IN a taxicab we went to look for this war. There were four of us, not counting the chauffeur1, who did not count. It was a regular taxicab, with a meter on it, and a little red metal flag which might be turned up or turned down, depending on whether the cab was engaged or at liberty; and he was a regular chauffeur.
We, the passengers, wore straw hats and light suits, and carried no baggage. No one would ever have taken us for war correspondents out looking for war. So we went; and, just when we were least expecting it, we found that war. Perhaps it would be more exact to say it found us. We were four days getting back to Brussels, still wearing our straw hats, but without any taxicab. The fate of that taxicab is going to be one of the unsolved mysteries of the German invasion of Belgium.
[Pg 28]
From the hour when the steamer St. Paul left New York, carrying probably the most mixed assortment3 of passengers that traveled on a single ship since Noah sailed the Ark, we on board expected hourly to sight something that would make us spectators of actual hostilities4. The papers that morning were full of rumors5 of an engagement between English ships and German ships somewhere off the New England coast.
Daily we searched the empty seas until our eyes hurt us; but, except that we had one ship's concert and one brisk gale6, and that just before dusk on the fifth day out, the weather being then gray and misty7, we saw wallowing along, hull8 down on the starboard bow, an English cruiser with two funnels9, nothing happened at all. Even when we landed at Liverpool nothing happened to suggest that we had reached a country actively10 engaged in war, unless you would list the presence of a few khaki-clad soldiers on the landing stage and the painful absence of porters to handle our baggage as evidences of the same. I remember seeing Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough sitting hour after hour on a baggage truck, waiting for her heavy luggage to come off the tardy11 tender and up the languid chute into the big dusty dockhouse.
I remember, also, seeing women, with their hats flopping12 down in their faces and their hair all streaming, dragging huge trunks across the[Pg 29] floor; and if all of us had not been in the same distressful13 fix we could have appreciated the humor of the spectacle of a portly high dignitary of the United States Medical Corps14 shoving a truck piled high with his belongings15, and shortly afterward16, with the help of his own wife, loading them on the roof of an infirm and wheezy taxicab.
From Liverpool across to London we traveled through a drowsy17 land burdened with bumper18 crops of grain, and watched the big brown hares skipping among the oat stacks; and late at night we came to London. In London next day there were more troops about than common, and recruits were drilling on the gravel19 walks back of Somerset House; and the people generally moved with a certain sober restraint, as people do who feel the weight of a heavy and an urgent responsibility. Otherwise the London of wartime seemed the London of peacetime.
So within a day our small party, still seeking to slip into the wings of the actual theater of events rather than to stay so far back behind the scenes, was aboard a Channel ferryboat bound for Ostend, and having for fellow travelers a few Englishmen, a tall blond princess of some royal house of Northern Europe, and any number of Belgians going home to enlist21. In the Straits of Dover, an hour or so out from Folkestone, we ran through a fleet of British warships22 guarding the narrow roadstead be[Pg 30]tween France and England; and a torpedo-boat destroyer sidled up and took a look at us.
Just off Dunkirk a French scout23 ship talked with us by the language of the whipping signal flags; but the ordinary Channel craft came and went without hindrance24 or seeming fear, and again it was hard for us to make ourselves believe that we had reached a zone where the physical, tangible25 business of war went forward.
And Ostend and, after Ostend, the Belgian interior—those were disappointments too; for at Ostend bathers disported26 on the long, shining beach and children played about the sanded stretch. And, though there were soldiers in sight, one always expects soldiers in European countries. No one asked to see the passports we had brought with us, and the customs officers gave our hand baggage the most perfunctory of examinations. Hardly five minutes had elapsed after our landing before we were steaming away on our train through a landscape which, to judge by its appearance, might have known only peace, and naught27 but peace, for a thousand placid28 years.
It is true we saw during that ride few able-bodied male adults, either in the towns through which we rushed or in the country. There were priests occasionally and old, infirm men or half-grown boys; but of men in their prime the land had been drained to fill up the army of defense29 then on the other side of Belgium—toward Germany—striving to hold the invaders30 in[Pg 31] check until the French and English might come up. The yellow-ripe grain stood in the fields, heavy-headed and drooping31 with seed. The russet pears and red apples bent32 the limbs of the fruit trees almost to earth. Every visible inch of soil was under cultivation33, of the painfully intensive European sort; and there remained behind to garner34 the crops only the peasant women and a few crippled, aged2 grandsires. It was hard for us to convince ourselves that any event out of the ordinary beset35 this country. No columns of troops passed along the roads; no camps of tents lifted their peaked tops above the hedges. In seventy-odd miles we encountered one small detachment of soldiers—they were at a railroad station—and one Red Cross flag.
