In one village, so the Germans themselves tell me, they have shot twenty-nine men out of thirty-four. They assert that their soldiers were fired on as they entered the street. The Kaiserliche regiment is encamped at Malempré, a mile away. They have taken an ox and one or two sheep and roasted them whole. They have also forced the peasants to dig up their own fields of potatoes for the soldiers and stood over them to ensure the order being carried out at once. The Germans give a bit of paper, in exchange, a governmental I.O.U. redeemable at the end of the war ... if there is an end and the peasants are alive to see it! “All will be paid,” says an orderly complacently, as he triumphantly carries off our last fresh eggs. But what is the use of German money or governmental I.O.U.’s when one cannot reach the town for fresh supplies. “All will be paid.” What a mockery! Stay. They are right. All will be paid. With more than money. With blood and treachery and women’s tears.... I sat up all last night as usual. Paraffin and candles have long given out, but luckily there was a thrice-blessed moon. In the queer half-light, the sentries looked like so many demons pursued by their own shadows. Soldiers were sleeping all about the hard cobblestone street as though lying quietly in their beds at home. Only the Cuirassiers under my window kept up a constant noise. Their horses, too, were stamping and moving continually in the stables as though anxious to get away. This morning I ask one of the more kindly-disposed soldiers if he is not afraid of death. “I must do my duty,” he says simply. “But I feel the cord tightening round my neck each day.” He looks pale and pinched, as though disease, not rifle fire, would be his end. “I was out scouting in the woods last night, Fräulein,” he tells me later. “It is so cold, so eerie, and then one only gets a couple of hours’ sleep when the dawn comes. There are horrible things in the woods, Fräulein—shapes and monstrosities. The pine dust powders under the horse’s feet and the green boughs go “swish” in one’s face just as one turns on the electric torch, thinking to have spotted a rascally Frenchman——” “—And you did?” I asked breathlessly. He rubs a hand over his convict-cropped head and looks modestly triumphant. “Two, Fräulein. Both dead. Straight, clean shots. Couldn’t miss.” I start up, trying to recall to an elusive memory my amateurish knowledge of first aid. The Cuirassier smiles. “Really dead, Fräulein. We could only find one. I buried him very near the top because the ground was hard. Here is his number.” He compares it with his metal one, slung from his neck by a cord. A brown leather purse is attached by the same means. “Wer spärrt in der zeit, Hat etwas in der noth” (Who saves in time, Has something in adversity [need]) is written on it in German characters. Mlles Irma, Louisa and Rosa are all sitting round agape with interest.