In Brussels, they said, it was impossible to get good butter under exorbitant prices, so they paid a visit to a little farm a few steps away, and came back presently laden with butter enough to keep them going for several weeks, for which they had paid only one franc each. And now the old stationmaster comes out and summons us all in to lunch. He wishes us "_bon appétit_" and we seat ourselves round the table under the portraits of King Albert and "_la petite reine_" in his little sitting-room. A merrier lunch than that was never eaten. The vast omelette melted away in a twinkling before the terrific onslaught made upon it, chiefly by the Liège professor and the Brussels banker, who by now had got up their appetites. The Red Cross lady, who took it upon herself to help out the food, kept up a cheerful little commentary of running compliments which included us all, and the beef-steak, and the omelette, and the potatoes, and the stationmaster, until we could hardly tell one from the other, so agreeable did we all seem! The old stationmaster produced some good Burgundy, sun-kissed, purply red of a most respectable age. When everything was on the table he brought his chair and joined in with us, asking questions about Antwerp, and Ghent, and Ostend, and giving us in return vivid sketches of what the Germans had been doing in his part of the world. The extraordinary part of all this was that though we were in a region inhabited by the Germans there was no sign of destruction. The absence of ruin and pillage seems to conceal the fact that this was invested country. After our _bon café_ we all shook hands with the stationmaster, wished him good luck, and hurried back to the village, where we climbed into our vehicle again. This time I took a place in the inside of the carriage, leaving Jean and another man to hang on to that perilous back seat. At two o'clock we were off. The horses, freshened by food and water, galloped along now at a great pace, and the day developed into an afternoon as cloudless and glittering as the morning. But almost immediately after leaving Enghien an ominous note began to be struck. Whenever we shouted out our query: "_Il y a des Allemands?_" the passers-by coming from the opposite direction shouted back, "_Oui, oui, beaucoup d'Allemands!_" And suddenly there they were! CHAPTER XIV WE MEET THE GREY-COATS My first sight of the German Army was just one, man. He was a motor cyclist dressed in grey, with his weapons slung across his back, and he flashed past us like lightning. Everyone in the carriage uttered a deep "Oh!" It seemed to me an incredible thing that one German should be all alone like that among enemies. I said so to my companions. "The others are coming!" they said with an air of certainty that turned me cold all over. But it was at least two miles further on before we met the rest of his corps.