As for Brussels—why, Brussels at first glance was more like a city making a fête than the capital of a nation making war. The flags which were displayed everywhere; the crowds in the square before the railroad station; the multitudes of boy scouts36 running about; the uniforms of Belgian volunteers and regulars; the Garde Civique, in their queer-looking costumes, with funny little derby hats, all braid-trimmed—gave to the place a holiday air. After nightfall, when the people of Brussels flocked to the sidewalk cafés and sat at little round tables under awnings37, drinking light drinks à la Parisienne, this impression was heightened.
[Pg 32]
We dined in the open air ourselves, finding the prices for food and drink to be both moderate and modest, and able to see nothing on the surface which suggested that the life of these people had been seriously disturbed. Two significant facts, however, did obtrude38 themselves on us: Every minute or two, as we dined, a young girl or an old gentleman would come to us, rattling39 a tin receptacle with a slot in the top through which coins for the aid of the widows and orphans40 of dead soldiers might be dropped; and when a little later we rode past the royal palace we saw that it had been converted into a big hospital for the wounded. That night, also, the government ran away to Antwerp; but of this we knew nothing until the following morning.
Next day we heard tales: Uhlans had been seen almost in the suburbs; three German spies, disguised as nuns41, had been captured, tried, convicted and were no longer with us; sentries42 on duty outside the residence of the American Minister had fired at a German a?roplane darting43 overhead; French troops were drawing in to the northward44 and English soldiers were hurrying up from the south; trainloads of wounded had been brought in under cover of the night and distributed among the improvised45 hospitals; but, conceding these things to be true, we knew of them only at second hand. By the evidence of what we ourselves saw we[Pg 33] were able to note few shifts in the superficial aspects of the city.
The Garde Civique seemed a trifle more numerous than it had been the evening before; citizen volunteers, still in civilian46 garb47, appeared on the streets in awkward squads49, carrying their guns and side arms clumsily; and when, in Minister Brand Whitlock's car, we drove out the beautiful Avenue Louise, we found soldiers building a breast-high barricade50 across the head of the roadway where it entered the Bois; also, they were weaving barbed-wire entanglements51 among the shade trees. That was all.
And then, as though to offset52 these added suggestions of danger, we saw children playing about quietly behind the piled sandbags, guarded by plump Flemish nursemaids, and smart dogcarts constantly passed and repassed us, filled with well-dressed women, and with flowers stuck in the whip-sockets.
The nearer we got to this war the farther away from us it seemed to be. We began to regard it as an elusive53, silent, secretive, hide-and-go-seek war, which would evade54 us always. We resolved to pursue it into the country to the northward, from whence the Germans were reported to be advancing, crushing back the outnumbered Belgians as they came onward55; but when we tried to secure a laissez passer at the gendarmerie, where until then an accredited56 correspondent might get himself a laissez passer, we bumped into obstacles.
[Pg 34]
In an inclosed courtyard behind a big gray building, among loaded wagons58 of supplies and munching59 cart horses, a kitchen table teetered unsteadily on its legs on the rough cobbles. On the table were pens and inkpots and coffee cups and beer bottles and beer glasses; and about it sat certain unkempt men in resplendent but unbrushed costumes. Joseph himself—the Joseph of the coat of many colors, no less—might have devised the uniforms they wore. With that setting the picture they made there in the courtyard was suggestive of stage scenes in plays of the French Revolution.
They were polite enough, these piebald gentlemen, and they considered our credentials61 with an air of mildly courteous62 interest; but they would give us no passes. There had been an order. Who had issued it, or why, was not for us to know. Going away from there, all downcast and disappointed, we met a French cavalryman64. He limped along in his high dragoon boots, walking with the wide-legged gait of one who had bestraddled leather for many hours and was sore from it. His horse, which he led by the bridle66, stumbled with weariness. A proud boy scout was serving as his guide. He was the only soldier of any army, except the Belgian, we had seen so far, and we halted our car and watched him until he disappeared.
However, seeing one tired French dragoon was not seeing the war; and we chafed67 that night[Pg 35] at the delay which kept us penned as prisoners in this handsome, outwardly quiet city. As we figured it we might be housed up here for days or weeks and miss all the operations in the field. When morning came, though, we discovered that the bars were down again, and that certificates signed by the American consul68 would be sufficient to carry us as far as the outlying suburbs at least.
