Paths of Glory | Page 9

of the motor died away to a purr, the sound of big guns came to
us in a faint rumbling, borne from a long way off by the breeze.
It was the first time any one of us, except McCutcheon, had ever heard
a gun fired in battle; and it was the first intimation to any of us that the
Germans were so near. Barring only venturesome mounted scouts we
had supposed the German columns were many kilometers away. A
brush between skirmishers was the best we had counted on seeing.
Right here we parted from our taxi driver. He made it plain to us, partly
by words and partly by signs, that he personally was not looking for
any war. Plainly he was one who specialized in peace and the pursuits
of peace. Not even the proffered bribe of a doubled or a tripled fare
availed to move him one rod toward those smoke clouds. He turned his
car round so that it faced toward Brussels, and there he agreed to stay,
caring for our light overcoats, until we should return to him. I wonder
how long he really did stay.
And I have wondered, in idle moments since, what he did with our
overcoats. Maybe he fled with the automobile containing two English
moving-picture operators which passed us at that moment, and from
which floated back a shouted warning that the Germans were coming.
Maybe he stayed too long and was gobbled up--but I doubt it. He had
an instinct for safety.

As we went forward afoot the sound of the firing grew clearer and more
distinct. We could now hear quite plainly the grunting belch of the big
pieces and, in between, the chattering voice of rapid-fire guns. Long-
extended, stammering, staccato sounds, which we took to mean rifle
firing, came to our ears also. Among ourselves we decided that the
white smoke came from the guns and the black from burning buildings
or hay ricks. Also we agreed that the fighting was going on beyond the
spires and chimneys of a village on the crest of the hill immediately
ahead of us. We could make out a white church and, on past it, lines of
gray stone cottages.
In these deductions we were partly right and partly wrong; we had hit
on the approximate direction of the fighting, but it was not a village
that lay before us. What we saw was an outlying section of the city of
Louvain, a place of fifty thousand inhabitants, destined within ten days
to be turned into a waste of sacked ruins.
There were fields of tall, rank winter cabbages on each side of the road,
and among the big green leaves we saw bright red dots. We had to look
a second time before we realized that these dots were not the blooms of
the wild red poppies that are so abundant in Belgium, but the red-tipped
caps of Belgian soldiers squatting in the cover of the plants. None of
them looked toward us; all of them looked toward those mounting
walls of smoke.
Now, too, we became aware of something else--aware of a procession
that advanced toward us. It was the head of a two-mile long line of
refugees, fleeing from destroyed or threatened districts on beyond. At
first, in scattered, straggling groups, and then in solid columns, they
passed us unendingly, we going one way, they going the other. Mainly
they were afoot, though now and then a farm wagon would bulk above
the weaving ranks; and it would be loaded with bedding and furniture
and packed to overflowing with old women and babies. One wagon
lacked horses to draw it, and six men pulled in front while two men
pushed at the back to propel it. Some of the fleeing multitude looked
like townspeople, but the majority plainly were peasants. And of these
latter at least half wore wooden shoes so that the sound of their feet on

the cobbled roadbed made a clattering chorus that at times almost
drowned out the hiccuping voices of the guns behind them.
Occasionally there would be a man shoving a barrow, with a baby and
possibly a muddle of bedclothing in the barrow together. Every woman
carried a burden of some sort, which might be a pack tied in a cloth or a
cheap valise stuffed to bursting, or a baby--though generally it was a
baby; and nearly every man, in addition to his load of belongings, had
an umbrella under his arm. In this rainy land the carrying of umbrellas
is a habit not easily shaken off; and, besides, most of these people had
slept out at least one night and would probably sleep out another, and
an umbrella makes a sort of shelter if you have no better.