"Come!" Hauptmann Kliewer is calling us, so we leave the men around the kitchen table, who, unlike most of the German soldiers we have met, seem too exhausted to talk, and file through a latched door into a room that might have been in a farmhouse somewhere near Monroe, New York. The little black, pillow-seated chairs, the old-fashioned piano with its rack of torn music, the red-cushioned stool with the stuffing coming out, a hideous colored print of Antwerp on the wall, the oil lamp with the buff china shade, it all seems so utterly un-European. And then the door to an adjoining room opens and a slender, nervous-looking man in the fifties, whose impressive shoulder straps indicate an officer of high rank, begins to bow to us all. "General Major Clauss," Hauptmann Kliewer is introducing us, and at once the General Major dominates the room. It is for him to say whether we must go back to Lille, or spend the night at one of his regimental headquarters. He begins a long conversation with the Hauptmann. General Major Clauss is shaking his head. I guess it's back to Lille. "Ask him," I beg the Hauptmann, as he begins to give us the substance of what had been said, "if they cannot let us go to the firing line, if they'll let us stay here until morning." With a smile, Hauptmann Kliewer is telling the General Major our wishes, but he too smiles, and spreads out his hands--the right one is wounded--as though it were out of the question. The little parlor is filling with officers. They are all bowing and smiling in a friendly way. I appeal to one of them, a young chap, handsome in spite of the dueling scar across his chin. "We can do nothing," he says regretfully, in English. The General Major, apparently, is reluctant even to ask one of his regimental commanders to assume the responsibility for us. As if to bid us good-by, the staff is standing at attention. We urge the Hauptmann to telephone. "I shall try," he says, with rare good nature. General Major Clauss has closed the door behind him in his bedroom, and the Hauptmann buttonholes a Major. The Staff officers look at each other in surprise. They believed they were well rid of us. Briefly the Hauptmann is making the point for us. The young officer with the scarred chin puts in a word. The Major seems undecided. A lieutenant says something that I imagine would translate into, "Telephone,--anything to be rid of them," but he regards us with the amazing polite smile. The Major darts into the kitchen where the telephones are and then, smiling broadly, Hauptmann Kliewer comes in followed by the Major. "Permission has been granted," he says, "for you to go to the headquarters of the Seventeenth Regiment. You will spend the night there, and be here at seven in the morning, where I shall meet you with the motor." "Aren't you coming with us, Captain?" somebody asks.