Securing these precious papers, then, without delay we chartered a rickety red taxicab for the day; and piling in we told the driver to take us eastward69 as far as he could go before the outposts turned us back. He took us, therefore, at a buzzing clip through the Bois, along one flank of the magnificent Forest of Soigne, with its miles of green-trunked beech70 trees, and by way of the royal park of Tervueren. From the edge of the thickly settled district onward we passed barricade after barricade—some built of newly felled trees; some of street cars drawn71 across the road in double rows; some of street cobbles chinked with turf; and some of barbed wire—all of them, even to our inexperienced eyes, seeming but flimsy defenses to interpose against a force of any size or determination. But the Belgians appeared to set great store by these playthings.
Behind each of them was a mixed group of soldiers—Garde Civique, gendarmes72 and burgher volunteers. These latter mainly car[Pg 36]ried shotguns and wore floppy73 blue caps and long blue blouses, which buttoned down their backs with big horn buttons, like little girls' pinafores. There was, we learned, a touch of sentiment about the sudden appearance of those most unsoldierly looking vestments. In the revolution of 1830, when the men of Brussels fought the Hollanders all morning, stopped for dinner at midday and then fought again all afternoon, and by alternately fighting and eating wore out the enemy and won their national independence, they wore such caps and such back-buttoning blouses. And so all night long women in the hospitals had sat up cutting out and basting74 together the garments of glory for their menfolk.
No one offered to turn us back, and only once or twice did a sentry75 insist on looking at our passes. In the light of fuller experiences I know now that when a city is about to fall into an enemy's hands the authorities relax their vigilance and freely permit noncombatants to depart therefrom, presumably on the assumption that the fewer individuals there are in the place when the conqueror76 does come the fewer the problems of caring for the resident population will be. But we did not know this mighty77 significant fact; and, suspecting nothing, the four innocents drove blithely78 on until the city lay behind us and the country lay before us, brooding in the bright sunlight and all empty and peaceful, except for thin[Pg 37] scattering79 detachments of gayly clad Belgian infantrymen through which we passed.
Once or twice tired, dirty stragglers, lying at the roadside, raised a cheer as they recognized the small American flag that fluttered from our taxi's door; and once we gave a lift to a Belgian bicycle courier, who had grown too leg-weary to pedal his machine another inch. He was the color of the dust through which he had ridden, and his face under its dirt mask was thin and drawn with fatigue80; but his racial enthusiasm endured, and when we dropped him he insisted on shaking hands with all of us, and offering us a drink out of a very warm and very grimy bottle of something or other.
All of a sudden, rounding a bend, we came on a little valley with one of the infrequent Belgian brooks82 bisecting it; and this whole valley was full of soldiers. There must have been ten thousand of them—cavalry65, foot, artillery83, baggage trains, and all. Quite near us was ranged a battery of small rapid-fire guns; and the big rawboned dogs that had hauled them there were lying under the wicked-looking little pieces. We had heard a lot about the dog-drawn guns of the Belgians, but these were the first of them we had seen.
Lines of cavalrymen were skirting crosswise over the low hill at the other side of the valley, and against the sky line the figures of horses and men stood out clear and fine. It all seemed[Pg 38] a splendid martial84 sight; but afterward, comparing this force with the army into whose front we were to blunder unwittingly, we thought of it as a little handful of toy soldiers playing at war. We never heard what became of those Belgians. Presumably at the advance of the Germans coming down on them countlessly, like an Old Testament85 locust86 plague, they fell back and, going round Brussels, went northward toward Antwerp, to join the main body of their own troops. Or they may have reached the lines of the Allies, to the south and westward87, toward the French frontier. One guess would be as good as the other.
One of the puzzling things about the early mid-August stages of the war was the almost instantaneous rapidity with which the Belgian army, as an army, disintegrated88 and vanished. To-day it was here, giving a good account of itself against tremendous odds89, spending itself in driblets to give the Allies a chance to get up. To-morrow it was utterly90 gone.
