
Before I went abroad I had two ambitions among others:
One was to be able to pronounce Ypres; the other was
to bring home and exhibit to my admiring friends the
pronunciation of Przemysl. To a moderate extent
I have succeeded with the first. I have discovered
that the second one must be born to.
