The Log of a Noncombatant | Page 2

work of the American Legation in its
chameleonesque capacity as bank, post-office, detective bureau, bureau
of information, charity organization, and one might even say temporary
home for the stranded travelers of every rank and nation.
Antwerp, the temporary capital of Belgium, was at this time invested,
but not yet besieged, by the German army. On the south the city was
already cut off by several regiments of the Ninth and Tenth German

Army Corps under General von Boehn. The River Scheldt and the
Dutch border formed a wall on the north and west. It was to Antwerp,
therefore, that we determined to go. After listening to the usual flood of
warnings against entering the fighting zone, and drinking our fill of
stories of atrocity and hate which every refugee brought across the
border into Holland, we took a couple of reefs in our baggage, and,
hoisting our knapsacks, set our course for the temporary Belgian capital.
By rail we traveled south across the level fields and lush green
meadows of Holland, over bridges ready to be dynamited in case of
invasion, and through training camps of the 450,000 Dutch soldiers
then mobilized along the border. At a little town called Eschen the train
stopped because the Belgians had torn up the tracks.
Seated on the cross-piece of a joggling two-wheeled ox cart, moving at
the rate of not more than four miles an hour, with a dumb specimen for
a driver, and a volume of Baedeker for interpreter and guide, we got
our first glimpse of the hideous thing called war. Judging from the
looks of the country and the burning villages, we were on the heels of a
devastating army. For three, four, and five miles on either side of the
road beautiful trees lay flat upon the ground. It was not until we saw
groups of Belgian soldiers tearing down their own walls and hedges
and applying match and gasolene to those which still stood, that we
realized that this was a case of self-inflicted destruction. Farmhouses,
stores, churches, old Belgian mansions, and windmills were either in
flames or smouldering ruins. Where burning had not been sufficient,
powder and dynamite had been applied to destroy landmarks which for
centuries had been the country's pride. As far as the eye could reach the
countryside was flattened to a desert. It reminded me of the Salem fire,
through which, while the piles of debris were still smoking, I had been
taken in the "Boston Journal's" car. But instead of a single town, here
for twenty miles along lay stretched a smouldering waste. The
devastation was for the defensive purpose of giving an unobstructed
view to the cannon of Antwerp's outer fortifications, which on that side
covered one sector of the circle swept by her enormous guns. I should
hesitate to mention the millions of dollars of self-inflicted damage to
Antwerp's suburbs alone. Luther and I did not at the time have the
military password. So that first day was a specimen in the matter of
hold-ups and arrests. From the time that we started across the level

plains which approach the city until we got through the double sector of
forts, we were stopped, questioned, and searched by thirteen different
groups of soldiers. There were marry occasions where, after one pair of
stupid sentries had put us through the grill, a second pair, watching
from a distance of thirty yards or so, promptly repeated the entire
performance. As these fellows spoke only Flemish dialect, our
conversations were not particularly fluent. Frequently there gathered
around us a crowd of gaping peasants, and when the word
"Americaine" came out, there were "Oh's" and "Ah" of astonishment,
or as often, when our explanations were not believed, sibilant hisses
that shaped themselves into the menacing word "Spion." We had been
led to believe that sooner or later a wool-witted sentry would shoot first
and investigate later; but so far they had simply crossed bayonets, or
with their hands up and palms outward had signaled us to halt.
Our experience that day, as later events proved, was not an
extraordinary occurrence for war-time, especially for those endeavoring
to gain entrance to an invested city. But as our first and maiden
adventure it somewhat shook our nerve. When the grilling was over we
felt about as guilty as any criminal who has been put through the third
degree as practiced in the old police department days, and I had several
times to look over my passport and letters of credentials to persuade
myself that I was really not a spy. Eventually we were permitted to pass
the gates of the Gare du Nord. Once inside the city gates, we made our
way into the Place Verte and went directly to the Hotel St. Antoine,
whose proprietor sent our