Still without being halted or delayed we went briskly on. We had topped the next rise commanding the next valley, and—except for a few stragglers and some skirmishers—the Belgians were quite out of sight, when our driver stopped with an abruptness91 which piled his four passengers in a heap and pointed63 off to the northwest, a queer, startled, frightened look on his broad Flemish face. There was smoke there along the horizon—much smoke,[Pg 39] both white and dark; and, even as the throb92 of the motor died away to a purr, the sound of big guns came to us in a faint rumbling93, 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 specialized94 in peace and the pursuits of peace. Not even the proffered95 bribe96 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 automobile97 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[Pg 40] 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 grunting98 belch99 of the big pieces and, in between, the chattering100 voice of rapid-fire guns. Long-extended, stammering101, staccato sounds, which we took to mean rifle firing, came to our ears also. Among ourselves we decided102 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 spires103 and chimneys of a village on the crest104 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 deductions105 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, destined106 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[Pg 41] squatting107 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 scattered108, 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 wagon57 would bulk above the weaving ranks; and it would be loaded with bedding and furniture and packed to overflowing109 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 clattering111 chorus that at times almost drowned out the hiccuping112 voices of the guns behind them.
Occasionally there would be a man shoving a barrow, with a baby and possibly a muddle113 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,[Pg 42] 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. I figure I saw a thousand umbrellas if I saw one, and the sight of them gave a strangely incongruous touch to the thing.
Yes, it gave a grotesque114 touch to it. The spectacle inclined one to laugh, almost making one forget for a moment that here in this spectacle one beheld115 the misery116 of war made concrete; that in the lorn state of these poor folks its effects were focused and made vivid; that, while in some way it touched every living creature on the globe, here it touched them directly.
All the children, except the sick ones and the very young ones, walked, and most of them carried small bundles too. I saw one little girl, who was perhaps six years old, with a heavy wooden clock in her arms. The legs of the children wavered under them sometimes from weakness or maybe weariness, but I did not hear a single child whimper, or see a single woman who wept, or hear a single man speak above a half whisper.
They drifted on by us, silent all, except for the sound of feet and wheels; and, as I read the looks on their faces, those faces expressed[Pg 43] no emotion except a certain numbed117, resigned, bovine118 bewilderment. Far back in the line we met two cripples, hobbling along side by side as though for company; and still farther back a Belgian soldier came, like a rear guard, with his gun swung over his back and his sweaty black hair hanging down in his eyes.
In an undertone he was apparently119 explaining something to a little bow-legged man in black, with spectacles, who trudged120 along in his company. He was the lone121 soldier we saw among the refugees—all the others were civilians122.
Only one man in all the line hailed us. Speaking so low that we could scarcely catch his words, he said in broken English:
"M'sieurs, the French are in Brussels, are they not?"
"No," we told him.
"The British, then—they must be there by now?"
"No; the British aren't there, either."
He shook his head, as though puzzled, and started on.
"How far away are the Germans?" we asked him.
He shook his head again.
"I cannot say," he answered; "but I think they must be close behind us. I had a brother in the army at Liège," he added, apparently apropos123 of nothing. And then he went on, still shaking his head and with both arms tightly[Pg 44] clasped round a big bundle done up in cloth, which he held against his breast.
Very suddenly the procession broke off, as though it had been chopped in two; and almost immediately after that the road turned into a street and we were between solid lines of small cottages, surrounded on all sides by people who fluttered about with the distracted aimlessness of agitated124 barnyard fowls125. They babbled126 among themselves, paying small heed127 to us. An automobile tore through the street with its horn blaring, and raced by us, going toward Brussels at forty miles an hour. A well-dressed man in the front seat yelled out something to us as he whizzed past, but the words were swallowed up in the roaring of his engine.
Of our party only one spoke128 French, and he spoke it indifferently. We sought, therefore, to find some one who understood English. In a minute we saw the black robe of a priest; and here, through the crowd, calm and dignified129 where all others were fairly befuddled130 with excitement, he came—a short man with a fuzzy red beard and a bright blue eye.
We hailed him, and the man who spoke a little French explained our case. At once he turned about and took us into a side street; and even in their present state the men and women who met us remembered their manners and pulled off their hats and bowed before him.
At a door let into a high stone wall he[Pg 45] stopped and rang a bell. A brother in a brown robe came and unbarred the gate for us, and our guide led us under an arched alley81 and out again into the open; and behold131 we were in another world from the little world of panic that we had just left. There was a high-walled inclosure with a neglected tennis court in the middle, and pear and plum trees burdened with fruit; and at the far end, beneath a little arbor132 of vines, four priests were sitting together.
