All that was said I could not hear, indeed did not try to, and being anxious to go on, sought to escape the two men’s kindly attention. When they were at last persuaded to resign me to the predicted doom, I sped on down the hill to a cross-road, and, turning to the right, saw a moving mass of troops rapidly approaching in the direction I was obliged to take—on foot, as the road mounted too steeply to permit of riding. The troop gained on me so rapidly that their heavy tramp and rough breathing were soon audible. Before we reached the level they were striding along within arm’s reach, line after line of dusty, perspiring, war-brutalized men, pressing on to new scenes of slaughter. The mounted officers in command glanced at me, noted the flag which then had not been forbidden, and returned their eager gaze to the distance beyond, evidently controlled but by one idea. _Haste_—that was the motto of these frenzy-driven legions, ordered to rush into France despite all obstacles, over the living and the dead, treading even, if need be, their own fellows under foot! The soldiers were the heavy, stalwart men of the first German army, trained and hardened for war—conscious machines of destruction, who appeared to have forgotten they were human. In their faces one saw only an animal-like, unquestioning obedience that had become, through long domination, the very essence of their strength, the will actuating their movements, their thought, their very life; “Not to reason why; but to do and die,” seemed branded on their souls. In none of the many different army contingents that later came to Brussels, either allied or German, was this strange, dogged, unhuman and unthinking obedience so strikingly visible. While watching them and noting their expression of unintelligent, inexorable determination to push on according to supreme command, the impression came to me that, had I fallen and lain disabled in the road, they would have marched over me as unhesitatingly as they trod the dust. At the hotel where we were staying, a party of English nurses were putting in a weary time waiting vainly for the wounded. One of these had offered to accompany me on the trip to our villa, but at the last moment was forbidden to do so by her superior. The evening of my return from the expedition, which proved successful and less eventful than predicted, I told them that it had been accomplished without the difficulties expected by their matron. “Really? So glad!” replied the one referred to, evidently regretting that she had been denied this chance to relieve her dull days.