The Lost Road | Page 6

"The story was the German invasion of Brussels, and the train
mentioned was considered the forlorn hope of the correspondents to
connect with the outside world--that is, every correspondent thought it
to be the other man's hope. Secretly each had prepared to outwit the
other, and secretly Davis had already sent his story to Ostend. He
meant to emulate Archibald Forbes, who despatched a courier with his
real manuscript, and next day publicly dropped a bulky package in the
mail-bag.
"Davis had sensed the news in the occupation of Brussels long before it
happened. With dawn he went out to the Louvain road, where the
German army stood, prepared to smash the capital if negotiations failed.
His observant eye took in all the details. Before noon he had written a
comprehensive sketch of the occupation, and when word was received
that it was under way, he trusted his copy to an old Flemish woman,
who spoke not a word of English, and saw her safely on board the train
that pulled out under Belgian auspices for Ostend."
With passes which the German commandant in Brussels gave us the
correspondents immediately started out to see how far those passes
would carry us. A number of us left on the afternoon of August 23 for
Waterloo, where it was expected that the great clash between the
German and the Anglo-French forces would occur. We had planned to
be back the same evening, and went prepared only for an afternoon's
drive in a couple of hired street carriages. It was seven weeks before we
again saw Brussels.

On the following day (August 24) Davis started for Mons. He wore the
khaki uniform which he had worn in many campaigns. Across his
breast was a narrow bar of silk ribbon indicating the campaigns in
which he had served as a correspondent. He so much resembled a
British officer that he was arrested as a British derelict and was
informed that he would be shot at once.
He escaped only by offering to walk to Brand Whitlock, in Brussels,
reporting to each officer he met on the way. His plan was approved,
and as a hostage on parole he appeared before the American minister,
who quickly established his identity as an American of good standing,
to the satisfaction of the Germans.
In the following few months our trails were widely separated. I read of
his arrest by German officers on the road to Mons; later I read the story
of his departure from Brussels by train to Holland--a trip which carried
him through Louvain while the town still was burning; and still later I
read that he was with the few lucky men who were in Rheims during
one of the early bombardments that damaged the cathedral. By amazing
luck, combined with a natural news sense which drew him instinctively
to critical places at the psychological moment, he had been a witness of
the two most widely featured stories of the early weeks of the war.
Arrested by the Germans in Belgium, and later by the French in France,
he was convinced that the restrictions on correspondents were too great
to permit of good work.
So he left the European war zone with the widely quoted remark: "The
day of the war correspondent is over."
And yet I was not surprised when, one evening, late in November of
last year, he suddenly walked into the room in Salonika where William
G. Shepherd, of the United Press, "Jimmy Hare," the veteran war
photographer, and I had established ourselves several weeks before.
The hotel was jammed, and the city, with a normal capacity of about
one hundred and seventy-five thousand, was struggling to
accommodate at least a hundred thousand more. There was not a room

to be had in any of the better hotels, and for several days we lodged
Davis in our room, a vast chamber which formerly had been the main
dining-room of the establishment, and which now was converted into a
bedroom. There was room for a dozen men, if necessary, and whenever
stranded Americans arrived and could find no hotel accommodations
we simply rigged up emergency cots for their temporary use.
The weather in Salonika at this time, late November, was penetratingly
cold. In the mornings the steam coils struggled feebly to dispel the chill
in the room.
Early in the morning after Davis had arrived, we were aroused by the
sound of violent splashing, accompanied by shuddering gasps, and we
looked out from the snug warmth of our beds to see Davis standing in
his portable bath-tub and drenching himself with ice-cold water. As an
exhibition of courageous devotion to an established custom of life it
was admirable, but I'm not sure that it was prudent.
For some reason, perhaps a defective circulation or