At sight of us they rose and came to us, and shook hands all round. Almost before we knew it we were in a bare little room behind the ancient Church of Saint Jacques, and one of the fathers was showing us a map in order that we might better understand the lay of the land; and another was uncorking a bottle of good red wine, which he brought up from the cellar, with a halo of mold on the cork133 and a mantle134 of cobwebs on its sloping shoulders.
It seemed that the Rev60. Dom. Marie-Joseph Montaigne—I give the name that was on his card—could speak a little English. He told us haltingly that the smoke we had seen came from a scene of fighting somewhere to the eastward of Louvain. He understood that the Prussians were quite near, but he had seen none himself and did not expect they would enter the town before nightfall. As for the firing, that appeared to have ceased. And, sure enough, when we listened we could no longer catch the sound of the big guns. Nor did we[Pg 46] hear them again during that day. Over his glass the priest spoke in his faulty English, stopping often to feel for a word; and when he had finished his face worked and quivered with the emotion he felt.
"This war—it is a most terrible thing that it should come on Belgium, eh? Our little country had no quarrel with any great country. We desired only that we should be left alone.
"Our people here—they are not bad people. I tell you they are very good people. All the week they work and work, and on Sunday they go to church; and then maybe they take a little walk.
"You Americans now—you come from a very great country. Surely, if the worst should come America will not let our country perish from off the earth, eh! Is not that so?"
Fifteen minutes later we were out again facing the dusty little square of Saint Jacques; and now of a sudden peace seemed to have fallen on the place. The wagons of a little traveling circus were ranged in the middle of the square with no one about to guard them; and across the way was a small tavern135.
All together we discovered we were hungry. We had had bread and cheese and coffee, and were lighting136 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 squad48 of seven German troopers had been seen in the next street but one. He made a[Pg 47] gesture as though to invoke137 the mercy of Heaven on us all, and ran out again, casting a carpet slipper138 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 butts139 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 darted140 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 sedately141 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. Precisely142 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.
Realization143 came to us that here we were, pocketed. There were armed Belgians in an alley behind us and armed Germans in the[Pg 48] 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 vigilantly144 keen in poise145 and look, both with weapons unshipped.
I got an especially good view of the cavalryman. He was a tall, lean, blond young man, with a little yellow mustache and high cheek-bones like an Indian's; and he was sunburned until he was almost as red as an Indian. The sight of that limping French dragoon the day before had made me think of a picture by Meissonier or Detaille, but this German put me in mind of one of Frederic Remington's paintings. Change his costume a bit, and substitute a slouch hat for his flat-topped lancer's cap, and he might have cantered bodily out of one of Remington's canvases.
He rode past me—he and his comrade on the wheel—and in an instant they were gone into another street, and the people who had[Pg 49] scurried146 to cover at their coming were out again behind them, with craned necks and startled faces.
Our group reassembled itself somehow and followed after those two Germans who could jog along so serenely147 through a hostile town. We did not crowd them—our health forbade that—but we now desired above all things to get back to our taxicab, two miles or more away, before our line of retreat should be cut off. But we had tarried too long at our bread and cheese.
When we came to where the street leading to the Square of Saint Jacques joined the street that led in turn to the Brussels road, all the people there were crouching148 in their doorways149 as quiet as so many mice, all looking in the direction in which we hoped to go, all pointing with their hands. No one spoke, but the scuffle of wooden-shod feet on the flags made a sliding, slithering sound, which some-way carried a message of warning more forcible than any shouted word or sudden shriek150.
We looked where their fingers aimed, and, as we looked, a hundred feet away through a cloud of dust a company of German foot soldiers swung across an open grassplot, where a little triangular151 park was, and straightened out down the road to Brussels, singing snatches of a German marching song as they went.
And behind them came trim officers on handsome, high-headed horses, and more infantry;[Pg 50] then a bicycle squad; then cavalry, and then a light battery, bumping along over the rutted stones, with white dust blowing back from under its wheels in scrolls152 and pennons.
Then a troop of Uhlans came, with nodding lances, following close behind the guns; and at sight of them a few men and women, clustered at the door of a little wine shop calling itself the Belgian Lion, began to hiss153 and mutter, for among these people, as we knew already, the Uhlans had a hard name.
At that a noncommissioned officer—a big man with a neck on him like a bison and a red, broad, menacing face—turned in his saddle and dropped the muzzle154 of his black automatic on them. They sucked their hisses155 back down their frightened gullets so swiftly that the exertion156 well-nigh choked them, and shrank flat against the wall; and, for all the sound that came from them until he had holstered his hardware and trotted157 on, they might have been dead men and women.
Just then, from perhaps half a mile on ahead, a sharp clatter110 of rifle fire sounded—pop! pop! pop!—and then a rattling volley. We saw the Uhlans snatch out their carbines and gallop158 forward past the battery into the dust curtain. And as it swallowed them up we, who had come in a taxicab looking for the war, knew that we had found it; and knew, too, that our chances of ever seeing that taxicab again were most exceeding small.
[Pg 51]
We had one hope—that this might merely be a reconnoissance in force, and that when it turned back or turned aside we might yet slip through and make for Brussels afoot. But it was no reconnoissance—it was Germany up and moving. We stayed in Louvain three days, and for three days we watched the streaming past of the biggest army we had ever seen, and the biggest army beleaguered159 Belgium had ever seen, and one of the biggest, most perfect armies the world has ever seen. We watched the gray-clad columns pass until the mind grew numb20 at the prospect160 of computing161 their number. To think of trying to count them was like trying to count the leaves on a tree or the pebbles162 on a path.
They came and came, and kept on coming, and their iron-shod feet flailed163 the earth to powder, and there was no end to them.
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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hostilities
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| n.战争；敌意(hostility的复数)；敌对状态；战事 | |
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rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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6
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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7
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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8
hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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9
funnels
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| 漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱 | |
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10
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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11
tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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12
flopping
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| n.贬调v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的现在分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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13
distressful
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| adj.苦难重重的，不幸的，使苦恼的 | |
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14
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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15
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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16
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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17
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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18
bumper
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| n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的 | |
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19
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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20
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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21
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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22
warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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23
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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24
hindrance
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| n.妨碍，障碍 | |
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25
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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26
disported
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| v.嬉戏，玩乐，自娱( disport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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28
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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29
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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30
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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31
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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32
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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33
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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34
garner
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| v.收藏；取得 | |
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35
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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36
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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37
awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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38
obtrude
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| v.闯入；侵入；打扰 | |
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39
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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40
orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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41
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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42
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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43
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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44
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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45
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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46
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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47
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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48
squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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49
squads
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| n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍 | |
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50
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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51
entanglements
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| n.瓜葛( entanglement的名词复数 )；牵连；纠缠；缠住 | |
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52
offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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53
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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54
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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55
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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56
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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57
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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58
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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59
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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60
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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61
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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62
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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63
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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64
cavalryman
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| 骑兵 | |
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65
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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66
bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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67
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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68
consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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69
eastward
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|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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70
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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71
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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72
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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73
floppy
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| adj.松软的，衰弱的 | |
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74
basting
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| n.疏缝；疏缝的针脚；疏缝用线；涂油v.打( baste的现在分词 )；粗缝；痛斥；（烤肉等时）往上抹[浇]油 | |
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75
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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76
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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77
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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78
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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79
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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80
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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81
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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82
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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83
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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84
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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85
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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86
locust
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| n.蝗虫；洋槐，刺槐 | |
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87
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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88
disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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90
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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91
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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92
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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93
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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94
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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95
proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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96
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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97
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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98
grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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99
belch
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| v.打嗝，喷出 | |
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100
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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101
stammering
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 ) | |
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102
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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103
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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104
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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105
deductions
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| 扣除( deduction的名词复数 )； 结论； 扣除的量； 推演 | |
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106
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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107
squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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108
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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109
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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110
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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111
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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112
hiccuping
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| v.嗝( hiccup的现在分词 )；连续地打嗝；暂时性的小问题；短暂的停顿 | |
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113
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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114
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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115
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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116
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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117
numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
bovine
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| adj.牛的；n.牛 | |
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119
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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120
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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121
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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122
civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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123
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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124
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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125
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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126
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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127
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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128
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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129
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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130
befuddled
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| adj.迷糊的，糊涂的v.使烂醉( befuddle的过去式和过去分词 )；使迷惑不解 | |
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131
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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132
arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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133
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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134
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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135
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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136
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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137
invoke
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| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
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138
slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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139
butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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140
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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141
sedately
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| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
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142
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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143
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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144
vigilantly
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| adv.警觉地，警惕地 | |
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145
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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146
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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147
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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148
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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149
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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150
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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151
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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152
scrolls
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| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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153
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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154
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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155
hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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156
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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157
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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158
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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159
beleaguered
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| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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160
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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161
computing
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| n.计算 | |
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162
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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163
flailed
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| v.鞭打( flail的过去式和过去分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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